After Mo Hua returned home, he had dinner with his parents, and then asked his mother to prepare some sauce beef, snacks, and sweet wine. After that, he locked himself in his room, focusing on figuring out how to break the formation.
First, he drew a fire-type formation on paper. After completing the formation, it appeared in a faint red color, giving off a slight warmth.
Following the instructions from the book, Mo Hua drew a water-type formation adjacent to the fire formation.
After finishing, the red color of the fire formation gradually dimmed, and the faint red aura disappeared. When he touched it with his hand, he no longer felt the slight warmth.
This meant that the fire formation had failed.
Mo Hua's spirits lifted, and he proceeded to try several other elemental formations one by one. Indeed, using the principle of mutual generation and restraint among the five elements, he could break the formations with formations.
Next was the formation itself. Mo Hua spent some time drawing a Minghuo Formation.
The Minghuo Formation consisted of three formations, the simplest type of formation.
When Mo Hua first copied the formation for Mo Ganshi, the first one he drew was also the Minghuo Formation. Now, drawing this formation again required no effort at all.
With the technique of brewing tea, a neatly drawn Minghuo Formation was outlined on the paper.
Mo Hua looked at the Minghuo Formation and pondered.
When Mo Hua drew the Minghuo Formation before, he merely copied the design without much research. Now, carefully reviewing it, he discovered that within the seemingly simple Minghuo Formation, one formation was indeed used to gather spirits, while the other two formations were ordinary fire-type formations used to activate the lighting of the formation.
Mo Hua checked each according to what Bai Zisheng had said.
The Spirit Gathering formation pattern is the eye of the formation, and the Three Talents orientation is the center of the formation. The paper used for drawing the formation is the medium of the formation.
Mo Hua tore a gap in the formation paper, and the formation on the paper became ineffective. Mo Hua drew the Minghuo Formation again, and then changed the Spirit Gathering formation pattern as the eye, and the Minghuo Formation was also invalidated.
"This is the so-called, 'damage the medium, destroy the formation'..."
"This method is... simple and rude. Even if you don't understand the formation, you can forcibly break the formation... Well, if you don't understand the formation, you can only use this method to forcibly break the formation."
"So what is the mystery of the sea in my sea of knowledge as the eye and medium of the formation?"
"The spiritual power in the formation comes from the eyes of the formation, so the atmosphere is the eye, the mystery of the sea is stored in the sea of knowledge, so the sea is the medium?"
"If you want to break the formation, it is to abandon the sea of knowledge and then destroy your own sea of knowledge?!"
Mo Hua sweated instantly.
"Or forget it..."
This kind of thing is too simple and crude, lacking the cultivation of the formation division, and does not reflect the level of the formation division.
Mo Hua dismissed distractions and drew the Minghuo Formation again, and then drew a water formation next to one of the fire-type formations.
After the formation was completed, the brilliance of the Minghuo Formation dimmed a bit.
The formation was broken, but it was not completely effective.
Mo Hua drew another water formation next to the previous formation, and the brilliance of the Minghuo Formation disappeared instantly, and the entire formation was also abolished.
"It's solved!"
Mo Hua was a little excited. Immediately afterwards, he pondered again: "To break the fire-type formation, you need to untie two paths. Is it only necessary to solve one of the eyes of the Spirit Gathering formation?"
"The five-element formation can be solved by the mutual generation and restraint between the five-element formations. What kind of formation should be used to solve the Spirit Gathering formation? There should be no relationship between the formation of the spirit and the formation of the spirit..."
Mo Hua began to look for the formation book Mr. Zhuang gave him, and finally found a page, with annotations on how to break the Spirit Gathering formation.
The Spirit Gathering formation gathers spiritual power, while the reverse spirit formation causes spiritual power to reverse and disperse. One gathers, the other disperses, naturally adhering to the principles of generation and restraint. However, Mo Hua had never studied the reverse spirit formation. Searching through related literature yielded no diagrams, only textual records.
The records stated that the reverse spirit formation is a profound formation, often passed down within skilled families and clans proficient in formations, rarely shared outside.
Profound formations are difficult to learn and often inaccessible.
Mo Hua temporarily set this aside.
In addition, there was another method: using a Spirit Gathering formation to break another Spirit Gathering formation. By drawing another Spirit Gathering formation near it, the second formation absorbs the spiritual power from the Spirit Gathering formation serving as the eye, thereby causing the eye to lose its power and effectively disarming the formation.
Mo Hua was enlightened. He had never thought of using a Spirit Gathering formation to break another Spirit Gathering formation before.
However, it was also mentioned that this method could lead to problems. The Spirit Gathering formation used to break formations might accumulate too much spiritual power, unable to release it, causing the formation to lose control and pose unpredictable dangers.
Moreover, if Mo Hua's conjecture was correct, the eye of the puzzle formation in his sea of knowledge was actually his own Qi Sea. Whether absorbing the Qi Sea with another Qi Sea or carving a reverse spirit formation into it to disperse spiritual power, both sounded like self-destructive methods.
Furthermore, these methods were simply impractical.
In other words, currently, breaking the formation by removing the eye was not feasible.
Mo Hua pondered with his chin in his hand:
"Then I can only learn to break each formation one by one. Indeed, in the end, the only shortcut is that there is no shortcut. The cultivation world has flourished for tens of thousands of years, and there are not many loopholes to exploit."
Mo Hua drew another Minghuo Formation, then went through the entire process again. Suddenly realizing that his method was too wasteful of ink and paper—drawing and breaking each time—if he made a mistake, he would have to redraw it. It consumed more ink and paper than practicing formation techniques.
The issue of spirit stones remained severe. Despite the improved income from the restaurant, general expenses didn't cause a particular shortage of spirit stones, but saving where possible was wise, considering future needs.
"The stone tablet in my sea of knowledge, used for practicing formation breaking, should be just right..."
With this in mind, Mo Hua sank his consciousness into his sea of knowledge.
In the vast and empty sea of knowledge, the puzzle formation woven with spiritual power threads remained, and the stone tablet also stayed in the sea of knowledge, seemingly unaffected by the threads of spiritual power.
Mo Hua deftly drew a Minghuo Formation on the stone tablet, then tried to break it. After successfully breaking it, the brilliance of the Minghuo Formation indeed dimmed.
Mo Hua wiped away the formation and its breaking patterns, and his consumed consciousness fully recovered.
"As expected!"
Mo Hua was delighted. This stone tablet was not only suitable for practicing formation techniques but also perfect for practicing formation breaking.
Drawing and wiping away formations on the stone tablet did not consume consciousness, nor did it waste ink and paper.
Mo Hua focused on practicing formation breaking in his sea of knowledge until dawn, then withdrew from his sea of knowledge, closed his eyes and meditated for an hour, feeling refreshed.
Mo Shan and Liu Ruhua also woke up early. Mo Shan was going to hunt demons in the Black Mountain, and Liu Ruhua was preparing for the restaurant business.
After a simple and warm breakfast, Mo Hua carried his food box and headed to Mr. Zhuang's place.
(End of this chapter)