Chapter 213: CH. 213 | Battle of Arrays
Before
Right before reaching Lingquan Peak, Lin Tian’s attention had already been pulled elsewhere, his qi sense picking up a dominant surge of spiritual energy coming from the front courtyard of the Meridian Recovery Hall.
It clearly wasn’t some kind of trap, more like a rune array set to trigger its own defense mechanism the moment it was disturbed.
Lin Tian was genuinely impressed. He hadn’t expected that over the past ten plus years, his disciples had actually mastered formations and rune arrays to this degree.
For a cultivator, understanding an array was far harder than mastering a technique. And yet, at both of the two halls he’d passed, they’d already activated rune arrays tailored specifically to each hall’s own strengths.
Not wanting to get caught up in playing along with their rune array game, Lin Tian directed his primordial soul essence forward, then channeled his spiritual energy in to fill it.
Drawing on his own abilities, Lin Tian managed to form a simple clone using nothing but his primordial soul essence.
Unlike his earlier clone, this one built from primordial soul essence could only last about sixty minutes.
Beyond that limit, the spiritual energy inside it would shatter and break down completely, leaving behind nothing but a trace of Lin Tian’s own primordial soul consciousness.
Once the simple clone was formed, he sent it forward into Lingquan Peak.
Lin Tian watched as his clone stepped into the hall’s front courtyard, triggering the defense mechanism and drawing out the massive tree roots that shot up and dragged the clone’s body underground.
For anyone who hadn’t yet reached Nascent Soul, there’d be no way to tell that it was just an empty clone with no soul of its own, moved along purely by Lin Tian’s consciousness.
Realizing that "Lin Tian" had just been pulled underground, Ji Xue dropped her camouflage technique, and her disciples followed suit.
They gathered around the spot, staring at the hole in the courtyard where Lin Tian had supposedly been dragged down into the earth.
"Doesn’t this feel a little strange though, Master Ji?" one of her disciples asked.
"Yan Ran has a point. It feels way too easy for us to have beaten Lin Tian, especially considering he’s the man who killed the Sect Master of the Yuanmo Sect."
Ji Xue fell silent for a moment, then turned her gaze forward and up toward the sky.
There, she spotted four sealing formation banners come shooting down through the clouds and plant themselves firmly into the ground, right on top of her rune array formation.
Ji Xue gasped in shock, seeing clearly that all four sealing banners had struck the exact vital points of her rune array formation.
But when she looked forward again, a wide smile spread across her face.
"I knew it," Ji Xue said, "You’re not so easy to beat after all, Lin Tian!"
Lin Tian arrived on the sky platform above and stood there, tall and composed.
He raised his hand, and a glow of primordial energy gathered at his fingertip, activating the rune formation that ran connecting each of the four sealing banners together.
With that new sealing formation now overlaid directly on top of Ji Xue’s rune array, the effect of Lin Tian’s overlay hit her hard.
She watched her own rune array shatter and fade away right before her eyes.
Lin Tian walked forward quickly until he stood in front of Ji Xue and her disciples.
He raised his hand and directed his four sealing formation banners out toward the four cardinal directions, right where the massive formation encircling Lingquan Peak had its core.
Once that core was destroyed, the whole formation collapsed. Ji Xue, rather than feeling upset about losing, let out a small laugh instead and clapped her hands together.
She was genuinely happy that Lin Tian had cleared her trial.
"You really are a perfect match for Senior Sister An Yue, Master Lin," Ji Xue said, praising him.
"You’ve grown sharper and smarter than ever. I’m impressed, Ji Xue."
Lin Tian said his goodbyes and headed off toward the next mountain, Bagua Peak, where Ya Fei ruled over the Formation and Array Hall.
True to the hall’s name, Lin Tian barely had time to close in on the peak before he was hit with a wave of trap formations, all triggered the instant his spiritual energy crossed their sensors.
In an instant, he found himself facing twenty lethal trap formations, each carrying power on par with the profound grade.
Weak as that sounded on paper, it would still cause plenty of trouble for Lin Tian if he actually got caught in one.
For a cultivator ranging from Foundation Establishment up through Early Core Formation, twenty profound grade trap formations working together would spell certain death.
But not for Lin Tian. He raised his hand, threw a sealing banner toward the nearest trap point, then formed a hand seal to cancel out that particular trap formation.
Even so, some of the trap formations had already triggered before he could stop them, forcing Lin Tian to immediately raise a powerful magical defense wall to hold off the incoming assault from several different elemental formations at once.
She’s only at Mid Core Formation, yet she’s managed to bring all these trap formations to life just for me.
I’m sure her real ability goes well beyond this.
Lin Tian raised his finger and traced an ancient script in front of his face, one of the more effective, and admittedly ancient, methods for canceling out a formation that had already been triggered.
He released the ancient script forward, and it shot ahead with tremendous force, latching onto the rune array formation until it was completely destroyed and the attack finally came to a stop.
Lin Tian let out a breath of relief, sweeping his hand to the side to dismiss his magical defense wall.
He formed a hand seal, his eyes fixed straight ahead, watching as countless formations and arrays waited to ensnare him, ranging from the lowest, profound grade, all the way up to the highest, earth grade.
Building even a single formation is difficult and exhausting work... unless, of course, she’s been working on all of this for years already.
And now she’s using it all just to test me? That would actually explain how she managed to bring so many formations to life around Bagua Peak.
"Ya Fei?!"
"Tell me... should I just destroy all of these, or would you rather we settle this one on one with our formations?" Lin Tian asked.
"Tearing apart a masterpiece like this doesn’t sit right with me. You’d need a long time to rebuild all of it!" Lin Tian added firmly.
Inside her hall, Ya Fei smiled faintly. She opened her eyes and stepped outside, pushing open the hall’s doors and finding her disciples already turning to look at her.
"What should we do, Master Ya Fei?" one of her disciples asked.
"We’re not going to give him what he wants," Ya Fei said, "Activate every single formation and array. Make sure you actually kill him!"
"Understood, Master Ya Fei."