Immortality Through Array Formations (The Quest for Immortality)

Chapter 1127: Twenty-One Marks and the Dao of Causality

"Kill all the ancestors of the Cang Wolf Sect?" Elder Zhao's face turned pale.

Mo Hua replied calmly, "They're not your ancestors, so it shouldn't matter to you, right?"

"This…" Elder Zhao's expression was bitter.

Because the ancestors had disapproved of him becoming the sect master, this Young Master Mo had killed every last one of the ancestral spirits of the Cang Wolf Sect. Then, with a bloody handprint of his own making, he "officially appointed" Elder Zhao as the new sect master.

Elder Zhao felt that Young Master Mo must be joking—but he couldn't laugh at all.

Not only couldn't he laugh, he was deeply terrified.

If anyone else had said this, he wouldn't have believed a word.

But coming from this gentle-looking yet unfathomably terrifying Young Master Mo, Elder Zhao didn't dare doubt it for a second.

But still…

"This Young Master Mo… he's just at the Foundation Establishment stage, yet capable of such deranged acts?"

"Is he really just Foundation Establishment?"

A cold dread welled up in Elder Zhao's heart. After a long while, he realized he was still slumped on the ground in a disgraceful posture. Feeling ashamed, he quickly got up and cupped his hands toward Mo Hua with a tone full of awe:

"Many thanks, Young Master Mo… for bestowing upon me the position of sect master."

At this point, what else could he say?

Mo Hua simply waved his hand. "Elder Zhao, no need to be so formal. I don't have the kind of power to 'bestow' the position of sect master. You earned it all through your own efforts. I merely offered a tiny bit of… 'insignificant' help."

Elder Zhao gave a bitter smile.

"Oh right," Mo Hua added, "I should be calling you Sect Master Zhao now, shouldn't I?"

Elder Zhao let out a subtle sigh of relief, bowed again and said, "On the sect master's token, there's…"

He paused and glanced at the bloody seal Mo Hua had casually drawn with who-knows-what kind of blood, then sighed helplessly:

"…There is a 'Patriarch's seal'. I suppose that does make me the sect master of Cang Wolf Sect now."

Mo Hua nodded in satisfaction and then said:

"You're the sect master now. Take me to your sect's forbidden grounds."

Just newly appointed, and already about to bring an outsider into the sect's restricted area—this kind of blatant betrayal…

Sect Master Zhao didn't dare refuse.

After all, this position of sect master had been stamped and handed to him by Mo Hua.

When you eat a man's food and take his favor, how could you dare say no?

But…

Sect Master Zhao hesitated bitterly.

Mo Hua's voice was calm as he asked, "Is it inconvenient?"

Sect Master Zhao shivered inwardly, afraid Mo Hua would follow with, "If it's inconvenient, I'll find another sect master to take me."

He quickly said with sincere expression: "No inconvenience at all. In Cang Wolf Sect, Young Master Mo may go wherever he pleases."

Mo Hua nodded, visibly satisfied.

Thus, the newly minted Sect Master Zhao acted as a guide and led Mo Hua into the forbidden grounds—where outsiders were strictly forbidden to enter.

These forbidden grounds lay deep within the mountains behind the sect.

Inside were stored cultivation manuals, secret techniques, artifact forging and alchemy diagrams, as well as formation blueprints passed down through generations.

Mo Hua scanned through it all briefly, but found it lackluster—disappointingly so.

Though that was to be expected.

He was, after all, a disciple of the ancient Fifth-Rank powerhouse sect—the Great Void Sect.

Back in the Great Void Sect, he had access to well-rounded and high-quality cultivator legacies.

For the sake of the Sword Dao Conference, not only the Great Void Peak, but even the Tai'a and Chongxu branches had partially opened their legacies to him.

In other words, he now bore the legacies of all three great sects—Great Void, Tai'a, and Chongxu.

And those three mountains, originally, were one and the same source.

So what Mo Hua truly inherited… was the legacy of that ancient, long-forgotten sect—whose name no one dares speak.

Though his inheritances only included Foundation Establishment and a small portion of Core Formation stage content, even that far outstripped anything from Cang Wolf Sect.

The gap between a Fifth-Rank and a Third-Rank sect was immense.

Still, holding to the mindset of "better to kill wrongly than let something slip," Mo Hua skimmed through the sect's legacy thoroughly.

He ignored the cultivation methods and Dao techniques—they were of no use to him.

He only focused on the formation diagrams, especially those that were unfamiliar or variant forms. He made copies to expand his vision and deepen his mastery in array formations.

Once finished, Mo Hua held the wolf-head xun (a wind instrument) in his left hand and rolled a copper coin between his right fingers. He began using a bit of deduction power to trace Mr. Wu's aura.

