Lu Qing had not noticed this problem earlier, because it had not been enough—not enough comprehension, not enough realm. He had been within the mountain and could not see the scene beyond it. That was the principle.
Now that he had encountered a bottleneck, Lu Qing reconsidered and realized that it was not that he had made no progress.
Rather, those improvements had reinforced the foundations of his past Formation Dao cultivation once more. They had also made his former ease, like a fish in water, finally feel as though it had struck a thick wall during cultivation, meeting resistance.
"This is a good thing. No matter how I practiced the Illusory Formation before, I was confined by my own imagination. When setting up formations and casting techniques, I would unconsciously follow the book word for word. But without sufficient realm or insight, it was all empty fancy."
Understanding this was progress, but understanding and doing were two different things.
Lu Qing had encountered a bottleneck. He had already considered the issue: his current formation cultivation lacked the foundation of a complete system.
"Theoretical foundations are important too." Lu Qing had read much knowledge on formations, but words confined within Jade Slips were clearly different from the teachings of a True Person.
"After the assessment is over, I'll go seek guidance at the Formation Academy. Mm, I should say I'll attend a class."
As Lu Qing recalled his cultivation path, he realized he had followed a route the sect had already sorted through countless times. Even the permissions granted at every level for choosing cultivation techniques had let him know precisely what needed to be done at each realm.
This path, invisibly determined from the moment one entered the sect, was not without risk, but it could avoid deviation and