Chapter 1559: Virulent Poison

Chapter 1559: Virulent Poison

《Geng-Xin Metal Poison Formation》, 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》, 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》, 《Frigid Yin-Water Poison Formation》, 《Bone-Clinging Wood Poison Formation》.

Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth... all of them Third-Grade, complete across the Five Elements, rare poisonous formations.

Sitting where he was, Mo Hua went from wild ecstasy to gradual calm, until a chill finally crept into his heart, plunging him into self-doubt:

"Did I really decipher these formations myself?"

"Is my luck actually this good?"

"Did someone secretly dock my lifespan or something?"

"This doesn't make sense..."

Mo Hua didn't quite trust his own luck.

Still, what was done was done...

Hesitating for only a brief moment, greed surged frantically from his chest once more. He pointed at the eye of the Five Elements Source Rune and barked:

"Spit out the Second-Grade and Third-Grade Five Elements Absolute Formation Diagrams! Do it, or I'll mess you up again!"

Having delivered his threat, Mo Hua set to deciphering once more.

Yet this time, everything that came out was utter trash, to say nothing of Absolute Formations, there wasn't even a single Third-Grade formation.

Mo Hua reached out again and poked the eye of the Five Elements Source Rune.

"Spit it out."

Yet the Five Elements Source Rune kept its 'eye' tightly shut, utterly devoid of reaction.

Mo Hua tried deducing it for a while longer, but still came up empty-handed. He had no choice but to stop for the moment, furrowing his brow:

"Did I run out of luck?"

Having spat out five Third-Grade poison formations in a row, the Five Elements Source Rune seemed to have been completely milked dry by him. No matter how much computational power he poured into it, it would yield no more treasures.

Mo Hua felt somewhat disappointed, followed by a surge of puzzlement.

Why?

Why was the Five Elements Source Diagram, usually so stingy and tight-fisted, suddenly so generous, yielding five golden flashes back-to-back?

On top of that, they were all high-quality poison formations of the very same category.

With odds like that... one might as well leap off a cliff; they'd survive a hundred percent of the time and even stumble upon a miraculous encounter.

Could it truly be that I just got lucky?

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then shook his head. As the saying went: when things appear abnormal, demonic influences are at work.

Proficient in cause and effect, Mo Hua understood that in this world, there was no such thing as unprompted luck, nor was there unprompted misfortune.

Every turn of fortune and calamity was governed by cause and effect.

It was merely that worldly mortals lacked discernment and failed to see through it.

For him to suddenly strike such fortune, there had to be some cause and effect behind it; it could never be pure, groundless good luck.

Mo Hua pondered the matter carefully once again.

However, the origins of the Five Elements Source Rune ran extraordinarily deep; he couldn't figure out any underlying trickery for the time being.

Thus, Mo Hua set it aside for now.

Up until now, there were far too many things he couldn't fathom; one or two more wouldn't make a difference.

Compared to that, learning these five poison formations first was the real priority.

To refuse Heaven's gifts was to invite misfortune.

When meat pies fall from the sky, one ought to swallow them down first before worrying about the rest.

If something was truly amiss with this Five Elements Source Rune, he could take his time dealing with it later.

Back then, Mo Hua had been young, his cultivation shallow, and the Heavenly Secrets obscured. That was why he had been bullied for a while by this Five Elements Source Rune.

Today's Mo Hua was vastly different from the past. Should this Five Elements Source Rune dare to open its eyes again, Mo Hua could take the opportunity to see what kind of secrets were truly hidden within them.

And in passing, he could uncover why the Five Elements Sect of old had met its doom at its hands...

Having thought this through, Mo Hua dwelled no further. Lowering his head, he took out brush and paper, meticulously recording the five complete Five Elements poison formations one by one.

As Mo Hua's Divine-Sense Thoughts leaped, Spirit Ink flowed like silken threads.

Geng-Xin, Earth Miasma, Heart-Burning, Frigid Yin, and Bone-Clinging—the five-colored Five Elements poison formations sprang to life upon the paper.

These were genuine, bonafide Third-Grade Five Elements poison formations. Their Formation Patterns were distinct yet complemented one another. As the five colors swirled, merely looking upon them evoked an intricate, dazzling, phantasmal beauty.

