Chapter 597 - Formations And Runes

Time passed bit by bit, and Lin Mu had already been in the Sleepscape for about four months now. His progress with the formations had also increased during this time, and he was proficient in more of them.

The compilation of all the knowledge that Jing Luo had gathered had helped Lin Mu quite a lot in it along with the information he had gained from the Tri Cauldron peony sect. He was happy that he was finally getting to learn more.

Xukong also assisted him in this and gave him pointers where ever needed. He did not directly teach him though, as he wanted Lin Mu to learn by himself. Only by attempting it himself and making mistakes would he gain a better understanding of the formations.

Another thing that prevented Lin Mu from practicing formation was the lack of resources needed for it. But now he had plenty of them to use during practice. He spent this time in making a few formation flags, talismans, and formation plates that may help him later.

Still, he was not as proficient at making them as he was at directly modifying existing formations. The part where Lin Mu was particularly having trouble in making them was the actual inscription of the runes.

The runes needed to make formation could be inscribed in multiple different ways and there were many methods for it. The most common methods were to either using spirit sense to inscribe the runes and use treasured materials to make ink, which would then be used to write the runes.

The first method was used for things such as spirit weapons, spirit tools and formation plates and the runes would not be normally visible on them unless they were activated.

The second method of using ink was often used for making formation flags and talismans. On these, the runes were easily visible and one could tell what the function of the formation was simply by reading the runes written on it.

Of course, it was not this simple always and the more complex runes would make one confused in understating what the function of the formation was. This was the part where the common tongue and Dao Script greatly varied.

The written runes on talismans and formation flags were mostly written using the common tongue in this world and thus could even be read by commoners at times. But Lin Mu was not using that to make them. Rather, he was using Dao Script to write the runes.

This allowed him to write more complex formations with limited characters. Since the Characters of Dao Script could mean more than one thing and convey entire sentences in a single letter, making runes using them and expanding them into a formation was incredibly potent.

Plus, most people in this world could not read Dao Script and thus would become stumped at what the letters even were. In the higher worlds where Dao Script was used, not everyone knew all of the characters in the Dao Script.

Senior Xukong even told Lin Mu that there were more characters in Dao Script than there were stars in the night sky. Thus learning all of them was close to impossible and anyone who managed to do so may directly become a saint!

At least for the most things, only a limited amount of characters from Dao Script were needed. But if one were to expand in the field of formations and even the creation of different cultivation techniques and Qi skills, they would need a good understanding of Dao Script.

Along with learning formations, Lin Mu was also injecting beast Qi into the gray egg every day. While he still could not see any difference in its internals after two entire months, the aura of the egg was definitely getting stronger.

Even Xukong was stumped at this and wondered what kind of a bloodline did the egg manage to awaken. If it was needing such a large amount of beast Qi then he was afraid that it might turn out to be a beast that this world may not allow to exist.

Xukong did not mention this part to Lin Mu, as he did not want him to be worried about it. At least not when it was still unconfirmed. Regardless of that, the amount of beast Qi Lin Mu had injected into the gray egg was many times more than what he had given to Little Shrubby and the two snakes.

Had this amount been given to a common beast that was at the Body tempering realm, perhaps it had already increased its talent far enough to gain the potential to reach the Nascent Soul realm in the future.

~huu~

Lin Mu let out a deep breath as he finished inscribing the last rune on a formation plate.

"Finally! It's done." Lin Mu exclaimed, but his joy was short lasting.

~CRACK~

The formation plate that he had just finished inscribing cracked, and all the runes on it collapsed.

~Sigh~

Lin Mu shook his head. 

"Formations are truly difficult. I'm still having problems with formations that need a larger area to inscribe." Lin Mu said.

"You'll learn it, eventually. You were able to inscribe them on bigger surfaces before, you just need to learn how to make your runes smaller while also maintaining their shape." Xukong advised.

"I understand, senior…" Lin Mu replied and restarted his work.

Lin Mu was having the same problem that thousands of other formation masters had; reducing the size of the runes. Often times one needed to inscribe runes onto a smaller surface than was often used. This made the process difficult, as the formation master would be used to making runes of a specific size over the years.

Since runes were quite sensitive to irregularities, they could collapse if a mistake was made. They needed high precision to make or they would simply not work. Thus, when one had to reduce the size of them, the entire ordeal became multiple times difficult.

"Just have to keep on practicing…"