Chapter 1567: Slicing and Poison

Chapter 1567: Slicing and Poison

"If someone truly wishes to feed tens of millions of starving refugees in these war-torn years of the Great Wilderness, I'm afraid only the true 'Tongxian' cult descending to the mortal world, possessing the divine arts to reach the immortals, could possibly achieve it..."

Bai XiaoSheng muttered silently to himself.

Yet matters had reached the point where they were riding a tiger and could not dismount; he could only let Mo Hua toss and turn as he pleased.

Young people only acted with the passing fervor of three sticks of incense. In an endeavor like this that brought him zero benefit, Mo Hua would likely find it too troublesome as time wore on and give up on his own.

Or perhaps, once the situation proved too dire and the obstacles too immense, he would naturally know to retreat in the face of hardship.

Bai XiaoSheng simply did not believe this boy Mo Hua actually intended to waste his entire life in Qingchou Prefecture.

Could he afford not to cultivate, not to seek fortunate encounters, and not to break through his realms?

Once Qingchou Prefecture turned into a quagmire, dragging all manner of people and affairs into its vortex, Mo Hua himself likely wouldn't be able to hold out and would want to extricate himself.

Gu Changhuai also realized the situation was arduous beyond measure, yet could not bear to put pressure on Mo Hua, only letting out a soft sigh in his heart.

Among those present, even Great General Chang, who held a blind faith in Esteemed Master Mo, felt anxiety burning through his heart as he looked upon the boundless, devastated, blood-stained earth before his eyes.

He had no idea what Esteemed Master Mo planned to do, nor did he know what fate awaited the common people of Qingchou and the subjects of Changshan...

...

Regardless of what others thought, Mo Hua had already set to work according to his own will.

To solve the problem of clothing and feeding the tens of millions of living souls in Qingchou Prefecture, he first had to solve the problem of planting Spiritual Grain.

And to solve the problem of spiritual plants, he inevitably had to resolve the issue of Rotten Soil first.

For the next ten days or so, Mo Hua traveled across various regions of Qingchou Prefecture, conducting visits, investigations, and taking samples with jade bottles.

He gathered representative samples of the most severely polluted, deeply decayed, and virulent soil and water from across the region to bring back and test for toxicity.

Three days later.

Qingchou Prefecture, the former Qingchou Dao Court Division Office.

This Qingchou Division Office had been seized by the Green-Faced Multitude during the riots.

Most of the Qingchou Archive Officers and Executive Officers had been slaughtered, while the rest had fled to parts unknown.

Now that the Green-Faced Multitude had been swallowed whole by the Changshan Army, this Office naturally fell into the hands of Esteemed Master Mo Hua.

In the name of the Esteemed Master, Mo Hua occupied the Office and had Gu Changhuai along with the cohort of Dao Court Executive Officers move in, restoring the administrative framework to handle official business.

Thus, a group of Dao Court Archive and Executive Officers who had originally arrived to suppress the riots were now, under the identity of senior members of the rioting mob, officially conducting business within the Qingchou Office.

Gu Changhuai felt a sense of utter discordance in his heart, yet could not pinpoint where the discord lay.

Meanwhile, inside the Qingchou Division Office.

Within a sealed alchemy chamber.

Using his Divine-Sense, Mo Hua was operating a worn-out Spiritual-Light Lens to analyze the decayed soil and water.

Qingchou Prefecture was a land of spiritual plants, where the common folk made their living through spirit farming. Consequently, most of the affairs the Dao Court Division had to handle pertained to spiritual plants.

Therefore, the Qingchou Office possessed dedicated offices, staff, cultivators, and apparatus specifically meant for researching spiritual plant crops and analyzing soil and water compositions.

This also involved sectioning.

However, Advanced Sectioning involved cutting the flesh and blood of living humans, demons, and beasts, using more precious Spiritual-Light Glazed Lenses to analyze light transmission through flesh and study spiritual nature and qi properties.

This was an advanced discipline within the Dao of Alchemy and medical arts.

Lacking attainments in this field, Mo Hua could only perform Basic Sectioning.

He sliced sections of soil, water sources, and withered spiritual plants to carry out simple comparisons of their constituents.

Originally, such tasks were meant to be analyzed and tested by specialized alchemists or official Executive Officers on the payroll.

Yet the Executive Officers within Qingchou City were practically all dead, and none knew if any remained alive.

Neither Bai XiaoSheng nor Gu Changhuai was skilled in such matters.

Most of the Changshan Army were spirit farmers who had never dabbled in the knowledge of sectioning.

Moreover, the nature of the Rotten Soil issue within Qingchou City was rather peculiar.

Thus, after mulling it over, Mo Hua concluded he could only step up himself.