Yet within this phantasmal beauty, there inadvertently seeped a chilling, sinister, and vicious aura.

Like an exquisitely beautiful yet fatally toxic flower.

Mo Hua was practically mesmerized as he looked at them, followed by a surge of excitement.

It had been quite some time since he had gotten his hands on new formation diagrams.

For a studious person like him, going long periods without formation diagrams to study was sheer torture; it felt as if ants were crawling all over his body.

Now, he finally had new formation diagrams in hand.

Furthermore, they were poison formations.

Poison formations were rather sinister and considered an obscure branch of formations, diverging somewhat from the framework of formations Mo Hua had previously mastered.

In terms of formation expertise, this was a fresh expansion of his horizons.

Mo Hua could not afford to practice them on paper, however.

At this very moment, he was in the Qingchou Prefecture. Resources were scarce, and many formation materials had to be conserved.

Every sheet of paper used was one fewer remaining.

Even more expensive was the ink. Not only was the Third-Grade Spirit Ink used for formal formation layout exorbitant, but even the Third-Grade ink used for practice was far from cheap.

Adhering to the principle of diligent frugality, Mo Hua sat down in meditation once more, sinking his Divine-Sense into his Sea of Consciousness to perform virtual and simulated drawing within his mind.

In the past, Mo Hua could only accomplish such a feat with the aid of the Dao Stele.

Now that his Divine-Sense had grown powerful and his attainment deepened, he could perform virtual drawing out of thin air even without the Dao Stele.

Naturally, the Formation Patterns he virtually-drew remained quite blurry, and the Divine-Sense he expended could not be recovered.

It was far inferior to practicing on the Dao Stele.

However, the Dao Stele only appeared after the midnight hour; it was not available at all times.

In the absence of the Dao Stele, Mo Hua could only strive ahead, relying on his own abilities to simulate and draw the formations.

Though the results were poor, it served well enough as a preview.

And so, using his hazy virtual drawing ability, Mo Hua previewed all the Five Elements poison formations, ensuring he had a grasp of them in his mind.

He waited all the way until the midnight hour, when the Dao Stele manifested.

Only then did Mo Hua begin his formal practice of the Five Elements poison formations upon the Dao Stele.

Having already previewed them, his mind possessed a clear structure as he drew them now, and the Formation Patterns beneath his fingertips naturally felt much more familiar.

First was what should theoretically be the simplest: the Third-Grade Low Tier, twenty-three-rune 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》.

With the lowest rune count, it ought to have been the easiest.

Yet the moment Mo Hua began drawing, he realized something was wrong.

This Fire Poison formation differed from all the fire-attributed formations he had encountered before.

All because of the two-character prefix: [Heart-Burning].

Most Fire Formations were prefixed with names like "Blazing Fire," "Earth Fire," "Fierce Fire," or "Scorching Fire."

Rarely did a Fire Formation contain the word "Heart."

Consequently, this 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》, while seemingly the simplest, appeared the most unconventional.

Mo Hua attempted it numerous times, yet without exception, every attempt failed.

With his Twenty-Nine Peak Pattern Runes Divine-Sense, to fail so many times when drawing a mere twenty-three-rune Fire Poison formation was, it had to be said, truly somewhat absurd...

Mo Hua thought it over, realizing time was pressed and that it was unwise to stubbornly fixate on a single formation. He decided to skip the 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》 for now and move on to the twenty-five-rune 《Frigid Yin-Water Poison Formation》.

To his surprise, he picked it up in just a few tries.

Though the 《Frigid Yin-Water Poison Formation》 was a tricky poison formation combining ice attribute and the power of Yin-Water, it did not transcend the framework of the Five Elements.

Given Mo Hua's comprehension of formation arts, he learned it swiftly.

At the very least, it was vastly faster than learning the 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》.

Mo Hua practiced the 《Frigid Yin-Water Poison Formation》 several more times upon the Dao Stele to consolidate it.

Afterward, he proceeded to the next one: the twenty-six-rune 《Bone-Clinging Wood Poison Formation》.

Water poison excelled in being formless and chilling, flowing through blood and lurking within marrow, harming people invisibly and eluding detection.

