Chapter 62: Anomaly
Chapter 62: Anomaly
The Refining Qi realm is divided into three phases and nine layers. The initial phase comprises of the first three layers, and advancing beyond the third layer signifies the start of the middle phase.
Mo Hua's cultivation had already reached the perfect third layer, and he was just a step away from breaking through to the middle phase of Refining Qi.
After cultivating the Tian Yan Manual for half a month, Mo Hua felt his Qi sea brimming and unable to absorb any more spiritual energy.
This meant that Mo Hua was about to break through.
Usually, breaking through to the next level in a cultivation technique requires preparing special spiritual objects from the heavens and the earth. These objects are used to stimulate one's meridians and Qi sea during the breakthrough, helping to overcome bottlenecks and advance to the next realm.
However, the Tian Yan Manual does not require any special spiritual objects to assist in cultivation, so one should be able to simply continue practicing.
Most of Mo Hua's time was still spent on drawing formation arrays, and he would meditate and cultivate for an hour every day.
A few nights later, as Mo Hua was inscribing a formation array on the Dao stele in his sea of consciousness, he suddenly had a moment of enlightenment, and his Qi sea began to churn.
Mo Hua quickly withdrew from his sea of consciousness and sat cross-legged on the bed to meditate. He then took out two spirit stones and quietly absorbed the spiritual energy from them.
In just a moment, Mo Hua felt all his acupoints opening up, and his absorption of spiritual energy was several times faster than usual. Before long, he had absorbed all the spiritual energy from the two spirit stones.
Mo Hua felt a mix of reluctance and delight.
He was reluctant about the consumption of spirit stones, yet delighted that he was about to break through to the next realm and become a middle-phase Refining Qi cultivator.
Mo Hua took out a few more spirit stones and continued absorbing their spiritual energy.
In his storage bag, he had several dozen spirit stones that he had saved up, as well as nearly a hundred spirit stones given to him by his parents. Knowing that Mo Hua was about to break through but unsure of the exact timing, they had asked him to carry these extra spirit stones with him as a precaution.
These hundred spirit stones likely represented the profits of their eatery for more than half a month.
Mo Hua calmed his mind and maintained a mentally balanced state, slowly breathing in and out.
The spirit stones in his hand shimmered with a crystalline blue light, which gradually faded until the spiritual energy was completely depleted, leaving them a grayish-white color.
One after another, after consuming nearly fifty spirit stones, Mo Hua's Qi sea finally stopped churning. The spiritual energy flowed back from the Qi sea to his meridians, and the spiritual energy throughout his body gradually became thicker and more stable.
Just as Mo Hua thought he was about to successfully break through, the spiritual energy sent out tiny tendrils that overflowed from his meridians and wandered through some of the finer collateral channels, gradually converging towards the Baihui acupoint on the top of his head.
Mo Hua's heart tightened.
What was going on?
He had never heard of refined spiritual energy flowing out of control and gathering towards the Baihui acupoint on its own!
The spiritual energy didn't truly gather at the Baihui acupoint, though. When it reached the Tianmen acupoint, it began to weave together like silken threads, gradually forming a stable structure and then slowly permeating inward. The point of penetration was precisely Mo Hua's sea of consciousness!
Mo Hua calmed his pounding heart and sank his spiritual sense into his sea of consciousness, only to discover that there were now some fine, pale blue threads of spiritual energy there.
These threads were intermittent and chaotic, like a continuous spring rain or entangled strands of hair, weaving together to form a complex pale blue spiritual screen.
Mo Hua was completely stunned.
With his brief experience in cultivation, he had no idea what had just happened.
Mo Hua tried to manipulate his spiritual energy and found that he could do so normally.
He held a spirit stone and attempted to absorb spiritual energy to cultivate, but the absorbed spiritual energy was automatically cut off when it reached the area of the sea of consciousness at the Tianmen acupoint, preventing the formation of a cycle. As a result, he couldn't refine it into spiritual energy, store it in his Qi sea, or improve his cultivation.
This meant that Mo Hua wouldn't be able to cultivate or advance his realm in the future.
