240: Chapter 240 The Master's Loosening, Total War

When Lu Changyuan went to Old Mo's stone house, he brought only one sheet of paper.

On the paper was a comparison diagram of the old and new Sword Silk, drawn by Su Qingli after she finished testing.

On the left was the old Sword Silk. It was silver-gray. After one hour of continuous combat, the tip of the Sword Silk began to exhibit extremely faint vibrations. Once these vibrations accumulated to a certain number, a fine crack less than half an inch long appeared on the Sword Silk, extending inward from the point of vibration.

The crack was marked on the diagram with a red circle drawn in charcoal, with the following note beside it: "One hour—initial crack."

Further down, the cross-section of the Sword Silk after two hours was magnified to five times its original size. The edges of the break were irregular, showing dark oxidation layers caused by high-temperature melting.

On the right was the new Sword Silk, colored blue-white. After operating continuously for two hours at the same Qi power level, the tip of the Sword Silk showed no vibration, the blade had no cracks, and the cross-section test field was empty.

At the very bottom of the diagram were two lines of comparative data: The temperature rise of the old Sword Silk core Formation base was 15% after one hour and nearly 30% after two hours; the temperature rise of the new Sword Silk core Formation base was less than 5% after one hour and less than 10% after two hours.

Below the data, Su Qingli had written a single sentence: "Two hours—no breakage."

Lu Changyuan placed the paper on Old Mo's workbench.

Old Mo took one look, then a second. The second look lasted longer than the first; his gaze rested on the blue-white rendering of the new Sword Silk on the right for nearly twenty breaths.

The color of the new Sword Silk on the diagram, drawn by Su Qingli with faint blue-white charcoal ink, matched perfectly with the hue of the Spirit Essence as it flickered inside the coral box.

This color was something an old Formation Master who had studied ancient Formations for decades had rarely seen. It only appeared in fragments of ancient Formation diagrams—specifically those marked with "Spirit Essence Fusion Formation."

"The Killing Array—it has been upgraded."

"It has. All three main Formation bases have been embedded with Spirit Essence cores. The Sword Silk is nearly 20% thicker, and its resilience has improved by at least 30%. Most importantly—" Lu Changyuan tapped his finger on the two-hour mark of the new Sword Silk. "Under the same Qi power level, the old Sword Silk starts cracking after one hour. The new Sword Silk—no breakage after two hours. For Blue Moon Island, this means the defensive capability during continuous combat has at least doubled."

Old Mo did not answer. He picked up the comparison diagram and held it up to the cold light stone lamp. He was looking at the note Su Qingli had written in tiny script next to the third Formation base: "Old sand content 10%, Spirit Essence debris 5%—results better than the first two. Blue-white color stable upon generation, no transition phase."

He stared at that note for a long time. A long time—even longer than he had spent looking at the color change of the Spirit Essence. Then, he placed the paper back on the workbench, stood up from his rattan chair, and walked to the bookshelf.

The items on the bookshelf were different from what Lu Changyuan had seen when he first entered. Last time, the shelves were piled with rubbings of ancient Formations and old, broken Formation Plates. This time, Old Mo's hand stopped in front of a row of yellowed scrolls.

The seals on the scrolls were old, dating back twenty years, and bore the blue filing stamp of the Capital Ministry of War Array Bureau. The date beneath the filing stamp was from twenty years ago—the very year his Dantian had been backlashed by an ancient Formation.

Old Mo pulled three of the scrolls from the bookshelf, brushed the dust off the seals, and placed them on the workbench. He unrolled the scrolls, revealing complete design blueprints for three types of Formation base heat dissipation schemes.

The first scheme was a Heat Diversion Formation Path. It involved adding a ring of auxiliary Formation paths at the base of the Formation base. During combat, excess heat generated by the core would be diverted from the main Formation path to the auxiliary path. The terminal of the auxiliary path would be connected to the reef wall surrounding the Formation eye, directly conducting the heat into the seawater. The heat dissipation efficiency was nearly double that of the standard scheme. However, it required Spirit Essence-grade Materials to serve as a heat-conducting medium; otherwise, the auxiliary Formation path itself would be burned through by the heat.

The second scheme was a Cold Circulation Filler Layer. It involved adding a material to the Formation base filler that could actively absorb water-attribute Qi from the air. This water-attribute Qi would form a micro-circulation within the filler layer, carrying the core heat from the inside out. This type of material did not exist on the market twenty years ago. Now, however, it could be made by grinding Spirit Essence debris into powder and mixing it with old sand.

The third scheme was Segmented Temperature Control Triggering. Three independent micro-sensing Formations were embedded within the Formation base, each monitoring a specific temperature range. When the core temperature rose to the first stage, it would automatically trigger accelerated heat dissipation; rising to the second stage would trigger the auxiliary Formation path diversion; rising to the third stage would trigger full-line cooling protection. The path density of these three sensing Formations required the use of ancient Formation deduction methods to design the wiring; standard layout methods used by current Array Master could not draw such dense sensing Formation paths.

