Chapter 585: The Found Formation

Xian Du Mountain

In a secluded area where pavilions and towers gathered, there stood a massive, imposing structure. On the golden plaque above its front gate were three large characters: Ju Bao Xuan (Treasure Gathering Pavilion).

As the name suggests, Ju Bao Xuan was naturally a place where treasures gathered. Just like the Ming Bao Xuan in the Netherworld, it was essentially a marketplace selling various items. However, Ju Bao Xuan had one additional feature—an auction platform for rare treasures.

Shui Miao, transformed into the appearance of Zhao Tianyi, wandered around Xian Du Mountain and quickly noticed that Ju Bao Xuan was the liveliest place in the entire Xian Du Mountain. The treasure auctions occurred every ten days, and today happened to be one of those days—unfortunately, it hadn’t started yet.

Thus, Shui Miao strolled around, listening to idle chatter and occasionally buying small trinkets, spending no more than a few spirit crystals.

“Brothers, the top twenty teams in this competition will receive rewards. Although we’re only Golden Immortals, we still have a chance.”

“A chance, sure, but the rewards aren’t that great. The top ten are decent, but we can probably only place around fifteenth. Risking our lives for just a mid-grade immortal artifact each doesn’t seem worth it at all.”

“What! Isn’t this a competition? Why do we have to risk our lives?”

“Er, you guys don’t know yet? This time it’s a no-rules match!”

“A no-rules match…”

“Forget it, forget it. Who dares to participate in that? If a Celestial Sovereign wants to kill us, they can just do it…”

As he walked, Shui Miao overheard a group of people whispering.

Shui Miao’s mind flickered, and he activated his Tian Mo cultivation technique, instantly gaining knowledge from one of them. He learned that this so-called no-rules match meant no rules at all—only the final outcome mattered. If one was weaker in skill and got killed during the match, they truly died.

It seemed the Celestial Court was trying to provoke chaos among the various sects in the Immortal Realm, starting the Immortal-God War ahead of time! Shui Miao was puzzled. Logically, the Celestial Court should maintain stability. Why would they allow internal conflicts? What hidden schemes lay behind this? Could it be that the Celestial Court considered the number of immortals too high and wanted to reduce their population to alleviate the shortage of spiritual energy?

After spending so long in the Immortal Realm, Shui Miao had learned quite a bit about it.

In ancient times, spiritual energy was abundant throughout the Three Realms, nurturing immortals and gods everywhere. Ordinary people could cultivate into immortals just by breathing. The Classic of Mountains and Seas even recorded countless strange creatures, all born from the rich spiritual energy of ancient times. But now, due to the scarcity of spiritual energy, the number of cultivators in the mortal realm had dwindled. Take the Nine Heavens, for example—once filled with immortal mountains and abundant spiritual energy, many areas within the Ten Thousand Great Mountains had become desolate due to insufficient spiritual energy.

Immortals, with their extremely long lifespans and the ability to reincarnate using life talismans, were difficult to kill and thus their numbers kept increasing, consuming more and more resources.

Moreover, immortals could reproduce. With no deaths but continuous births, the population quickly became overcrowded.

Therefore, Shui Miao suddenly had reason to believe that the Celestial Court held such brutal no-rules matches precisely because there were too many immortals. The Immortal-God Wars were entirely a necessary measure to relieve pressure in the Immortal Realm. Otherwise, why would the Celestial Court always exist without being replaced? There must be political schemes and machinations involved.

Listening to the crowd’s discussions, Shui Miao arrived at a section selling books and formation techniques. He casually picked up a book and glanced through it. The old man selling the books noticed Shui Miao’s imposing aura and hurriedly approached. Shui Miao swept his spiritual sense and found that most of the books contained basic forging techniques, nothing useful to him.

The old man, dressed simply, smiled and asked, “Friend, these are just basic formation books. If you’re looking for profound formation techniques, please come inside.”

“Profound formation techniques? You don’t seem to have any,” Shui Miao said lightly, eyeing the old man. He was thin, wrinkled, and appeared very old.

The old man’s eyes flickered. “Precious things naturally aren’t displayed outside. I can say that I have everything here.”

“Haha…” Shui Miao shook his head and smiled. “Old man, don’t boast too much. Take, for example, a time-reversal formation—do you have that?”

“…”

Hearing this, the old man was momentarily stunned. “Friend, that’s extremely, extremely expensive.”

