Chapter One Hundred and Forty Two “Seven Plum Sword”
This chapter has been brought to you by me, WanderingGummiOfDoom and warlord212.
In reality, Zuo Mo was not confident at all.
He had just made forty-five child formations for the [Skyring Moon Chime Formation], there were still twenty-seven child formations until he reached seventy-two child formations. Mother-and-child formations like [Skyring Moon Chime Formation] usually had an attribute. The more child formations they had, the stronger they would be. The growth of power was a nonlinear increase dependent on the number of single child formations, but increased in a pattern of values like six, twelve, thirty six, etc.
The power of forty-five child formations, was just slightly stronger than thirty-six child formations. If he could complete seventy-two child formations, the power of the formation would be the difference between heaven and earth compared to a thirty-six child formation. It would go up an entire stage. Zuo Mo estimated that the power of a seventy-two child formation would be more than four times that of a thirty-six child formation. Of course, there were also differences in the difficulty of setting up the formations. When the number of child formation reached a certain amount, the difficulty would multiply when adding on one more formation.
However, this was not the time to consider these things. He had no other choice.
Zong Ming Yan did not have any intentions of relenting, heading straight for Zuo Mo.
Zuo Mo didn’t hesitate, raising his hand to sent out a five level multi-colored mini pagoda.
Once the Five Colored Pagoda flew into the air, it grew in size. In the blink of an eye, it was the height of a person. The Five Colored Pagoda flew into the sky above the pond. The pond below instantly filled with mist, moisture roiling. The moisture quickly rose up, reaching the base of the Five Color Pagoda. From far away, it looked as though the water was supporting the Five Colored Pagoda.
The light of the Five Color Pagoda lit up, the body of the pagoda continuously emitting countless flashes of five colored light that entered each formation.
Centered around the pond, the jade pieces, copper cauldrons, and formation nails in the ten mu formation belt lit up.
If the formation belt could have been called sparkling before, then right now, it was like a gigantic piece of gold had been embedded into the green landscape, extremely gaudy. Naturally, it received the unanimous disdain of everyone.
But when the entire ten mu of formations completely lit up in the flick of a finger, that blinding scene, how many people had seen anything like it?
No one had seen anything like it.
Such a large formation belt, it could only appear in the restricted grounds of a sect, and not just any sect. There was none like it even around the sword cave of Wu Kong Sword Sect. There was none around Dong Fu Hall. Heart Lake Sect did have one, but it had never been activated. The last time it was activated, it was several hundreds of years ago.
The densely packed crowds of xiuzhe around Dong Fu were completely struck dumb by such a spectacular scene.
Wei Sheng and Gu Rong Ping’s fight might be more profound and skillful, but in front of such an enormous formation, it became minuscule. With Wei Sheng and Gu Rong Ping’s cultivating stages of ningami, each sword energy would be seven or eight zhang. The longest would be ten zhang. No matter how magnificent they were, they could not compare to the spectacle of ten mu of formation being activated at once.
For a short moment, all of Dong Fu was completely silent.
A moment later, people slowly came out of their shock. Dong Fu instantly exploded. Several ten thousands of xiuzhe speaking at once, from extremely silent to waves of roaring, some xiuzhe that were of weaker cultivation felt their eyes rings and could not hear anything anymore.
After a while, their hearing finally recovered.
However, everyone’s discussion had not stopped. Quite the reverse, it had become even more fierce.
“Worth it! Definitely enough for me to come this far!”
“Spectacular! As expected, Zuo Mo really has some abilities, he can also muster up something!”
“What formation-seal-style? It is just jinzhi!”
… …
As everyone was sighed, the formation was completely activated. The formation belt about ten mu big suddenly changed.
A crescent rose up high over the pond, the light flashing. Inside the formation, green blue mist rose, blurring the landscape. Inside the mist, countless light rings of various sizes floated in the air, gathering and scattering like a school of nimble fish.
On the rooftop of one of Dong Fu’s residences, three people were standing together.
“Zuo Mo truly is a formations genius. Such a short period of time and he could comprehend [Skyring Moon Chime Formation], really powerful! Luckily, we did not offend him that day.” A red-robed male stared at the mirage and praised.
These three were the customers that had Zuo Mo process the Inky Black Lotus Seed.
“Humph, he’s a zhuji xiuzhe. He can only take advantage of outside forces, what can he accomplish?” The snarling man snorted.
“It’s good to have low cultivation.” The eagle-nosed man said darkly.
“You want to use force? Don’t forget that he has a powerful shixiong!” The snarling male shook his head and said. All three of them were extremely wary due to Wei Sheng’s strong performance.
“We don’t have enough people. His shixiong isn’t a bad substitute.” The eagle-nosed man said.
The snarling man still shook his head. “He’s only in zhuji. No matter how skilled his formations are, it is still limited.”
“It’s alright as long as he has talent.” The red-robed male suddenly opened. “This isn’t Tian Huan Realm, it is not easy to find xiuzhe skilled in formations. Wei Sheng might be powerful, but he is just one person. Us three brothers do not have to be afraid.”
The red-robed man held great authority among the three. Since he said so, the other two had no objections. Also, what the red-robed man said was the truth. There were many xiuzhe that knew formations, but those that could be called skilled were extremely rare. Those that had some reputation, either their price was too high, or they were unwilling to risk their own personal safety.
The snarling man smiled, and said, “That’s true. If he dares to have other thoughts, the new Black Lotus Yin Banner that we just forged can be tested.”
