Chapter 650: These Spirit-Race Formation Masters Have Truly Narrowed Their Own Path

Su Ming's footsteps did not pause, but a storm had already been stirred within his Consciousness Sea. Through internal observation with his divine sense, he discovered in astonishment that where Shadow's originally pure black, ink-like feathers met the edges, after inhaling this mouthful of life force, a faint trace of extremely pale purple-gold dark patterns had subtly emerged.

"This little thing..." Lin Yu's voice sounded from within the Xuantian ring, carrying a barely concealed note of surprise. "It can actually directly devour the laws of life from the spirit realm to temper its feathers? In Qingyan's memories, there has never been a demonic beast from the human realm able to absorb foreign realm power so ruthlessly."

"When something is out of the ordinary, there must be something unusual behind it." Su Ming responded in a low voice within his Consciousness Sea, his footsteps still steady. "The laws of the spirit realm are extremely exclusionary. Even my Like Water Art finds it difficult to directly convert the vitality here. Shadow is merely an infant-stage Profound Shadow Crow. How can it show no sign of rejection at all?"

"Hmph, if you ask me, the ancient stellar bloodline within this little creature is likely far more domineering than we ever imagined." Lin Yu stroked his illusory beard in midair, a flicker of deep thought passing through his eyes. "Don't forget, when it hatched, what it absorbed was the purest starlight. No matter how exclusionary the vitality of the spirit realm might be, compared to the origin power of the vast stars, it ultimately comes up short. Just keep an eye on it, and don't let it eat until it bursts and dies."

Su Ming calmly tightened his sleeve opening a bit more, cutting off Shadow's greedy perception of the outside world.

Before long, the two arrived at a wide tree platform. This was Elder Genxu's formation work site.

The tree platform was covered with all sorts of unnamed wooden instruments and glowing spirit herb specimens. Elder Genxu stood before a massive wooden block, and upon hearing footsteps, he slowly turned around.

This aged spirit-race formation master was leaning on that polished, gleaming wooden staff. His old face, covered in wrinkles like dried bark, bore an extremely complex expression of exhaustion and hope.

Seeing Su Ming approach, Elder Genxu took a deep breath and withdrew an elongated wooden slip from his wide sleeve.

He stepped forward and offered the wooden slip to Su Ming.

At that moment, Su Ming keenly caught sight of the elder, who had lived for who knows how many years, his hands trembling slightly.

This was the indescribable unease and reverence that came from one who had stubbornly kept watch over his own small patch of land for three hundred years, only to suddenly discover that beyond his door lay a vast, boundless new world.

"This is the maintenance log for all three hundred and seventy-two formation cores on the outskirts of Greenwood Court, covering the past three hundred years of root vein care." Elder Genxu's voice was somewhat hoarse, each word spoken very slowly. "This old one is dull of wit. I guarded them for three hundred years, yet failed to see through the true nature of those malignant tumors. Today, I entrust them to you."

Su Ming accepted the wooden slip with both hands, his expression solemn, with not the slightest trace of condescension. "Elder, you flatter me. A foot may be short, an inch may be long. I have merely borrowed the precision and subtlety of human-race formation arts."

With that said, Su Ming extended a wisp of divine sense into the wooden slip while simultaneously activating his Observation of the Minute.

A vast and complex flood of information surged into his Consciousness Sea. These logs were recorded in exhaustive detail, accurate down to the daily rise and fall of vitality in every spiritual spring and every underground root vein.

Su Ming closed his eyes and, with terrifying computational power, rapidly reviewed three hundred years' worth of data in his mind.

"How is it?" Elder Genxu couldn't help but ask nervously when he saw Su Ming open his eyes after just a few breaths.

"The formation attainments of the spirit races are truly admirable." Su Ming offered a sincere compliment, but in the next moment, within his Consciousness Sea, he delivered a completely different assessment to Lin Yu. "Master, these spirit-race formation masters have truly narrowed their own path."

"Oh?" Lin Yu chuckled lightly from within the ring. "In what way have they narrowed it?"