“I’m not afraid of expensive. I’m just afraid you don’t have it. Well then, tell me about your best formation techniques. If they’re real, I’ll buy them all.” Shui Miao was sure the old man didn’t have any good techniques and didn’t want to waste time, eager to gather intelligence, so he was very direct.

Seeing Shui Miao speak this way, the old man grew serious. He immediately scanned Shui Miao’s cultivation level with his spiritual sense, but to his shock, his spiritual sense detected nothing. Startled, the old man carefully asked, “Friend, at what cultivation stage are you?”

“Old man, my cultivation stage isn’t important. What matters is, if you don’t have any good formation techniques, I’m leaving. I’m a weapon forger, so don’t try to fool me with ordinary techniques.” Shui Miao suddenly noticed a dwarf’s stall in the distance and wanted to go check it out.

Seeing Shui Miao distracted and knowing he was a weapon forger, the old man concluded he had no treasures to offer. He pulled Shui Miao to the back of the counter and took out two very old, worn-out books from his robes. “Friend, these two books I picked up four thousand years ago during an Immortal-God War. I’ve kept them for four thousand years without finding a suitable buyer. These days, my funds are a bit tight, so I decided to bring them out. Take a look. If you’re satisfied, name a price.”

“Picked-up books?”

Seeing the books were old and worn, Shui Miao felt slightly intrigued. He casually flipped through a few pages and suddenly realized—it was actually a manual on the Holy Flame Formation, powered by Imperial Qi instead of Immortal Spiritual Energy. He picked up the other book and glanced through it, his heart suddenly pounding. It was a manual on the Grand Divination Formation.

Instantly, Shui Miao activated his spiritual power, focused his mind, and immediately absorbed the information from both books into his thoughts.

Shui Miao narrowed his eyes, his spiritual sense entering the Time Tower, reversing time, and immediately began calculations, formation setup, and testing within the realm planet.

In a short while, Shui Miao discovered that these two formations were extremely profound and had no issues.

Thus, within the Time Tower, Shui Miao used ordinary materials to forge two immortal artifacts.

One was a fire gourd containing the Holy Flame Formation.

The other was a mirror embedded with the Divination Formation.

After tempering them, Shui Miao used an illusion formation to confuse the old man, then took out the two artifacts to awaken their spirits. Without pills, he couldn’t cultivate spirit cores, but he still obtained two high-grade immortal artifacts.

The Holy Flame Formation inside the fire gourd was slightly modified by Shui Miao, allowing it to be powered by spiritual energy as well.

The Divination Formation remained unchanged.

Immediately, Shui Miao used the Divination Mirror to perform a calculation for the old man. The mirror, receiving Shui Miao’s intent, instantly displayed images of the old man sighing and feeling down for half an hour due to poor business and financial difficulties.

If a high-grade immortal artifact could calculate this much, how much more could a Supreme Treasure calculate if it had a spirit core?

Shui Miao secretly rejoiced, realizing he had truly struck gold this time.

In an instant, Shui Miao removed the illusion formation, opened his eyes, and smiled slightly at the old man.

The old man was confused. “Friend, how was it? The formation should be genuine, right?”

In fact, the old man himself wasn’t entirely sure the formation was real. He just thought that something picked up during the Immortal-God War couldn’t be bad. Seeing the old man ask this, Shui Miao knew he was an honest person. He grabbed the formation manuals, smiled slightly, and handed him a ring. “Old man, this is all I have. See if it’s enough?”

The old man hurriedly scanned the ring with his spiritual sense and found that the stored crystals far exceeded his expectations. He excitedly waved his hand. “Too much! Too much! I only need half!”

“Good enough. It’s worth your four thousand years of collection!”

Hearing the old man say this, Shui Miao immediately relaxed.

“Phew…”

Suddenly, the two books in Shui Miao’s hand burst into flames. The material of the books was excellent—having survived four thousand years without rotting was already amazing. But under the holy fire Shui Miao activated, the books were completely burned away in a single breath—not even ash remained.

“Friend, you… you… you just burned them?”

The old man was greatly shocked, never expecting this young man to burn the books without even looking.

All the formation techniques within the books had already been imprinted into Shui Miao’s memory.

The fire from the fire gourd was indeed extraordinary, comparable to the fire from a weapon-forging furnace. If it were a Supreme Treasure powered by Imperial Qi, its power would be unimaginable… Shui Miao didn’t dwell on it further. In short, he was very satisfied. He smiled slightly, bowed to the old man, and without responding, directly turned and left, heading toward the dwarf’s stall.