Wood Poison, on the other hand, excelled at being deeply entrenched. Once rooted within flesh and internal organs, it was like vegetation taking root and sprouting; so long as the poison's root was not eradicated, its toxicity would continuously regenerate.

The superficial poison on the surface was merely the branches and leaves. If the root poison was not dissolved, the superficial poison would constantly re-emerge.

Such was the nature of the 《Bone-Clinging Wood Poison Formation》.

Using the Wood of the Five Elements as its foundation, toxicity was fostered through its Formation Patterns.

Once afflicted by this Wood Poison Formation, the toxicity would cling like maggots to bone, boring deep into the marrow to grow on its own, rendering it exceedingly difficult to eradicate.

Once Mo Hua grasped the Formation Theory and practiced it over twenty times, he had the formation's details largely etched into his mind.

Practicing it a dozen more times, he fully mastered it.

So long as it was a standard Five Elements Formation that conformed to orthodox Five Elements Formation Theory, Mo Hua would never find understanding and comprehending it overly difficult.

Having mastered the twenty-five-rune 《Frigid Yin-Water Poison Formation》 and the twenty-six-rune 《Bone-Clinging Wood Poison Formation》, Mo Hua turned back to re-examine the twenty-three-rune 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》.

After studying it for a while, he found he still couldn't grasp it.

Even Mo Hua found this bizarre:

"I even learned a twenty-six-rune Wood Poison Formation..."

"How could a mere twenty-three-rune Fire Poison formation stump me?"

"There's something fishy about this formation..."

Mo Hua cast aside the 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》 once more, moving on to learn the remaining two Five Elements poison formations.

First up was the Third Grade Mid Tier, twenty-six-rune 《Geng-Xin Metal Poison Formation》.

The toxicity of this formation was different yet again.

Geng and Xin were positions among the Ten Heavenly Stems, both belonging to the Metal of the Five Elements, symbolizing swords, blades, axes, and halberds, governing slaughter and execution.

Introducing Geng-Xin Metal into poison resulted in an effect that was, simply put, agonizing—profoundly painful, enough to make one wish for death.

It was akin to chewing on swords and blades, or Xin-Metal boring into one's brain and marrow, an unbearable agony.

It felt as though tens of millions of microscopic, golden blades, invisible to the naked eye, were incessantly slicing through one's flesh.

As the blood circulated, the Geng-Xin poison would spread throughout the entire body, turning into a slowly flowing torture of lingchi (death by a thousand cuts) ravaging the internal organs.

Such was the 《Geng-Xin Metal Poison Formation》.

Merely looking upon this formation made Mo Hua's flesh tingle with numbness and his heart ache faintly.

If it were truly drawn into a formation, allowing the Geng-Xin poison to infiltrate the human body and spread everywhere, who knew how tormenting and cruel it would be...

Mo Hua inhaled a soft breath of cold air. His curiosity piqued, he began to study it with single-minded focus.

The 《Geng-Xin Metal Poison Formation》 involved the Heavenly Stems, the Five Elements, and various transformations of the Metal property. In terms of Formation Theory, it was exceedingly profound.

However, Mo Hua did not fear this sort of profoundness in Formation Theory. So long as it conformed to the standards of the Five Elements, no matter how deep it was, he could comprehend it swiftly.

The two characters Geng-Xin adhered to the Heavenly Stems, which was inherently standardized.

Though the Geng-Xin Formation Theory was difficult, it did not deviate from established bounds.

Consequently, it was not long before Mo Hua had largely mastered the 《Geng-Xin Metal Poison Formation》 as well.

Though he had only learned it within his Sea of Consciousness without applying it in practice, drawing it in reality would likely yield a nearly identical result.

At most, he would merely need to adjust and correct the Formation Patterns based on objective circumstances.

With that, the three Third-Grade Five Elements poison formations—the twenty-five-rune Frigid Yin-Water Poison Formation, the twenty-six-rune Bone-Clinging Wood Poison Formation, and the Geng-Xin Metal Poison Formation—were all completely mastered by Mo Hua.

Next, only the twenty-eight-rune 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》 and the twenty-three-rune 《Heart-Burning Fire Poison Formation》 remained.