Elder Zhao had no idea what Mo Hua was doing, but his awe only deepened.

Following the coin's spin and the direction of deduction, Mo Hua's eyes lit up. He twisted and turned through the forbidden grounds' mountain paths until he arrived before a large hall built at the mountain's base.

The grand doors of the hall were shut tight.

Mo Hua glanced at Sect Master Zhao.

Sect Master Zhao immediately took out the sect master's jade token, chanted an incantation, and lifted the seal to open the doors.

Inside, the hall was tall and empty, with wolf statues lining the walls.

Mo Hua swept his spiritual sense across the space, discerning reality from illusion. Behind one massive prostrating wolf statue, he discovered a hidden door.

Sect Master Zhao tried using the jade token to open it, but it didn't work. He looked to Mo Hua for help.

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then gently traced a few formation patterns with his fingers.

Golden light lit up.

With the formation unlocked, the hidden door creaked open.

Sect Master Zhao froze, further stunned by Mo Hua's skill.

Mo Hua looked into the secret chamber, then turned to Zhao and asked, "Do you want to go in?"

Zhao's foot, already stepping forward, drew back immediately.

How could he miss the implication?

He tactfully said, "I'll stand guard for you, Young Master Mo."

Mo Hua was very pleased.

As he was about to step into the pitch-black chamber, Zhao couldn't help but say, "Young Master Mo… be careful."

"Don't worry."

Mo Hua said casually, then strode into the chamber filled with the strong aura of Mr. Wu.

The space was pitch dark, until green flames gradually lit up.

Several wolf bones burned like torches with a crackling sound.

The air was thick with a foul smell.

Mo Hua looked closely.

The chamber was small. In its center lay a formation covered in various bestial runes—eagle, tiger, snake, deer, ox…

In the middle of the rune-covered formation stood an altar.

But the altar was empty—nothing sat atop it.

Beneath the altar were stacks of books, bone scrolls, and sheets of wolf-hide paper covered in dense bloodstained text.

Someone had clearly spent long hours here, poring over texts, researching intently.

Under the desk sat a brazier, within which lay a few cracked wolf bones.

Mo Hua's eyes brightened.

His guess had been right—this was Mr. Wu's hidden retreat. It was here that he practiced bone armor divination, inferred fortunes and disasters, and studied the Dao of cause and effect.

It was also here he had spied on Mo Hua's fate.

But as the saying goes: Those who ride well may fall; those who swim well may drown.

Those who frequently tamper with fate and probe karma… often die by karma themselves.

And so it was with Mr. Wu.

"…Will I also one day die to karma and the secrets of Heaven?"

Mr. Wu was just like that.

"Could it be that I too… will eventually die because of the secrets of Heaven and karma?"

Mo Hua grew wary at the thought, silently taking it as a warning.

But then he reconsidered—such worries belonged to the future. One couldn't give up eating for fear of choking. Just because he feared karmic entanglement and possible misfortune didn't mean he should stop researching.

What must be learned, must still be learned.

Mo Hua rummaged through the desk, then knocked on nearby bricks. With his vast experience in "scavenging," it wasn't long before he found a wolf-patterned storage pouch sealed beneath a stone slab using a demon-pattern formation.

Inside the pouch was exactly what Mo Hua needed most right now:

A thin booklet titled Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Technique.

The book was made from some unknown type of beast hide, coarse and ancient.

It was written in the Great Wilderness script, with obscure illustrations detailing a primitive and ancient technique of the Great Wilderness tribe: burning demon bones, reading the resulting divination patterns, and using them for karmic predictions.

Without hesitation, Mo Hua stored the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Technique into his storage ring.

He also gathered up everything else Mr. Wu had left behind—books, bone slips, manuscripts—without leaving anything behind.

"These are all treasures. I need to find a quiet place and study them properly."

Mo Hua's eyes gleamed with joy.

With this secret manual of demon bone divination, he could finally lay a solid foundation, patch up his crippled karmic techniques, and truly begin walking the path of a powerful Heaven-Seer cultivator.

He no longer had to be like before—possessing a strong divine sense, vast computational power, and top-tier algorithms, but due to a lack of foundational techniques, forced to blindly guess by instinct.

In karmic and Heaven-Seer arts, others had techniques (shù) but lacked the true Dao (dào).

Mo Hua, however, was the opposite—he understood the Dao deeply, but his basic techniques were sorely lacking.

Now that he had the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Technique, Mo Hua was thrilled, but still felt a trace of unwillingness.

He swept the surroundings with his divine sense again, scouring every suspicious object left behind by Mr. Wu. Better to be too thorough than to miss something—only after confirming that not even a single remnant remained did he finally feel at ease.

Even the messy secret chamber had been completely cleaned out by Mo Hua.

