Immortality Through Array Formations (The Quest for Immortality)

Chapter 908: Mutual Fishing

Midnight. Disciples' Residence.

Deep into the night, Mo Hua sat cross-legged on his bed, meditating. His consciousness descended into his sea of awareness, where he summoned the Dao Stele and used the tribulation lightning inscribed upon it to purge the evil god's will from the Divine Remnant, refining it into precious golden divine marrow.

Mo Hua didn't let a single drop go to waste—he devoured and absorbed it all.

This divine marrow deepened his Dao Transformation of the Divine Sense.

His divine sense grew more refined, though the "divinity" within the marrow also began to erode the "humanity" in his Dao Heart.

Mo Hua stayed true to himself, absorbing divinity while preserving humanity, slowly merging the two to mitigate the dangers of consuming divine marrow.

This was a realization he had previously reached—a kind of insight into the path of divinity and humanity.

And now, perhaps because he had cultivated the "Emotion-Severing" technique taught by "Venerable Dugu," he was walking the path of Supreme Emotion Severance—severing emotions not to forget them, cutting off ego to preserve the true self, discarding human desires without extinguishing humanity—this, in turn, had deepened his comprehension of the Path of God and Man.

It was also possible that the "Emotion Severing" technique had introduced a new law into his divine sense, reducing the conflict between divinity and humanity, and making his absorption of divine marrow even smoother.

Once the marrow was completely refined, the golden hue in Mo Hua's divine sense became even purer.

The wounds in his soul also healed significantly.

His fusion of the Taixu Sword Intent with his divine soul took another step forward.

His Dao Transformation of divine sense progressed even further.

Even the bottleneck in his sea of consciousness—the complex formation puzzle formed by the mutated spiritual energy and golden divine sense while cultivating the Heavenly Derivation Technique—began to loosen.

Mo Hua nodded in satisfaction.

Divine marrow really was good stuff. As long as he kept eating more, all current bottlenecks and obstacles would be resolved in time.

And this time's hunt of He Lao-Qi had proven that his plan was feasible.

Even if he couldn't leave the sect himself, he could still use Thunder-Magnetic arrays to eavesdrop on intel, plan accordingly, and let the Dao Court Division take care of the actual killing—to acquire the divine marrow he needed.

Just like playing a game of chess.

He was the "player," and others were the "pieces."

He strategized—while the Dao Court did the "labor."

Of course, calling others chess pieces was a bit much.

His relationship with Uncle Gu and the others was essentially one of mutual benefit.

In this game: he gained divine marrow, they gained merit.

Plus, the demonic cultivators got a chance at "starting over," the evil god remnants were "purified"… all in all, it was a win-win.

A game of chess where everyone's happy—why not play more?

Later, Mo Hua resumed monitoring the Primordial Magnetic Relay Array inside the demonic sect.

With He Lao-Qi's death, it was certain some ripple effects would follow.

Just as he predicted, in the days that followed, magnetic fluctuations in the demonic sect became more frequent, and the low-level disciples were clearly shaken, gossiping endlessly:

"Elder He actually died?!"

"Killed by the Dao Court Division!"

"How can that be?"

"Elder He was no weakling! He bore the name 'He', had crane-patterned demon tattoos, his body as light as a crane, his movement techniques were swift as flying. Even ordinary Golden Core cultivators would struggle to catch him, let alone kill him…"

"Word is, someone leaked his movements and even the flaws in his cultivation technique."

"He was completely countered. Of course he died."

"Makes sense. Once your secrets are exposed, the Dao Court's power and methods leave you with no chance."

"Those Dao Court lapdogs… lazy on the surface, but nasty when they get serious."

"They say the one in charge was that cold-faced Commandant, Gu Changhuai."

"That bastard Gu… he deserves to die. One day, I'll grind his bones to dust!"

"Grinding's too quick—he should be skinned alive!"

Mo Hua shook his head.

Being a Dao Court Commandant… sure earned you a lot of grudges. Poor Uncle Gu.

And truth be told, Uncle Gu had been taking the blame for him all along.

Mo Hua couldn't help but sigh.

He continued listening, wanting to know if his use of the Sect Command Token's magnetic functions had aroused any suspicion.

"Honestly though, Elder He kinda had it coming…"

"A blade always hangs above the word 'lust.'"

"Even rabbits don't eat the grass near their burrow. But Elder He only targeted disciples' wives…"

"I mean, I'm a demonic cultivator too, I've done plenty of shady stuff, but that? That's just scummy."

