Immortality Through Array Formations (The Quest for Immortality)

Chapter 1120: Temptation

Luo Biaotou was momentarily stunned, standing dumbfounded—neither replying nor returning the courtesy.

The Sect Master of the Cang Wolf Sect frowned slightly, a trace of disdain flickering in his heart. Still, he reasoned that such a lowly cultivator might be overwhelmed with fear upon seeing him and had merely lost his sense of decorum—there was no need to dwell on it.

Moreover, if not for the monk's face, then at least for the Buddha's.

Even just considering Mo Hua's face, he couldn't be too harsh on this Luo Biaotou.

Mo Hua quietly said, "Luo Biaotou…"

Luo Biaotou slowly came back to his senses.

Mo Hua glanced at the Cang Wolf Sect Master and gave a subtle signal, "The Sect Master is speaking to you."

Only then did Luo Biaotou jolt awake and hurriedly bow, saying,

"I wouldn't dare—I wouldn't dare. The Sect Master's bearing is awe-inspiring and worthy of admiration. I was momentarily rude. I beg your pardon, Sect Master."

The Sect Master gave a nod, slightly more satisfied.

Mo Hua said, "Luo Biaotou, you've had a long and tiring journey. Why don't you go home and rest first?"

Home…

Luo Biaotou was stunned, then glanced at the Sect Master, somewhat excited as he cupped his hands and said, "Then, Sect Master… I'll take my leave?"

The Cang Wolf Sect Master nodded.

Joy surged in Luo Biaotou's heart.

He had a guilty conscience and was terrified of the Sect Master's imposing aura, afraid that the truth might be uncovered. He couldn't wait to get away from this place of danger.

Luo Biaotou bowed deeply, ready to leave the hall—but just as he reached halfway, he was suddenly called back by the Sect Master:

"Wait a moment."

Luo Biaotou's heart skipped a beat.

The Sect Master said, "Luo Biaotou, escorting Young Master Mo all the way must've been arduous. Someone, bring him some spirit stones and pills."

Luo Biaotou froze once again.

He had brought Mo Hua to Cang Wolf City and helped him kill six disciples and two elders of the Cang Wolf Sect—one of whom had even been the Sect Master's nephew. That was a capital offense.

And yet, the Cang Wolf Sect Master not only received him personally and thanked him—

He even rewarded him?

Luo Biaotou felt an overwhelming absurdity—as if this were an act of suicidal boldness.

The Sect Master, watching Luo Biaotou's deeply shaken expression, couldn't help but slightly frown.

He thought to himself: This Luo Biaotou… and he dares call himself a Foundation Establishment cultivator? Why so timid and hesitant? A little reward and he's completely flustered.

In these times, how could anyone accomplish great things without a bit of courage, decisiveness, or boldness?

Still, considering Mo Hua's face, he said nothing.

Luo Biaotou, face tense, cupped his hands and said, "Many thanks for the Sect Master's generous kindness."

The Sect Master nodded.

After that, Luo Biaotou and his group finally took their leave.

Once outside the main hall, Luo Biaotou's expression turned grave. Without delay, he led his escort team quickly through the familiar streets back to the Luo Family Escort Agency.

Upon arriving, he shut the gates. Seeing the familiar layout—the rooms, tables, chairs, screens, and furnishings just as he remembered—he finally let out a long breath.

"We're home…"

He murmured softly, as if in a dream.

He had long been mentally prepared to flee with his daughter and disciples…

To roam destitute under heaven's pursuit, forever hunted by the Cang Wolf Sect, walking a thorny path.

The foundation he'd built in Cang Wolf City—he had thought he would never lay eyes on it again in this life.

Yet now, he had returned "home."

His heart was full of emotion, but he didn't dare truly relax. With a solemn face, he sternly told everyone:

"What happened on the road—everything—we must all forget from this moment on."

"Bury it all in your stomachs. No one is allowed to bring it up."

"Or else—we're all dead!"

His voice was cold and chilling.

