Formations Match
“I am merely curious. Would you be interested?” Mu Chenghong asked.
Mu Yu was definitely keen to see what the only Heavens Stage Disciple touted as the greatest genius of Formation Sect was capable of, especially since Mu Chenghong was supposed to be more formidable than Mo Ziming. Besides, he wanted to try out the new formations he learnt from Greater Heaven Caster Lu. Even so, he played the modest card. “I am no match for you as a Golden Core Realm disciple, Senior Brother.”
“I am not trying to throw my weight around. I will reduce my spiritual energy to Golden Core Realm. We’ll test our mettle in illusion formations in a game of chasey. What say you?”
“How do we compete using illusion formations?” The majority of formations Mu Yu had learnt were illusion formations.
“I will throw an attack. You use the spiritual energy accompanying the attack to determine my location.” With a click, Mu Chenghong changed the scenery to a desert and then concealed himself in the sand. Sounding as if he was close by, he added, “I will always stay within a fifty metre radius. If you can find me within two hours, you win.”
“All right.”
Thus began the contest of illusion formations. Mu Yu ventured into the desert. As he walked, flowers grew underfoot, burying the sand underneath to build an oasis he preferred. Suddenly, the wind picked up, forming a sand eryx. Mu Yu spawned a dragon vine to bite back.
“Why did you use my form?” grumbled the dragon vine.
“You should use my form. Big Earthworm is painfully ugly.”
“On second thought, use my form. Snakes eat rodents.”
Mu Yu’s dragon vine successfully bit the eryx in two. When the battle was supposed to have ended, the eryx rained down as grains of sand. Each grain morphed into miniature eryxs and started biting away.
“See? Dragon, my foot,” derided Xiaoshuai.
“That’s not me. I would’ve blasted them already if it was me.”
The dragon vine wrestled with everything it had from the ground.
“Hargh!” With Mu Yu’s grunt, green tentacles grew from the small snakes, pinning them down and separating them.
“Eh, that’s about a third of what I could do,” complimented the dragon vine.
“You’re not even the one fighting, shameless caterpillar.”
Mu Yu performed hand seals and brought out three Greater Heaven Stage formation foundations, injecting a formation into the desert to locate Mu Chenghong. Unlike his expectations, there were three signals of someone controlling the eryx in three different directions.
“Nice clone trick.”
Knowing that he’d reveal himself as soon as he struck – spiritual qi and spiritual energy were catalysts for formations – Mu Chenghong split his spiritual qi in three to confuse Mu Yu. The other perk was that he could freely switch between the three clones.
Mu Yu decided to choose a random signal and chase it down. Fifty metres only took an instant for him to cover. After confirming his first guess was wrong, he raced to the next one and then the next one, but all of them were fakes.
“Junior Brother, I can switch places at will. It’s virtually impossible to find me if you chase down each single one by one.
How does he know which signal I’m heading to? Mu Yu pondered. Mu Yu caught sight of the regenerated eryx engaging his dragon vine again and realised, I get it now. If I can find trace his spiritual energy through the eryx, he can find me through the same method.
Mu Yu cancelled his dragon vine summoning. As long as he didn’t retaliate to any attacks, he could hide from Mu Chenghong using his own illusion formation. In saying that, Mu Yu not fighting didn’t imply Mu Chenghong was just going to sit on his laurels.
Mu Chenghong had his eryx sabotage Mu Yu’s oasis, thereby dismantling Mu Yu’s formation bit by bit. “My eryx will corrode your formation if you don’t retaliate. That isn’t a wise choice.”
Grinning, Mu Yu attacked the eryx using vines he spawned from the oasis.
How are you going to find me if you just stand there watching? deliberated Mu Chenghong.
Mu Chenghong soon sensed three signals of Mu Yu dashing to his three signals simultaneously. He dimpled and muttered under his breath, “You’re going to use a clone trick to counter my clone strategy?”
Upon arriving at the three spots, Mu Yu was disappointed to find none of them was the real Mu Chenghong, leading to him asking himself, “Why?”
Mu Chenghong was mulling over what Mu Yu’s next move was when he detected vines coming up from where he was standing, forcing him to run. He reappeared elsewhere in the desert and then had to run again. He had no time to settle down as Mu Yu’s vines would sprout the moment after he landed.
“Impressive, Junior Brother.”
“Your speed is amazing, Senior Brother.”
“How are you locating me?”
“Formations require formation lines, correct? Your clever usage of your eryx had me fooled for a while.”
Mu Yu figured out Mu Chenghong wasn’t controlling the eryx, but the formation was controlling it autonomously. Entities that the caster generated would’ve left formation lines. Since Mu Yu didn’t find any, he realised Mu Chenghong wasn’t controlling the eryx.
“How are you able to tell where I will go next?” Mu Chenghong nodded in approval.
“You have another formation within your illusion formation. Your formation within your desert shows the Heavenly Dipper Star formation pattern, which I noticed from the eryx’s face.”
“Since you know that, you should be aware that you can’t possibly catch.”
Taoism believed that, within Big Dipper, there were thirty-six stars and seventy-two earthly fiend stars. Heavenly Dipper Star Formation drew inspiration from the random organisation of stars in the sky. In a nutshell, the formation allowed its caster to teleport from place to place within a fixed radius. As to where they teleported, that was beyond them to decide.
“It may seem as though you are teleporting to random locations. In reality, the area within which you can move is tiny, and there are only a few spots you can move to. I, in fact, know where you will go next.” Mu Yu wore a triumphant visage and declared.
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