All three schemes were blueprints from twenty years ago. The Formation ink on the drawings had faded by nearly half, but the wiring of every Formation path remained clearly visible. In the bottom right corner of the blueprints was the signature: Mo.

"These are things I made during my last three years at the Array Bureau." Old Mo pushed the three scrolls nearly half a foot toward Lu Changyuan. As he pushed, his finger pressed on the edge of the scroll—right on the blue filing stamp from twenty years ago. "No one used them back then. Scheme one and scheme two required Spirit Essence-grade Materials as heat-conducting media. Twenty years ago, let alone Spirit Essence, no one had even seen a shadow of it on the black market. Scheme three required ancient Formation deduction methods to draw the sensing Formation paths. Current Array Master don't know ancient Formation deduction—the current team leader of the Array Bureau said what I drew were 'relics'."

He withdrew his finger from the filing stamp and wiped it on his gray cloth robe, brushing off the accumulated dust from his fingertips.

"Now, you have Spirit Essence. You also have the ancient Formation vein data from the bottom of the Dragon Burial Trench—the Formation path wiring from two thousand years ago—which shares the same underlying logic as these blueprints. So, I can give these things to you. But let me be clear—"

Old Mo sat back down in the rattan chair. The armrest of the chair had been worn down by his elbows for over a decade; that spot reflected a faint sheen under the cold light stone lamp.

"I will not join any faction. I will not join Blue Moon Island—I will not join the fortress military—I will not join any organization that requires me to sign and press my seal. But I can help you look at Formations. There is only one condition—"

He held up one finger. It was that same right index finger, stained with dozens of layers of old Formation ink—the fingertip was rock steady.

"From now on, anything related to ancient Formations that is salvaged from the seabed—rubbings, Formation Plates, Formation fragments, sealing remnants—regardless of whether they are complete or not, I want to see them first."

Lu Changyuan looked at that finger for about three breaths. Then, he picked up the three scrolls of Formation blueprints and put them into his Storage Pouch.

"Deal."

Old Mo withdrew his finger and rested it on his knee again. His face was expressionless, but his fingers resting on his knee were tapping lightly—the rhythm was extremely slow, similar to the rhythm of the Spirit Essence flickering between blue and white.

Lu Changyuan stood up and walked toward the door. When he reached the doorway, he stopped without turning back.

"Old Mo—the Formation Affairs Room on Blue Moon Island is open to you at any time. Su Qingli is there—she has several Formation path wirings she would like you to take a look at."

Old Mo did not speak. However, the sound of scrolls being reorganized came from the direction of the bookshelf—the movements were not fast, but very methodical. An old Formation Master who hadn't seen guests in over a decade had started tidying up his bookshelf.

When he returned to Blue Moon Island, it was already evening. The setting sun on the front of the Ring Reef cast a faint, layered orange light onto the blue-white Sword Silk at the sixteen Formation eyes on the outer ring of the Killing Array. The Sword Silk rotated in the twilight, its color shifting from blue-white to an interweaving of blue, white, and orange.

Su Qingli was in the Formation Affairs Room. Another rattan strip on her low rattan stool had snapped; she wrapped the last section of Formation thread four times around the break and made do with sitting on it.

On the monitoring log of the Receiving Formation, there were no anomalies in the data from this afternoon. The main force of the Haiyuan Clan was fifty-four miles away, with a deviation of less than half a mile—they had almost stopped.

That intermittent, extremely low-frequency fluctuation—the most recent time interval had shrunk to less than one hour. The fluctuation source was located about two hundred miles deep in the Dragon Burial Trench, and its depth was continuously rising.

Lu Changyuan handed Old Mo's three scrolls of Formation blueprints to Su Qingli. Su Qingli unrolled the first scroll, took one look, and then spread all three blueprints out on the workbench.

Her hand swept back and forth over the blueprints three times. After finishing, she dragged her low rattan stool forward nearly two feet, sat down, picked up a charcoal pencil, and began marking the corresponding points of the specific parameters of the Blue Moon Island Killing Array on the blueprints. She sat there for nearly two hours.

Leng Feng set up the observation scope on the second-floor windowsill of the Lords Mansion, aiming it toward the horizon. On the horizon, the water surface was a normal dark blue under the setting sun. The receding tide dragged toward the Dragon Burial Trench, stretching the last reflection of sunlight on the sea surface into an extremely long golden band of light. Everything looked perfectly normal.

Then, night fell.

At the beginning of the Hai hour, on Su Qingli's Receiving Formation, the position of the main fluctuation source moved. It didn't shift east—it pushed forward. In less than half an incense stick of time, it pushed from fifty-four miles away from the Ring Reef to fifty miles. Four miles—the speed was over a hundred times faster than the previous deviation speed. Then, the fluctuation source stopped at the fifty-mile mark. It did not continue pushing, nor did it disperse.

Su Qingli pressed her finger onto the Formation Plate—the position she pressed was the Deep Water Zone, about one hundred and fifty miles directly below the main fluctuation source. The location of that intermittent, extremely low-frequency fluctuation was rising from a depth of two hundred miles—it had risen to less than one hundred and twenty miles from the sea surface. The time interval of the fluctuation had shrunk from less than one hour to less than half an hour.