The others knew the stakes and dared not be careless. They all nodded seriously.

Yingniang frowned, still worried, and asked, "Father… about Young Master Mo… Isn't it dangerous for him to be mixed up with the Cang Wolf Sect?"

Luo Biaotou shook his head and sighed. "Though he's young, his cultivation and methods are truly terrifying."

"A man like that… isn't someone we can worry about."

"We just need to be cautious and not cause him trouble—that's enough."

"And also…" Luo Biaotou looked around at the others. "If there's ever a chance… we must repay Young Master Mo for saving our lives. If not for him, the Luo Family Escort Agency would've been swallowed by the Cang Wolf Sect, and none of us would've ended well…"

The others fell silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

...

Meanwhile, back in the main hall.

Mo Hua was still chatting and sipping tea with the Cang Wolf Sect Master.

Though only at the Foundation Establishment stage, he sat and conversed with a Golden Core expert like the Sect Master as an equal, talking and laughing with ease.

The Sect Master, too, remained cordial.

After a while, the Sect Master invited, "Brother Mo, would you consider joining my Cang Wolf Sect?"

Mo Hua looked tempted, but still seemed hesitant. "I'll have to consider it more carefully."

"Of course," the Sect Master said, then asked, "By the way, do you have a place to stay in Cang Wolf City?"

Mo Hua replied, "Not yet."

The Sect Master smiled. "In that case, why not stay at my Cang Wolf Sect for now? It would also give me a chance to show some hospitality. And if you find it comfortable here, I hope you'll consider joining us officially."

Mo Hua thought for a moment and did not refuse. Smiling, he said, "That would be great. Many thanks, Sect Master."

The Sect Master's eyes flickered slightly, and he smiled. "It would be an honor."

Then, he personally led Mo Hua to the mountain gate of the Cang Wolf Sect.

The sect sat in the northern mountains of Cang Wolf City, towering and grand, with fierce wolf heads carved into the gates.

Along the way, solemn halls and grand pavilions loomed, decorated with wolf statues, wolf carvings, and bronze wolf heads.

Every elder and disciple they passed wore wolfskin robes and wolf-emblazoned garments.

Mo Hua felt as though he had entered a true wolf's den.

Inside, the Sect Master arranged an extravagant guest room for him.

The air was filled with incense, wolf pelts carpeted the floors, and golden curtains gave the place an atmosphere of lavish decadence.

"Our humble sect is crude—sorry to put you out," said the Sect Master.

Mo Hua cupped his hands. "You're too kind, Sect Master."

The Sect Master said, "I won't disturb your rest. In the coming days, feel free to explore the sect or enjoy the sights of Cang Wolf City. If you need anything, just ask."

"Of course, if you're willing to join our Cang Wolf Sect, I would be thrilled."

Mo Hua nodded with sincerity. "Thank you for your generosity, Sect Master. I'll seriously consider it."

The Sect Master was pleased. "I'm quite busy, so I won't keep you any longer…"

Mo Hua cupped his hands. "Please, don't mind me."

The Sect Master gave a nod and left.

Now, only Mo Hua was left in the room.

He flipped through the wolf pelts, sniffed the incense, inspected the curtains, and then used his golden spiritual sight to examine the formation patterns hidden within the room. After a thorough inspection, he found nothing unusual.

"This Cang Wolf Sect… they do things quite properly…"

Mo Hua murmured thoughtfully, though he remained on guard.

A young man out in the world must protect himself.

Now alone within a sect like Cang Wolf, he naturally had to be cautious and vigilant.

Better safe than sorry.

Mo Hua then set up a series of formations around his bed and desk.

Using a Yimu Formation, he sealed off the scent of the incense in the room.

Using a Yimu (Feng Shui) Array , he isolated the fragrance in the room.

Using a Thunder-Magnet Array, he blocked elemental magnetic signals to prevent eavesdropping or surveillance.

He also set up several defensive arrays for protection, ensuring he wouldn't be caught off guard.

