The Nine Volumes of Formations
1,839 words
The journey from Winged Serpent Lake to the Blacktooth Tribe was far. Even with the Blackjaguar mounts, traveling by day and resting by night, it would take three days to arrive.
Night.
A bonfire blazed. Ji Ning and Qiuye sat by the fire, while Mowu remained watchful, ensuring no untoward beasts disturbed the young master.
“I haven’t had a chance to go through all those miscellaneous items I got from the aquatic palace,” Ji Ning suddenly thought. He had inspected the treasures and oddments from the first and second trials of the palace corridor, but after the third trial, he had obtained thousands of magic treasures and a vast quantity of other items. He had refined his treasures, fought the black-furred monster puppet, and then gone to meet the black ox. He simply hadn’t had time to examine every piece.
“Among the odds and ends from the first two trials, I found a copy of the ‘Nine Volumes of Formations,’ a secret manual on par with the ‘Dripping Sutra.’ The haul from the third trial was several times larger.” Items appeared in Ji Ning’s hand, were inspected, and then vanished. Qiuye watched by his side, curious.
After a long while…
“Another manual? ‘Song of the Breeze’?” Ji Ning flipped through it, his spirits lifting. “A sword art manual. It looks like it points straight toward a True Meaning of the Dao. On par with the ‘Dripping Sutra.’”
Ji Ning’s eye for such things was now quite sharp. Having comprehended a True Meaning himself, he could sense after a careful reading that this sword art was aimed at a ‘True Meaning of the Breeze.’ After all, all those who had died in that corridor were merely Xiantian lifeforms. How profound could their personal possessions really be?
In truth, a supreme art like ‘Song of the Breeze’ would normally not be carried on one’s person. Ji Ning, for example, never traveled with the ‘Dripping Sutra’ or the ‘Thunderfire Sword Fragments.’ This suggested that the original owners might have come from powerful, top-tier tribes where the secrecy of such techniques was not as strictly controlled.
…
The miscellaneous items from the third trial of the aquatic palace corridor were indeed far more numerous, and the treasures were of a higher grade. Ji Ning found three significant techniques. After flipping through the manuals, he began to inspect the other odds and ends that didn’t seem to be cultivation texts.
“Hm?” Ji Ning pulled out a jade carving.
It was a square block of jade, about two feet in height, with the image of a long-bearded elder carved upon it.
“No, wait!” Ji Ning’s eyes lit up, and he looked closer. A cursory glance only revealed a statue. But upon careful inspection… one could see that the square jade block was actually covered in dense, tiny script and miniature diagrams. The glyphs were those of the Grand Xia Dynasty.
The characters were extremely small. An ordinary person likely couldn’t have made them out, but Ji Ning was no ordinary person. His eyesight was extraordinary; he could spot a fly from ten li away. Naturally, he could see the dense, tiny text covering the jade.
“Remarkable.”
“There must be hundreds of thousands of words carved into this jade block. And all these countless tiny characters are arranged to form the image of a long-bearded elder.” Ji Ning was filled with wonder. He then searched for the beginning of the text, quickly finding the upper-left corner, where four characters stood alone—
“Nine Volumes of Formations!”
Ji Ning’s eyes lit up. He immediately began to read intently.
“I, Daoyan, delved into the art of formations for over eighty thousand years. By luck, I survived the last great tribulation. Nine hundred years from now, the next tribulation will come, and I fear I will not escape death this time. I cannot bear the thought of my formation insights being lost, so I have recorded these nine volumes of my formation notes here. May a destined person find them and study them with care!”
The opening passage filled Ji Ning with glee. Anyone who could live for over eighty thousand years and still face the ‘Three Calamities and Nine Tribulations’ was almost certainly a Loose Immortal. Celestial Immortal Juhua could endure for millions of years, but most Loose Immortals were not so long-lived. The Three Calamities and Nine Tribulations were relentless—disasters could be dodged, but calamities were inescapable. A great tribulation every nine hundred years, its power increasing each time, to the point where even a Celestial Immortal could not withstand the final one.
“A Loose Immortal’s legacy on formations. This is no less valuable than the ‘Lesser Thousand Sword Formation’ or the ‘Windwing Evasion.’” Ji Ning immediately grasped its value. “To have obtained such a formation legacy and then to go and challenge the aquatic palace corridor… how reckless.”
It was possible the person who originally obtained this formation manual was not skilled in formations. Formations were profound and difficult; most cultivators merely knew how to set them up without understanding the underlying principles. Ji Ning himself could execute the ‘Lesser Thousand Sword Formation’ by rote, but he didn’t truly understand its esoteric mechanics. Most cultivators would rather spend their time refining a powerful magic treasure or cultivating a mighty spell than studying the abstruse art of formations.
Given its difficulty, few chose to study it. The original owner may have been unable to comprehend it and, achieving little in his life, decided to challenge the aquatic palace corridor.
