Chapter 20: Forming a Formation

Mo Hua returned and tried drawing the array patterns several times as Instructor Yan had suggested, and indeed felt a sudden enlightenment.

When he entered sleep in the evening and practiced on the stone tablet, his comprehension was also obviously quite a bit faster.

Some things he didn't understand, but after drawing them more times, he gradually grasped the key points.

As long as he firmly mastered the basic array patterns, learning some variations wouldn't be too difficult. The difficulty was having no one to guide him; Mo Hua wouldn't think in that direction, so naturally, his pondering yielded no results.

Mo Hua practiced again for a whole day. On the evening of the third day, after class, Mo Hua formally began drawing the Solid Earth Array.

His initial attempts were not smooth, but after some fumbling, he finally managed to draw it, though it took quite a long time.

To draw the four array patterns of the Solid Earth Array, Mo Hua needed an hour and a half. After finishing, because his divine sense was consumed too much, he also needed to rest for an hour.

By the time Mo Hua finished drawing the Solid Earth Array, it was already midnight.

Mo Hua checked it and discovered that, without accident, he had indeed drawn it incorrectly.

Mo Hua sighed.

He had only drawn one copy in an entire evening, and it was still wrong.

He needed to finish drawing ten copies within five days, so time was very tight.

"What to do?"

Mo Hua thought for a while. In the end, having no other way, he could only find a way to skip some cultivation courses.

Courses like cultivation history and common knowledge, of course, could not be skipped; these could broaden his vision and cultivation experience.

For refining pills and making talismans, because he needed to spend spirit stones to buy herbs and talisman jade stones, and also needed to rent the sect's pill refining furnace, the cost of learning was not low. Therefore, Mo Hua selectively skipped some courses.

Anyway, in these categories of cultivation that required a huge expenditure of spirit stones, it was not very likely that he would have any prospects in this lifetime.

After that, he could skip all the body refining courses.

Cultivators cultivated spiritual power through cultivation methods and used Dao methods to control spiritual power for attack.

Dao methods were divided into two major categories: one was spell-type Dao methods, and the other was martial arts-type Dao methods.

Spells used divine sense to control spiritual power, condensing it into spells for attack. Martial arts used spiritual power to stimulate the physical body's potential, using the physical body to fight.

Those who cultivated spells were called spirit cultivators, and those who cultivated martial arts were called body cultivators.

In the Qi Refining period, there were few spirit cultivators and many body cultivators. Especially the cultivators of Tongxian City, most of whom made a living by hunting demons. Spirit cultivators were weak in body and not suitable for hunting demons, hence most scattered cultivators followed the path of body cultivation.

For this reason, Tongxian Sect specifically opened a body refining course, allowing the sect's inner disciples to train their physical bodies in advance.

But Mo Hua was destined not to be able to refine his body.

He did not inherit his father Mo Shan's talent for body refining. Instead, like his mother Liu Ru Hua, he had been somewhat weak since childhood, even weaker in constitution than Liu Ru Hua.

According to Old Mister Feng, the alchemist at Xinglin Tang, cultivators inherited the Heavenly Dao and were born with a relatively balanced divine sense and physical body.

When Mo Hua was born, he had memories from two lifetimes, and his innate divine sense was too strong, causing an imbalance between his divine sense and physical body. With the growth of one and the decline of the other, Mo Hua was weak and often sick from birth.

Others could easily lift a hundred-kilogram stone cauldron, but Mo Hua used all his strength and couldn't move it at all. Cultivators of the same age were generally a head taller and a circle sturdier than Mo Hua.

Although Mo Hua's build was thin and weak, he was good-looking and handsome, with a gentle temperament, red lips and white teeth. At ten years old, he was like a porcelain doll.

This appearance was not bad, but Mo Hua still felt that a man should be majestic and strong.

For example, his dad was tall and big, with a heroic appearance, and looked imposing.