"Seriously."

"Lust clouds the mind. He got what he deserved."

"Watch your words! That's still an Elder you're badmouthing!"

"He's dead already."

"A dead Elder is still an Elder."

"It's fine, we're chatting in the sect forum—no one sees this unless you report me."

"We've known each other for years. We've all got dirt on each other. I won't rat you out over this."

"Then what's there to worry about?"

Reading this, Mo Hua was slightly surprised.

Don't these demonic cultivators know they're being monitored?

Is it because they lack knowledge of Primordial Magnetic Arrays?

Or maybe the sect never told them?

Or perhaps—the sect can't monitor these conversations at all?

Mo Hua rubbed his chin.

"This is something I need to find out…"

If, like Elder Zheng had said, the demonic sect only had surface-level magnetic array practitioners and lacked true Thunder-Magnetic array masters—then Mo Hua didn't need to tiptoe around at all.

In cultivation, knowledge is power.

If he had absolute superiority in formation arts, he could basically do whatever he wanted.

Mo Hua spied on more disciples' chats and gradually figured things out.

Most of them were utterly clueless about the workings of magnetic arrays—let alone advanced Thunder-Magnetic arrays.

They all believed Elder He had died because of an internal traitor, which led to rampant paranoia and mutual suspicion.

"No one suspects me."

Mo Hua's eyes gleamed.

"In that case… let's try killing two more."

He kept monitoring, gathering clues, and eventually locked onto two more Golden Core demonic cultivators.

Digging up info from the inside was quite easy, really.

Unless a demonic cultivator did nothing, they were bound to slip up somewhere.

These two Golden Core elders—one was ranked tenth, the other sixth—were known respectively as "Elder Scorpion" and "Elder Zhu."

Elder Zhu seemed unremarkable.

But Elder Scorpion? That one had a body full of deadly poison, and just like He Lao-Qi, bore demonic beast tattoos.

This raised Mo Hua's suspicion.

"These demon tattoos… they're awfully similar to those from the Myriad Beasts Valley…"

"Could it be that some of these Golden Core elders in the demonic sect were once beast cultivators who formed their cores in the Myriad Beasts Valley, and then snuck out into the wider world?"

The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.

But whatever their origins—Myriad Beasts Valley or not—if they had to die, they had to die. Mo Hua didn't really care.

He compiled all the intel on Elder Scorpion and Elder Zhu—and passed it to Gu Changhuai.

And with that, Mo Hua resumed the role of the hands-off tactician.

He only provided intel. Maybe gave a few suggestions. As for the actual killing—that was the Dao Court's job.

If they succeed—he gets the divine marrow.

Couldn't Kill Them? Well, Nothing He Could Do.

Luckily, everything that followed went fairly smoothly.

The campaign to eliminate the demonic sect was being led by the Dao Court, and the Qianxue Dao Court Division dared not slack off.

Gu Changhuai and Magistrate Xia, both powerful cultivators with noble lineage and deep experience—also happened to be relentless workaholics. Once they set their sights on hunting down demonic cultivators, they pursued them with absolute ferocity.

Add to that the ever-eager and ambitious Fan Jin...

And so, within just over half a month, the two Golden Core demonic cultivators were captured one after another. They were surrounded by the Dao Court Division, heavily wounded, and in the end, Gu Changhuai finished them off using the Five Elements Diagram, suffocating them to death on the spot.

Meanwhile, Mo Hua, comfortably seated atop his fishing platform, reaped another two Divine Remnants without lifting a finger.

Everything went according to plan on the Dao Court's end.

But over in the demonic sect, this caused an outright earthquake.

In just over a month—three Golden Core Elders dead in a row!

Three Golden Core Elders!!

For the demonic sect, this was a catastrophic loss—enough to cripple morale and severely damage their foundation.

What was worse—they still had no clue how these three Golden Core Elders had even died.

The demonic sect had always operated in secrecy. So how had the Dao Court precisely pinpointed the whereabouts of three Golden Core cultivators? Found their flaws? And then executed them without raising alarms?

After thinking long and hard, only two words made sense:

"Internal traitor."

And so, unsurprisingly—but still shockingly—the sect launched a full-scale purge.

The demonic sect began a thorough internal investigation, hunting for whoever had betrayed the sect, leaked information, and led to the deaths of the three elders.

Of course, once a "strict investigation" begins, no one is ever truly innocent.

Regardless of what the "crime" was.

