186: The tip of the iceberg of core heritage

Su Ming sat in a solitary workstation in the corner, his brows tightly furrowed.

The wolf-hair brush in his hand hovered over a discarded parchment, its tip trembling slightly, unable to fall.

On the paper was a strange semi-circular structure, with twisted lines, like an unclosed vortex.

This was an ancient incomplete Formation Su Ming had unearthed from a damaged Formation diagram these past few days—a variation of the “Breath Concealing Formation”.

Lin Yu had modified it by incorporating some node patterns from the xuantian ring.

To avoid attracting attention, Su Ming disassembled it into countless seemingly unrelated geometric figures, deducing it under the guise of “researching anti-interference coatings for Formation Plates”.

But he was stuck.

No matter how Lin Yu tried to explain it with his past life's topology, the Spiritual Qi in this structure's circuit would inexplicably dissipate, like water flowing into a bottomless bucket.

"No, completely wrong." Lin Yu's soul-sense paced irritably in Su Ming's mind. "Theoretically, the energy here should form a closed loop, but this damned Spiritual Qi fluid dynamics doesn't follow basic laws! There's a crucial 'valve' missing here, a structure that would allow Spiritual Qi to 'want to leave but be unable to'."

Su Ming calmly put down his brush, his peripheral vision glancing towards the other end of the courtyard.

Luo Feng stood with his back to him, in front of the “data wall”, holding a newly repaired “Spirit Gathering Plate”, seemingly studying the Spiritual Qi diversion grooves on it.

This Genius of Formation Peak had now become an unofficial quality inspector for the Repair Hall.

Su Ming's eyes flickered, and his fingers gently caressed the parchment.

"Master, can I borrow a light?"

"Borrow! You must borrow! This is a Wikipedia that's come knocking on our door; it's a waste not to use it!"

Su Ming rose, picked up the Spiritual Tea beside him, and slowly walked behind Luo Feng.

"Senior Brother Luo," Su Ming's voice was gentle, carrying just the right amount of curiosity, "Regarding the diversion grooves of this 'Spirit Gathering Plate', if we deepen them by three parts as Senior Brother said yesterday, the speed of Spiritual Qi convergence indeed increases, but the stability seems to have slightly decreased."

Luo Feng didn't turn his head, merely snorting, "That's because the material of your carving knives is inadequate; they can't withstand the Spiritual Pressure. If you switch to vermillion copper knives, you won't have this concern."

"I've learned much." Su Ming respectfully nodded, then, as if remembering something, he casually handed over the parchment with the incomplete vortex drawn on it. "By the way, Disciple was researching how to reduce the erosion of external impure Qi on Formation Plates when I accidentally saw this rune structure in a damaged ancient text. Disciple is dull and truly cannot discern its Spiritual Qi flow. I wonder if Senior Brother has ever seen it?"

Luo Feng had initially just glanced at it dismissively, ready to brush it off with a comment like, “Such unorthodox methods aren't worth looking at.”

However, when his gaze landed on that twisted semicircle, his pupils suddenly constricted.

His body, which had been lazily leaning against the wall, instantly straightened. He snatched the parchment, his fingertips even turning slightly white from excitement, and his eyes burst forth with a brilliant light, like a hunter spotting a rare bird.

"This... is this the 'Formless Pattern'?"

Luo Feng's voice was a bit dry. He abruptly looked up at Su Ming, his tone urgent: "Where did you see it in an ancient text?"

"A miscellaneous record used to prop up a table leg, long since moldy and unidentifiable." Su Ming lied without changing his expression, his eyes clear and sincere. "Only this one incomplete page remains."

"What a waste! What a terrible waste!" Luo Feng cursed in distress twice, then his gaze once again fixated on the parchment, his fingers drawing in the air as he muttered, "No wonder... no wonder it felt familiar. This structure is clearly a variant of an ancient 'Concealment' character!"

He looked at Su Ming, the arrogance in his eyes replaced by a sense of superiority from sharing a secret.

As Luo Feng spoke, a faint blue Spiritual Light suddenly lit up on his fingertips.

"Watch closely! The essence of this structure is not in 'blocking', but in 'devouring'!"

He rapidly sketched in the air. The Spiritual Light, like silk, did not close along the semicircle Su Ming had originally drawn, but instead abruptly folded inward at the gap, forming an extremely complex, three-dimensional loop, like a Mobius strip.