Mo Hua drew in a breath of cool air and murmured, "What should I do now...?"
He lay down on the bed, his thoughts in a mess. After a moment, he sat up and forced himself to calm down.
"There's a Dao stele in my sea of consciousness, but I didn't enter my sea of consciousness and touch the stele during my cultivation, so it shouldn't be a problem with the stele."
"If it's not a problem with the stele, then it must be an issue with the cultivation technique."
"This spiritual screen is blocking the circulation of my spiritual energy, preventing me from continuing my cultivation. If I can resolve this issue and remove the obstruction, my spiritual energy will be able to flow freely again, and my cultivation will no longer be hindered."
"So, the root of the problem lies in resolving the spiritual screen in my sea of consciousness..."
Mo Hua grasped the key point and set aside all other factors, choosing to focus solely on the spiritual screen within his sea of consciousness. He sank his spiritual sense into his sea of consciousness and carefully examined the intricate spiritual screen before him.
The screen was composed of pale blue strands of spiritual energy, each strand moving freely and seemingly with a life of its own. They crisscrossed and separated in a chaotic yet mesmerizing dance, forming a complex and incomprehensible pattern.
After spending a good amount of time studying it, Mo Hua slumped back onto his bed, feeling overwhelmed.
"What in the world is this spiritual screen? I can't make heads or tails of it..." he thought to himself, feeling the weight of his limited knowledge about cultivation.
There was a saying that knowledge is the ladder of a cultivator's progress, and Mo Hua couldn't help but feel the truth of those words in that moment.
He began to sift through his memory, trying to recall any information related to cultivation that he had come across. However, his thoughts only added to the chaos, and he ended up with a headache and no new insights.
Then, in a flash of insight, he remembered a line from the Tian Yan Manual:
"Only Formation Masters should attempt this cultivation technique."
Mo Hua sat up straight, his eyes widening.
"Only Formation Masters should attempt it..." he muttered. This meant that the technique was related to formation masters, and the spiritual screen in front of him might be... a formation itself? He also recalled the previous statement about the bottleneck being in his spiritual sense.
"The bottleneck lies in the spiritual sense; only Formation Masters should attempt this cultivation."
The bottleneck was in his spiritual sense because the spiritual screen was the bottleneck, and it existed within his sea of consciousness. The warning about Formation Masters suggested that this spiritual screen was, in fact, a formation that only they could understand and manipulate.
Mo Hua once again sank his spiritual sense into his sea of consciousness and observed the spiritual screen closely. He noticed that while the strands of spiritual energy appeared chaotic, they were interconnected, forming intricate formation patterns.
However, as the strands of energy continued to flow and shift, the formation patterns changed as well, eventually solidifying into a complex and ever-shifting formation.
Realization dawned on Mo Hua, and he scratched his head, perplexed.
He had never seen this formation before! The most complex formations he had learned consisted of six formation patterns, but the one before him seemed to have dozens or even hundreds.
What was more terrifying was that these formation patterns continued to shift and transform, resulting in formations that Mo Hua couldn't even begin to comprehend. And these formations would then change again, becoming even more inscrutable.
Just observing it made Mo Hua's scalp tingle.
"Is this an ancient formation used by ancient cultivators?"
"Is this what they mean by a bizarre and obscure ancient technique?"
A sense of awe filled Mo Hua's heart as he contemplated the wisdom of ancient cultivators. Even at the Qi Refining stage, their techniques were awe-inspiring and daunting.
At the same time, he couldn't help but feel a sense of grief for his own situation. He had known that the technique was "bizarre and obscure," but he had never imagined it would be this challenging.
Mo Hua continued to study the spiritual screen, but the more he looked, the more his head spun. Eventually, he came to a clear conclusion: he was powerless to do anything about this formation on his own.
Acknowledging his powerlessness was, in itself, a form of self-awareness.
Mo Hua sighed, "I'll go seek guidance from Mr. Zhuang tomorrow."
With that decision made, Mo Hua felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He pulled the covers over himself and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
(End of Chapter)
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