282: Mr. Mo

Ten days after the battle, the wind and snow at Iron Wall Pass remained piercingly cold, but inside the "Lingshu Hall" deep within the Formation maintenance camp, it was warm and cozy.

Su Ming stepped into the hall; beneath his feet was floor paved with warm jade, and the walls were embedded with several fist-sized Moonlight Stones, illuminating the entire hall with perfect clarity. A faint scent of Spirit-Soothing Incense filled the air, a world away from the rugged barracks outside that reeked of rust and blood.

In the center of the hall, dozens of Formation Plate phantoms floated in mid-air, rotating slowly and emitting profound spiritual power fluctuations.

Behind a desk carved from a single piece of Cold Jade sat an elderly man with white hair and a white beard.

He wore a plain robe without any rank insignia and was currently fiddling with a fragment of an ancient Formation pattern rubbing, his gaze so focused it was as if it were the most precious treasure in the world.

This person was Elder Mo, the stabilizing pillar of the Formation path at Iron Wall Pass and a powerful Cultivator of the Golden Core Middle Stage.

"Disciple Su Ming greets Elder Mo." Su Ming bowed, his expression respectful yet composed.

Elder Mo did not look up, his fingers still tracing the rubbing. With a casual wave of his hand, one of the floating Formation Plate phantoms drifted in front of Su Ming.

This was a standard "Spirit-Gathering Conversion Formation," but when the spiritual power flowed through the core hub, there was always an extremely subtle stutter, causing the conversion efficiency to drop by thirty percent.

"Find the crux of the problem within the time it takes for an incense stick to burn," Elder Mo said flatly.

Su Ming did not rush to answer. Instead, he circulated his Ruoshui Art, and a faint mist covered his eyes.

Under the vision of "Micro-Observation," the spiritual power flowing within the Formation Plate was no longer just dull lines, but surging rivers.

"Master," Su Ming thought to himself, "it looks like a blockage caused by insufficient purity of the spiritual materials, but in reality, the return pipe is too narrow, creating turbulence."

"Nonsense, this old man is testing you," Lin Yu's voice rang out in his Sea of Consciousness with a hint of teasing. "Don't be fooled by appearances. The structure of this Formation is modeled after human Meridians; solve it using a dredging approach."

Su Ming understood. He didn't reach out to touch the Formation Plate but instead extended a finger, pointing into the air at the "dui position" on the lower left side of the plate.

"The spiritual power flow here is too fast, creating a conflict with the return flow at the 'kan position'," Su Ming said softly. "It's not that the Formation patterns are carved incorrectly, but rather that as the spiritual power passes through a right-angle turn, it creates a 'vortex,' obstructing the following spiritual power. If this right angle is changed to a curve, or if a 'Water-Splitting Pattern' is added at the turn, the problem will resolve itself."

Elder Mo's fingers paused slightly.

He gave Su Ming a deep look, the corner of his mouth curling into an imperceptible arc. "Interesting. Modifying the branches instead of the main Formation. Now look at this."

He waved his hand again, throwing out three more failure cases in succession. Each was more devious than the last; some seemed like spiritual power depletion but were actually channel blockages, while others seemed like attribute conflicts but were actually impure mediums.

Su Ming handled them with increasing ease. He didn't speak of profound Formation theories but used the simplest "water method infiltration" logic, treating spiritual power as water—dredging where it was blocked and slowing where it was too fast.

Fifteen minutes later, Elder Mo put down the rubbing in his hand.

Elder Mo stood up and walked to a massive jade wall at the back of the hall. On the jade wall, a structural diagram of a core node of the Iron Wall Pass protective Formation appeared.

"This is the 'Spiritual Pressure Buffer Pivot,' the heart valve of the grand Formation." Elder Mo pointed to an extremely complex structure in the diagram and sighed. "It's an old piece from three thousand years ago with an outdated design and extremely low spiritual power throughput efficiency. Every time a Yao Tide strikes, this place overheats due to overload, even risking an explosion."

"Then why not replace it?" Su Ming asked.

"It cannot be replaced," Elder Mo shook his head. "This hub connects three main Spiritual Veins; move one part and the whole body is affected. Once replaced, the entire defense of Iron Wall Pass would be paralyzed for at least three hours. The Yao Race is watching greedily outside the pass; who would dare take that risk? If we were to forcibly modify the internal Formation patterns, any slight mistake could trigger a Spiritual Explosion, and I would be a sinner for all eternity."

It was a deadlock.

Modifying it was too risky; leaving it as is meant endless hidden dangers.

Su Ming stared at the massive structural diagram, his brows furrowed.

Su Ming didn't answer immediately. He remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking, "Elder Mo, may this Disciple go and observe the site for three days?"

"Granted," Elder Mo uttered a single word... For the next three days, Su Ming practically lived beside that "Spiritual Pressure Buffer Pivot."

He didn't dismantle a single screw, nor did he release even a sliver of spiritual power to test it. He simply held a blank Jade Slip, tirelessly recording.

He recorded the fluctuation curves of the Spiritual Pressure every hour, the frequency of every vibration of the pivot, and even the faint whistling sound made by the Spiritual Qi as it flowed through the pipes.

To onlookers, he looked like a fool meditating in front of a rock.

But within Su Ming's Sea of Consciousness, Lin Yu was helping him construct a precise data model.

"Do you see it clearly?" Lin Yu pointed to a node flashing red in the model. "The biggest problem with this old hub is 'hard resistance.' It's like a wall, stubbornly blocking the returning Spiritual Pressure. What we need to do isn't to thicken this wall, but to dig a ditch beside it."