Chapter 401: Minor Heavenly Cycle Star Power Gathering Formation!

Su Ming walked out of the bamboo gate.

The mountain breeze swept through, rustling the bamboo grove.

He didn’t immediately take to the skies in flight.

Instead, he walked back along the mountain path.

His footsteps fell on the soft, fallen leaves, producing a series of crisp sounds.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the bamboo leaves, scattering dappled patches of light across his purple robe, while Elder Qingquan’s words echoed in his mind.

“Knowing what is so is not enough; you must also know why it is so.”

“Disassembling formations has never been the goal. Understanding the rules governing the flow of spiritual energy between heaven and earth—that is the ultimate Dao.”

These few sentences struck him like a thunderous bell, reverberating through his Consciousness Sea, shaking his very soul.

Within the Consciousness Sea, Lin Yu’s voice rang out lazily, breaking the silence.

“So? Got that flash of enlightenment after the old man’s guidance? Feeling like a weight’s been lifted?”

There was a hint of teasing in Lin Yu’s tone, but if you listened closely, you could catch a trace of deep, well-hidden approval.

Su Ming stopped in his tracks, gazing at the distant sea of clouds.

“Disciple… I am indeed somewhat moved.”

Su Ming’s voice was soft.

Lin Yu snapped his fingers with satisfaction in the Consciousness Sea, even though he had no physical form.

“That old man knows what he’s talking about.”

Lin Yu’s tone took on an air of seasoned authority, fully playing the part of a teacher.

“He doesn’t teach you how to build formations; he teaches you how to *think* about formations. Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. That’s what a true master does.”

Su Ming nodded solemnly.

“Master speaks the truth.”

Lin Yu felt a surge of comfort watching his disciple accept the lesson so humbly. In his past life, he’d always liked these sharp-minded people who caught on with just a word—no need to waste energy explaining everything.

“But don’t get too worked up.”

Lin Yu doused him with a timely bucket of cold water to cool his disciple down.

“Understanding is good, but the path of formations is such that understanding is just the beginning.”

Lin Yu paused, his tone turning stern.

“Those three thousand six hundred basic runes—how many have you fully mastered now? Barely two hundred. Most of them are just foundational support runes like Spirit Gathering or Reinforcement. There are still thousands of runes waiting for you to grind through. Don’t think that just because you’ve grasped the Dao, you can leap to the heavens overnight.”

Su Ming let out a bitter laugh. The fervor in his eyes gradually faded, replaced by his usual calm.

“Disciple knows. You have to eat a meal one bite at a time, walk a path one step at a time.”

He knew his own foundation all too well. He didn’t have Luo Feng’s privileged upbringing, steeped in formation diagrams from childhood. All he had was the stubborn persistence of water dripping through stone, repeated over and over.

“Let’s go. Back to Gazing Star Cliff.”

Su Ming took a deep breath, letting his spiritual energy circulate smoothly within him.

With a light tap of his toes on the greenstone steps, his entire form transformed into a streak of purple light, shooting toward Gazing Star Cliff at full speed. The liquid spiritual energy of Foundation Establishment made his flight several times faster than before, utterly silent.

Half an incense stick later, Su Ming returned to Gazing Star Cliff.

He pushed open the heavy stone door of his cave dwelling.

The cave was dimly lit, with only the starlight filtering through the skylight in the ceiling faintly illuminating the stone chamber.

On the stone bed, the Profound Shadow Egg obtained from Senior Brother Qin Yi lay quietly.

The dark golden patterns on its surface glowed with an extremely faint, ethereal light under the starlight. It was so weak it seemed like it might flicker out at any moment, yet it exuded a tenacious vitality.

Su Ming walked over, reached out, and gently touched the rough surface of the egg.

It was cool to the touch, showing no signs of hatching—just like a cold stone.

“This little thing, still the same as always,” Su Ming murmured.

Lin Yu’s divine sense extended from the Xuantian Ring and swept over the Profound Shadow Egg.

