Chapter 234
Baek Mu-yeong was unable to say anything for a while as he held Black Thunder, reduced to its upper body.
Its left arm had been torn away from the shoulder, and half the black armor plating covering its chest was gone.
White Thunder, lying beside it, was in slightly better shape, but its waist had been twisted at an odd angle.
“I was only hit a little by a third-tier demonic beast.”
Baek Cheong sat obediently across the table and added,
“Even so, the divine sense stones are safe. I picked up every broken fragment, too.”
“A little, was it?”
Her uncle stared down at Black Thunder’s severed waist and let out a hollow laugh.
“Cultivator Yuk-muk will be very pleased when he sees this mess.”
“You can repair them, right?”
“They aren’t beyond repair as long as we have the materials. However, even the inner formation inscriptions in White Thunder have been twisted, and Black Thunder will need new armor plating.”
Baek Mu-yeong examined the detached arm and pieces of armor one by one.
He said that obtaining the materials through the merchant guild and sending them to Cultivator Yuk-muk would take about half a month.
Baek Cheong readily nodded.
She was glad she had taken the trouble to gather even the fragments.
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
“Leave it to me. But, Cheong-ah.”
Baek Mu-yeong took his eyes off the puppets and looked at his niece.
“You said you were hit by a third-tier demonic beast?”
Baek Cheong realized her mistake and closed her mouth.
She had thought she could get away with it since her uncle had only talked about repairing the puppets.
But now that she thought about it, there was no way to explain away an opponent that had damaged the puppets this badly.
“I wasn’t the one who started the fight.”
She explained what had happened with the most innocent expression she could manage.
While gathering spirit herbs in the ruins, a third-tier demonic beast had burst out of the ground.
With no chance to escape, she had bound the earth with the Five-Element Banner and the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc before cutting it down with Star River One Line.
Of course, she had embellished quite a bit and left out anything unfavorable to her.
“I judged it dangerous, so I came straight back.”
“You caught a third-tier demonic beast by yourself, and then you say that?”
Suddenly, her father’s voice came from outside the door.
Baek Cheong wondered if this had been a trap and looked at her uncle.
But her uncle raised both hands as though he had not known about it either.
The door opened soon afterward, and her father entered.
“Father.”
Baek Mu-jin did not even acknowledge her greeting, first examining the puppets on the table.
Even though his daughter had returned safely, the ruined Black Thunder and White Thunder vividly showed the danger she had faced.
“Profound Void Perfected Person only told me that you moved separately for a while inside the ruins. I was waiting for you to tell me yourself what you did in there.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide it.”
“You were planning not to tell me unless I asked, weren’t you?”
Baek Cheong could not find anything to say in response and pursed her lips.
She had stored the demonic core and scales obtained from the demonic beast in her spatial dharma treasure.
If the puppets had not been damaged, she probably would not have gone into detail.
“I know you’re stronger than cultivators of the same realm.”
Baek Mu-jin did not raise his voice.
His calm tone only made Baek Cheong lower her head.
“You learned Star River One Line, and you must have had several extraordinary treasures to protect yourself. However, a third-tier demonic beast is something multiple Core Formation cultivators must join forces to hunt. Winning this time does not guarantee that you will come away unharmed next time.”
“Yes...”
“Since you deliberately put yourself in danger, it is time for you to learn restraint. Stay in your residence for a while and focus on recovering and stabilizing your cultivation. Do not go to the lakeshore or Cheonnam Immortal City, and devote yourself solely to cultivation.”
Baek Cheong raised her lowered face slightly.
“I really can’t go outside for a while?”
“That’s right.”
“I can’t meet any guests who come to visit, either?”
“I’ll have your meals brought to your residence as well, so stay there quietly and reflect on your actions.”
By this point, she could barely keep the corners of her mouth from rising.
She did not have to go outside, and her father would even turn away her guests for her.
They would bring her meals, too, so she had obtained every condition she could have wished for.
She bowed her head deeply to hide her upturned lips.
“I’ll stay quietly and reflect for a while.”
Only after hearing her obedient answer did Baek Mu-jin’s expression soften slightly.
