Lady Cultivator

Chapter 111: Illusory Formation

Translator: Cenniwdyl Editor: Caron_

Mo Tiange knew she must be facing a formation right now. However, she really couldn’t make any sense of this formation.

Just now, because Luo Fengxue and Wei Jiasi wanted some privacy as they talked, she left them and went on her own. She planned to look for a spot that was neither too close nor too far where she could wait and keep watch at the same time. In the end, however, she accidentally stumbled upon traces of a formation in the vicinity.

This wasn’t a problem itself; the problem was that even with her knowledge and experience with formations, she unexpectedly couldn’t figure out what kind of formation it was, not to mention how to break it. Out of helplessness, she prepared to head back and look for the other two. But somehow, she had unexpectedly been caught inside the formation and was unable to leave.

In front of her was an endless white. It was as if she was surrounded by fog; nothing could be seen clearly. After pondering, Mo Tiange stopped moving. Instead, she sat down and released her divine sense.

Ever since she entered the Foundation Building realm, the distance she could explore using her divine sense had reached several thousand feet. Since this was a formation, this distance should be enough for her to find the eye of the formation.

Nevertheless, right after she released her divine sense to explore, the fog around her seemed to have come alive, bubbling up all over the place, intentionally blocking her divine sense from moving any further.

She opened her eyes. Her brows were tightly furrowed.

Something is wrong. This formation is too strong; it definitely wasn’t laid by demonic beasts. Could there be some kind of expert senior hiding here?

Just as this idea flashed across her mind, she thought of another possibility. She yelled out loud, “Martial Uncle Shoujing! Is Martial Uncle Shoujing here?”

Her voice slowly faded away amongst the dense fog. Mo Tiange waited for a while, yet she didn’t hear any response.

Did I guess wrong? She pondered before slowly moving forward.

Unexpectedly, the fog was cloud-like. It was so thick that she practically could touch it with her hands. She had only walked a few steps forward, but she realized that everything in front and behind her, as well as on her right and left were all the same. Her sense of direction was unclear, and she had no path to follow.

At that moment, there was a flash of light. Mo Tiange dodged to the side right before a thunderbolt struck her original spot, leaving a huge black burnt mark on the ground from the explosion.

Mo Tiange was frightened. She looked around vigilantly, but she couldn’t find any other trace of life.

Unknownst to her, the fog behind her was gradually solidifying into a human form which then walked towards her.

Mo Tiange was trembling all over, but she suddenly ducked out of the way. In the next second, a flying sword pierced the ground.

Following the direction where that flying sword came from, she turned around. However, right after she did so, she blurted out in astonishment, “Second Uncle!”

In the fog, several dozen feet away from her, stood a long-bearded old man in a black robe. It was how Ye Jiang looked before he was injured!

But in a split second, Mo Tiange was even more vigilant than before. She knew Second Uncle was already dead. The figure before her eyes definitely wasn’t her Second Uncle. Could it be that this fog could produce figures from her mind?

She had no time to think. The Ye Jiang in front of her raised his hand, summoning a jade disc out of nowhere.

Upon seeing the jade disc, a cold sweat trickled down Mo Tiange’s body.

The jade disc was Second Uncle’s Thick Soil Disc. It was refined by her father after he formed his Gold Core and it had extraordinary power. Unfortunately, when they fled from Mount Yunwu and Second Uncle was forced to fight, it had shattered to pieces.

She was even more certain that this was only a character formed from her thoughts. The fact that this formation could actually produce a character from her thoughts as well as magic tools was proof that this formation was powerful. The flying sword a moment ago mostly likely had real power too!

Although her forehead was drenched in a cold sweat, Mo Tiange had no time to wipe it. With a wave of her hand, she summoned the Shuttle of Flying Apsara.

If this phantom of Second Uncle really had the same power he had when he was alive, a bit of carelessness on her part would very likely cause her to be killed on the spot.

The jade disc floated in the air. Ye Jiang was expressionless. He made hand seals while muttering some spells, continuously sending spiritual aura to the jade disc, causing it to widen as much as a woven mat.

Mo Tiange actually knew the Thick Soil Disc’s weakness. It was called Thick Soil Disc, so naturally, it had soil attributes. Layers of soil had to settle to be thick. If she waited until he finished inserting spiritual aura into the jade disc, the jade disc would hit her and it would definitely make her suffer. Since this thing still needed some time to raise its power, if she moved first and took advantage of a critical moment, she could restrict its movements. Thus, her Shuttle of Flying Apsara was immediately transformed into a gold net which flew directly towards the phantom.