Once everything was in place, Mo Hua sat in the exact center of the formation, finally feeling at ease.

After days of traveling in the wind and rain while suppressing his Slaughter Qi, he was indeed a bit tired. So, he sat cross-legged on the spacious bed to rest, meditating and calming his spirit.

Night gradually fell, and the room was filled with a faint haze of incense.

Roughly two hours later, a soft knock came from outside the door.

Mo Hua opened his eyes with a subtle expression and stood to open the door.

Outside stood two graceful young women, not much older than girls. Their appearances were quite similar, dressed in light gauze, with bare shoulders and alluring figures that were partially hidden and partially visible.

The two women curtsied and said softly:

"Sir, by order of the Sect Master, we sisters have come to warm your bed."

The two sisters had delicate features and a mix of purity and seductive charm that stirred feelings of affection.

But Mo Hua looked puzzled. "The weather's this hot—what's the point of warming a bed?"

The two women were momentarily stunned.

The older sister, who was more experienced and graceful, blushed and whispered, "We're here… to serve you, sir…"

Mo Hua shook his head directly. "I have hands and feet. I don't need to be served."

The two women froze in place.

Mo Hua waved his hand. "You can go."

The younger sister's eyes turned red, and a teardrop slid down her pale cheek as she sobbed softly:

"Please, sir… have mercy on us. We were ordered by the Sect Master… If we don't serve you properly, we won't…"

Bang—

Before she could finish, the door was shut.

Mo Hua had lost all patience.

Only fools believed those sob stories.

He cultivated, comprehended the Dao, and studied formations—he was busy. How could he waste time with these meaningless, clingy women?

Women would only slow his cultivation down.

Mo Hua closed the door.

The two women exchanged glances, then turned and left quietly, reporting everything back to the Sect Master of the Cangwolf Sect.

...

In one of the grand halls of the Cangwolf Sect.

The Sect Master was speaking with a tall, burly elder who had deep claw scars across his chest and only one eye.

The sisters knelt on the floor and reported everything.

The Sect Master remained silent.

The one-eyed elder's only eye roamed over the sisters' graceful figures wrapped in gauze. He chuckled and said:

"He held back even with that? That boy… must still be a virgin, hasn't tasted the pleasures of the flesh, still hasn't awakened…"

"Or maybe…" the one-eyed elder grinned lewdly, "he doesn't like the 'pure' type—he prefers something more… wild?"

The sisters trembled where they knelt.

The Sect Master said nothing, just waved his hand. "Leave."

"Yes, sir."

The two sisters rose, walking out lightly and quietly.

The one-eyed elder kept his eyes glued to their figures until they disappeared from sight, still unwilling to look away.

He turned and asked, "Boss, since the boy doesn't want them, why not let me—"

The Sect Master gave him a cold glance.

The elder gave a sheepish smile.

The Sect Master said seriously, "To achieve great things, we must proceed step by step. Rushing will ruin everything."

The one-eyed elder nodded. "True. He's just a greenhorn. He might hold out for now, but he won't last forever. Sooner or later, he'll take the bait…"

The Sect Master said nothing, sinking into deep thought.

Now that Mo Hua was within the Cangwolf Sect, things would be easier to manage.

Some matters—whether he acted now or not—he would eventually be unable to avoid.

However…

The Sect Master frowned.

Lately, he had felt increasingly uneasy, as if something unexpected was about to happen—but he had no idea what it was…

...

In the lavish guest room.

Mo Hua sat at the desk, spreading out formation papers and gracefully sketching arrays with his brush. His posture was composed, his demeanor calm and poised.

After drawing formations for a while, his mind settled. Confirming that no one else would disturb him, Mo Hua put away the brush and paper and began activating the Seven Souls Blood Prison Eye and the Demonic Qi Reversal Technique to digest the backlash of Slaughter Qi.

Since he had only killed one person, the backlash wasn't severe.

Before long, the Slaughter Qi was absorbed into the Blood Prison Eye and infused into his reversed demonic qi.

