Twitching its long ears, the rabbit cowered behind a clump of bushes. It hadn't eaten in three days, and there was just no resisting the sweet scent of wild fruit any longer.
It darted forward, zigzagging over the dry yellow grass, and then broke into a straight sprint toward the mountain cave ahead. Deep inside the cave, maybe thirty feet in, a ripe wild fruit gave off an irresistible fragrance.
Outside the cave, Li Xun slowly stood up and smiled. "Well, looks like our fruit-loving friend couldn't hold out any longer. Three days of fasting finally paid off."
He stroked his chin, the smile fading. Success was always closest to death—that was a lesson he'd learned well after seven years of life-and-death trials on Zuowang (Sitting-Forgotten) Peak.
Taking a deep breath, he dropped to the ground and slid forward low over the grass. As his internal breath gathered and steadied, he lightly leapt forward, landing in the cave without so much as a whisper of dust stirred.
Inside, the rabbit froze in fear. It had been locked up by this human for three days, and now all it wanted was to run. But just as it turned, Li Xun gave it a soft nudge with his foot, sending the round creature tumbling deeper into the cave, bumping off the stone walls as it went.
Scared out of its wits, the rabbit no longer tried to escape. It just turned and bolted further inside.
Li Xun shut his eyes and listened carefully, focusing on every thud of the rabbit's paws. Each step left an imprint in his mind—until the rabbit finally stopped, circling around in one spot.
The cave had reached its end.
Li Xun instantly drew in all his breath, tightening his internal energy until his aura matched that of the rabbit's almost exactly. He then followed, stepping in the exact same tracks the rabbit had left behind. Every movement was careful, precise—no room for mistakes.
At the very end of the cave stood a door of bluish jade, cutting the tunnel in two. The stone was engraved with cloud patterns, almost identical to the embroidery on his cloud-patterned robe—it was clearly another kind of Restrictive Formation (or Seals).
But more than that—there was a field of radiant, layered light on the surface of the door. At first glance it looked like a shimmering ocean. Looking closer, you could see clear separations between each wave of glow, flowing in endless succession.
Such a powerful restrictive formation—if it were to be triggered, there'd be nothing left of him.
A little disappointed, Li Xun exhaled quietly. Still, it wasn't the worst outcome. In seven years, he'd come across countless such cave residences, and just as many times he'd been stopped outside their gates by formations he couldn't crack. Coming back empty-handed was nothing new.
The poor rabbit that had led him here was still freaking out, repeatedly slamming its tiny body against the glowing door. But interestingly, nothing happened.
Li Xun's eyes narrowed. So that level of force wasn't enough to trigger the restrictive formation.
He reached out a cautious hand and placed his fingers on the stone. With his breath pulled tightly inward, the barrier didn't react at all. He squinted and traced the patterns on the door.
The clouds matched those on his robe exactly.
Thanks to his years of wearing the cloud robe, he'd come to understand its patterns deeply. Soon enough, he located the starting point of the formation and began following the pattern, line by line. Half-guessing, half-tracing, he worked his way along its flow. It took over half an hour, but he eventually unraveled the entire structure.
During that time, his internal energy flowed ever more delicately, evolving even while restrained. Occasionally, a flash of insight corrected his flow, balancing yin and yang through his meridians. By the time he was done, he'd made another small breakthrough in his cultivation.
But mentally, he was drained—sweating heavily, even struggling to stand.
Still, he knew he couldn't stay here for long. After one last glance at the glowing barrier, he grabbed the trembling rabbit, carefully wiped away all his tracks, and backed out of the cave.
Once outside, he tossed the rabbit into the grass. It crouched there a while before scurrying off, disappearing into the underbrush. Li Xun scanned the terrain, memorizing every detail before turning to leave.
The sky was still bright. He took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves, then found a quiet, wind-sheltered spot to lie down.
Here, hidden among the rocks, were a dozen flat stone tablets. He'd shaped them by hand over the past seven years. They were his journal.
Not a day-by-day account, but rather a personal archive of strange beasts, odd plants, bizarre stones, unusual terrain—things never seen in the mortal realm.
Each one was recorded in elegant, flowing script.
It wasn't just for fun. It was how he kept his grip on language, memory, and thought. After all, what nine-year-old could live alone in the mountains for seven years—no conversation, no books, only wild beasts for company—and still stay sane?
Even more importantly, these tablets recorded insights into his cultivation progress and the countless restrictive formations he'd encountered.
The cloud robe had helped immensely.
The cloud patterns on it were the most basic restriction formation techniques of the Mingxin Sword Sect—fundamental, but revealing hidden truths of their inner teachings.