"For three hundred years, they have recorded the changes in vitality with unwavering consistency, so extremely focused that even the ripples of spiritual energy caused by a gentle breeze are documented." Su Ming analyzed calmly in his heart. "But they only know how to observe phenomena, yet they do not understand how to seek the underlying principles."

"To put it plainly, they're a bunch of diligent old oxen who only know to keep their heads down and pull the cart, never once lifting their eyes to look at the road ahead." Lin Yu summarized with pinpoint precision, then warned earnestly, "But don't get too arrogant either. Though their clumsy methods built from accumulated years are extremely inefficient, their foundation is terrifyingly solid."

"Your disciple understands." Su Ming acknowledged inwardly.

He turned to look at Elder Genxu, his tone calm yet carrying an unyielding determination that brooked no argument. "Elder, I have finished reviewing the logs. For today's first assignment, we shall go deal with the areas around the most severely dried-up spiritual springs."

Half an hour later.

The two stood at the edge of a dried-up marsh. The soil here had taken on a sickly grayish-white color, and the surrounding light trees had completely withered and died, not a trace of green to be found anywhere.

"This is the place." Elder Genxu tapped the ground with his wooden staff, his voice filled with anguish. "The rate of vitality loss here is the fastest in the entire outer region. This old one tried using the Wood Severance Technique to forcibly cut through the rotting root veins underground, but every time I cut them, by the next day they would spread back with even more frenzied speed."

Su Ming crouched down, extending his right hand, hovering it three inches above the ground.

"Elder, forcibly cutting them off is like sprinkling salt on a wound. It only provokes the ferocity of those life-devouring fungal filaments." Su Ming's voice was low. "Today, let me show you how a human formation cultivator excises bone and treats the poison."

The moment his words fell, a ball of pure deep-blue light suddenly burst forth from Su Ming's fingertips.

The Like Water Art had been pushed to its absolute limit!

This time, he did not use just a single strand of spiritual energy probe as he had the day before. Instead, he instantly dispersed that ball of blue water spiritual energy, transforming it into hundreds upon thousands of ultra-fine spiritual energy filaments that were nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye.

"Go!"

Su Ming let out a low shout, and the thousand-plus spiritual energy filaments, as if imbued with life of their own, silently burrowed into the grayish-white soil.

Within the visual field of the Observation of the Minute, that underground web of dark-purple fungal filaments materialized once more. They coiled viciously around the root veins of Greenwood Court, greedily sucking away at them.

Su Ming did not choose to attack.

He manipulated those water spiritual energy filaments, letting them slowly spread along the surface of the fungal filaments. When the filaments made contact with the crucial nodes where the fungi connected to the root veins, an inconceivable scene unfolded.

Those deep-blue filaments did not unleash any destructive force. Instead, with a supple grace, they transformed into an extremely thin, extremely transparent water membrane, gently enveloping the tips of the fungal filaments.

One layer, ten layers, a hundred layers...

No fewer than a hundred microscopic water membranes took shape underground simultaneously under Su Ming's terrifying divine-sense control.

"Reverse displacement, strip and separate!"

The veins on Su Ming's forehead bulged violently, and beads of sweat the size of beans instantly covered his face. Simultaneously maintaining the stability of over a hundred microscopic water membranes while severing their law-based connections to the Dark Current Sect's mother formation at the very same instant — this level of pressure on his divine sense had nearly reached the absolute limit of his current capabilities.

"Boom—"

An extremely muffled tremor came from underground.

It was the backlash wave instinctively unleashed by the Dark Current Sect's baleful formation upon sensing the severed connections.

Yet when that violent dark-purple baleful aura came charging along the threads of law, it slammed headfirst into clusters of deep-blue water membranes.

The baleful aura was like a heavy punch striking bottomless cotton. Every ounce of destructive force was dissipated layer by layer by the water membranes, dissolving into nothingness.

Standing off to the side, Elder Genxu's entire body went stiff as stone.

His amber, glass-like pupils grew wider and wider as he stared fixedly at the ground. Though he did not possess the Observation of the Minute, as a grandmaster of formations, he had a thorough understanding of every shift in underground energy aura.

He could clearly sense that the baleful aura which had perched here like a malicious ghost was silently and imperceptibly dissolving away, just like spring snow meeting the sun!