Meeting Gift

The most obvious difference was their size.

Because of the limitations imposed by their small size, the formations inside the Lock Rings were all miniature. The formations Lin Xiao had taken out, however, were considerably larger.

These were ordinary spatial formations.

Each one contained a fixed-sized space. Generally speaking, once this kind of fixed-space formation was modified, compressed, and sealed, it became the storage rings commonly used by cultivators.

But Lin Xiao had not brought out so many spatial formations because he intended to make another batch of ordinary storage rings after creating the Lock Rings.

After personally crafting the Lock Rings, he had gained a much deeper understanding of spatial formations, along with many new insights.

So recently, he had decided to attempt something bold.

Lin Xiao picked up two formation plates from the pile before him. Holding his hand over them, he activated them with his spiritual power. Immediately, strands of transparent ripples rose into the air from the formation plates.

With a thought, he caused the two sets of formation patterns to interlace, overlapping them in midair, one above the other.

He did not use the carving knife normally employed to inscribe formations. Instead, he guided his own spiritual power, drawing it out into threads. Following the plan he had worked out long ago, he sent the threads weaving back and forth between the two formations, linking them in parallel.

This parallel connection did more than simply bind the two spaces together. It also created a certain degree of convergence and folding between them. The folded space became further reinforced, while the overlapping sections expanded, creating additional room.

Lin Xiao focused intently on manipulating the spiritual threads in his hands, without allowing himself the slightest distraction.

The process appeared simple, but it required the operator to guide every single spiritual thread with extreme precision. Not the slightest unstable fluctuation could occur. Otherwise, not only would the parallel connection fail, but both spatial formations would collapse completely, ruining all his efforts.

This was why most people preferred to use carving knives when inscribing formations.

A good formation-carving knife could generally limit excessive fluctuations in the user's spiritual power to a certain extent, making it less likely for the formation being engraved to collapse outright.

After all, if certain formations collapsed after the inscription had progressed to an advanced stage, they could cause dangerous situations such as explosions.

A carving knife could minimize the chances of that happening.

Therefore, unless someone was highly proficient in formations, possessed a high cultivation level, and had exceptionally precise control over their spiritual power, they generally would not choose to construct a formation directly with spiritual power.

However, for those who met all these conditions, directly constructing a formation with spiritual power also offered enormous advantages.

There was one benefit in particular that was enough to utterly outclass the basic inscription methods used with formation plates: direct construction with spiritual power allowed for three-dimensional inscription.

When using an object to inscribe a formation, one generally worked in two dimensions, creating a flat formation on a formation plate.

But this was clearly not because formations had to be made flat. It was simply because most people were limited to that method.

Of course, that did not mean formations inscribed with the aid of an object could never be made three-dimensional. However, because of the stability required for a formation to take shape, as well as the need to preserve the connections between the formation patterns, the preparations involved, the various concepts required for three-dimensional formation inscription, and all the necessary designs were incredibly troublesome and difficult.

The difficulty was no less than—and might even exceed—that of directly practicing three-dimensional inscription without the aid of an object.

Thus, people whose cultivation was not high and whose understanding of formations was shallow generally did not attempt this method lightly.

Although Lin Xiao looked bold and confident now, he had actually equipped himself with a whole pile of life-saving talismans. He had also set up isolation barriers around the room, all to prevent a sudden massive explosion from blowing him—and the entire sect—to pieces.

Moreover, he had even had the system test the strength of those life-saving talismans and isolation barriers. The system had charged him one hundred spirit stones for the test.

After all, he had no idea how powerful the resulting blast would be if his experiment failed…

As time slowly passed, the spiritual threads emerging from Lin Xiao's hands gradually finished linking the two formations in parallel.

Looking at the two spatial formations now completely connected to each other, he gently let out a breath.

Although this was his first time actually doing it, the entire process had gone remarkably smoothly.

As expected of him.

Lin Xiao smiled silently, clearly pleased with himself.

But when he glanced up and saw the table piled high with formation plates, he sighed again.

He had merely taken the first step on what would be a long and arduous journey.

After securing the newly connected formation, he set it aside. His brief moment of happiness over, Lin Xiao picked up another two formation plates, steadied his mind, and lowered his head to begin connecting the second pair.

With his first success under his belt, the later repetitions went as smoothly as water flowing along its course. He worked far faster than he had with the first pair.

When he had finally finished all the formation plates on the table, he took another batch of identical plates from his private storehouse and once again piled them across the tabletop…

The seemingly endless workload made this night an exceptionally long one for Sect Master Lin.

At dawn the following day, just after finishing yet another group of formations—he had long since lost count—Lin Xiao took a break from his work and left the house.

It was nothing particularly important. It was simply the day after his eldest paternal cousin's wedding, and he needed to go meet his new cousin-in-law and formally acknowledge their relationship.

His father had specifically reminded him of this the previous evening.

For that reason, Lin Xiao had even prepared a gift for his new cousin-in-law.

Normally, a younger male cousin would not be expected to prepare a meeting gift for a newly married woman.

But Lin Xiao figured that, as the sect master, giving a gift was perfectly reasonable.

However, his new cousin-in-law had never had much contact with cultivators, so Lin Xiao did not immediately give her something that merely looked impressive but was useless, or something utterly outrageous by mortal standards.

Instead, he gave her a bag of pills that mortals could safely take.

To be clear, they merely strengthened the body.

He also carefully wrapped several dozen books of stories.

To be clear, they were all inspirational tales he had selected with great care—stories suitable for people who were not accustomed to reading, yet capable of broadening their horizons and strengthening their character.

However, he did not intend to give the books directly to his new cousin-in-law. They were meant for his eldest cousin, Lin Lei.

That way, if his new cousin-in-law became interested in cultivation, Lin Lei could teach her and have her read through the stories, explaining the principles within them. Perhaps this would allow her to pass through the Path of Questioning the Heart and join the sect to cultivate at an early date.

At the same time, it would give the married couple more topics to discuss.

After all, marriages in this era still involved a fair amount of parental arrangement and blind matchmaking. From the time Lin Lei and his new wife had begun discussing marriage until the wedding itself, they had not actually spent much time together.

Marriage was one thing. Falling in love at first sight was easy enough, but truly getting along after marriage was much more difficult.

Lin Xiao had never experienced it himself, but the breakdown of his parents' marriage in his previous life had given him a deep understanding of the matter.

The vast majority of broken relationships were destroyed by countless trivial details of daily life and an endless accumulation of disappointments.