After refining it, Mo Hua meditated again, reflecting on the karmic causes of the Slaughter Qi and making comparisons in his heart.

Currently, the sources of his Slaughter Qi came from two people:

One was the wolf-robed youth—the Sect Master's nephew.

The other was Elder Sun of the Cangwolf Sect.

The wolf-robed youth had been killed directly by Mo Hua.

Elder Sun had his right leg and arm crippled by Mo Hua, then was slain by Luo Biaotou with a broad-ringed saber.

One was a direct kill. The other was an indirect one.

Direct killing brought much stronger karmic backlash.

Indirect killing, since it didn't bear full karmic responsibility, resulted in far less Slaughter Qi.

This was one of the reasons Mo Hua had Luo Biaotou kill Elder Sun.

He wanted to compare the causal implications and the severity of backlash between direct and indirect killing.

This issue was crucial.

It directly influenced how he would control his killing intent and eliminate hidden dangers from Slaughter Qi going forward.

The murderous aura on Mo Hua was abnormally heavy. The depth of his Slaughter Qi was a unique anomaly—there were no precedents to guide him.

So, he had to figure it out on his own.

Between killing and not killing, fortune and grievance, merit and doom, the righteous and the demonic—he had to find a delicate balance.

If killing could be avoided, it should be.

But if he had no choice, he needed to minimize the karmic consequences and the backlash.

So far, the best solution seemed to be letting others kill for him.

Be the hand behind the scenes, play the game from the shadows—manipulate others to do the fighting, while keeping his own karmic involvement minimal.

"Play the game…"

Thinking of that phrase, Mo Hua suddenly recalled the old man he'd met in Cloud Crossing City after leaving Qianxue Prefecture—the one who was very skilled at chess.

Mo Hua suspected that old man was no ordinary person.

Just how powerful he was, Mo Hua didn't know—but he must've been very strong.

You could tell just from his chess skills.

To be evenly matched with Mo Hua in chess—and even edge out a win—that man had to be a top-level expert.

There was also an unfathomable aura around him—one faintly similar to "Grandpa Puppet."

At the time, Mo Hua hadn't thought deeply about it while playing.

Later, reflecting on it carefully… though he couldn't fully understand it, his spiritual intuition from his Heavenly Pattern Sense gave him near certainty:

That old man was absolutely connected to the blood sacrifice disaster in Qianxue Prefecture.

In fact, he might be one of the masterminds—silently influencing the causal threads behind the scenes.

And yet, Mo Hua had never even heard of such a figure before—much less met one.

If not for a stroke of luck as he was leaving, he might never have encountered him at all.

Mo Hua fell into deep thought.

If not for the coincidence of their imminent parting, he might never have seen them.

Mo Hua fell into silent contemplation.

This meant that the truly powerful figures were always hidden behind the scenes.

If they didn't give you the opportunity to see them, you might never, in your entire life, recognize their true faces. You'd simply be caught within their games, reduced to a chess piece, fighting and killing, completely unaware.

"If one wishes to escape the identity of a chess piece, or even jump off the board entirely and become a chess player pulling the strings from behind the curtain…"

"Then one must first learn how to retreat behind the curtain…"

Let others act.

Let others kill.

Avoid getting entangled in karma yourself.

The less karma you incur, the harder it is for others to calculate you, the harder it is for others to seize your weakness, and the harder it is for you to become someone else's pawn, manipulated at will.

Mo Hua slowly nodded.

The matter of the Slaughter Qi had also served as a wake-up call—an opportunity.

Back in Qianxue Prefecture, he had no choice. Many things, he had to handle personally.

But now, things were different. He was "free."

No more constraints from Qianxue Prefecture. No more restrictions from the sect. He was out traveling on his own, with the vast sky and endless seas ahead.

Most of the time, people didn't even recognize him.

That meant he could do much more—and could fully conceal himself and operate from the shadows.

This was not only for "self-preservation," but also for "manipulating the game."

After all, his Master once said: The beam that sticks out gets rotted first. Learning to hide oneself was the only way to survive in the treacherous world of cultivation.

