An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

”Everyone, listen to my command. I have found a way to break this formation!” he announced.

The crowd was taken aback. Xiahou Kun, who possessed some knowledge of formations, leaned forward with curiosity. ”How do we break it?”

Zheng Xian let out a light laugh. ”It is not difficult. We have to keep doing what we did and wear it down, but the right way to go about it is to do it in shifts.”

That simple? Xiahou Kun thought.

Zheng Xian continued, ”Oh, and since this kind of battle of attrition will take quite some time, everyone’s spirit power will be inevitably drained. As it happens, I have a third-tier spirit-gathering formation with me. We can set it up to create a gathering ground for replenishment. Fellow Daoist Xiahou, since you claim some knowledge of formations, I’ll leave the setup to you.”

The moment he heard these words, Zheng Kejian’s face changed. That third-tier spirit-gathering formation had been exchanged from the Sword Sect at great cost. It had taken Zheng Tianfang’s accumulated merits before his death, along with an enormous amount of resources, to acquire it. The Zheng family had originally intended to use it at Rolling Dragon Ridge to forcibly cultivate a second-tier spirit land and rapidly strengthen their cultivators. How could it possibly be wasted here?

”Uncle...” Zheng Kejian began but his words came to an abrupt halt.

Faced with Zheng Xian’s chilling gaze, he dared not utter another word.

”Fellow Daoist Xiahou, take this and set it up,” Zheng Xian said.

From his storage pouch, Zheng Xian drew out a formation disc, more than a hundred formation flags of varying sizes, and a considerable assortment of five-element materials.

Xiahou Kun accepted them with great care, his eyes gleaming with thinly veiled greed.

It was a top-grade spirit-gathering formation and a large-scale one at that! Such an auxiliary formation was something every cultivation family dreamed of possessing. Back at the Tianlan Immortal City auction, even a mere second-tier set had sparked a frenzied bidding war. In the end, the Zheng family had secured it. Who would have thought they had not been satisfied and had even gone on to purchase another third-tier set?

Zheng Xian, of course, noticed the covetous look in Xiahou Kun’s eyes, but he did not care. To him, the formation was dispensable; nothing more than a treasure of the Zheng family. Besides, Xiahou Kun would never dare to covet it.

Zheng Xian paid no further attention to how the man was arranging the formation. Instead, he summoned several others to his side and began to discuss how they would proceed to wear down the Luo Tian Society’s Seven-Colored Danxia Formation in successive waves.

***

While countless outsiders speculated and tried to pry into the truth. Within Danxia Peak, where the seven-colored protective barrier had been restored, the atmosphere burned with feverish activity.

The Luo Tian Society’s Qi Refinement cultivators, who had suffered casualties during the earlier skirmish at the mountain’s foot, were now working tirelessly to treat the wounded. Zhou Yuanli and Liu Qiang of the Law Enforcement Palace patrolled the front lines, some offering words of comfort to the injured, others keeping a firm eye on those harboring ill intent.

Meanwhile, Gu Caiyi led a large group of female cultivators, swiftly moving across the mountain to replace formation tools according to Min Longyu’s instructions.

Wuuuuu!

A sharp bird cry echoed beside her, and Yuan Xiaoyue curiously lifted her head.

”Pay it no mind. That’s a spirit beast sent by Palace Leader Xu to clean up the corpses Elder Min slew earlier,” Gu Caiyi explained as she glanced at the second-tier Plume-Snatching Eagle. Her tone remained calm as she added, ”Once you’ve finished checking this section of the formation, move on to the next. Make sure the spirit stones are replenished. Add more if you must, but never less.”

”Yes, Palace Leader!” the female cultivators answered in unison, their delicate voices ringing out together. These women, who usually served as attendants and greeters of the Gold Palace, showed not the slightest hesitation when it came to carrying out their tasks.

High above, the Plume-Snatching Eagle with a tuft of golden feathers atop its head swept its sharp gaze across the land. After circling once in the air, it swooped down toward the summit of Danxia Peak.

Thud!

A corpse dropped to the ground, and the eagle lowered its head to present a storage pouch to the woman before it. Its sharp beak opened, and from within came Xu Haizhen’s hollow voice.

”Director, the belongings of those ten Initiates have all been gathered.”

Sima Huiniang swept her sleeve and the storage pouches vanished. She gave a slight nod and stepped straight into the strange, seven-colored stone chamber at the mountain’s peak. Its walls spread out in twisting patterns, resembling a spider’s web or a labyrinth.

Inside, she found a man clad in black Daoist robes seated cross-legged with his eyes closed. Strands of multicolored light streamed down from the heavens like ribbons of silk, drawn into the stone chamber and weaving a dazzling brilliance within.

The radiance made the black-robed man appear like an enlightened immortal wrapped in rainbow light. That man was none other than Min Longyu, the one who commanded the Luo Tian Society’s mountain-guarding formation.

As Sima Huiniang entered, he slowly opened his eyes.

”I did not fail your trust. I have repelled the first wave of attack!” he declared.

Sima Huiniang nodded. ”Thanks to you. Without your intervention, either our newly advanced Initiates would have been injured, or Wang Yuan and the others would have lost much of their strength.”

