Chapter 62: Anomalous Condition

The Qi Refinement realm is divided into three stages and nine levels; the early stage is levels one to three, and anything above level three is mid-stage Qi Refinement.

Mo Hua's cultivation was already at the peak of Qi Refinement level three, just one step away from breaking through to mid-stage Qi Refinement.

After practicing the Great Expansion Sword Art, less than half a month passed before Mo Hua felt his dantian completely full, unable to absorb any more spiritual energy.

This meant Mo Hua was about to break through.

Normally, breaking through a realm requires special heavenly and earthly spiritual items to stimulate the meridians and dantian during the breakthrough, in order to shatter the bottleneck and advance one's realm.

The Great Expansion Sword Art requires no special spiritual items to assist cultivation, so it should simply require continued practice.

Mo Hua still spent most of his time drawing arrays, dedicating only one hour each day to seated meditation and cultivation.

Several days later, at night, Mo Hua was as usual carving arrays onto the Dao Stele in his consciousness, when suddenly a flash of insight struck him—his dantian surged violently.

Mo Hua immediately withdrew from his consciousness, sat cross-legged on the bed, and took out two spiritual stones, quietly absorbing their spiritual energy.

In just a moment, Mo Hua felt all his body's acupoints open, his absorption rate of spiritual energy several times faster than before; soon, the spiritual energy from both stones was fully drained.

Mo Hua felt a pang of regret, yet also joy.

He regretted the consumption of the spiritual stones, yet rejoiced that he was about to break through the realm and become a mid-stage Qi Refinement cultivator.

Mo Hua took out several more spiritual stones and continued absorbing.

Mo Hua's storage pouch held dozens of spiritual stones he had saved up, plus nearly a hundred more given to him by his parents, who knew he was about to break through but didn't know when, so they had him carry them as backup.

These hundred spiritual stones amounted to roughly half a month's income from the eatery.

Mo Hua calmed his mind, maintained a composed and unflustered state, and slowly breathed in and out.

The spiritual stones in his hands shimmered with crystalline blue light, then gradually dimmed, until their spiritual energy was utterly exhausted, turning gray-white.

One after another, after consuming nearly fifty spiritual stones, Mo Hua's dantian finally ceased its churning; spiritual energy flowed back from the dantian into his meridians, and the spiritual energy throughout his body gradually thickened and stabilized.

Just as Mo Hua thought he had succeeded in breaking through, a few fine threads of spiritual energy drifted out, leaking from his meridians, wandering through tiny collateral channels, slowly converging toward the Baihui point at the crown of his head.

Mo Hua's heart tightened.

What was this?

He had never heard of cultivated spiritual energy spontaneously leaking out uncontrollably, let alone converging toward the Baihui point at the crown?!

The spiritual energy didn't actually gather at the Baihui point; when it reached the Tianmen point, it wove itself like threads, gradually solidifying, then slowly seeping inward—the very spot it seeped into was Mo Hua's consciousness!

Mo Hua suppressed his inner unease and sank his spiritual awareness into his consciousness, discovering that it now held fine, pale-blue threads of spiritual energy.

These threads were fragmented and chaotic, like continuous spring rain, or tangled strands of hair, weaving into a complex, intricate pale-blue spiritual veil.

Mo Hua was utterly stunned.

With his brief cultivation experience, he had no idea what had happened.

Mo Hua tried to direct the spiritual energy and found it could still circulate normally.

Mo Hua held a spiritual stone and attempted to absorb spiritual energy for cultivation, but the absorbed energy was automatically blocked upon reaching the Tianmen point in his consciousness, preventing the formation of a Zhou Tian, thus unable to be refined into spiritual energy or stored in the dantian, naturally unable to advance his cultivation.

This meant Mo Hua could no longer cultivate or advance his realm.

