When Melkor looked for qi cultivation methods that he could use to complement his existing job as a mech commander, he sought for an alternative that did not have the intellectual requirements of a formation master.
This was the main reason why he was still reluctant to commit to this path.
While he had already exchanged a hefty sum of merits to gain access to the manual of the Combat Spell Array Master Cultivation Method, he became intimidated by the fact that he still could not escape the necessity of spending lots of time on book learning if he wanted to reach the advanced stages.
The further he progressed as a formation master, the more essential higher math and comprehension became!
If he did not make enough progress in these essential areas, his qi cultivation would eventually hit a bottleneck and slow his growth to a crawl.
