Chapter 512: Merely a Debt of Gratitude
Within Star Pivot Hall, two currents of energy, one red and one blue, continued to clash against each other.
Following that invisible force of support, Su Ming stood up, lowering his hands as he maintained a posture of extreme respect.
Not given freely.
These words did not unsettle Su Ming; instead, they made him feel slightly more at ease. In the world of immortal cultivation, what one feared most was an unearned gift. After all, free things often had to be repaid with one’s life.
When there was a cost, it meant this was a karmic burden one could bear.
Xuanheng watched as clarity quickly returned to Su Ming’s eyes, a trace of barely perceptible approval flickering deep within his own gaze.
He slowly closed the lids of both jade boxes again.
“Click.”
The chill and heat were once more sealed by formation lines. The temperature in the hall finally returned to normal.
Shadow poked half her head out from Su Ming’s collar, casting a wary glance at the jade boxes on the table before swiftly ducking back in.
Xuanheng clasped his hands behind his back and walked over to the star chart, turning his back to Su Ming.
“Your teacher has lived for two hundred and thirty-seven years.” Xuanheng’s voice echoed through the empty hall, carrying a weathered sense of time’s accumulation. “As the Peak Master of Formation Peak at the Cloud Hidden Sect, over these two centuries, I have set up formations, repaired them, dismantled them... I have seen cultivators of every stripe.”
Su Ming listened in silence, barely daring to breathe.
Within the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu’s soul body hovered in the void. Even he had put away his usual teasing demeanor.
“We formation masters are not like sword cultivators, decisive and ruthless in slaughter, nor are we like alchemists, flattered and courted by all sides.” Xuanheng turned around, pointing at the jade box containing the Nine Netherworld Lotus. “But as long as one’s craft is fine enough, there will always be someone who begs for your help at a life-or-death moment. Naturally, that means someone will always owe you a debt.”
Xuanheng tapped his finger twice on the lid of the dark blue jade box.
“Twenty years ago, Elder Cui Yan of the sect’s Enforcement Hall led a team in pursuit of an evil cultivator. Carelessly, they stumbled into an ancient forbidden ground deep within the Extreme Northern Ice Plains.”
“The illusion array within that forbidden ground had mutated. Anyone who entered faced certain death. At that time, Cui Yan was trapped for a full half-month. The accompanying disciples perished to the last, and even his own life-bound flying sword was broken. In his final moments, he used a secret technique to copy a section of the forbidden ground’s formation lines and transmit them back to the sect.”
Xuanheng’s tone was flat, as though recounting some trivial matter unrelated to himself.
“For three months after that, I remained in seclusion. I burned ten years of my lifespan, forcibly deducing the path to the mutated formation’s life gate remotely, without ever setting foot on the scene.”
Su Ming drew in a sharp breath.
Remote deduction of an ancient, mutated formation? That required not only a terrifying level of skill in the path of formations but also an immensely vast divine sense to sustain it. Sacrificing ten years of one’s lifespan was no small matter to speak of so lightly.
“Cui Yan followed the life gate I deduced and managed to escape with his life.” Xuanheng looked at the jade box. “He owes me a life. Ten days ago, I called in that debt in exchange for this Nine Netherworld Lotus he had brought back from the depths of the ice plains all those years ago.”
Su Ming’s heart felt as though it had been struck by a heavy hammer.
A life-saving debt from a Nascent Soul elder! If such a favor were kept for a moment of great calamity or mortal crisis for the sect, it could buy unimaginable protection.
And Xuanheng had spent it so lightly, just for a Foundation Establishment disciple’s main ingredient.
Xuanheng paid no attention to Su Ming’s shock. His finger shifted to the crimson jade box containing the Phoenix Rebirth Branch.
“As for Zhou Tong of the External Affairs Office...”
Hearing that name, Su Ming’s heart stirred. When he had handed over the evil cultivator’s leads at the capital of Great Xing, he had met that Junior Clerk Zhou.
“Zhou Tong had a fiery temper when he was young. He stirred up a huge mess and was chased across ten thousand li by three enemies of equal rank. By the time he fled back to the sect, he had only a breath of life left. He was about to be intercepted and killed right outside the mountain gate.”
