Qin Tian murmured to himself, "I want to follow Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's example and forge a formation diagram."
"Formations embody the principle of the weak defeating the strong."
Qin Tian placed himself in the weaker position and regarded himself as the weaker party. The Dao had no end, for no matter how powerful he became, someone stronger would always appear.
One word: prudence!
As for breaking through to Above Sacrificial Dao and reaching that supreme realm, one could reverse cause and effect, alter reality, reset timelines, and accomplish everything imaginable or unimaginable, knowable or unknowable.
At that point, whether it was a cauldron, a sword, or a formation diagram made no difference to someone Above Sacrificial Dao.
Thus, formations were an immensely powerful means, both early on and later.
Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's Immortal Slaying Sword Formation might have been broken every other day, as though it were cursed.
But just look at who had broken Lingbao's Immortal Slaying Formation.
Emperor Venerable and Ye Fan were both Heavenly Emperors.
Compared to the one who had laid the formation, they could hardly be considered beings of the same realm.
The gulf between a Heavenly Emperor and a Great Emperor was wider than that between a human and a dog.
For instance, Ye Fan in his second lifetime could kill a supreme being who had not sublimated in two or three moves if he attacked with all his strength. Even Ultimate Sublimation would only let them last another two moves.
If they were in the same realm, even someone as powerful as Void or the Saint Emperor would struggle to escape death from a killing formation laid by Heavenly Venerable Lingbao.
Of course, Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's actual strength remained a question mark. After all, a mythical Heavenly Venerable who had lived for three hundred thousand years could hardly have been weak.
A formation being broken whenever it was laid actually meant that its caster lacked strength. If someone like Emperor Venerable personally laid the Immortal Slaying Formation, even Ye Fan could only cower beneath the Cauldron of All-Things Mother Qi.
For the weak to defeat the strong,
For the strong to overwhelm the strong,
There were only formations.
That was why Qin Tian wanted to forge a formation diagram.
Qin Tian pondered silently, For a formation scroll, the most suitable Immortal Gold or divine material would be Divine Mark Purple Gold or Mother Qi of All Things to carry the formation diagram.
"The former can turn a great formation into Dao laws and record them upon itself, manifesting a great formation anytime, anywhere. The latter can recreate the primordial scene of heaven and earth. Engraving a great formation within it might allow it to manifest a formation of creation's first dawn." As Qin Tian considered this, the unruly tuft atop his head rose and fell.
Qin Tian recalled the astonishing feats of formations in the trilogy. "Moreover, formations can be layered upon formations, drawing upon everything tangible and intangible in the world. Worlds and the Great Dao all lie within formations. Even in the very late stages, formations possess boundless power."
Wasn't Chu Loli's weaving of heaven and earth to end foes past, present, and future essentially a formation?
She harnessed endless Great Daos and stirred countless universes, killing several beings as powerful as the progenitors.
For the weak to defeat the strong and the strong to overwhelm the weak, there was only the path of formations.
Since he had decided what artifact to forge, Qin Tian immediately got to work while he still had some spare time.
Above the Bitter Sea, strands of Divine Patterns condensed from Life Essence. They looked as though they had been cast from Divine Gold, crystalline and radiant, brimming with vigorous life.
There were fifty-five strands of Divine Patterns in all.
Qin Tian decided to use the Divine Patterns born from the four minor secret realms to forge four different formation diagrams. In the future, he would fuse them into one, creating a single "formation diagram artifact."
After all, he lacked a method for forging a single "artifact." He could only resort to this shortcut, hoping to achieve the same effect as a single artifact.
However, by Qin Tian's estimation, crudely combining four "artifacts" into one like this would still struggle to match the power of a true single "artifact."
Qin Tian gazed into the distance. "I'll have to visit Qinling sometime and find Nine Secret: Bing to make up for the inherent shortcomings of combining four weapons into one."
Then Qin Tian gathered the fifty-five strands of Divine Patterns nurtured by the Bitter Sea's essence and began tempering them with his divine sense, producing ringing clangs.
The process was even harder than he had imagined. Simply gathering the "Divine Patterns" together proved difficult and took him a long time.