“This egg of yours has an extraordinary origin. What it needs isn’t ordinary spiritual energy, but pure force of the stars. It’s absorbing starlight at a steady rate now. Rushing it won’t help; you’ll have to nurture it for a long time.”

Su Ming withdrew his hand, a slight frown creasing his brow.

“Disciple is about to head to Great Xing. The mountains are high and the road is long, and I have a sect mission on my hands. I don’t know how long it will be before I return.”

He looked at the darkening sky outside the skylight.

“If I leave it here in the cave dwelling for just ten days or half a month, it might be fine. But if I’m gone for three to five years without a formation to sustain it, relying only on the sparse starlight leaking through this skylight, its life force will likely be severed.”

The first law of the Way of Survival: never waste any resource—especially a premium blind box that might hatch an ancient beast.

Lin Yu chuckled lightly in the Consciousness Sea.

“So, you’ll need to set up a formation for it.”

Su Ming’s eyes lit up, and countless formation diagrams flashed through his mind in an instant.

“Master’s meaning… a Star Attraction Formation?”

Lin Yu didn’t give a direct answer, maintaining his habit of cultivating Su Ming’s independent thinking.

“The Star Attraction Formation causes too much commotion. Even though you’ve set up a Concealment Formation on Gazing Star Cliff, once the Star Attraction Formation is activated, Zhou Tian Star Power will pour in. If it attracts attention within the sect, it’ll just invite more trouble.”

Lin Yu guided him step by step.

“Think about the formation diagrams you’ve been studying lately. Think about what Elder Qingquan taught you about ‘knowing why it is so.’ What you need is a formation that’s concealed, stable, and flows like a long, steady stream.”

Su Ming closed his eyes.

In his Consciousness Sea, over two hundred basic runes began to spin rapidly, colliding and recombining.

After a moment, he snapped his eyes open, a flash of realization gleaming in them.

“The Minor Heavenly Cycle Star Power Gathering Formation!”

Su Ming blurted it out.

“Disciple can extract the core framework from the Star Attraction Lines. Remove those violent Devour runes. It doesn’t need spirit stones for power. Using only specific angles and rune arrangements, I can gather and focus the starlight coming through the skylight, then project it precisely onto the Profound Shadow Egg!”

Lin Yu snapped his fingers, his tone filled with the satisfaction of a teacher whose student had grasped the lesson.

“Clever. That’s what they call adapting to the situation. Get to work. Let me see how much you’ve improved these past few days.”

Su Ming sprang into action.

He didn’t rush to carve the runes. First, he moved a stone chair over and stood beneath the skylight, carefully observing the trajectory of the falling starlight.

He took Stardust Sand and a formation brush made from a piece of century-old sunken yin wood from his storage pouch.

Purple liquid spiritual energy slowly infused the formation brush, and the tip glowed with a faint blue light.

He suspended his wrist in the air and began carving runes into the stone walls around the skylight.

“That rune at the Li position—shift it half an inch to the left.”

Lin Yu’s voice rang out at the right moment, carrying an unyielding precision.

“The stone walls of this cave dwelling contain a faint trace of geomagnetic energy. Shifting it half an inch to the left will avoid interference from that geomagnetism, making the starlight purer.”

Su Ming turned his wrist slightly, immediately correcting the brush’s position.

“The flow-guiding lines at the Kan position can be carved a bit deeper. Yes, like that. Deepening the riverbed for the starlight to flow through will prevent it from spilling out when the star power gathers.”

The cave dwelling fell silent, broken only by the faint scratching of the formation brush against the stone.

A fine sheen of sweat broke out on Su Ming’s forehead.

Embedding a small-scale gathering formation within the cave dwelling’s existing defensive array, without damaging it, demanded an immense expenditure of mental energy.

A full hour passed.

When the final stroke was completed, Su Ming let out a long, deep breath of turbid qi.

“Humm—”

The formation lines on the stone wall lit up in unison, emitting an extremely faint resonance.

The scattered starlight falling through the skylight, as if drawn by some invisible force, swiftly converged toward the center of the formation.

In the blink of an eye, a visible silver beam of light took shape in midair.