For an entire day, Mo Hua shut himself in the dark chamber. Using the Spiritual-Light Lens, he magnified the samples of Rotten Soil, bloody water, and withered spiritual plants one by one, inspecting their minute details through spiritual light.

He observed them again and again until his eyes grew sore, yet still failed to discern anything.

Different professions were separated as if by mountains.

Mo Hua had never possessed any profound understanding of the Dao of Alchemy, let alone such advanced knowledge of sectioning.

Sectioning was exceptionally difficult to learn.

To date, the most formidable person at sectioning Mo Hua knew of was likely True Person Rong.

True Person Rong was so terrifyingly skilled at sectioning that… she would even dare to slice up her own flesh and blood…

Next was Little Senior Sister... Having studied the Dao of Alchemy and medicine under True Person Rong, she was likely proficient in certain sectioning techniques as well.

Though he had never personally seen Little Senior Sister slice people, she was bound to be clear on the relevant cultivation theories. If Little Senior Sister were here...

Mo Hua suddenly froze.

That figure—radiant as snow, cool and aloof as the moon, gentle and beautiful as fine jade—flashed across his mind, leaving a faint, inexplicable ache in his heart.

Shaking his head, Mo Hua cleared his thoughts and anchored his attention on the present.

He was so far from Houtu City now; seeking help from True Person Rong was out of the question.

Besides, whether he would ever return to Houtu City, return to Little Luan Mountain, and see True Person Rong again in this lifetime was uncertain...

The days and nights spent on Little Luan Mountain flashed faintly in Mo Hua's mind, like a fleeting dream. When the dream ended, it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't.

With no one to help him now, he could only resolve it himself.

Learning anything could not be achieved overnight; it always required a gradual process—from the unknown to the known, from nothing to something, progressing step by step.

What was more, he didn't truly need to study sectioning to an exhaustive depth.

A rushed cram session to grasp some superficial basics would suffice, so long as he could analyze the problem behind the Rotten Soil.

Patiently settling himself once more, Mo Hua continued using the Spiritual-Light Lens to peer into the sections of Rotten Soil, bloody water, and dead withered seedlings, constantly reflecting and summarizing his findings.

He possessed exceptional comprehension and sharp perception to begin with. Having observed enough, he gradually developed some insights.

One of the key points of sectioning lay in observing the imagery within the Spiritual-Light Lens.

The image projection of the Spiritual-Light Lens differed greatly from the illumination of objects by Divine-Sense.

What Divine-Sense perceived was an abstract spiritual outline that remained after stripping away the outward appearance of things.

The Spiritual-Light Lens, on the other hand, purely magnified visual scale, allowing one to observe the most minute state of existence of Dao Art matters upon their physical surfaces.

Divine-Sense peers into formless manifestations.

The Spirit Mirror beholds the microscopic realm of forms.

Pondering this, Mo Hua understood. He gradually grasped the knack of it, developing a fundamental understanding of how to control the Spiritual-Light Lens.

It was just that the imagery inside the Spiritual-Light Lens remained somewhat blurry.

Although the Qingchou Dao Court Division Office was a Third-Grade Office, its financial resources were limited.

Consequently, this Spiritual-Light Lens procured by the Office was rather old. During the riots, it had been fought over by ignorant rioters and sustained damage, leaving its projected image somewhat indistinct.

Mo Hua estimated that the internal Spiritual-Light Formation used for image projection was slightly damaged.

Mo Hua had never seen this Spiritual-Light Formation before and was immensely curious.

He was itching to dismantle the Spiritual-Light Lens to study it thoroughly.

However, this was a Precision Spirit Tool. Mo Hua did not understand its underlying principles; if his hands grew restless and he took it apart only to find himself unable to restore it, that would be terribly awkward.

Fortunately, though old, damaged, and blurry, the lens could still serve in a pinch.

Once he found a better Spiritual-Light Lens in the future, he could dismantle this old one for research and acquire the formation.

Mo Hua silently plotted in his heart.

Afterward, Mo Hua remained focused, proceeding with his sectioning research.

Having spent an ample amount of time and undergone a certain quantity of practice, Mo Hua truly managed to discover some clues.

From the scorched water, earth, and rotting sprouts across Qingchou's thousands of miles, he analyzed certain pale-yellow manifestations of toxicity.

Mo Hua found it hard to describe what this poison was...

It somewhat resembled microscopic worms imperceptible to the naked eye, slowly wriggling.

One could also say it resembled 'Qi' in an infinitesimally minute state that possessed a degree of vitality, swimming through the soil, water, and spiritual plants like mayflies.

Yet it could roughly be determined that this was likely the true culprit behind the rotting of Qingchou's lands, the rampant famine disaster, and the corpses of the starved littering the fields.

In a sense, this could be termed a kind of Poison.

