Chapter 508: Rubbing
The mist before the stone wall had completely dispersed.
The ever-present dampness in the air vanished along with it, clean and absolute.
Su Ming looked down at his chest.
The Border Defense True Seal had returned to its original position. Su Ming could clearly feel it—it had changed.
Something heavy weighed inside it.
Not an increase in weight. The True Seal itself hadn't gained a single ounce of mass. That heaviness was a sensation, a pressure on perception. Like a cup that had only been half-full of water, now forcibly crammed with an entire mountain range.
Lin Yu drifted back from the stone wall.
His soul body hovered at Su Ming's side, more solid than before, the faint glow at the edges of his robes no longer flickering.
Lin Yu didn't speak.
Su Ming didn't speak either.
Neither of them said a word. Neither could say exactly what that sudden anomaly represented.
Su Ming stood there, his fingers pressing against the fabric over his chest.
His mind raced through calculations in an instant. Probing divine sense into an unknown object could result in injury at best, or a shattered Consciousness Sea at worst. But the True Seal had long been bound to his own bloodline, and it had shown no killing intent earlier. The survival formation plate in his sleeve was already locked in his palm, the Grand Teleportation Talisman ready at a moment's notice. If backlash occurred, he would sever his divine sense immediately.
Certain he'd accounted for everything, he split off a thread of extremely fine divine sense and slowly approached the True Seal.
The moment it touched, his divine sense was gently pulled in, like a drop of water falling into a lake.
There was no light before his eyes. No sound either.
An endless, boundless void unfolded. Dense afterimages hung in every direction, countless as stars in the sky. Those afterimages weren't complete runes—they were nodes of spiritual energy flow, the growth pathways of formation lines.
Su Ming couldn't understand them. But he could clearly discern that this structure used the same language as the tree patterns on the Ancient Path, the three-layer array beneath the stone slab.
He withdrew his divine sense quickly.
When he opened his eyes, a thin layer of cold sweat covered his palm.
"Master," Su Ming said, his voice very low.
Lin Yu's soul body hovered in midair, its luster flickering once. "What did you see?"
"Many afterimages." Su Ming recalled the images in his mind. "Not runes. More like the skeletons that make up runes. I can't understand them, but this thing is definitely connected to this Ancient Path."
Lin Yu fell silent.
He was silent for a full five breaths.
His soul body halted in the void, even the halo at its edges drawn inward.
Faced with the remains left behind by an ancient powerhouse, he had no ready answers either.
"You're sure?" Lin Yu spoke, his pace half a beat slower than usual.
"I'm sure." Su Ming nodded. "The flow of those afterimages shares the same Intent as the formation lines on the ancient tree."
Lin Yu drifted closer, the luster of his soul body brightening again.
"The Border Defense True Seal might have rubbed off the Intent accumulated on this path for ten thousand years." Lin Yu stared at Su Ming's chest. "But those things are too primitive. You can't use them yet."
"This kind of thing can't be taught directly." Lin Yu's soul body sank half a foot, leveling his gaze with Su Ming. "You have to comprehend it yourself."
Su Ming's fingertips lightly rubbed the edge of the survival formation plate inside his sleeve. Now, with roughly less than two months until the six-month term ended, if he could turn what was inside the Border Defense True Seal into his own power within these two months, his cultivation in the path of formations would undergo a true transformation.
"How do I comprehend it?" Su Ming released his grip on the formation plate.
"Go back to the Spirit Lake." Lin Yu didn't hesitate. "The spiritual energy there is dense enough, the environment stable enough, to help accelerate your progress. Look at the afterimages in the True Seal one by one. It's okay if you don't understand them. First, memorize them. Look at them enough, and you'll naturally grasp them."
Su Ming didn't ask any more questions.
He turned around, abandoning the stone wall without a shred of reluctance, and walked back in the direction he had come.
Shadow leaped back onto his shoulder, letting out a crisp chirp.
On the way back, the scenery was already completely different.
The ancient trees that had once made Su Ming stop for a long time now had dimmed formation lines on their bark.
Su Ming walked quickly.
He no longer needed to stop and feel the temperature changes, no longer needed to watch the falling leaves' trajectories. Those things had already been packed into his chest.
He only wanted to return to the shore of that azure-blue lake.
Lin Yu floated behind him, saying nothing.
The two of them, man and bird, walked briskly along the quiet Ancient Path.
Half a day later, the depression appeared before them once more.
The Spirit Lake was still there.
The azure light on the surface was slightly dimmer than two months ago. But the formation lines at the lakebed still rotated slowly.
Su Ming sat cross-legged on the same stone where he had sat before.
Shadow leaped down from his shoulder, landing lightly on a pebble by the lake and crouching down.
Lin Yu floated above the lake's surface and closed his eyes. He didn't need the True Seal. That single speck of light pointed out by the old man in the gray-white space had already been directly imprinted deep within his soul body. He needed time to reconstruct his own path of formations.
Master and disciple, each submerged into their own cultivation.
The lake's surface continued to brighten and dim, one pulse after another.
Su Ming probed his divine sense into the True Seal once more.
This time, he didn't rush to capture those afterimages.
He let his divine sense spread out slowly in the void, like water. Without any purpose, without analyzing any structure. Just spreading.
Those afterimages didn't avoid him.
They began to rotate around him.
Within Su Ming's Consciousness Sea, one rune after another began to light up.
Those structures he had stared at for months on the Ancient Path, memorized countless times in the scriptures, yet always felt a veil between them—now, under the illumination of the True Seal's afterimages, suddenly became crystal clear.
The incomplete part of the "Gathering" rune was filled in by a flowing momentum.
The turning point of the "Control" rune was unlocked by a natural principle.
The number of runes mastered began to climb within Su Ming's Consciousness Sea.
Four hundred sixty.
Four hundred ninety.
Five hundred.
Two months of time stretched long in this extreme focus.
Five hundred fifty.
Six hundred.
Six hundred fifty.
Su Ming's brow furrowed.
The climb stopped.
He was stuck at six hundred fifty runes.
No matter how far he let his divine sense spread, the afterimages in the True Seal no longer resonated with the runes in his Consciousness Sea. Those afterimages kept rotating, but they had become closed clams, refusing to yield anything more.
Su Ming opened his eyes.
A fine layer of sweat covered his forehead. His breathing was heavy. The lake of spiritual energy in his Dantian rippled with unstable waves due to the turmoil in his heart.
Frustration.
It was an emotion he hadn't felt in a long time.
Lin Yu drifted down from above the lake.
"Stuck?"
Su Ming nodded. He didn't hide his state.
"Stuck at how many?"
"Six hundred fifty." Su Ming wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I can't comprehend any more."
Lin Yu didn't speak immediately.
His soul body hovered before Su Ming, his gaze calmly fixed on the bloodshot traces in his disciple's eyes.
Silence for three breaths.
"You've been taking." Lin Yu spoke.
Su Ming was startled.
"Taking?"
"You treated the afterimages in the True Seal like a warehouse, and your Consciousness Sea like a pocket. You've been stuffing things into that pocket." Lin Yu's voice was very low. "You're gripping too tight. Your pocket is full. Nothing new can get in."