185: Another way

On an afternoon at the Bing Zi Qi Hao Courtyard, sunlight filtered through the sparse clouds, dappling the bluestone slabs.

Luo Feng did not stand in the corner today; instead, for the first time, he sat on the stone stool opposite Su Ming.

He was playing with a shimmering Formation Talisman in his hand, his brows tightly furrowed. His arrogant expression was now mixed with a hint of fatigue and irritation that was hard to detect.

"To improve the Fire-Earth connection point of this 'Five Elements Rotation Formation,' I spent a full six months." Luo Feng lightly tapped the Formation Talisman with his fingertip, his tone still carrying that ingrained reserve, yet sounding like he was talking to himself. "I failed one hundred and thirty-seven times, destroyed three test platforms, and only yesterday did I finally manage to increase the Spiritual Qi circulation efficiency by a mere sliver."

He extended his slender finger and gestured a distance that was almost invisible, his eyes showing a near-obsessive fanaticism: "Although it is only this insignificant sliver, it is the only path to perfection. The beauty of the Dao of Formations lies in this ultimate control over the slightest margin."

Su Ming put down the ledger in his hand, glanced at the exquisite Formation Talisman in Luo Feng's hand, which looked like a piece of art, and then looked at the dark circles under the other man's eyes.

Inside the xuantian ring, Lin Yu's soul consciousness let out an exaggerated sigh, his manifested phantom figure helplessly rubbing his forehead: "Six months? For a zero-point-something percent increase? If this were the Engineering Department back then, this kind of project manager would have been sacrificed to the heavens long ago! Disciple, this is a classic case of 'severe late-stage obsessive-compulsive disorder'; it needs treatment."

Su Ming's expression was calm. Instead of following Luo Feng's lead and praising his "ingenuity," he picked up several broken Spirit Stone fragments from the nearby scrap pile and arranged a rudimentary Five Elements orientation on the stone table.

"Senior Brother pursues the ultimate, and this Disciple admires that." Su Ming's voice was gentle but revealed a calm rationality. "But in this Disciple's view, since the mutual generation of Fire and Earth is difficult to achieve flawlessly, why must we obsess over that connection point of mere millimeters?"

Luo Feng raised an eyebrow and snorted coldly: "If the Five Elements mutual generation is not perfectly seamless, the Spiritual Qi will become agitated and dissipate. This is common sense."

"Then why not bypass it?" Su Ming picked up a teacup filled with water and placed it between the fragments representing "Fire" and "Earth." "Instead of pursuing perfect point-to-point transmission, why not establish a 'Five Elements Balance Pool' here? First, import the Fire-attribute Spiritual Qi into the pool, use the redundant energy as a buffer to forcibly maintain a dynamic balance, and then let it flow smoothly toward the Earth position."

Luo Feng was stunned.

He looked at the abrupt teacup as if he were looking at a beggar who had trespassed into the imperial palace.

"Absurd!" Luo Feng suddenly stood up, his sleeve sweeping the teacup over, spilling water onto the stone table. "This is cutting corners! This is opportunism! Adding redundant structures to a Formation will only destroy the purity and beauty of the Formation Diagram! This is a rogue path that deviates from the orthodox Dao of Formations!"

His chest rose and fell rapidly, clearly infuriated by Su Ming's "vulgar" idea.

In his view, a Formation should be a precise timepiece, yet Su Ming was proposing stuffing cotton wool inside to eliminate the gear noise.

"This is simply blasphemy against the Dao of Formations!"

Luo Feng left this comment, grabbed his Formation Talisman, and departed in a huff.

However, after returning to his Spiritual Qi-rich Immortal Cave on Formation Peak, Luo Feng found himself unable to calm down.

He sat cross-legged on the futon, trying to continue deducing the perfect Fire-Earth connection, but the water-filled teacup in his mind was rooted there, refusing to leave.

"Balance Pool... redundant energy... forced balance..."

These heterodox terms swirled in his mind.

He tried to refute it using his profound Formation Dao theories, to prove it was wrong. But after deducing it over and over, he realized with horror that this simple and crude "brute-force" solution, though ugly, cumbersome, and entirely devoid of aesthetics, was logically... sound?

Furthermore, if he actually did this, the stability problem that had plagued him for six months might be solved in just three days.