Mo Hua drew a sharp breath and muttered, "What should I do now…"

Mo Hua lay back on the bed, his mind in turmoil; after a moment, he sat up and forced himself to calm down:

"My consciousness contains the Dao Stele, but when I cultivate, I don't enter my consciousness to activate the Dao Stele, so it's not the Dao Stele's fault."

"If not the Dao Stele, then it must be the cultivation technique."

"The technique worked fine during normal practice—it's only during the breakthrough that the problem occurs."

"During the breakthrough, spiritual energy leaked into the meridians and eventually connected to my consciousness, forming a spiritual veil."

"This spiritual veil blocks the Zhou Tian, preventing further cultivation; so if I solve the problem of the veil, remove the obstruction, the spiritual energy can flow again and no longer hinder my practice."

"Therefore, the core issue is resolving the spiritual veil in my consciousness…"

Mo Hua seized upon the key point, discarded all other factors, and focused solely on the spiritual veil in his consciousness. He sank his spiritual awareness into his consciousness and carefully examined the complex veil.

The veil was composed of pale-blue threads of spiritual energy, which seemed alive, drifting freely and chaotically, sometimes crossing, sometimes separating, appearing disordered yet obscure.

After watching for the duration of a cup of tea, Mo Hua collapsed back onto the bed.

He silently grumbled: "What the hell is this veil? I can't make sense of it at all…"

Mo Hua once again deeply felt his lack of cultivation knowledge.

There's a saying: knowledge is the ladder for a cultivator's progress. Mo Hua didn't remember where he'd heard it, but now he felt it was profoundly true.

Mo Hua began recalling every piece of cultivation-related knowledge he had ever encountered, searching for anything similar. But the memories were chaotic, his head grew more confused and more painful, and still he found no clue.

In a flash of insight, he suddenly remembered a line from the Great Expansion Sword Art:

"Not suitable for non-array masters to cultivate."

Mo Hua sat bolt upright.

"Not suitable for non-array masters to cultivate"—so this technique is tied to array masters; if tied to array masters, then this spiritual veil… could it be… an array?"

He recalled the earlier line: "The bottleneck lies in spiritual awareness."

"The bottleneck lies in spiritual awareness. Not suitable for non-array masters to cultivate."

The bottleneck lies in spiritual awareness because the spiritual veil *is* the bottleneck, and the veil exists within the consciousness; not suitable for non-array masters to cultivate because this spiritual veil *is* an array, and only array masters can understand it!

Mo Hua sank his spiritual awareness into his consciousness again, carefully observing the spiritual veil, and realized that though the spiritual energy threads appeared chaotic, their interconnections subtly formed distinct array patterns.

But the threads constantly flowed, so the array patterns constantly shifted, ultimately forming a living, ever-changing, ever-flowing array.

Mo Hua suddenly understood.

Then he scratched his head.

This array… he had never seen it before!

The arrays he had learned contained at most six array patterns, but this spiritual veil likely held dozens, even hundreds.

Worse still, these patterns kept shifting and changing, forming arrays Mo Hua already couldn't comprehend, and then those arrays transformed into even more incomprehensible arrays…

Merely watching it made Mo Hua's scalp tingle with dread.

Is this the ancient formation technique used by ancient cultivators?

Is this what is called the strange and obscure ancient cultivation method?

Mo Hua could not help but feel reverence—the wisdom of the ancient cultivators was truly extraordinary; even a mere Foundation Establishment technique had been made so intimidating.

He also silently mourned for himself—he had known this method was "strange and obscure," but had never imagined it could be this strange and obscure.

Mo Hua stared at the spirit screen for a long while again, until his head spun and he still had no clue; finally, he reached one clear conclusion:

Alone, he could do absolutely nothing about this formation spirit screen.

Recognizing one's own helplessness is also a form of self-awareness.

Mo Hua sighed, "I'll go ask Mr. Zhuang tomorrow."

Relieved, Mo Hua pulled the quilt over his head and fell fast asleep.