Only her uncle narrowed his eyes at her from across the table.
Baek Cheong lowered her head deeply, pretending not to notice.
***
Life under house arrest was far more enjoyable than she had expected.
Each morning, she used the Five-Element Technique to absorb the spiritual energy of high-grade spirit stones.
When her meridians grew stiff, she practiced the Spirit Resonance Art and regulated her compressed divine sense.
She imbued the remaining Blue Thunder, Red Thunder, and Gold Thunder with divine will beforehand, ordering them to tidy the residence or sort medicinal herbs.
Even without maintaining a connection to her divine sense, the puppets silently repeated the tasks she had assigned them.
When something unexpected happened, they simply stopped and stared blankly, but they were more than adequate for simple chores.
Whenever cultivation left her body tired, she would lie on her bed and browse the Nameless Room.
『※Dao Friend(913.14): Can’t you guys do something like this?』
[An image of the puppets diligently sorting medicinal herbs.]
The replies came faster than usual.
[Dao Friend(11.23): Are you bragging about dumping the work of sorting medicinal herbs on puppets?]
[Dao Friend(88.4): I’ll admit, that skill of not lifting a finger is impressive.]
[Dao Friend(201.9): Isn’t it a waste to use puppets like those for menial chores?]
Baek Cheong snickered as she read the replies.
Even while the Daoists chatted, the three puppets continued moving without rest.
She only needed to lie on her bed and make minor adjustments to their commands with her divine sense.
[Dao Friend(913.14): For the record, this isn’t controlling them with divine sense.]
After leaving the final reply, she withdrew her divine sense from the Nameless Room.
Blue Thunder sorted the jade boxes on the table by size, while Red Thunder laid medicinal herbs out beside the pill furnace.
Gold Thunder had received a command to scrub only the same spot and was already cleaning the floor for the tenth time.
‘If only I could give them more detailed commands through divine will.’
The divine will gained from the second level of the Spirit Resonance Art had many uses.
Even so, she could not make the puppets move like artifact spirits.
They stopped after completing a single command and could not assess new situations on their own.
After conveying the command for Gold Thunder to stop scrubbing, she opened her spatial dharma treasure.
The black-jade Heavenly Armor Formation Disc appeared in her hand.
‘I should examine this one properly, too.’
She had kept the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc inside her spatial dharma treasure ever since leaving the ruins.
She had read how to use it when she first obtained it and had operated it several times in actual combat.
Even so, it was difficult to say that she had fully understood an artifact that had been buried for countless years.
She had just raised the density of her divine sense by reaching the second level of the Spirit Resonance Art.
Perhaps she could now examine places she had been unable to reach before.
She placed the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc on her lap and slowly infused it with spiritual power.
Golden lines spread beneath the black jade, and the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams began to move.
Countless glyphs appeared in various places, joining together and then scattering apart.
In the Nine Palaces, she placed the formation eyes and the center, while the Eight Trigrams contained the direction and changes of the force.
The formation produced differed according to which glyphs were placed where and the order in which they were connected.
There were already tens of millions of combinations she knew.
Each time she learned a new glyph, the number of combinations multiplied several times over.
‘I might as well call it practically infinite.’
She could separately deploy spirit-gathering, protective, sealing, and illusion formations.
By dividing up part of the Nine Palaces, she could even overlap and operate different formations at the same time.
The day she became able to read the glyphs of laws, even the trillions she had counted would lose all meaning.
She soon suppressed her anticipation and pushed her condensed divine sense into the formation disc.
The hexagonal patterns along the outer rim lit up with golden light in sequence.
At the same time, ripples spread out from the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
The ripples passed through the walls of the residence and rapidly expanded to thirty zhang, the limit of her divine sense.
The formations within that range rose all at once over the black jade.
The defensive formation carved beside the window and the spirit-gathering formation beneath the bed.
The soundproofing formation wrapped around the doors and walls, along with the boundary formation outside—the large and small forms filled the Nine Palaces.
‘Is this a function that reflects the surrounding formations?’