Some demonic disciples were brutally tortured—flayed, maimed, even cut into pieces or slowly executed by blades.

Even among the Golden Core elders, one fell during the purge.

Apparently, he was caught having an affair with a prized concubine kept by a senior Golden Core elder. Worse still, he had been secretly feeding on her blood. When exposed, he couldn't justify his actions and was even slandered further by someone else. Knowing he was in the wrong, he tried to escape—only to be struck down in a fit of rage by the sect leader.

For a time, the demonic sect was filled with fear and dread.

Paranoia. Mistrust. Chaos.

The development even shocked Mo Hua.

He hadn't expected human hearts to be so easily stirred...

At times, he almost felt like he was becoming like his martial uncle—manipulating hearts and minds behind the scenes.

Of course, he hadn't actually done anything.

The demonic sect was just overly suspicious—this was simply karma.

Besides, these demonic cultivators had practiced wicked techniques and had countless lives on their hands. Even if they died, they didn't deserve sympathy.

So Mo Hua was more than happy to watch the show.

But after a few days, he noticed something wasn't quite right.

The entire demonic sect… seemed to have gone silent.

Their communications had sharply dropped. Even if they did chat, it was brief, obscure, and often in code—hard to understand.

Mo Hua frowned.

"Could they have… noticed that there's something wrong with the magnetic array in the sect tokens?"

Sure enough, in the days that followed, demonic cultivators rarely used the sect token to transmit messages.

Even when they did, they spoke in riddles and coded language.

Some of the messages were so full of errors, Mo Hua could instantly tell they were deliberately fabricated—meant to fool outsiders.

But Mo Hua wasn't just any outsider.

He'd monitored enough intel by now that he probably understood the demonic sect's internal affairs better than many of its own disciples.

Still, with the sect growing so vigilant, he couldn't get anything useful for the time being.

"Bit of a problem…"

After thinking it over, Mo Hua decided to lay low for a while, wait out the storm, and see how things unfolded.

He took out his message token and wrote to Gu Changhuai:

"Uncle Gu, situation's changed. The demonic sect is too cautious right now—getting intel won't be easy for the moment."

Gu Changhuai replied:

"Got it. Just keep yourself safe."

In Gu Changhuai's heart, Mo Hua's safety was far more important than any intel.

What he didn't know was that—because he didn't understand formations—these so-called "dangerous" messages were actually just Mo Hua sitting in his sect, fiddling with a token every day. There was never much risk involved at all.

After that, Mo Hua set the demonic sect's command token aside for now.

Since there were barely any magnetic rune messages, and they were full of lies and fabrications, he didn't need to monitor it constantly. He'd just check it occasionally when he had time.

He now had something more important to do.

Solve the Puzzle Formation. Break Through the Bottleneck.

After consuming three Divine Remnants in a row, Mo Hua found that his divine sense had been refined enough to barely support unraveling the puzzle formation.

He didn't know if he could solve it all at once—but hey, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Even solving part of it was good.

With that, his cultivation would no longer be stagnant.

Once he began unraveling the formation and breaking through the bottleneck, he'd be walking the path toward late Foundation Establishment.

Mo Hua sighed deeply.

Still at mid-Foundation Establishment, he was constantly being called "Senior Brother" by a bunch of younger disciples at late-stage Foundation Establishment. It was... a lot of pressure.

No one could understand that kind of pain.

Only someone actually stuck as a "Senior Brother" could feel the full sting.

"The sooner I break through, the sooner I become late-stage."

Mo Hua clenched his fists in motivation.

From then on, aside from his daily classes, cultivation, and sword practice, he devoted almost all his remaining time to unraveling the divine sense puzzle formation—to break through the bottleneck to late Foundation Establishment.

The process was tedious, but not difficult—at least not from a formation theory perspective.

After all, with Mo Hua's current mastery of formations—especially his profound grasp of Second-Grade Formations—even among the geniuses of Qianxue Prefecture, he could stand proudly above them all.

In the days that followed, Mo Hua peacefully focused on unraveling the formation.

Half a month passed this way, and he managed to unlock about a third of it. But the deeper he went, the slower his progress became, and the more effort it took.

Mo Hua understood—this was because his divine sense hadn't yet been refined enough.

After a moment of silent contemplation, he flipped open the Demonic Sect Token again, considering whether he should kill a few more Golden Core cultivators and devour their Divine Remnants to further enhance his divine transformation.

By his estimation, two more would be enough.

