Array Spirit

So those Soul-Nourishing Trees appeared to be inside the space, but in reality, they were planted in the buffer zone.

Ordinary people who entered Changming Mountain could only see the Soul-Nourishing Trees. In fact, they could not even touch them.

Of course, that was only the usual case.

As the master of a sect and the creator of Changming Mountain, how could Lin Xiao not have a way to move freely throughout Changming Mountain?

He simply had not used his privileges because he wanted to experience it from another person’s perspective.

After looking over the entirety of Changming Mountain and confirming that there were no problems with his creation, Lin Xiao withdrew.

The White Fox was still lying quietly atop the stone stele at the entrance to Changming Mountain.

Seeing that Lin Xiao seemed ready to leave, it lazily lifted its eyelids and prepared to dissolve its condensed form and return to the formation. However, Lin Xiao suddenly stopped and turned to ask:

“As Changming Mountain’s tomb guardian, you should have a proper title so that the sect’s disciples can converse with you in the future. You are Changming Mountain’s formation spirit to begin with, so from now on, you shall be called Changming. What do you think?”

Changming Mountain was not merely a spatial formation. It was an enormous and extremely complex composite formation made up of a great variety of formations.

It was different from those combination formations.

The difference was that combination formations merely placed several functional formations together so they could operate in conjunction. In essence, they were still multiple separate formations that could be dismantled at will.

Changming Mountain, on the other hand, was a single formation. Countless functional formation patterns had been painstakingly adjusted and fused together to form an indivisible whole.

The technical difficulty involved was not something that could be achieved through simple, makeshift stitching of formations.

Thus, Changming Mountain was unquestionably a formation of an exceptionally high grade.

High-grade formations generally gave birth to formation spirits that existed in symbiosis with them.

Lin Xiao had noticed this fact long ago, when he was studying formations. At the time, however, his cultivation was still low. Moreover, he was either occupied with sect affairs or busy cultivating, leaving him little time to study such skills. His attainments in formations had therefore been limited, and he had not investigated the matter in depth.

But when he decided to create Changming Mountain, this complex composite formation, he took the formation spirit into consideration as well.

After conducting extremely careful studies and research, he became certain that, given Changming Mountain’s immense scale and complexity, a formation spirit would inevitably emerge as long as the formation was completed successfully.

The only thing was that the formation spirit’s appearance and personality differed slightly from what he had designed during the formation’s creation. It had changed from the Howling Celestial Hound into a White Fox.

This was probably due to an imbalance among certain attributes in the Yin energy from the eight directions that converged when Changming Mountain’s formation was established.

However, it was no great matter. The White Fox was quite amusing as well.

The White Fox had apparently not expected to be given a name so suddenly. Its originally tranquil, emotionless expression froze for a moment.

Changming…

As Changming Mountain’s formation spirit, it had been born from this very formation. It naturally felt an innate fondness for the name.

The White Fox rose to its feet, lowered its body, and respectfully bowed its head to Lin Xiao.

“Thank you for bestowing a name upon me, Sect Master.”

Half an hour earlier, just as the formation of Changming Mountain had first been established—

Far away, within the imperial city of the capital of the Pusi Kingdom, He Yi, who had been meditating to recover his strength, suddenly furrowed his brows and opened his eyes.

He carefully sensed the surroundings for a moment before immediately raising his hand and making a pinching motion in the air. A thin, glowing talisman suddenly appeared between his fingertips.

Upon closer inspection, however, one would discover that the glowing talisman between his fingers was entirely different from ordinary talismans. It was not a talisman drawn on talisman paper!

“Go!”

The next moment, He Yi flicked his fingers, sending the talisman shooting toward a certain direction outside the room.

Anyone with extensive knowledge would have been utterly shocked to see this.

The reason was simple: this talisman had been constructed entirely from spiritual power in the blink of an eye!

At first glance, it might seem like an unnecessary act. After all, if one possessed such precise control over the spiritual power needed to construct a talisman, would it not be just as easy to cast the spell directly?

In reality, that was not the case.

To cast any spell proficiently, one had to thoroughly study and repeatedly practice using that particular spell.

There were countless spells in the world. For many cultivators who devoted themselves to cultivation, being proficient in even a few was already an impressive achievement.

But He Yi’s ability to instantly form talismans with spiritual power meant that the more types of talismans he mastered, the more spells he could use!

Since he was already an exceptionally skilled talisman master, learning many different types of talismans was far quicker than mastering just a few spells.

This meant that the methods at his disposal were practically endless!

Moreover, he possessed another advantage that could not be overlooked as a talisman master.

Talisman masters could draw high-level talismans that surpassed their own cultivation realm!

If He Yi could precisely form even high-level talismans instantaneously with his own spiritual power, then his strength could be described as formidable.

It was just that he had almost never used this technique in front of outsiders.

It was not that he deliberately concealed it.

Rather, with only a few exceptions, everyone who had seen it was already dead.

Those who were still alive had no need to make him use it.

However, he used it quite frequently when he was alone, simply to hone his technique.

That was exactly what he was doing now.

He Yi had arrived in the capital of the Pusi Kingdom only last month.

He had spent more than a year in the Land of Severed Spirits, where he had been in an environment devoid of spiritual energy for a prolonged period. This had inevitably taken a toll on him as a cultivator. Thus, the first thing he did after leaving the Land of Severed Spirits was enter seclusion to recuperate.

The same was true for the other nine people who had come from the cultivation world this time.

Unfortunately, the spiritual energy in this mortal world was simply too thin.

Although He Yi possessed a great many talismans, he did not particularly like selling them, so he did not have many spirit stones in his storage ring.

After arriving in the Pusi Kingdom, he did not hastily hand his investigative mission over to the royal family and then wait idly for the results.

Instead, he chose to first interact with the mortal royal family and learn how they operated before investigating the matter together with them.

Thus, he had spent the entire month living in the imperial city.

While He Yi was carrying out his daily meditation just now, he suddenly sensed a faint flow of Yin energy.

It seemed to be drawn by some kind of force, flowing toward a certain direction.

However, the sensation disappeared after only a short while.

An ordinary cultivator probably would not have noticed such a subtle movement of Yin energy. Even if they happened to sense it, they would most likely have dismissed it as an illusion.

But for certain reasons, He Yi’s perception of Yin energy was exceptionally keen.

He had been in the mortal world for several months. Whether in the desolate wilderness or in the various mortal cities and regions he had passed through along the way, he had never once discovered such a phenomenon.

This made He Yi feel that something was amiss.

Generally speaking, Yin energy was a natural presence between heaven and earth. Unless there was a specific reason, it would not begin flowing steadily in a fixed direction.

Unless some object was attracting it—or it was being manipulated by someone.