After some thought, Mo Hua decided to learn the 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》 first.

Theoretically speaking, a twenty-eight-rune poison formation ought to be the most difficult, and this Soil Poison formation also contained the word Earth...

This caught Mo Hua's keen attention.

Upon the ethereal, profound Dao Stele, luster swirled, drifting between illusion and reality.

Mo Hua began incessantly simulating and drawing the twenty-eight-rune 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》 upon the Dao Stele.

From Formation Patterns, Formation Pivots, and Formation Eyes, to the circulation of Formation Power and the underlying Formation Theory, he investigated every aspect one by one.

Formation Patterns and Formation Pivots were matters of form, which Mo Hua comprehended very quickly.

The most crucial aspect was the Formation Theory contained beneath these formal structures; that was the condensation of the laws governing Heaven, Earth, and all creation within a formation.

And this twenty-eight-rune Soil Poison formation was related to Earth Miasma.

The so-called miasma was the corrupt Qi of the earth.

Upon the earth, dead wood, fallen leaves, withered branches, toxic weeds, demon-beasts, insect carcasses, and even human corpses... all manner of foul, impure matter, when subjected to scorching Qi, stifling heat, and stagnant rot, would release an inexhaustible vapor—and that was miasma.

Miasma itself was equivalent to poison, a poison that drifted through Heaven and Earth, flowing slowly in the state of gaseous Qi.

The 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》 essentially condensed and refined this miasma, forming a far more virulent toxicity.

This toxicity was linked to 'decay'.

The earth possessed profound virtue, bestowing vitality upon all creation and allowing all things to flourish.

Conversely, if all things withered and died, they would generate Death Qi, transforming into corrupting poison that caused living beings to rot and decay into ruin.

Such was the effect of the 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》.

Once afflicted by the Earth Miasma poison, it was like entering a barren wasteland of lethal miasma; even a living person's physical body would begin to corrupt and ulcerate.

When rotting corpses were incubated by high heat and blazing warmth, they would breed pestilence, eventually forming a plague that spread and transmitted.

Therefore, the 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》 was inherently a large-scale, plague-type, lethal formation.

Furthermore, it was likely far more terrifying than that...

Extrapolating its application through Formation Theory, Mo Hua realized that once this poison formation took shape...

The virulent poison would transform into miasma, spreading along the ground, causing person after person to rot in succession.

Rot bred pestilence, compounding poison atop poison, culminating in a plague.

The plague poison would then ride the miasma, spreading incessantly across the land; the slaughter it ultimately wrought would be nothing short of horrifying.

In a certain sense, it could even be considered a large-scale poison formation capable of destroying a city...

Even Mo Hua's expression shifted, and a chill gripped his heart as his deduction reached this point.

At first, he had merely thought that since this 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》 was a high-tier Third-Grade Twenty-Eight Runes formation, it was naturally extraordinary.

Yet he had never anticipated that this formation could truly be this vicious.

It combined the traits of earth, virulent poison, miasma, plague, rotting corpses, malaria, and more.

If used in certain remote, small Prefecture Realms where governance was chaotic, cultivation heritages were meager, and formation standards were abysmal, no one would be able to see through this 《Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation》.

By utilizing the plague poison characteristics of this miasma poison formation, choosing an appropriate location, aligning it with wind directions, and establishing linked poison formations, it was entirely possible to poison the inhabitants of an entire Prefecture Realm to death, brewing a catastrophe of the prefecture-exterminating scale...

Mo Hua's pupils trembled slightly, his brow knitting tighter and tighter as an ominous premonition stirred within his heart.

Furthermore...

The prefix of this formation was the two characters [Earth Miasma], yet it was named [Soil Poison]...

Coupled with its unique Formation Theory, Mo Hua could roughly deduce:

By definition, this Third-Grade Twenty-Eight Runes formation could be classified as a Five Elements [Soil Formation], or it could be called...

An [Earth-Ground Formation].

In other words, this was a large-scale, high-tier Third-Grade poisonous Killing Formation that possessed the dual attributes of both an [Earth-Ground Formation] and a [Soil Formation], boasting exceptionally devastating power capable of destroying a city or even exterminating a prefecture!

(End of Chapter)