"Impossible... absolutely impossible..." Luo Feng muttered to himself, the spiritual light on his fingertips flickering erratically due to his agitated mind.

Three days later.

When Luo Feng, as if guided by ghosts and gods, arrived at the Bing Zi Qi Hao Courtyard again, the scene before him made him freeze in place.

In the center of the courtyard, Su Ming was busy with Old Li and Zhang Asheng, working around a massive, structurally complex "Compound Formation." This was a malfunctioning Formation Plate sent from the Outer Sect Training Ground. Due to its overly complex Spiritual Qi circuit and years of disrepair, the internal Five Elements were chaotic, and it had been deemed "worthless to repair" by Formation Peak.

Luo Feng had expected Su Ming to retreat from the difficulty, or, like himself, spend a great deal of time meticulously sorting out the tangled Spiritual Qi threads.

But what he saw was a completely different sight.

Su Ming did not attempt to untie the knot.

He directed Old Li to forcefully embed three seemingly redundant Low-Grade Spirit Stone slots into three critical nodes of the Formation Plate.

"Install 'Buffer Valves,' sever the original direct connection circuit, and switch to 'overflow-style' energy supply." Su Ming's instructions were clear and decisive.

As the final Spirit Stone was embedded, the Formation Plate, which had been violently shaking and was on the verge of collapse, miraculously quieted down. Although the Spiritual Qi circulation was no longer as smooth and unimpeded as the original design, and was even somewhat sluggish, it... stabilized.

Moreover, it was operating extremely robustly.

Luo Feng stood in the shadows of the corner, staring blankly at the "Data Wall" on the side.

[Repair of Training Ground Compound Spirit Gathering Array. Time elapsed: Two hours.]

[Status: Stable operation.]

[Cost: Three Low-Grade Spirit Stones.]

If it were him, perfectly repairing this Formation Plate would require at least three days, not to mention the countless mental effort and Materials expended.

Two hours... versus three days.

An efficiency difference of more than tenfold.

Luo Feng felt the edifice of "perfectionism" he had upheld for many years was violently struck by that ugly "Buffer Valve," leaving a gaping hole. For the first time, he wavered on the relative importance of "perfection" versus "efficiency."

"Senior Brother?" Su Ming noticed Luo Feng in the corner, looking slightly surprised. "You've arrived a little late today."

Luo Feng took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. The arrogance on his face remained, but his eyes held a complexity he had never shown before.

He walked up to the repaired Formation Plate, pointed to a rune on it, and instead of criticizing the "craftsmanship" as usual, he paused for a moment and said:

"Here, you used the 'Jiezijue' to forcibly block it. Although it stops the loss, the Spiritual Qi backwash will damage the Formation foundation."

Saying this, he paused and turned his head away, seemingly unaccustomed to this manner of speaking, his voice sounding slightly stiff: "If you add a 'Guiding Rune' here, directing the backwash force toward your... that ugly Balance Pool, the effect will be better."

Su Ming's eyes lit up. He immediately took out a charcoal pen and recorded it on the bamboo slip: "Senior Brother means utilizing the backwash force for secondary circulation?"

"...I suppose so." Luo Feng looked at Su Ming's earnest, seeking-advice demeanor, and the awkwardness in his heart lessened slightly. He condensed a wisp of spiritual light on his fingertip and drew a graceful arc in the air. "This is called 'Returning Wind Dancing Willow,' a method of using strength against strength. Your so-called 'Balance Pool' is just an inanimate object. To make it come alive, you must understand 'momentum' (Shi)."

He began to explain.

It was no longer the condescending "you should do this," but patiently explaining "why you should do this." Subconsciously, he translated his profound and obscure "Dao" into the "reasoning" that Su Ming, this "rogue path" follower, could understand.

"It's like... like digging a flood diversion channel for your pool." Luo Feng found a metaphor he could reluctantly accept.

Su Ming nodded repeatedly, the charcoal pen in his hand flying across the surface.

Inside the xuantian ring, Lin Yu watched this scene, a meaningful smile playing on his lips.

"Tsk tsk, tsundere ruins a life. Disciple, do you see? When an idealist begins to compromise with reality and tries to use his theories to optimize reality, that is when he is most formidable. This free Advanced Technical Consultant is now completely secured."