In his dreams, Mo Hua saw himself in a white robe, cultivating an ultimate cultivation method, his spear like a dragon, guarding the pass alone, invincible against ten thousand men.

It was a pity that this scene could only be seen in a dream.

"Oh, right."

Mo Hua thought to himself that after entering sleep, his divine sense would automatically enter his sea of consciousness, so he couldn't even dream...

The instructor who taught body refining originally wanted to be strict with Mo Hua, but after Mo Hua pushed the stone cauldron several times without moving it at all, and yet twisted his own arm, the instructor became much more lenient with Mo Hua.

Cultivating the Dao was like this; sometimes effort could not solve problems.

The instructor was also very understanding of Mo Hua.

Perhaps the Heavenly Dao closed one window for you because it wanted you to find another door to walk through, not wanting you to be stubborn.

So Mo Hua selectively skipped these several courses, squeezing out time. Mo Hua just shut himself in his room, concentrating on drawing the Solid Earth Array.

Five days after the rest day, Mo Hua finally used up all ten portions of materials and succeeded in six copies out of ten.

Not only did he not lose money, but he could still earn four spirit stones, which Mo Hua considered satisfactory.

Mo Hua took advantage of the one-day holiday on the rest day and went to the Yuanfen Pavilion on Bei Da Street, handing over the well-drawn Solid Earth Arrays to the fat manager.

The fat manager took a look and said to Mo Hua: "Your elder brother's foundation in arrays is really a bit poor, but he learns things quite quickly. These several copies of arrays are visibly better one after another. But..."

The manager took out the first copy again and criticized it: "This copy of the array is drawn like a beginner's, some basic array patterns are still drawn clumsily..."

Mo Hua was already used to the manager's complaints, letting them go in one ear and out the other.

Moreover, the manager was talking about his elder brother. What did that have to do with him?

He didn't have an elder brother.

Mo Hua directly asked the key question: "Can I exchange them for spirit stones?"

The manager gave Mo Hua a look, but still counted out four spirit stones for Mo Hua, "Tell your elder brother to draw better next time."

"Mmm," Mo Hua nodded repeatedly as he got the spirit stones.

Mo Hua took all these four spirit stones to buy pastries. He ate two pieces himself, kept two pieces, and gave the rest to Da Hu and the others.

Da Hu and the three others were extremely moved to see so many pastries and asked Mo Hua again if he still wanted to eat meat. They said they saw the elder was still raising a five-colored duck that was growing very fat.

Mo Hua's head ached a little. He told them not to steal again, otherwise, if the sect notified their parents, it would be strange if they weren't beaten to a pulp by their dad and mom when they went home.

Da Hu and the three others then reluctantly gave up the idea.

After that, Mo Hua continued to draw the Solid Earth Array, drawing continuously for another two months.

The more he drew, the more thorough his mastery became.

Before, drawing one copy of the Solid Earth Array, including the time for resting and recovering divine sense in between, took almost three hours. Now, it only took an hour and a half.

One reason was that practice made perfect; his mastery and understanding of the array patterns were more profound, so drawing the array patterns took less time. The second reason was practicing arrays day and night, continuously consuming, recovering, and using divine sense, which invisibly exercised Mo Hua's divine sense strength. His divine sense was quite a bit thicker than before.

Powerful divine sense had obvious benefits for drawing arrays.

The success rate of the Solid Earth Array also reached eight or nine out of ten. Occasionally, all ten copies succeeded. Each copy of the array could earn two spirit stones. In these two months, after deducting his usual food, clothing, and expenses, Mo Hua still earned a full hundred spirit stones.

Mo Hua planned to save enough two hundred spirit stones before going to the sect to choose a middle-grade low-level cultivation method.

He would choose it first and then tell his dad and mom. Otherwise, they would definitely say that they would provide the spirit stones, and Mo Hua's spirit stones should be kept for his own cultivation, or for future use to marry a Dao companion, buy a cave mansion, and so on.