Min Longyu’s expression remained calm, as if he and the arrogant figure who had earlier looked down on tens of thousands of cultivators and proclaimed invincibility were completely different people. He merely said calmly, ”This was only my duty. Besides, I had already simulated this battle countless times with the formation disc. What happened just now was merely the first live trial. It is a pity those grand cultivators are too cautious. Not a single one dared to step into the formation. Otherwise, I could have slain one or two to intimidate the entire battlefield.”

His words flowed unhurriedly, filled with composure and confidence. Had outsiders heard them, they would have been utterly stunned.

In his very first trial, he had already executed ten true-blue Initiates with the formation. Such an achievement was shocking beyond belief, yet he still found it lacking and even wished to kill one or two late-stage ones as a warning. That was arrogance taken to the extreme.

Within the entire Luo Tian Society, including Luo Chen himself, only Sima Huiniang, who oversaw the grand strategy, understood why Min Longyu carried such confidence. Of course, it did not stem from his power alone. The Seven-Colored Danxia Formation drew upon the immense resources of the Luo Tian Society to unleash such might. Years ago, Wang Yuan had returned from the Jilei Nine Mountain battlefield with a complete set of enchanted-treasure formation discs for Min Longyu. Later, Chu Kui and Luo Chen came back bearing the spoils of dozens of Initiates.

The resources they brought were vast beyond measure. Among them were more than thirty enchanted-treasure flying swords. From these, Min Longyu selected twenty-one of varying attributes and buried them deep within Danxia Peak. On that foundation, he reconstructed the Seven-Colored Danxia Formation. What had once been designed as a scalable defensive formation had now transformed into a killing formation!

Of course, such a grand killing formation could never be controlled by Min Longyu’s strength alone. Thus, Sima Huiniang oversaw the entire operation, mobilizing all available cultivators and resources to complete the formation.

The Gold Palace cultivators who moved back and forth repairing the lines were only one part of the effort. The hundreds of cultivators from the Artifact Palace had vanished from sight; they had been stationed at the formation’s nodes, maintaining the formation’s basic operations.

In addition, Sima Huiniang had gone even further. She had poured in every last spirit stone the Luo Tian Society had accumulated over the years. The amount was staggering, enough to stir envy even from a Golden Core Adept.

A million spirit stones! Every basic formation pattern across the mountain had been inlaid with low-grade spirit stones. At the crucial nodes, she had used mid-grade spirit stones, painstakingly acquired from the black market over the years, as the formation’s core energy source.

Within the stone chamber, mid-grade spirit stones covered the walls in layer after layer, shining with a dense brilliance. Even the three top-grade spirit stones Luo Chen had carefully treasured for years had been entrusted to Min Longyu.

It could be said that every time Min Longyu activated the formation, he was burning through an ocean of spirit stones.

When Min Longyu annihilated ten Initiates in a few moments, it had looked effortless to outsiders. Yet only Sima Huiniang and Min Longyu knew that in those few moments, no fewer than three hundred thousand spirit stones had been consumed.

The sheer scale of that consumption revealed how seriously the Luo Tian Society regarded this battle. With so many resources invested, defeat was something Sima Huiniang could never allow. Only victory would suffice, and it had to be a decisive victory to justify such a cost. As for how that victory was to be achieved, that was a question she and Luo Chen needed to answer.

Now that Sima Huiniang had arrived at the summit, she intended to ask Min Longyu what else he required.

In response to her inquiry, Min Longyu already seemed fully prepared.

”War is driven by courage and momentum. The first strike lifts the spirit, the second weakens it, and by the third, it is gone. When their strength is exhausted and ours still surges, that is when we claim victory! Their first two assaults, which were meant to seize the initiative, were rendered useless by my defense and counterattack. If all the Initiates, including the eight grand cultivators, had charged together, I might have slain one or two, but I could not have handled them all. Thankfully, many of those who think themselves smart held back, and in doing so, they gave me the chance to cut them down one by one.

”Now my killing formation stands before them, and their momentum is already gone. What follows will be nothing more than a war of attrition, forced upon them by their own hesitation. Director, once it turns into a battle of attrition, won’t we have achieved our initial objective?”

Sima Huiniang gave a slight nod. ”Indeed. The President and I discussed this earlier. As long as we could withstand the first wave of attacks, the casualties within the Luo Tian Society would remain under control. That way, he would have more freedom to maneuver. And as for a war of attrition...”

Their gazes swept across the chamber, taking in the countless mid-grade spirit stones embedded within the formation lines.

Some had already crumbled into fine powder. Yet most still lay intact, silently resting in place and ready to release their power at any time.

Min Longyu’s voice carried unshakable confidence. ”Ten days. I can hold out for ten full days!”

Ten days? Sima Huiniang blinked softly, committing his reply to memory as she returned to the Luo Tian Society’s Grand Hall, halfway up the mountain.

Inside the hall, four people sat in silence. Before them, a Water Mirror rippled with light, displaying everything happening within ten li of the mountain.

When the leader heard her report, a look of satisfaction appeared on his face.

”Ten days is more than enough,” he said. ”Once these ten days have passed, whether the enemy advances or retreats, we shall unleash our full strength and secure an overwhelming victory in this battle!”