“Ah!” The phantom called out as it was strongly bound by the gold net. When she Second Uncle’s extremely pained expression, Mo Tiange’s hands involuntarily trembled.

This attack of hers made her realize that even though this phantom didn’t have the real person’s reaction speed, he looked too similar to Second Uncle. She obviously knew he was only a replica of her Second Uncle, but he was too similar to the point where she almost couldn’t bear to attack it.

A malicious glint suddenly flashed across that phantom’s eyes. He gestured with his hand and the Thick Soil Disc that had grown bigger abruptly dived towards her.

Mo Tiange dodged. In an instant, she was already several dozen feet away with both palms joined together. A pained scream came through – her golden needles had struck their target. The Second Uncle before her eyes gradually faded away. Bit by bit, cracks appeared on the Thick Soil Disc until it eventually fractured and vanished into thin air.

She wiped the sweat on her forehead off while calming down. A fake was, in the end, a fake. Second Uncle wouldn’t gaze at her like that and would, most importantly, never attack her.

She had just turned around and walked a few steps when she received another shock.

A man was standing several feet away from her. The man was handsome but rather cold and solemn. It was Qin Xi’s appearance!

In a split second, Mo Tiange released her Shuttle of Flying Apsara. Unlike the phantom of Second Uncle, this Qin Xi had no response at all and didn’t make any attempts to attack her. He just lifted his hand, causing the golden needles to converge and unite, reforming the Shuttle of Flying Apsara’s original shape before it fell into his hands.

Mo Tiange was shocked! Ever since she got it, she learned about its powers. It could scatter and become a formation; it could converge and become needles. It was corporeal but had no character. It could kill people without being seen. Furthermore, she had absolute control over the formation used to operate it and even spent a lot of time refining it again – how could it be stolen by others so easily!?

Nevertheless, it was only a thought that flashed in her mind for an instant. Right now wasn’t the time to ponder over this matter. She fumbled in her Qiankun Bag for something. In the next moment, she took out a flying sword and several small throwing knives.

These throwing knives were originally the teeth of the Iron-Teethed Crocodile. After she built her foundation, she took the teeth to Xuanqing School’s tool-refining shop and asked the shop to refine them into magic tools. They might be not that powerful, but they were useful for mounting a sneak attack.

The flying sword met her opponent head-on while the throwing knifes tried to sneakily attack it from behind. Instead of using the Shuttle of Flying Apsara in his hands, Qin Xi took out a sword. It was the same sword that possessed a staggering momentum that Mo Tiange had once seen. The blade of this sword was completely golden and it was covered in a blazing fire.

He only swung it lightly, but her flying sword was immediately beaten to the ground. He then lifted it, and all her throwing knives were blown away.

Mo Tiange was completely stunned. She still had other magic tools, but none of them had been refined. Therefore, she had no other choice but to hurriedly fetch several defensive talismans and stuck them onto her body. She also took out a wind element talisman and hurled it forward.

When she finished doing all this, Qin Xi’s sword already reached her. However, in an instant, the sword became two, then multiplied into four, four into eight, and directly attacked her from different directions at the same time.

Too slow to react, Mo Tiange could only watch helplessly as those swords pierced her body.

But she didn’t feel any of the expected pain. On the contrary, her body suddenly became light. The power of that sword vanished in a flash. The Qin Xi standing before her eyes also gradually faded away. In the end, her Shuttle of Flying Apsara fell to the ground.

Although Mo Tiange was shaken, after a bit of thinking, she eventually understood what happened. The people were fake and the environment around her was also fake, so the attack must be fake too. This formation simply relied on spiritual aura fluctuations to make people have illusions.

Now that she understood, she recalled all of her things back, including her flying sword and the Shuttle of Flying Apsara. She sat cross-legged then proceeded to slowly recover her spiritual aura.

At this moment, another figure materialized in front of her. It was actually the already-dead Xu Jingzhi!

Xu Jingzhi was killed in the test to obtain Foundation-Building Pills. After that event, Mo Tiange also faced a lot of problems, so she had never given him a second thought. Seeing him now inevitably made her heart feel a bit agitated.

But a second later, she calmed down, closed her eyes and concentrated on adjusting her breath. Despite sensing the talisman Xu Jingzhi hurled towards her, she remained completely still. She was already in the Foundation Building realm now. Attacks from Xu Jingzhi, who was only in the Aura Refining realm, were beyond weak.

