Layer upon Layer

Just like now—when he used this clumsy set of attacks against his master, his master's hair merely stirred lightly, without the slightest hint of aggression.

"A-Xu."

Divine Venerable Cheng Wei considered his words before speaking. "Your sword formation looks quite pretty, but it's... rather rigid. If you go down the mountain and encounter an Evil Cultivator, he can't possibly stand there and wait for you to draw your formation, can he? Formations may seem to require extensive preparation beforehand, but in truth, they can also be cast instantly. A-Xu, your thinking is somewhat limited."

Wen Xu froze where he stood.

Divine Venerable Cheng Wei proved that, when he got serious, he could also be a strict master. "A-Xu, I know you used to be a scholar. Studying does indeed require one to follow many rules, but cultivation is precisely the thing that needs rules the least. Your way of thinking determines the scope of your cultivation. When you believe something exists in a certain way, then it will exist in that way. But in fact, as long as you break through the limits you have set for it in your heart, it can grow into any form at all."

"Who says formations must follow the rules of the formations devised by those before us?"

Wen Xu felt as though enlightenment had been poured straight into his head. He truly had never realized this. In studying for the imperial examinations, the Four Books and Five Classics were treated as sacred texts; every examination question and policy essay centered on them and could not depart from them. So after entering cultivation, he had likewise regarded the contents of the jade slips as inviolable standards, because they were paths others had walked before him—and succeeded upon.

Because they were authorities, he had never