579: Chapter 409 579: Chapter 409 It felt rather sinister, the more you used your power to unravel it, the more it would drain the energy from your body.
If you refrained from using power, it could even absorb the energy from the air.
Upon realizing this peculiar phenomenon, no one dared to exert their power to break the formation.
They only used their divine sense to study the ever-changing opportunities within the array.
Some of lesser abilities had already attempted such actions.
Those dozen or so Great Power Holders, they had, more or less, secretly used their own strength to try breaking the array.
A regular formation would be no match for such powerful individuals.
When a confident Great Power Holder struck the mountain with his mighty blow, hoping to absorb the Golden Dragon, he was met with nothing but disappointment.
If it were an ordinary mountain, these powerful beings, who could move mountains and overturn seas, could flatten a mountain with a slap of their hand.
When they acted so rashly, they didn’t consider the many cultivators and other martial world individuals on the mountain.
From the moment they chose to hunt for treasures, they were in opposing camps, where the victor takes all, and the loser is cast aside.
Who, after obtaining the treasure, would share their spoils with others?
“Sinister…!” A Great Power Holder could not dispel the mountain’s array with such forceful power.
An attempt to brute-force through the array instead caused his powerful strike to be absorbed.
Not all of the dozen ability holders were versed in arrays.
Those who didn’t understand formations, upon realizing that brute force was ineffective, could only hope that others proficient in arrays would solve it and potentially reap the fisherman’s benefit.
Patriarch Ye, armed with his family’s ancestral spell and formation knowledge, continuously studied.
He felt that the formation he was studying now had its differences – it was more profound than what he had learned.
In the Ye Family’s military household, everyone had to learn formation arts, breaking arrays, along with other cultivation skills that different families might let one choose from.
Yet in their clan, everyone was required to have the capability of a general; tactics for pitting armies against each other, training soldiers in formation, and designing arrays.
The method for forging magic artifacts they used, and the formations within them, were different from the one he now witnessed.
There was always something to learn and emulate.
He understood the principle that learning is endless, that there’s always a higher mountain and now he had come to realize it.
He chose to study and then combine it with the formation used for troop training in his family, aiming to innovate a different kind of formation.
At a glance, he saw that the array was entirely constructed of energy and that without energy, the formation would automatically unravel.
With such a profusion of energy, the individual must have considerable wealth, possibly many unique Energy Stones.
Perhaps this was the person with Immortal Qi they had been searching for, someone who must still be lurking in the shadows.
According to his observations and the reports received, this mountain was an ordinary one until just a day ago; even though it had low-level Demonic Beasts, it suddenly became a treasure mountain.
If not for human intervention, he wouldn’t believe that it could be a treasure that had fallen down due to a cataclysm thousands of years ago.
Patriarch Ye’s thoughts were close to the truth, but this was merely his conjecture.
His hypothesis, although speculative, was already leading in a direction where his junior had such energy.
Was it a gift from someone else?
Their family didn’t possess such Energy Stones, so this younger member must have obtained it during his travels outside!
Not everyone who goes abroad to gain experience will bring back resources that must be handed over to the family.
For those of a general’s stature like themselves, the rewards they received were not insignificant, and the family, possessing far greater assets, did not require the confiscation of juniors’ gains.
Patriarch DuGu used his bugs to sneak into the mountain for an expedition in secret, only to discover that once they entered, he lost contact with them.
These were bugs he had nurtured for nearly a thousand years, raised daily with blood.
How could they lose contact so easily unless the formation was too formidable.
He had previously sent bugs to explore that young man and almost failed to call them back.
This time, taking a risk by sending the bugs again, he wasn’t as lucky to retrieve them; he lost contact with them permanently, and it pained his heart.
Different from other Great Power Holders who wished to break the formation, Patriarch Tang and some others did not cultivate in golden spells.
Absorbing energy merely combined with the power inherently within them.
He was different, he could absorb the golden energy into his body as Spiritual Power, and the last dose of golden energy was about to let him level up.
Just a little short of leveling up, he had resorted to robbing treasures from the young because for centuries he hadn’t been able to enhance his Cultivation.