At last, he managed to condense all the "Divine Patterns" into a single mass. Yet afterward, no matter how hard he tried, he could not shape that mass of "Divine Patterns" into a formation diagram.
"I'll leave it like this for now!" Qin Tian stopped what he was doing.
"A formation diagram, a formation diagram-how can it work with only a diagram and no formation? I don't yet have a great formation worth engraving on it, so I'll just temper it little by little for now." Qin Tian linked the Life Spring and the Bitter Sea, placing the "artifact" at their intersection.
Through the transformation between the energies of life and death, he would refine the "artifact" bit by bit, polishing it into the form he desired.
Having decided on the artifact with which he would attain the Dao, Qin Tian also needed to devote more effort to cultivation.
Of the Five Great Secret Realms, he currently possessed only the scriptures for the Bitter Sea and Life Spring stages.
In other words, he had no scriptures left to guide his progress.
With no other choice, he could only haul bricks by day and try to work out the Dao Scripture's Divine Bridge scripture by night.
The Divine Bridge Chapter of the Dao Scripture he first worked out ran to tens of thousands of words. But compared with the preceding Bitter Sea Chapter and Life Spring Chapter, it was riddled with holes, little better than a heap of... that.
Qin Tian knew that the complete Sea of Bitterness section of the Dao Scripture was only ten thousand words long. Every word was a pearl, containing the profound mysteries of the Great Dao of heaven and earth.
Then Qin Tian tried cutting and refining it, slashing away more than half of those tens of thousands of words and distilling it down to twenty thousand words.
Qin Tian was attempting to repair and complete the Sea of Bitterness section of the Dao Scripture himself.
Qin Tian knew very well that no matter how dazzling his talent or how profound his wisdom, he could not compare with the Dao Scripture's creator of old.
At least, not yet. The vistas he had seen were not enough to enable him to repair and complete the Dao Scripture's Divine Bridge Chapter.
But Qin Tian thought that if he one day obtained the complete Sea of Bitterness section of the Dao Scripture, perhaps comparing the differences between the two would reveal the gap between himself and a Great Emperor. That would help him grow and give him more insights into cultivating the Sea of Bitterness scripture.
Of course, he did not intend to cultivate using the Divine Bridge Chapter he had compiled himself.
Thus, a backup Divine Bridge scripture was indispensable. At a critical moment, he would not hesitate to break through using even an inferior scripture.
With his current resources, he could easily pile himself up to the Four Extremes Realm.
At a critical moment, that would be enough to save his life.
After all, before the Four Extremes, resources determined a cultivator's cultivation speed.
As long as they had enough resources and lacked no scriptures, they could rapidly break through realms.
It was just that no one would do so.
Independent cultivators lacked sufficient resources and had to worry about cultivation resources every day.
As for holy lands and powers with supreme inheritances, they had enough resources to push a cultivator straight to the Four Extremes with ease.
But they would not do that.
Every realm had its own unique mysteries, and farsighted teachers generally would not let their disciples break through rapidly.
They would have them remain in each realm long enough to consolidate their cultivation, comprehend the opening and growth of each realm, and grasp the profound mysteries unique to each secret realm.
Besides, since he had already decided to forge a formation diagram as his Dao-attainment artifact, he ought to study the path of formations as well.
So he planned to dig up two pieces of Heterogeneous Source and exchange them for a chance to enter the Scripture Repository.
To others, Heterogeneous Source was a rare source they might not encounter in a hundred years. To Qin Tian, however, finding it was hardly more difficult than picking up a stone while walking.
The next day, Qin Tian went down into the mine again.
An intuition drove Qin Tian's steps, and the unruly tuft atop his head stood firmer than ever before.
Qin Tian knew what this was. Every time he had encountered a fortuitous opportunity before, he had experienced a similar intuitive feeling.
But even the "feeling" he had when obtaining Divine Source had not been as intense as this one.
Passing through the crowd, he crossed countless long, narrow source veins and finally arrived before a deep pit.
Qin Tian swung his pickaxe, shattering the rock layer. Purple Dao light fell across his face, illuminating his delicate features.
"What is this?!" Looking at the object before him, Qin Tian was left wide-eyed and speechless with shock.
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