Satisfied, Mo Hua left the chamber.

At the chamber entrance, Sect Master Zhao—who had been personally "standing guard" for Mo Hua—let out a slow breath of relief, though he looked hesitant.

He hadn't really wanted to, nor dared to, ask about Mo Hua's business.

But as the sect master, letting an outsider enter the forbidden ground without question also didn't feel right.

So he quietly asked, "Young Master Mo, in there…"

Mo Hua replied, "That Mr. Wu was hiding in the forbidden area, using shamanic arts to manipulate hearts and minds. I've taken all his belongings and… destroyed them. Don't worry about it…"

Sect Master Zhao didn't know whether he truly believed that or not, but he nodded with a face full of conviction: "Good, thank you for your hard work, Young Master Mo."

"Not hard at all," Mo Hua waved at him casually and said:

"You go do your work. You've just become sect master—there must be plenty of affairs to manage. You still need to bury the former sect master, make up some lies, deceive a few people. Must be really busy. I won't disturb you…"

Sect Master Zhao's face was filled with an indescribable complexity.

"Then, Young Master, you…"

Mo Hua sighed, looking tired. "I'm exhausted. I'm going back to my room to rest. Don't bother me unless it's important."

Sect Master Zhao let out a huge breath of relief.

He'd much rather "worship" Mo Hua like a deity.

As long as this "Little Yama," who kills without leaving a trace and demands lives at a word, did nothing at all—then all would be well.

"Shall I escort you?" Sect Master Zhao asked.

"No need," Mo Hua waved. "I can get back myself. You go take care of things."

"Then… alright."

Sect Master Zhao didn't insist—he really did have a lot to do.

Mo Hua had helped him ascend to the position of sect master, but whether he could hold it would now depend on his own ability.

"Young Master Mo, please go ahead." Sect Master Zhao cupped his fists and saw him off.

Mo Hua, meanwhile, returned to the guest room alone.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, his previously weary expression instantly vanished, replaced by excitement.

He sat cross-legged on the bed and sank his divine sense into his consciousness sea.

Once there, he manifested the Burning Fire Formation within his sea of awareness and refined—once again with a gentle flame—the ancestors of Cang Wolf Sect, who had just been consumed and transformed into demonic wraiths.

Before, for the sake of convenience, Mo Hua had always used high heat to incinerate them quickly.

But now, while traveling in dangerous lands, he had to make every bit count.

So he restrained himself and used low flame to slowly cook them down, just to ensure not even a thread of "evil thought" remained—and to waste not a single wisp of pure willpower.

Finally, after careful and slow refining...

The ancestors of the Cang Wolf Sect were completely dissolved.

Streams of rich third-grade Golden Core divine will surged like smoke in daylight, all drawn into Mo Hua's mouth and swiftly refined by his rotating divine sense.

His long-stagnant divine sense bottleneck—which he had painstakingly chipped away at day and night with minimal results—now melted like snow under spring sunlight and began to rise steadily.

Mo Hua's divine sense grew stronger and stronger.

Black and white gleams shimmered in his eyes.

The divine and demonic origins within him continued to grow…

Finally, who knows how much time had passed, when all the fluctuations settled.

Mo Hua opened his eyes. A flash of golden light shot from them, and the powerful divine sense within him surged so violently that it couldn't be contained, leaking outward.

That divine sense was overwhelmingly powerful—like a tidal wave storming through the invisible and intangible realms—enveloping the entire Cang Wolf Mountain.

And yet, the disciples of the sect remained unaware.

Only Sect Master Zhao, at the Golden Core level, felt a sudden jolt of terror in his heart, as if some horrifying existence with abyss-like divine sense had swept past the mountain and glanced at him—just for a moment—before vanishing completely.

His pupils contracted, his back soaked in cold sweat.

Who… what mighty figure just passed through Cang Wolf Prefecture?

Just a stray wisp of divine sense had nearly suffocated him, a Golden Core cultivator?

Sect Master Zhao furrowed his brow. "But… isn't divine sense supposed to be invisible and subtle? Why did it carry such crushing pressure?"

"And besides, how could such a powerful being pass through this remote place like Cang Wolf City?"

As he pondered, his heart suddenly leapt in panic. He turned toward the direction of the guest room—

His pupils shook violently as he muttered:

"It couldn't be… Young Master Mo… could it?"

"Is he really… human…?"

...

Inside the luxurious guest room of Cang Wolf Sect.

Having "eaten and drunk his fill," Mo Hua exhaled deeply, a relaxed smile blooming across his face.

Inside the luxurious guest room of Cang Wolf Sect—

Having "eaten and drunk his fill," Mo Hua let out a long breath, a smile spreading across his face.