As soon as that talisman touched her body, it quivered then disappeared along with Xu Jingzhi.

Later, Murong Yan, Senior Martial Brother Zhou, Luo Fengxue, and others appeared one after the other. Since Mo Tiange had already seen through the formation’s tricks, she pretended like she didn’t see them and meditated silently.

When she finally opened her eyes again, the scenery in front of her was no longer fog and clouds. Instead, she was faced with a vast yellow desert along with a scorching sun high up in the sky.

Mo Tiange pondered then stood up and looked all around.

The endless yellow sand, the sun high in the sky, the strong wind… This place looked very similar to the desert in the western part of the Celestial Pole.

She released her divine sense again, but this time, she found that there was nothing blocking it.

Mo Tiange was surprised and excited. She immediately closed her eyes and focused on exploring her surroundings using her divine sense.

Soon afterward, a smile appeared on her face. The eye of the formation! She had found the eye of the formation!

After carefully pinpointing the location of the eye of the formation, Mo Tiange opened her eyes and determined the direction she needed to go in.

According to her divine sense, the eye of the formation was about 800 feet away. This distance was very reasonable. If she could break it, she would be able to escape this entrapment.

The yellow sand under her feet was very frail. When she stepped on it, she sank up to her knees. Thus, just like walking on snow, each step was incredibly challenging. She tried to fly, but she then realized she couldn’t fly in this place. She could only swallow her irritation and make her way, one step at a time.

The wind blew the sand away while continuously emitting “whooshing” sounds, hitting her hard in the face to the point where she felt excruciating pain.

Meanwhile, the sun was also very fierce. She almost felt like she was being roasted alive.

As she experienced all this, Mo Tiange was suddenly startled. She was already a Foundation Building cultivator, so she ought to be affected by neither hot nor cold. Why did it still feel so unbearable under the scorching sun and why did she even feel pain from being hit by the wind?

Realizing this, she immediately tried to operate the spiritual aura inside her body to produce a protective barrier. However, she was completely stupefied. Her body was empty. Whether it was her dantian or her meridians, there wasn’t even the slightest bit of spiritual aura left!

Mo Tiange stood still for a long time as sweat trickled down her face. This formation had actually transformed herself into a mere mortal! She wiped the sweat off her face and took out her Qiankun Bag… Useless! Spiritual aura, albeit a small amount, was needed to open Qinkun Bag. Right now, she didn’t even have the tiniest bit of spiritual aura!

Since she couldn’t open her Qiankun Bag, she had nothing. Furthermore, without spiritual aura, she couldn’t use any spells. The only thing she could use now was her divine sense. But again, her Soul-Refining Technique still couldn’t produce any power and was basically useless!

After thinking for quite a while, she finally calmed down and proceeded towards the eye of the formation. In any case, if she could find its position, her situation would definitely improve.

After accepting her fate and walking for some time, Mo Tiange turned to look back towards the direction she came from. The sand blown by the wind gradually buried her footprints. She then closed her eyes to sense her position. Right after she did, she was once again stunned. There wasn’t the slightest decrease in the distance between her and the eye of the formation!

She quickly pondered. Could it be that she hadn’t left her original position at all? Her footprints were real though. In that case, did the position of the eye perhaps change?

Once this thought crossed her mind, she couldn’t help but turn pale. If that was indeed the case, she basically had no ability to fight back!

Calm down! Calm down! Mo Tiange muttered inwardly. She suppressed her anger and began thinking.

This formation was clearly an Illusory Formation, but the fact now was that she had no spiritual aura. How was she supposed to break this formation? Although there was no malicious intent in her surroundings, the scorching sun, the yellow desert, and the wind were an ordeal. All of these either trapped people or put their willpower to the test…

Eventually, she clenched her teeth and pushed forward. If she stayed still, she would be consumed by the feeling of being trapped. If she moved, she might still have a chance at living!

She kept moving, one step after the other. She had no idea how long she walked when she gradually sensed the scene in front of her becoming fuzzy. Despite that, still with a firm will, Mo Tiange clenched her teeth and continued on.

Her hands were unbearably sore and she almost couldn’t lift her feet. The wind kept getting fiercer and the sun was getting hotter. At last, her body lost its strength and she fell to the ground as she lost consciousness.

A long time later, a gap emerged in the sky as if the sky was being torn apart. A man in Daoist robes floated through the gap and muttered softly, “This little girl isn’t bad. She actually persevered for so long. Aling, out of my respect for you, I won’t make things difficult for her…”