Except this Poison was shaped like microscopic worms yet transparent as qi, suspended between physical matter seen by the naked eye and Divine Sense Thought Power sensed by Divine-Sense.

Ordinary cultivators truly had no way of detecting it.

Because it was too minute, eyes of flesh and blood could not capture its form.

And because it did not belong to Divine Sense Thought Power, Divine-Sense could not sense it either.

It neatly exploited a loophole between the formed and the formless.

Even the native Late Golden Core Stage Great General Chang, the well-traveled Bai XiaoSheng from a Sixth-Grade great clan, the experienced Dao Court Archive Officer Gu Changhuai, or any other seasoned Golden Core Cultivators would find it difficult to spot the foul play at first glance.

Perhaps subconsciously, they might sense something was amiss.

Yet their eyes could not see it, and their Divine-Sense could not perceive it; lacking this layer of awareness, they would never think in the direction of poison.

Moreover, the riots of the refugees and their rebellion against the Dao Court were matters of paramount importance, tugging at the nerves of cultivators from all sides.

No one would divert their attention to research this formless, minute poison.

Yet if the day came when the poison truly erupted, causing the entire land to rot away and reducing everyone upon it into putrid venom alongside the earth...

Only then, perhaps, would someone realize the problem in hindsight...

Mo Hua's brow furrowed slightly.

Thus far, he could fundamentally determine that this should be some sort of toxin akin to microscopic worms or refined qi.

However, a deeper dissection and identification of the toxicity was beyond his current capabilities.

He was merely a half-baked novice after all, having only just learned sectioning.

Yet Mo Hua could cheat.

In essence, his sectioning this time was not an exploratory study built from nothing; on the contrary, a large portion of it was verification.

Verifying the answer he had previously arrived at through drawing analogies from his understanding of formation theory.

He had come to solve the problem while already holding the answer.

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then retrieved a bottle of Third-Grade Earth-attribute Spirit Ink and a bag of yellow soil from the storage bag at his side.

This Third-Grade Spirit Ink had been found by Mo Hua in the treasury of the Green-Faced Multitude, in exceedingly small quantities.

Mo Hua had requested it from Great General Chang to conduct formation experiments.

He first diluted the Spirit Ink by half, then drew a Third-Grade Twenty-Eight Runes Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation upon a Foundation Stone.

Once drawn, he activated the formation to generate the poison of earth miasma, merging it with the clean yellow soil. After half a day of fermentation, it produced a small clump of poison soil possessing the power of Third-Grade earth miasma.

This clump of poison soil was violently toxic and highly contagious, a highly composite soil poison derived from a Third-Grade formation.

Were it to leak out, even a single speck of dirt could claim countless lives.

Thus, Mo Hua was exceedingly cautious as he stored the poison soil into a jade bottle, sealing it tightly with a formation.

Taking only a tiny fragment the size of a sesame seed, he placed it under the Spiritual-Light Lens for observation.

Within the lens, swimming inside that sesame-sized soil poison, there were indeed microscopic worms resembling gaseous mayflies.

Mo Hua compared the mayfly-like microscopic worms spawned by the [Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation] with the toxin microscopic worms from Qingchou's Rotten Soil.

The appearances of the two microscopic worms were not entirely identical, and their colors varied in depth.

However, their fundamental morphological traits and the circulation pathways of their internal refined qi were remarkably similar.

Both of their colors also leaned toward the color of earth.

This meant the two types of microscopic worms shared the same origin, possessing similar toxicity and vitality.

It was highly likely they had been created using the same category of cultivation techniques.

One of them was a poisonous qi micro-worm created by Mo Hua using the Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation.

Then the other—the worm from Qingchou's Rotten Soil—would largely be no different; it was very likely a creation of a formation.

In terms of formation theory, this was entirely consistent.

Many complex formations were difficult to learn and had circulated for ages. Passed down through different sects and modified by different cultivators, discrepancies would emerge across many details, giving rise to distinct schools of formation diagrams.

A poison formation from the Five Elements Sect and a poison formation from another sect—even if based on the exact same formation diagram—would undoubtedly exhibit differences in practical application once handed down.

Because everything tangible, everything on the level of [Form], would change and manifest differences.

Yet such differences did not affect the [Laws] and principles of the formation itself.

At this point, Mo Hua could fundamentally conclude:

The root of the catastrophe in Qingchou Prefecture thus far was undeniably a poison-type Rotten Soil formation.

Even if this Rotten Soil Poison Formation did not share the exact name and rune-patterns with the Five Elements Sect's Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation, they were definitely of the same root and origin.

It was a large-scale poison formation that merged the putrid poison of earth miasma with the soil poison of Five Elements Earth into a single entity, possessing functions of decay, infection, transmission, microscopic form, and more.