Alternatively, like Ji Ning, he might have been forcibly transported into the aquatic palace by sheer misfortune while passing by Winged Serpent Lake, and died within.
“Whatever the reason, the ‘Nine Volumes of Formations’ is mine now. I was thinking, with thousands of storage treasures, there must have been thousands who died there. Surely among them were some carrying true treasures?” Ji Ning’s mood was excellent. “I’ve finally gotten a real treasure. Let me take a good look.”
He immediately lowered his head and began to read the ‘Nine Volumes of Formations.’
Formations were the art of using everything available. In truly profound formations, even Heaven and Earth were merely components of the grand array.
“Interesting.” To most, the Nine Volumes would be dry and tedious, but Ji Ning found himself smiling. The gateway to formations tested one’s mental arithmetic; one had to be able to calculate. In his past life, Ji Ning had been exceptionally intelligent, forced by illness to be self-taught. He had learned entirely through books and the internet, his IQ far surpassing his peers, especially in the sciences. As a young child, he had amassed a vast fortune.
In this life, with the ‘Nuwa Diagram’ granting him a Divided Mind, his mental faculties were even sharper and more agile!
His education from Earth, though that world was merely one of countless minor worlds, had given him a way of thinking that far surpassed this one. The Yan Mountains were still in a tribal era; even a clansman of the Ji clan was merely literate. Ordinary tribesmen were completely illiterate.
At this level of education, everyone was utterly lost when it came to studying formations.
It could be said that any talented student from a science-oriented program on Earth, while not guaranteed to become a formation master, would at least have the foundational aptitude for it.
…
His past life gave him a mindset—the software. This life gave him an incredibly powerful soul—the hardware.
Thus, he had a perfect foundation for learning formations!
“So that’s how it works.” Ji Ning would occasionally smile as he read. “A formation like the ‘Yin-Yang Dual Qi Formation’ is truly crude. It merely channels the power of Heaven and Earth, with no subtlety at all.”
The more he read, the more delighted he became.
But gradually, his smile faded. Now and then, he would frown in concentration, or stare blankly with a dumbstruck expression.
“I can’t afford to underestimate formations,” Ji Ning nodded to himself. “The art of formations is as vast as a sea of smoke. I’ve only just begun, and I’ve already grasped the basics. But as soon as it gets slightly profound, I’m completely lost. Still, even if most people in this boundless world are dull-witted, there are bound to be geniuses. Once they dedicate a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years to study, they can far surpass anything from Earth.”
“Young master, dawn is breaking. We should set out,” Qiuye suddenly called out.
“Ah.” Ji Ning looked up, startled to see that the sky had already grown light.
The art of formations was vast beyond measure. Fully comprehending the first volume of the ‘Nine Volumes of Formations’ would make one a master of formations. Unfortunately, Ji Ning hadn’t even managed to master the first volume. This humbled him, stripping away his prior arrogance and making him more studious.
“Studying formations will give me another tool in my arsenal.”
“When I execute the ‘Lesser Thousand Sword Formation,’ I can be more flexible, not so rigid and mechanical.” Though Ji Ning was still a novice at formations, he had already grasped the core principle: leading. Instead of stupidly trying to divide his attention to control several hundred flying swords, carefully guiding each one… that was a tremendous drain on his mental energy.
It was only because his soul was so powerful that he could easily execute the fourth layer of the ‘Lesser Thousand Sword Formation.’
A true formation master could simply lead a few key flying swords, which would then guide the rest. This would drastically reduce the burden on the soul and allow him to unleash the formation’s full power.
…
“Young master, the Blacktooth Tribe is just ahead,” Qiuye called out.
Ji Ning stopped his contemplation of formations and looked up. In the distance, he could see sentries on the palisades of the Blacktooth Tribe watching them.
“It’s the young master of the Ji clan.”
“Quickly, report to the chieftain!”
The tribesmen of the Blacktooth Tribe had seen Ji Ning once before. This time, it was again three riders on three Blackjaguars. They recognized him quickly.
By the time Ji Ning and his party arrived at the tribe’s gates, Blacktooth had already come out to greet them.
“I pay my respects to the young master.” Blacktooth knelt, and a large crowd of tribesmen behind him knelt as well.
“Mm.” Ji Ning nodded. “Take me to Chuncao.”
“Yes.” Blacktooth immediately complied. The only connection between the Blacktooth Tribe and Ji Ning was Chuncao.
Ji Ning’s gaze suddenly swept across the crowd and fell upon a thin, sickly-looking child standing behind Blacktooth. The child’s face bore a striking resemblance to Chuncao’s. Ji Ning remembered seeing this child on his last visit. He spoke: “What is your name?”
The child was stunned.
Blacktooth followed Ji Ning’s gaze and saw his son standing beside him. He quickly said, “Answer the young master!”
The child stammered, “I… I am called Qingshi!”