Li Xun had worn that robe almost every day for seven years. In danger, its defense would trigger automatically, saving him more than once. Through constant exposure, he'd come to understand how the patterns operated.
By practicing again and again, he fully decoded the basic pattern on the robe. Once he mastered that, he began comparing it to the more complex patterns on cave barriers. Layer by layer, inside and out, he matched them to his own energy flow techniques, steadily improving.
What he achieved today—flowing seamlessly through the pattern like water over stone—was the result of those seven bitter years.
The Great Dao, in truth, was supremely simple and easy.
Li Xun, by beginning with the most basic cloud patterns, was able to progress from the simple to the profound, eventually connecting the realms of being and non-being — this alone brings him close to the Dao.
In all the Mingxin Sword Sect, only a few senior expert elders might understand these cloud patterns better than he did.
And he was still just a boy who'd only learned the most basic breathing techniques.
"If I'd understood this two years ago," he muttered, "that other cave never would've stopped me."
Li Xun smiled as he looked down at the stone tablet. Talking to himself like this had become part of his daily routine—his way of staying sharp with his speech.
He blew off the dust, then started recording what he'd learned today. With a flick of his hand, his inner energy flowed through his fingers and etched clear, precise lines into the stone. What appeared was a familiar pattern—a cloud-pattern seal, just like the one on the cave door. At this point, drawing it came as naturally to him as breathing.
His energy wasn't strong enough to actually activate the seal, not in terms of quality or quantity—but the flow, the technique—it was already showing the marks of a true master.
When he was done, he carefully set the slab aside, then pulled out a few more. These were covered in simpler, rough sketches of the same cloud-pattern designs. He smiled again and casually added a few strokes here and there. Just like that, the crude lines took on new life, becoming much more refined and imposing.
He felt good about it. This was clear proof of how far he'd come over the years. Still, these basic practice slabs weren't much use to him anymore, so he dug a shallow hole and buried them. Honestly, over the past seven years, he'd probably buried thousands of these.
Once the cloud-pattern seal (restrictive formation) was done, he pulled out a few more stone tablets. These had designs that looked a bit like the mist patterns he'd seen earlier in a cave—but far simpler. Staring at them, he let out a sigh. "If only I had a Mist Robe to reference…"
In the last seven years, Li Xun had traveled more than a hundred thousand miles, exploring almost five hundred ancient cultivation sites (cave-dwellings) hidden all over Zuowang Peak.
Most of them were created by powerful cultivators from the Mingxin Sword Sect, across generations, each with its own type of restrictive formation— no two exactly alike.
Overall, though, they could be broadly categorized into seven major types: Mountain, Cloud, Void, and four others.
These seven classes of formations often interwove in layers, two or three types merging to create complex formations. Compared to single-type restrictions, such compound formations were often a hundred times more powerful.
The Mist-pattern restriction was just such a compound seal — a fusion of Cloud and Light formations.
With Li Xun's current knowledge, he was still far from being able to tackle compound formations like this.
To be fair, aside from Cloud seals, which he had truly mastered, he was merely average with the others.
At the very least, he now understood this much: mist-patterns arise from clouds and reveal themselves when met with light. Therefore, cloud-patterns must serve as the foundation, while light-patterns act as the trigger.
He had a decent grasp of how Cloud worked—but figuring out how Light acted as a trigger had been driving him crazy lately.
And just as he was deep in thought, a sharp, suffocating pain hit his chest. The Blood Nightmare Devouring Heart attack was right on schedule—just like every other day for the past seven years.
That daily torture now lasted nearly half the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.
The pain was brutal—like his meridians were burning, his blood flowing backward, his organs twisting, and his heart being roasted alive. But Li Xun just broke into a sweat. He'd gotten used to it. Weirdly enough, there was even a numb, almost addictive pleasure buried somewhere in the pain.
But that fleeting sensation didn't last long. His sharp mind quickly swept it away, and he brought his focus back. He calmed his breath and went right back to thinking about the puzzle he'd been stuck on.
At this point, pain didn't mean anything to him.
As it faded, he felt weak all over—his joints sore from exhaustion—but his mind was crystal clear. If anything, he felt more alive than ever.
He ran his energy through a few more cycles, and the insights he'd just gained started to click into place. As the qi moved through him, he noticed a few tiny details he'd missed before. That lifted his mood right away.
By now, the moon was setting and the sky was just starting to lighten. He felt great—refreshed, energized—so he decided to cover some more ground while he could.
He packed a few important stone tablets into a bundle made from beast hide, slung it over his back, and stood up. Under the fading moonlight, he moved like a shadow across the treetops, vanishing into the night like a whisper of smoke.