It was similar to, yet different from, when she had illuminated the five dragons’ dwellings.
At that time, only the formations connected to the ruins had appeared.
The formations visible now had no connection whatsoever to the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
They had been laid by the Baek family’s formation masters when they built the residence.
‘How fascinating.’
Baek Cheong brought her divine sense to the nearest soundproofing formation.
The formation inscriptions carved into the wall and the formation eye in the corner appeared clearly on the black jade.
All the glyphs composing the soundproofing formation were ones she had learned from the True-Text Diagram and the Formation Primer Jade Slip.
Every glyph whose meaning she recognized began to shine with golden light.
When the final glyph lit up, the Central Palace of the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc opened on its own.
‘Could this be...?’
She drew the center of the soundproofing formation into the Central Palace.
The formation inscriptions carved into the wall trembled faintly.
The flow of the formation eye embedded in the corner also bent toward the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
The control tablet hidden beneath the table lost its light, and the center of the soundproofing formation entered the Central Palace completely.
Even so, the formation did not deactivate.
The soundproofing formation surrounding the residence still operated, but now it followed the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams of the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
When she rotated one of the Eight Trigrams, the flow that blocked outside sounds reversed.
The sound of Gold Thunder sweeping the floor inside the residence vanished, while the footsteps of cultivators outside the window became distinctly audible.
When she rotated the Eight Trigrams back, it returned to its original soundproofing formation.
‘I seized control of the formation.’
It was a formation she had neither deployed herself nor connected to the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
Simply because she had recognized every glyph composing it, she had taken control of the entire formation.
In other words, as long as she was within range and understood the meaning of every glyph, she could seize even a formation deployed by someone else.
‘Was it a coincidence?’
Baek Cheong searched for another formation and brought her divine sense to the boundary formation as well.
This time, several glyphs remained dark.
As soon as even one unknown glyph was mixed in, the Central Palace did not open.
Even when she tried to forcibly draw it in with sheer force, only the outline of the formation blurred.
‘Still, this much is already...’
If she knew the glyphs of an opponent’s protective formation, she could take away their defenses in the middle of a fight.
She could turn a sealing formation into an exit, or make a spirit-gathering formation disperse the spiritual energy it had gathered.
The high-tier formations deployed by great cultivators contained many glyphs she did not know, making them difficult to interfere with immediately.
But the more glyphs she learned, the more formations she would be able to seize.
It felt even more precious than when she had first obtained the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
‘I should return it for now.’
Baek Cheong returned the center of the soundproofing formation she had seized to its original control tablet.
After checking several times to make sure no trace remained, she clasped the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc in both hands.
With an artifact this valuable, she would not feel at ease until she had refined it as her own.
If she could summon it from a distance like her other dharma treasures, the risk of having it stolen would also be reduced.
She separated a strand of divine will from her divine soul, engraved it inside the black jade, and slowly wrapped it in the spiritual power of the five elements.
But the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc refused to accept her divine will.
The spiritual power moved the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams, then flowed back out as though nothing had happened.
Even after she pushed her divine sense in deeper and deeper, no trace linking its owner and the artifact appeared.
She also tried the incantations used to refine dharma treasures.
She allowed spiritual energy to seep into it for a long time, just as she had when taming the Cloud-Spirit Pearl.
But the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc moved as commanded without becoming her possession.
‘Why won’t it work?’
She could not tell whether its grade was too high or whether it still bore traces left by its ancient owner.
Even after trying various methods throughout the night, nothing changed.
She still had not confirmed whether anyone who held the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc could use it.
But she could not hand it to someone else just to find out.
Profound Void Perfected Person had not shown any greed even when the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc was right before his eyes.
She could not assume that every great cultivator would be like Profound Void Perfected Person.
An artifact that had not been refined could be used easily if it fell into someone else’s hands.
If it were taken by force, she had no reliable way to reclaim it.
‘I’ll have to be careful when I use it, too.’
Swallowing her disappointment, Baek Cheong placed the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc deep inside her spatial dharma treasure.
Then she took out the White Pearl dharma treasure, which was nearing completion, and focused on refining it.