Only by emulating the truly powerful—those who hide high above or deep in the shadows—could one grasp the overall situation, strategize from afar, predict the enemy through the heavenly patterns, and defeat them beyond the bounds of karma.

Only then could one become a true "master."

In his mind, Mo Hua recalled the figure of that old man playing chess, and silently resolved to take him as a role model and learn from him.

"Conceal brilliance, bide one's time, and stay away from karma…"

Now that this was clear to him, Mo Hua nodded again—but couldn't help but begin pondering another issue:

Divine Sense.

This was becoming a serious problem.

That brainless, stingy Pixiu wouldn't even let him sneak a bite of the Evil God.

Mo Hua was furious.

But after a few days of reflection, he reluctantly forgave the Pixiu.

After all, it was in the nature of divine beasts. Since they were friends, he couldn't be too hard on that dumb thing.

Moreover, after taking one bite of the Evil God's "flesh" last time, Mo Hua had realized that the true form of the Evil God was far too skinny.

Back during the blood sacrifice battle, the true form had just been born and was immediately besieged by a group led by Realman Situ.

Then it got beaten up by him, chopped into pieces, swallowed whole, and finally suppressed under Pixiu's claw.

The divine beast's majesty continued to suppress the entity, preventing its evil thoughts from growing.

As a result, this so-called true form of the Evil God was now a dried-up frame—"all marrow, no meat."

Though the "marrow" was precious, what Mo Hua needed now was meat.

His Divine Will had already reached a high level of refinement. What was truly holding him back now was the quantity of Divine Sense.

Without sufficient Divine Sense, he couldn't forge his life-bound array formation. Without that, forming a Golden Core was out of the question. Everything else would be meaningless.

As for methods to increase Divine Sense—there were very few.

In the past, Mo Hua could still refine his Divine Sense by practicing "Absolute formations (Forbidden formations)."

But now that method had grown nearly ineffective.

Not completely useless—just painfully slow.

Mo Hua suspected it was because, after reaching Foundation Establishment, his Divine Sense had undergone a qualitative transformation. With his Divine Will having become so resilient, even Absolute formations no longer stimulated it significantly.

Even with Absolute formations, during the Qi Refining stage, there was still some sharpening effect. But now, at Foundation Establishment, the gains were negligible.

He vaguely guessed that only those ultra-difficult, uniquely oppressive, extremely painful, high-load Absolute formations—those designed to torment Divine Sense—could help him train his now near-divine willpower.

Only through torment could his Divine Sense grow stronger.

But such formations were rare and depended entirely on fate.

Finding this type of "Divine Will Stress Test" formation was like finding a needle in a haystack.

"Absolute formations? A dead end."

"No meat from the Evil God?"

"Can't find any evil spirits either…"

Mo Hua couldn't help but sigh.

But no matter how urgent he was, rushing wouldn't help. The opportunity just wasn't there.

At midnight, Mo Hua spent the entire night on the Dao Stele, practicing the Reversed Spirit Formation.

Afterward, he deduced on his own and studied the Four Symbols Azure Dragon Formation until dawn.

His Divine Sense, after this refining, had slightly improved—but the next breakthrough was still a distant dream.

Mo Hua suppressed his restlessness and softly sighed:

"Take it slow… As long as I keep cultivating, someday I'll reach twenty-one patterns…"

Sunlight streamed into the room.

Facing the morning light, Mo Hua began his daily cultivation.

But partway through, the mountains and forests began to tremble. Suddenly, a fierce, domineering wolf howl echoed from within Cangwolf Sect.

The howl rang from the heavens, reverberating through the forest, shaking the soul.

The disciples of Cangwolf Sect, upon hearing it, all showed excitement and knelt in reverence.

Mo Hua, however, froze in place.

He stood by the window, stunned for a long moment. Then, unable to help himself, he sniffed the air. In that instant, his eyes lit up:

"My twenty-first pattern… is here?!"

(End of this Chapter)