The eagle-nosed man furrowed his brows. “But how to persuade Zuo Mo? That guy isn’t easy to fool, and we cannot use force.”
The red-robed male was very confident about this point. He smirked. “Temptation! That’s easy with someone like Zuo Mo. Even a person as obsessed with the sword as Wei Sheng is won’t be immune.”
As the three talked, Zong Ming Yan had reached the edge of the [Skyring Moon Chime Formation].
The moment the formation had activated, Zong Ming Yan’s mind had blanked for a quick instant but he quickly recovered. His steps were not rushed or slow, looking like a calm and relaxed expert. Only the shocking presence he was releasing expressed that the desire for battle inside had reached a peak.
Zuo Mo’s figure had disappeared into the formation.
The blue-green mist spread, forming its own little world. Countless rings of light in various sizes were nimble and lively. Occasionally, two rings of light would hit earth other, and chimes like that of glass would sound, clear and crisp. The chiming that passed through the mist were hard to follow, and echoed.
What entered the eyes was blue-green mist and the swimming rings of light. Not just Zuo Mo, even the jade pieces and metal nails on the ground had disappeared.
Ding ding dong dong!
Zong Ming Yan couldn’t help but snort. As the first seat of the younger generation of Dong Qi Sword Sect, he followed his master in cultivating the sword, and had a very basic knowledge of formations.
However, so what?
He was not afraid in the least.
One sword breaks all methods, that was a sword xiu! He had not reached that amazing step, but his opponent was just a zhuji. A xiuzhe only in zhuji, could he block the sword?
He didn’t believe it!
As for his conflict with Zuo Mo, he had long forgotten about it. He had never kept it on his mind. A disciple of his sect being banned, that was because his abilities were not as good as others. He was too lazy to care. He didn’t have especially bad feelings about Zuo Mo. Of course, he didn’t have any good feelings either.
It was a pity that Yu Bai and Nan Men Yang had matched up.
He was very regretful as he looked at Yu Bai and Nan Men Yang that were fighting heatedly behind him, and then looking at Zuo Mo ahead, he felt it was very bland.
Even if it wasn’t Yu Bai, he would be fine with Nan Men Yang, but why was it Zuo Mo?
As he sighed in regret, he summoned out his flying sword.
This was an extremely unique flying sword. The shape was like a section of old plum. There were many joints on the plum branch, appearing like a bone, old yet resilient. On the plum branch were seven fresh and blooming plum blossoms, so fresh that they seemed to have just been picked. A faint fragrance floated in the air.
“[Seven Plum Sword]! Zuo Mei Tian actually passed [Seven Plum Sword] to him! It seems he doesn’t have low hopes for Zong Ming Yan!
“This is the first sword of Dong Qi Sword Sect, [Seven Plum Sword]? As expected, it is extraordinary! Zuo Mei Tian is really brave. Such a good sword, he actually gave it to a ningmai disciple!”
Conversation rose, as everyone’s expressions were full of awe.
[Seven Plum Sword] was the most famous flying sword of Dong Qi Sword Sect, ranked fourth-grade. It was most suited to Dong Qi Sword Sect’s [Plum Cutting Sword Scripture]. However, the reason that this sword was so famous was because its owner was Zuo Mei Tian.
In Sky Moon Jie, Zuo Mei Tian was a very famous personage. Everyone was especially wary of his cruelty and ruthlessness. These years, he had not been seen much in public. The rumors had been that he had been focusing on teaching his disciple. Looking at it now, it was true. To pass a great treasure like [Seven Plum Sword] to Zong Ming Yan, it could be seen just how great his love was.
The people that had been drooling over [Seven Plum Sword] quickly killed their greed. It was easy to deal with the young one. But if they fought the young one, and the old one came, they couldn’t deal with that.
The faces of the four from Wu Kong Sword Sect were heavy. Even though they hoped that Zuo Mo could leave the competition as soon as possible, but when they saw Zong Ming Yan take out [Seven Plum Sword], their expressions changed slightly.
Zuo Mei Tian’s ruthlessness was famed, and look at it, his disciple Zong Ming Yan was not a merciful person either. They were not worried that Zuo Mo would lose the competition, because it was already set in stone. They were worried that Zuo Mo would be injured. If Zong Ming Yan was as heartless as his master, Zuo Mei Tian, then today, Zuo Mo was in danger!
However, at this time, Zuo Mo’s big formation was already up and running. Through the mirage, it was hard for them to see the situation inside the formation.
Inside the blue-green formation, the rings of light danced, a crescent moon hanging over top of it all!
In opposition to what everyone had imagined of Zuo Mo being on guard to face a great enemy, Zuo Mo was extremely busy. Taking advantage of the cover the formation was, he had silently sneaked to the other end of the formation, continuing to set up child formations for [Skyring Moon Chime Formation]?
One more child formation, the power of the [Skyring Moon Chime Formation] would increase a bit.
His movements were extremely quick. After continuously putting down forty-five child formations, he was extremely practiced.
He guessed that Zong Ming Yan would try to test the waters in the beginning so he decided to make good use of the time.
You hit, I set!
Wasn’t it just competition on speed?
Let’s see if you first break the formation, or I first finish the formation!
Zuo Mo thought hatefully inside, his hands moving even quickly.
No one would have thought, that in such a time of emergency, Zuo Mo was still persisting in laying down formations.
Translator Ramblings: Poor Zuo Mo, all he wants to do is be left alone.