Then—all the fluctuation sources lit up at once.

It wasn't one. It wasn't thirty. It wasn't a dense Formation. It was everything. From fifty miles outside the Ring Reef to two hundred miles deep in the Dragon Burial Trench—across the entire monitoring surface of the Receiving Formation—dense red dots had almost merged into one. Each red dot represented an Abyssal Beast—the number of red dots was so great that the background color on the Formation Plate changed from dark cyan to a solid dark red.

Su Qingli's finger swept across the Formation Plate from the outermost layer toward the deepest part—when it reached the Deep Water Zone, her finger stopped.

A main fluctuation source that had never appeared before surfaced from the deepest part.

The fluctuation intensity—there was no need to compare it with standard values to judge. In front of this new fluctuation source, all other red dots on the Formation Plate had a diameter less than one-tenth of its size. The value of the fluctuation intensity on the monitoring log jumped nearly five times before stabilizing—the stabilized value was at least five times that of the High Priest's main fluctuation from before.

"Leng Feng—" Su Qingli's voice came from the Formation Affairs Room—not a shout, but using her Dantian Qi to push her voice directly to the second floor of the Lords Mansion.

Leng Feng's observation scope was aimed at the horizon. In the lens—at the edge of the horizon—the seawater was turning from dark blue to ink black. It wasn't a change in the weather—it was something under the water surface floating upward. The ink-black shadow spread from the direction of the deep sea toward the surface—the speed of spreading was extremely fast—the coverage was so vast that the edges of the observation scope's lens were entirely ink black—he could not see the end.

The first row of bone armor broke the water.

The location where they broke the water was less than thirty miles outside the Ring Reef—the position of the very front row of the Haiyuan Clan main force. The bone armor pushed up from beneath the water surface—the splash created when it broke the surface was nearly ten zhang in diameter. The color of the carapace was deep ink-green—the bone spikes on the edges of the carapace were nearly twice as long as those of a Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beast—the tips of the bone spikes were not the original bone color—they were dark gold. Golden Core level.

Leng Feng's observation scope swept across the water-breaking line—sweeping from left to right. He swept for nearly twenty breaths—he saw at least thirty. Thirty Golden Core level Abyssal Beasts broke the water simultaneously in less than half an incense stick of time. Behind them, more were still emerging—elites of the Late Foundation Establishment Stage—ordinary Abyssal Beasts of the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage—dense and numerous—the dark green bone armor on the water surface had connected into a moving landmass.

"Sin Battalion—First Page—all get onto the Ring Reef. Second Page—distribute spare shields."

Leng Feng's voice carried directly from the second floor of the Lords Mansion to the Pier. On the Pier, Commander Cai's pipe fell from his mouth—smashing onto the stone slab—sparks splattered nearly two inches. Before the sparks even landed, he had already turned and was running toward the Sin Battalion's station.

Commander Tie Zhan's military order reached Blue Moon Island at the same time. The messenger was a personal soldier who had ridden a fast horse, disregarding the mount's stamina until it died—he had galloped all the way from the direction of the main fortress port along the stone path on the outer side of the Ring Reef—the iron nails on the horse's horseshoes sparked along the stone road. He dismounted at the entrance of the Lords Mansion—the horse's front legs collapsed to the ground immediately after he dismounted—white foam mixed with blood sprayed from its mouth and nose. He pulled a piece of paper from his bosom—there were only two words on it—in Commander Tie Zhan's own handwriting.

Fight to the death.

Lu Changyuan took the military order—took one look. He folded the note—put it into the inner pocket of his sleeve. He stacked it together with the Image Recording Bead, the simplified map of Soul Searching fragments, the network contact list, the rubbing of the first page of the account book, the defense handover documents, and the comparison diagram of the old and new Sword Silk. The inner pocket of his sleeve was already so full that the seams were bulging out by nearly an inch.

He stood at the doorway of the Formation Affairs Room.

Behind him—the blue-white Sword Silk of the Killing Array's new core rotated quietly in the night—the Spirit Stone slots of the sixteen Formation eyes were all filled with Spirit Stones—the temperature curve of the three main Formation bases infused with Spirit Essence was less than 5% higher than usual on the Receiving Formation. The color of the Sword Silk was brighter in the night than during the day—the blue-white cold light cast a faint halo on the stone floor at the entrance of the Formation Affairs Room.

In front of him—in the lens of Leng Feng's observation scope—was a sky-covering reflection of bone armor. The location where the Golden Core level Abyssal Beasts broke the water had already advanced to less than twenty-five miles from the Ring Reef. Behind them—the elites of the Late Foundation Establishment Stage and the underwater main force Formation of the Haiyuan Clan were accelerating. The direction of acceleration was aimed directly at the front of the Ring Reef of Blue Moon Island.

Lu Changyuan turned his head—looked at Su Qingli.

"That new fluctuation source on the Receiving Formation—can you pinpoint its depth and direction of movement?"

Su Qingli's finger was already pressed onto the Formation Plate.