Chapter 21: The Mysterious Senior Beneath the Lake

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: The Mysterious Senior Beneath the Lake

Ye Xuan wasn’t in a hurry. He took his time understanding the capabilities of the Flying Sword Technique.

During his first attempt, he had successfully taken flight and moved freely through the air.

However, for his next attempts, he practiced maneuvering between the trees.

It took him about five days, with plenty of failures and collisions, before Ye Xuan finally learned how to fly between the trees.

As it turned out, there was only one key to mastering the technique: focus on what lay ahead and synchronize his mental instincts with his body.

He flew high into the sky above the island and looked down, carefully observing the land below. He had already used all five islands as training grounds.

Now it was time for Ye Xuan to leave and travel somewhere else using his flying sword, with Qingyu still wrapped around his neck.

"Where should I go now?" Ye Xuan asked, feeling uncertain.

[With your current abilities, you should go to a city and start learning formation techniques and arrays.]

"Formations?"

[Yes. I’m sure those skills will be very useful to you in the future, especially since people who understand formations are quite rare.]

Ye Xuan had to admit that, during his training and cultivation at the Sky Cloud Sect, formation studies had been one of the most difficult subjects to learn.

Aside from having to understand various rune characters and their patterns, mastering formations required a high level of concentration and precision.

Even the slightest mistake in a rune character or its pattern could prevent a formation from being constructed properly.

Ye Xuan decided to fly forward, leaving the five islands behind. As he flew at a leisurely pace, he took out the map from his bag of holding and unfolded it.

His business at the lake was finished, and so was his time in the Scarlet Moon Forest. Now, his goal was to learn the art of formations and arrays.

"I could return to the sect and study there. They have plenty of basic formation scrolls that I could learn from."

"Should I go back?" Ye Xuan asked, glancing at Qingyu.

[It’s still too early for you to return. I think learning outside the sect would be much more effective because you could develop your own understanding of formation techniques.]

[You should return only when the time is right.]

Ye Xuan fell silent for a moment, continuing to look at Qingyu. He disagreed with her to some extent.

To gain a deeper understanding of formations, he needed a proper learning environment and guidance from a teacher who was competent in the field.

At the moment, he only knew the basics of formations and arrays. If Ye Xuan decided to travel around and figure everything out on his own, it would be difficult and consume a great deal of time.

"I think I’ll just return to the sect. They can teach me a lot about formations and arrays."

Qingyu remained silent, offering no response beyond her usual hissing. Ye Xuan put his map back into his bag of holding and continued flying away.

"Junior!"

Ye Xuan’s flying sword came to a stop when he faintly heard a mysterious voice from behind him.

The young man immediately turned around and looked toward the five islands in the middle of the lake.

His eyes couldn’t detect any cultivator’s qi aura coming from the islands. Instead, he sensed a strange flow of spiritual qi rising from the bottom of the lake, something he hadn’t noticed before.

"Can you see that spiritual qi, Qingyu?"

[I can see it now. It wasn’t there before.]

Ye Xuan froze in midair for a moment before flying back. He clasped his hands together and bowed toward whoever had called out to him.

"Greetings, Senior."

"This junior apologizes if my presence has made Senior uncomfortable," Ye Xuan said softly.

At first, there was no response. However, not long afterward, the faint voice that had called out to Ye Xuan spoke again, this time much more clearly.

"I can sense it... The Primordial Beast Soul-Binding Seal."

"Life and death. The sword. The laws of nature. The primordial power of the heavens."

[H-How does he know?]

Ye Xuan glanced at Qingyu and saw that she was visibly startled. Even her voice sounded somewhat louder, despite the fact that she was communicating through telepathy.

Such a simple reaction was enough to prove that the senior had some connection to the seal restricting Qingyu’s power.

The young man narrowed his eyes and looked ahead again. "Was Senior the one who placed that seal on her? If so, may this junior ask Senior to remove it?"

"HAHAHA!"

"I have no connection whatsoever with the Dao Sword Sect," the mysterious man replied without revealing his true form.

"You don’t need to worry. You and I share the same enemy."

The Dao Sword Sect? So they’re the ones who placed that seal on Qingyu’s power.

I mustn’t act recklessly. The Dao Sword Sect is one of the pillars of Taoist cultivation sects on the Shattered Cloud Star.

Qingyu turned to look at Ye Xuan and gave a brief nod, as though trying to tell him something.

The young man quickly understood. Although he had no idea how powerful the mysterious person was, the man had made it clear that there was no history of hostility between them.

Therefore, Ye Xuan decided not to ignore him, even though he still couldn’t determine the extent of the man’s power.

"This junior heard Senior calling out to me earlier. May I ask what business Senior has with me?"

Silence filled the air. It seemed there would be no response to Ye Xuan’s question.

However, a few seconds later, currents of wind rose from all four directions around the lake, converging above the cluster of islands.

Streams of water began to gather and form a watery shell. Suddenly, the shell burst apart, revealing the figure of a man formed from water-element spiritual qi.

Even so, Ye Xuan could clearly sense that the man’s power was far greater than his own. However, his manifested body had yet to fully transform into a complete human form.

Ye Xuan instinctively clasped his hands together and bowed.

"This junior pays his respects to the Senior!"

"There’s no need to be so formal. I owe you a favor, Junior," the man explained as he appeared to walk through the sky.

"Thanks to the traces of qi essence you released, I was able to awaken my soul consciousness."

Traces of qi essence? Could the spiritual qi from my spirit stones have helped restore his soul?

"So, what do you say? Are you willing to help me?" the man asked.

"Help you with what?" Ye Xuan replied.

"Help me gather as much water-element essence as possible so that I can recover. If you succeed, I’ll reward you."

"You want to learn formations and arrays, don’t you?"

Ye Xuan fell silent for a moment. He glanced at Qingyu before looking back at the man.

"How am I supposed to know whether you’re an expert in formations?"

The man smiled, then raised his hand and carved something into the air right in front of his face. Ye Xuan watched closely, immediately recognizing what he was doing.

"The Ancient Rune Formation Technique?!"

The man pressed the ancient rune and activated it. A blue formation appeared across the entire surface of the lake, emitting a dazzling light.

It was a formation designed to create a misty illusionary dimension capable of trapping anyone who entered it.

This formation... It’s even more powerful than the formations used by the elders of the Formation and Array Hall.

Should I trust him? He doesn’t seem dangerous.

[He knows something about my Primordial Beast Soul-Binding Seal. It seems he’s no ordinary person.]

[If he’s truly a good person, then you’re lucky. If not, you’re in serious trouble.]

[You must be careful. I can’t protect you if you end up fighting him.]

I understand.

The man waved his hand and deactivated the misty illusionary dimension formation, restoring the surrounding environment to its original state. Ye Xuan continued watching him closely.

"Well? Are you interested?" the man asked.

"If you learn formations from me, you might be able to weaken the seal on your snake."

Ye Xuan clasped his hands together and bowed.

"What if we establish an agreement through a soul blood oath, Senior?"

"HAHAHA!" the man burst into laughter.

"You’re a very cautious young man. That’s good! A true cultivator should always be like that."

The man agreed to Ye Xuan’s proposal to establish a soul blood oath.

The terms of their agreement were simple: breaking the soul blood oath would result in the destruction of the oath-breaker’s soul blood.

With this arrangement, Ye Xuan wouldn’t be able to kill the man, and the man wouldn’t be able to kill Ye Xuan either.

Ye Xuan clasped his hands together and bowed once more.

"Please guide me, Senior."