As the final stroke fell, the ball of Spiritual Light did not burst forth; instead, it strangely collapsed inward, instantly vanishing into the air—not dissipating, but it was there, yet even Divine Sense couldn't perceive its existence!

Inside the xuantian ring, Lin Yu instantly exploded.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! Quick! Disciple! Write it all down! This is 3D modeling! The curvature of this loop, the folding angle of these Spiritual Qi nodes... this is the real deal, far beyond elementary textbooks! This is the tip of the iceberg of Formation Peak's core Legacy!"

Su Ming held his breath, his eyes fixed on that spot in the air, frantically engraving every movement Luo Feng made, every fluctuation frequency of Spiritual Qi, into his Sea of Consciousness.

"Do you understand?" Luo Feng waved his hand, dispersing the Spiritual Qi, his chin slightly raised, returning to his lofty demeanor. "This is 'Formless'. Your so-called 'data' and 'standards' cannot describe even one ten-thousandth of it in front of a structure that points directly to the Origin of the Dao."

He paused, seemingly feeling he had said too much, then added, "Of course, these are just superficial things, not involving the fundamental principles of Formation Peak. Even if I teach you, you won't be able to use it; just consider it an eye-opener."

Su Ming suppressed the wild joy in his heart, displaying a look of profound yet somewhat bewildered shock on his face, and bowed deeply: "Senior Brother's knowledge is profound, this 'inward fold' stroke is simply divine! Although Disciple doesn't understand its deep meaning, I am greatly shaken."

Luo Feng accepted this flattery, the corner of his mouth curving almost imperceptibly, his mood greatly improved.

"Alright, stop pondering these overly ambitious things. First, raise the qualified rate of that batch of 'Spirit Gathering Plates' for me!"

Although he said that, over the next half an hour, when Su Ming again

A subtle understanding quietly grew between the two.

For Luo Feng, Su Ming's place was an excellent “testing ground”.

Those unconventional ideas he dared not easily try at Formation Peak could be verified here without scruple through Su Ming's “data flow”; Su Ming's strange yet precise logic was even more like “battering rams”, occasionally shattering the fixed walls in his thinking.

And for Su Ming, Luo Feng was a walking, talking, and self-correcting “Complete Book of Advanced Formations”.

"Hehe, Senior Brother, look, Senior Brother Luo Feng is giving Su Ming 'special tutoring' again!"

At the courtyard entrance, Ming Yue, carrying two food boxes, peeked in and smiled, her eyes curving like crescent moons.

Qing Feng stood beside her, hugging his sword box, and pouted, but the hostility in his eyes was noticeably less than usual: "Hmph, Senior Brother Luo Feng cherishes talent. But Su Ming is indeed strange; he's just a handyman, yet his mind is sharper than many inner sect Senior Brothers."

Su Ming took the food boxes, thanked the two, and casually crumpled the parchment into a ball, seemingly carelessly tossing it into the wastepaper basket.

Deep in the night, the Bing Zi Qi Hao Courtyard was completely silent.

Inside the east wing, Su Ming sat cross-legged, his breathing almost imperceptible.

"Master, have you restored it?"

"Of course! With Luo Feng's 'Mobius strip' as a reference, plus my topological corrections, this 'Breath Concealing Formation' is complete!"

Lin Yu's voice was filled with unprecedented excitement.

Su Ming took out the xuantian ring he had kept close to him. Under Lin Yu's guidance, he condensed a wisp of extremely fine Spiritual Qi on his fingertip, and slowly injected it into a broken Formation pattern inside the ring, following the trajectory Luo Feng had demonstrated in his memory, but after thousands of micro-adjustments.

"Buzz—"

There was no light, no sound.

The xuantian ring merely trembled slightly, and then, the ancient and profound aura that constantly enveloped its surface began to “disappear” little by little, like melting ice and snow.

It became ordinary, like an iron ring found anywhere in a mundane market.

Even when Su Ming swept it with his Divine Sense, he would subconsciously ignore its existence.

"It's done! This is the true Divine Artifact of The Way of Cautious Survival!" Lin Yu cackled. "Now, unless a Soul Transformation Stage old monster scans it face-to-face with their Divine Sense, no one will ever discover the abnormality of this ring!"