If he could take down two more Golden Core demonic elders and consume the Divine Remnants parasitizing their bodies, the divine essence he'd refine from them should be just enough to break through to late Foundation Establishment.

"But I stirred up a lot of noise last time... the Demonic Sect is probably on high alert. Not sure if the heat's died down yet…"

Mo Hua muttered inwardly, then decided:

"Let's give it a try."

He manipulated the Thunder-Magnetic Puppet and dove into the Demonic Sect Token to check the currents.

Sure enough, after half a month, the tension seemed to have eased a bit. Things looked calmer.

Some demonic cultivators had begun chatting again through the token—not frequently, but far more than during the peak of the internal purge.

And the topics? Fairly open and uncensored.

Mo Hua's heart lit up.

"The opportunity's here."

He immediately steered the Thunder-Magnetic Puppet, diving deep into the token's layered magnetism sea, weaving through the currents of magnetic runes, eavesdropping on messages, reading the flow of intel—hunting for his next target.

Someone whose Divine Remnants he could eat.

After two days of snooping, Mo Hua finally identified someone based on the rune data:

An elder marked with dog runes.

Inside the Demonic Sect, he was referred to as "Elder Dog." His cultivation didn't seem especially strong, but he was a trusted confidant of the sect leader and known for scheming from the shadows. Many operations were secretly orchestrated by him.

"Dog-rune demon… a dog-headed tactician?"

Mo Hua mumbled with some amusement.

He continued investigating, manipulating the Thunder-Magnetic Puppet to trace more rune threads, searching for deeper clues on this "Dog-headed Strategist."

But as he searched, Mo Hua suddenly froze—his brows furrowed.

"Something's not right…"

A schemer like that—how could he be so easily exposed?

Especially right after a huge purge. It had barely been half a month since things "calmed down." There was no way people would be this brazen, talking casually about Golden Core elders and giving such obvious leads.

"Suspicious…"

Mo Hua grew alert.

After some thought, he hid the Thunder-Magnetic Puppet within the Magnetism Sea, then calmed his mind to sense the hidden flow of thunder-magnetic currents between the runes.

At first, everything felt normal. Mo Hua kept patient.

Only after a full hour of focused observation did he finally sense something off—a strange ripple in the thunder-magnetic currents between the runes.

Thanks to his divine sense refinement and mastery of complex deduction, Mo Hua had once derived the Thunder-Magnetic Source Rune—thus creating the Thunder-Magnetic Puppet.

His perception of thunder-magnetic anomalies was far keener than that of any ordinary formation master.

And this odd thunder-magnetic current… hadn't existed in the token before.

Where there's strange activity, there's something fishy.

Mo Hua could almost immediately conclude:

"Someone's fishing—for me!"

The illusion of "calm" was a trap.

The Demonic Sect must have realized there was something wrong with the core formations in the token.

But the token was too important to abandon.

So, they must've hired a powerful formation master to investigate the problem at the magnetism array level.

And someone capable of subtly manipulating thunder-magnetic waves like this…

Must be a top-tier Thunder-Magnetic Formation Master.

A real expert.

Mo Hua's heart skipped a beat.

He quickly examined the Thunder-Magnetic Puppet—and noticed that unbeknownst to him, it had picked up some foreign secondary thunder runes.

These runes weren't part of his original structure.

They'd latched on during the recent encounter with those abnormal thunder-magnetic currents.

They were markers—or even viruses.

Someone was trying to either force the puppet to reveal itself, or worse—use thunder-magnetic techniques to destroy it altogether!

Mo Hua's eyes narrowed sharply. He instantly pulled the puppet from the magnetism sea, sealed off its connection, erased its token signature, and severed all links to the relay array.

Only then did he breathe a little easier.

Then, he took out a clean jade slip, placed the puppet inside, and began inspecting each and every secondary thunder rune.

Unfamiliar patterns? Erased.

Fuzzy ones? Re-analyzed and re-anchored to his own source.

He gave the entire Thunder-Magnetic Puppet a full reset and cleansing—wiping it down to a squeaky-clean state. Only when he confirmed it was "clean and innocent" did he fully relax.

But his expression had turned heavy.

He realized… he had unknowingly stepped into a new domain:

The domain of Thunder-Magnetic Formation Masters facing off.

In this battlefield, those who commanded thunder-magnetic formations engaged in duels of deception and detection, waging microcosmic battles across arrays—interfering, countering, and infiltrating each other in a war of magnetic intrusion and defense...

(End of Chapter)