How could he not go mad with such hope before him?
Initially at the early stage of Mahayana Realm, he was slightly less capable than some of the old fellows, relying on his own toxic abilities to defeat these old timers.
With so much energy around, how foolish it would be to try to solve the Formation without understanding it, wouldn’t it be a waste of time?
The Golden Dragon on the mountain and the silvery luster of those people were actually gold and white energy.
As long as he absorbed all the golden energy, he could turn the mountain’s Energy Stones into his own Spiritual Energy, which was far better than those who obtained the stones but couldn’t use them.
The Tang Sect Patriarch thought himself clever, yet he didn’t realize his petty cunning was already evident to others.
Jiang Tang of course noticed this man’s frantic absorption of golden energy, realized he was the one chasing after Ye Tian.
If not for Tang Yanhong’s sake, he surely would have taught him a lesson.
However, since he now had a mutually beneficial cooperation with the Tang Family, he let him take advantage a bit.
Little did the old ancestor know, his granddaughter was watching!
This future son-in-law watched his every move and refrained from teaching him a lesson, yet there he was, smugly pleased with himself.
Understanding the old Patriarch’s madness, he saw him begin to prepare for advancing to the mid-stage of Mahayana Realm, almost on par with his own Cultivation level.
Seeing him consume a Pill, Jiang Tang didn’t know what Pill it was, for it surely wasn’t one of his Supreme Elixirs.
It was said that every major stage of advance had its corresponding Pills.
If one didn’t consume such Pills, it was tough to level up.
Jiang Tang knew his Supreme Elixirs were so potent that those who took them didn’t need ordinary Pills to achieve what they desired.
Jiang Tang guessed it might be a precious Pill from the Mahayana Realm, not something everyone could acquire.
You might have the Pill but lack the skill, or have the skill and still struggle to buy such Pills, unless it was an inheritance from a major family.
In Jiang Tang’s Alchemy Secret Manual, there were introductions to various Pills like Golden Restoration Pill, Nascent Soul Restoration Pill, Ocean Wheel Restoration Pill, Spiritual Mansion Restoration Pill, Mahayana Restoration Pill, Divinity Transformation Pill, as well as Spirit Grass.
His space did not contain these collected herbs.
Jiang Tang, however, was confident that once he concocted more varieties of Supreme Elixirs, the aforementioned Pills would become redundant.
As the Tang Sect Patriarch practiced for his advancement, he cast series of Cultivation Techniques on himself and his surroundings as a precaution against sneak attacks, a common practice among Cultivators to ensure safety while training outside.
If he could harm others, how could he not anticipate retaliation?
He was even wary of the potential for more than a dozen Great Power Holders to attack him simultaneously, for without his guard up, death was certain, rendering any Cultivation advancement meaningless!
The Spirit Sect Patriarch, while studying the Formation, found that some of the Illusion Techniques within it bore similarities to those used by his Spirit Sect, yet there were differences.
Having constructed some Illusion Formations the last time, he was already researching them.
Now, observing the Illusion Techniques in the Formation, he sought to elevate his own Illusion abilities and possibly gain new insights that could later be documented for the younger generation to learn from.
When he emerged from his retreat, he heard that for the first time, someone had unraveled the Illusion Technique inside the two stone lions at the main gate, forcing the ancient ghosts, thousands of years old, into retreat.
Those were the residual souls residing within the stone lions left by their ancestors, fearsome indeed.
Anyone who had engaged with them knew their potency.
This young man was their future son-in-law, and although some of the old guards were also competitors—speaking of competition for the hand of the daughter—his perspective was different.
As long as the person was powerfully skilled, able to pass on these skills to their family, and could benefit them, what was the sacrifice of a young woman in comparison?
It was said that this young woman had gained many benefits by staying close to Jiang Tang, yet she didn’t pass along any information about this man back to her family.
It felt like a daughter married off, water splashed out—gone for good.
Yun Duoduo never imagined her own ancestor would think of her this way.
She had yet to recognize her ancestor’s abilities; Jiang Tang had informed her of his presence, which might be the Patriarch using his skill in Illusion to conceal himself from others.