Twenty-One Threads!

This was the first advancement of his divine sense since the Blood Sacrifice incident.

Upon first entering the Golden Core realm, one typically possessed twenty threads of divine sense.

The early Golden Core stage begins from twenty-one threads of divine sense onward.

However, most cultivators didn't focus on cultivating their divine sense, nor did they use it as the foundation of their path. As a result, most early-stage Golden Core cultivators only had around twenty-one threads—nothing more.

But now, Mo Hua—with his current paper-level divine sense—was already considered "mid-tier" among early Golden Core cultivators.

And this wasn't even counting the fact that his divine will had undergone a qualitative transformation—refined and divine-like—making it far stronger in quality than the divine sense of ordinary cultivators.

As for exactly how much stronger?

Mo Hua couldn't even calculate it.

But it was strong. And it would only keep growing stronger.

"As Heaven moves with strength, so must the noble man constantly strive for self-improvement."

Even though he was already powerful, Mo Hua would keep pushing himself—surpassing every limit—until his divine will became so mighty that no cultivator could hope to catch up, until his divine sense alone could pierce through the heavens and the earth.

He clenched his fair, slender hand.

Within his grasp, it was as if he held the power to control heaven and earth.

With twenty-one threads of divine sense, he had taken another step forward on the Golden Core path. Mo Hua sighed in relief and pulled out another illustrated booklet:

The Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination Technique.

This was a basic Great Wilderness divination method using demon bones.

It described how to ignite witchfire to burn various demon beast bones, and read the resulting burn patterns to determine hexagrams, interpret fortune and misfortune, and divine karmic outcomes.

This divination art came from the ancient Great Wilderness—profound and obscure.

But Mo Hua mastered it instantly.

After all, his natural talent in divine will was extraordinary, and his comprehension of karma and fate ran deep. He only lacked a basic method to apply his vast internal "capabilities."

It was like a martial cultivator who had spent years training in internal strength—his power was there, refined and strong, but without a proper technique, he couldn't use it.

All he needed was to learn a simple foundational form, like a "Founder's Fist," and he could knock others down with one punch.

This Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination might be an entry-level karmic technique, but for Mo Hua, it was a "key"—one that opened the gate to the boundless mysteries of Heaven's secrets.

Over the next two days, Mo Hua never let the book leave his hands.

He flipped through the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination manual over and over.

Even though it was just a beginner-level karmic art, foundation is everything—and often, the most fundamental things are the most important.

Within it lay the logical framework behind the rules of karma.

The more Mo Hua read, the more insights he gained. After several days of deep contemplation, even some vague concepts he'd once struggled with started to become clear. His understanding of karma grew more profound.

All things in the world follow karma.

Everything begins with a cause (yin). With a cause, a result (guo) arises. The result then becomes the next cause, and another result is born… and on and on.

This endless cycle of cause and effect forms a karmic chain.

That chain is the thread of how all things develop.

And for humans, that thread is called fate.

A person's fate is the sum of all their life's causes and effects.

Every action in the present is both a result and a cause:

It is the result of past causes,

and the cause of future results.

Mo Hua rested his chin on his hand, reflecting on himself as an example.

For instance, he was now a high-tier Grade-2 Array Master—that was the result.

But it only came about because, in the past, he had spent countless days and nights engraving formations onto the Dao Stele.

Studying arrays, practicing arrays, comprehending arrays—those were the causes.

Had he not persistently drawn array patterns and accumulated enough "causes," there wouldn't have been the "result" he had today.

And in the future, if he wished to become a peerless master of arrays, someone whose formations could shake the heavens—

Then from this moment on, he would have to continue accumulating causes for that goal.

He would need to pour all his thoughts and efforts into cultivation and formation study.

As long as the power of the cause was sufficient, the corresponding result would follow.

As long as his cultivation and insights into arrays reached a certain level, then one day—without question—he would become that great master.

And all of these causes and effects, together, would form his destiny.

At this point, a light seemed to dawn in Mo Hua's mind—he felt completely enlightened:

"So the art of karma is, simply put, about using the laws of cause and effect to observe, influence, or even change the development of events… and a person's entire fate."

To alter fate, there were two ways:

Change one's own fate through karmic principles.

Use karma to become the person you want to be, walk the path you want to walk, and seek the Dao you desire.

Control the fates of others using the laws of karma.

This includes manipulating people's thoughts, actions, fortune and misfortune, and even their life or death.

And if the karmic changes were large enough, and affected enough fates, they would generate Qi Luck (Qìyùn).

This greater form of Qi Luck was the aggregation of many shifting causes and effects, tied to the fates of countless beings.

It was a broader, more profound category within the Dao of Karma...

Heaven's Secrets.

(End of this Chapter)