Mo Hua even felt the formation might not stop at just this.

This Rotten Soil Poison Formation very likely harbored even more terrifying, sinister lethality of an unknown form.

Judging from the current sections of the microscopic worms, the toxicity of this Rotten Soil was considerably weaker than the poison he had cultivated using the Earth Miasma Soil Poison Formation.

However, what he had cultivated was the first generation of prime poison.

This Rotten Soil poison, on the other hand, had been transmitted through who knew how many cycles; its toxicity had been heavily diluted, and its vitality was lacking.

This small place known as Qingchou Prefecture was very likely merely a beginning.

The Rotten Soil Poison Formation was still in its incubation period, its toxicity hidden in the formless realm, unknown to men, yet to reveal even more brutal omens.

Yet once the poison of the Rotten Soil truly erupted hereafter, what terrifying effects it would unleash remained completely unknown...

...

Such omens of poison were imperceptibly minute, and such formation theories were obscure and difficult to comprehend.

Had Mo Hua not been an outright monster when it came to formations, and had he not happened to learn the profound Five Elements Poison Formation, it would have been near impossible for him to realize the mysteries hidden within.

What was even more troublesome was that Mo Hua had merely researched it out.

Meanwhile, someone else had long since laid out this poison formation and secretly begun spreading it...

"The attainments in formations of the person who laid this poison formation seem to be even greater than mine..."

Mo Hua's brow knitted tightly.

"Just which Formation Master's handiwork could this be..."

"To commit such an utterly devoid of conscience, wicked to the core, cursed-to-have-no-descendants, venomous deed?"

"Could this person... be someone I've crossed paths with before?"

Mo Hua racked his brains for a long time, yielding no clues.

Nor could he easily divine it.

A figure capable of deploying such poison formation methods could not possibly be low in cultivation realm, formation attainments, or scheming intellect.

The only thing low about him was likely his moral standard.

Such a character would not be easy to deal with. Blindly deducing his cause and effect would surely alert the enemy, stirring up unnecessary complications.

Taking advantage of the window before the other side noticed, wouldn't it be better to secretly... find a way to break this poison formation first?

Mo Hua was skilled at construction. When it came to destruction, however, that was where he truly excelled.

"The problem is, if this Rotten Soil poison truly originates from a specific formation, where would that formation be laid?"

Mo Hua's eyes flickered, his Sea of Consciousness retracing his steps.

Along this journey, having experienced saving lives, providing disaster relief, quelling chaos, and surveying the land... through all these endeavors...

Mo Hua's footprints had already traversed the greater part of Qingchou Prefecture's lands.

Yet in his memory, he had never sensed the presence of any special formation anywhere.

"Did I guess wrong... A formation isn't the source of Qingchou's disaster?"

"Or could it be that the method used to lay this formation surpasses my understanding of formations once again?"

Mo Hua pondered for a long time, doubts rising in his heart. He felt he could not simply sit and wait for disaster.

He still had to walk the actual grounds to see if he could find a breakthrough clue...

...

Two days later.

North of Qingchou City, upon a certain patch of black earth.

This earth was not genuinely black soil; rather, the blood-red hue was so deep that after decaying alongside various unknown flesh and soil, it had darkened to the point of turning black.

At the same time, this was the most heavily polluted and intensely toxic land within a hundred miles.

Upon this land stained as dark as ink, Mo Hua walked back and forth, treading over it numerous times.

Bai XiaoSheng followed behind Mo Hua like an annoying tail.

It couldn't be helped; who told him to be Esteemed Master Mo's protector?

Yet after pacing back and forth for who knew how many rounds, Bai XiaoSheng finally lost his patience and asked:

"Mo... Esteemed Master, what are you looking for?"

Mo Hua said, "Looking for a formation."

Bai XiaoSheng frowned, glancing around. Unfurling his Divine-Sense, he swept it back and forth several times, then sighed helplessly:

"What nonsense are you spouting? Where is there a formation here?"

Mo Hua said, "You don't understand."

If anyone else had said that, with Bai XiaoSheng's temper, he would have sneered coldly and lashed out with curses.

Yet because the one speaking was Mo Hua, Bai XiaoSheng had no temper whatsoever.

When it came to formations, he truly did not understand as much as Mo Hua; arguing with Mo Hua would merely be inviting his own humiliation.

And yet...

Bai XiaoSheng looked around once more, releasing his Divine Sense and sweeping over everything as if he wanted to scan even the dead ants on the ground, yet he still found nothing.

"Are you sure?" Bai XiaoSheng asked again. "There's really a formation here?"

Mo Hua fell silent for a moment, then raised his head to survey the surroundings, his gaze focusing slightly. "Reason dictates there should be one..."

A certain exceedingly, terribly venomous formation...

(End of Chapter)