Xuanheng’s gaze softened slightly, as if recalling that scene from long ago.
“I happened to pass by then. I found him somewhat agreeable, so I casually set up a high-grade concealment formation, completely erasing his aura from heaven and earth. I made those three enemies search for three whole days and nights where he was hiding, and they still left empty-handed.”
“He used this Phoenix Rebirth Branch, which he had treasured for nearly a century, to repay that old favor.”
Xuanheng finished his story.
The hall fell so silent that the drop of a needle could be heard.
Su Ming stood still, feeling as though those two jade boxes had suddenly become as heavy as a thousand jun.
He understood that the debts that high-level cultivators owed and acknowledged were never as simple as a “casual formation set up.” There must have been danger, scheming, and even life-risking battles woven into those favors.
Lin Yu hovered for a long time within the Xuantian ring. The flowing, deep-blue luster of his soul body had become extremely still.
After a long pause, Lin Yu let out a low sigh. His voice was several times heavier than usual. “This master of yours... he really is protecting you like the heir to his mantle.”
Su Ming took a deep breath. Once more, he folded his hands together and bent his back deeply in a bow.
This time, he said nothing, but expressed the shock in his heart with the most formal of gestures.
“Enough.” Xuanheng waved his hand, cutting off Su Ming’s bow. “You are your teacher’s disciple. Worrying for you is only proper.”
Xuanheng walked back to the wooden chair and sat down, picking up the teacup that had long gone cold and taking a sip.
“Besides, those favors were just sitting there anyway.” Xuanheng’s tone remained calm, clearly not wanting Su Ming to carry too heavy a psychological burden.
He set down the teacup, his gaze sharpening.
“But that final ingredient, the Ten-Thousand-Year Sky-Blue Stone Marrow, your teacher does not have it.”
Su Ming lifted his head, his expression solemn. “Please, Master, instruct your disciple.”
“This region of the Northern Frontier has no such thing.” Xuanheng stood up and walked back to the star chart.
He swept his sleeve wide.
The points of light that had been moving along fixed orbits within the star chart suddenly began to shift violently. Most of them scattered to the periphery, while at the very center of the star chart, a vast, dense, and dazzlingly brilliant band of stars slowly emerged.
“The Central Continent.” Xuanheng uttered two words.
Su Ming’s gaze was riveted to that brilliant star belt.
“The Central Continent is the absolute heart of the entire human immortal cultivation world.” Xuanheng traced a large circle in the air with his finger. “The Northern Frontier, the Southern Frontier, the Eastern Sea, the Western Regions. These four regions surround the Central Continent like stars clustering around the moon.”
“But between the four regions and the Central Continent, passage is not unobstructed. Lying in between are natural chasms—either endless seas of thunder and lightning or spirit-devouring miasmas that swallow divine sense. Ordinary teleportation arrays simply cannot cross such a distance.”
Xuanheng’s finger pointed at a bright spot on the border between the Northern Frontier and the Central Continent.
“The only safe passage from the Northern Frontier to the Central Continent is controlled by the Green Nether Sword Sect.”
A scene flashed through Su Ming’s mind—the one from beyond Iron Wall Pass.
In the howling wind and snow, a streak of green sword light had hovered high in the sky, like a rainstorm in reverse, annihilating hundreds of millions of dark-gold insects in the span of three breaths with terrifying thoroughness.
“The Sword Venerable at Iron Wall Pass!” Su Ming blurted out.
“Correct.” Xuanheng nodded slightly. “That is the Mountain-Severing Sword Venerable of the Green Nether Sword Sect. You have seen him in action from afar. However, the Mountain-Severing Sword Venerable is only the Green Nether Sword Sect’s stationed guardian in the Northern Frontier; he does not meddle in such mundane matters.”
Xuanheng looked at the star chart, a hint of complex emotion in his voice.
“The Green Nether Sword Sect is the sacred ground of sword cultivators the world over. In terms of individual combat power, they reign supreme across all five regions. They have top experts stationed in the Southern Frontier, the Eastern Sea, and the Northern Frontier. You can slowly familiarize yourself with the tangled web of these powers later at the Scripture Depository. Now that you are a True Disciple, you are bound to come into contact with conflicts at this level in the future.”