Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life-Chapter 192: The Myriad Methods of Formations, All Roads Lead to the Same Destination

"The spirit is the master of man. The soul is the dwelling of the spirit. Nourishing the soul is like an oyster containing a pearl, like earth concealing gold. Do not contend over momentary strength or weakness, only seek the perfection of the origin. Guard stillness and sincerity, reach the ultimate of emptiness, use the qi of heaven and earth to nourish my vast and righteous soul..."

Su Ming's heart shook.

This cultivation method did not teach how to attack, nor how to seize bodies. Its entire text discussed how to "nourish."

How to stabilize the soul body, how to repair cracks, how to maintain one's own clarity and integrity through the long passage of time. It emphasized stability, refinement, and slow growth, not the impatient and greedy path of devouring and plundering.

"Like an oyster containing a pearl..." Lin Yu murmured to himself, his voice carrying a slight tremor. "Isn't this tailor-made for a 'holdout' like me? It doesn't seek to kill and plunder, it only seeks to prevent oneself from being worn away in the vast river of time."

"This is the one!" Lin Yu laughed heartily. "Disciple, quick! Memorize it! This is truly good stuff, authentic Daoist orthodoxy, ten thousand times better than those flashy, worthless things!"

Su Ming hesitated no longer. He opened his divine sense fully and began to inscribe this "Spirit Nourishing True Explanation."

However, the moment his divine sense probed into the core of the light sphere, a sudden change occurred!

That originally gentle light sphere, as if some kind of restriction had been triggered, suddenly erupted with a massive suction force from within!

Su Ming felt his divine sense instantly pulled into a huge gray vortex. Countless chaotic images, delirious murmurs, even sighs from some ancient existence, surged toward him like a tidal wave.

"What is spirit? What is soul? Do you also seek immortality? Abandon the flesh..."

A will filled with temptation tried to lure Su Ming into abandoning his resistance and sinking into this gray tranquility.

"Not good! It's a legacy trial!" Lin Yu exclaimed in alarm. "This thing looks gentle, but its threshold is actually extremely high! It's testing the resilience of your soul! Disciple, guard your spiritual platform! Don't listen to that nonsense!"

Su Ming's face turned deathly pale, and beads of sweat the size of beans instantly seeped from his forehead.

That pulling force was immense, as if trying to rip his soul out of his body by brute force.

"Like Water..."

At the critical moment, Su Ming gritted his teeth and silently recited the scripture of the "Like Water Art" in his heart.

"The highest good is like water... dwelling in good places... the heart is good at being profound..."

The water spiritual energy within his Dantian madly circulated, transforming into a cool, rushing torrent that charged straight into his Consciousness Sea.

That coolness acted like a dam, stubbornly blocking the erosion of the gray vortex.

Though his eyes showed pain, Su Ming always maintained the last shred of clarity.

He was like a reef amidst raging waves, letting the waves crash against him, yet remaining unshakable.

Boom!

As if sensing this unyielding will, or perhaps the all-encompassing nature of the "Like Water Art" took effect, the gray vortex suddenly paused, then rapidly collapsed and contracted, finally transforming into passages of golden text that obediently imprinted themselves deep within Su Ming's memory.

Haa...

Su Ming's legs went weak, and he almost knelt on the spot.

He gasped for breath in big gulps, his clothes completely soaked through with cold sweat, as if he had just been fished out of water.

"You scared the hell out of me..." Lin Yu's voice also sounded a bit weak. "Disciple, you just had a major 'kingly aura' leak there! Are you alright? Is your brain still working? Do you still recognize me? I'm your creditor."

Su Ming wiped the sweat from his face and gave a weak smile. "Master... I have not failed the mission."

"Alright, alright, I'll add a chicken drumstick for you when we get back!" Lin Yu's tone was light, but Su Ming could hear the poorly concealed concern and gratitude within it. "With the 'Spirit Nourishing True Explanation' obtained, my resurrection grand plan has taken the first step of a ten-thousand-mile journey. Next... we still have a little time, don't waste it, go take a look at the formation area."

"Yes."

Su Ming swallowed a Qi Recovery Pill, rested briefly to regulate his breathing, then forced his exhausted body onward, walking toward the other end of the starry sky—the formation area.

The formation area was the most vast starfield within the Transmission Pavilion.

The light spheres here were as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, densely packed and arranged in the air. Countless lines threaded and connected between the spheres, evolving earth, water, fire, and wind, resembling a precise universe constantly deducing itself.

The moment Su Ming stepped in, he was dazzled and dizzy from the eye-dazzling array diagrams.

"Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Formation," "Heavenly Net Earth Web Grand Formation," "Purple Firmament Divine Thunder Formation"...

Each light sphere emanated a heart-palpitating, powerful fluctuation, as if learning just one would allow one to dominate the world.

Su Ming instinctively looked toward those legacies with the brightest light and the highest positions.

"Don't look up there." Lin Yu's voice sounded timely. "Those ready-made, profound formations are just useless burdens for us right now."

"What we need to find is something that allows us to 'build the road' ourselves."

Lin Yu's voice became serious, carrying the obsession of a former science student from his past life. "Disciple, you must remember. A true formation master isn't one who has memorized countless blueprints, but one who understands 'why' every single rune is the way it is."

"Look and see if there are any texts discussing the 'structural principles' or 'energy logic' of the most basic runes. Even if they look very simple, very boring."

Su Ming nodded, half-understanding, but he chose to unconditionally trust his master's judgment.

He withdrew his gaze, no longer looking at those divine-level grand formations high above, and instead lowered his head to look at the "bottom" of this formation starry sky.

That was the foundation of countless light spheres.

Beneath those radiant legacies, at the deepest part of the water mirror, Su Ming discovered an extremely inconspicuous, even somewhat crude, earthy-yellow light sphere.

It wasn't suspended in the air but was half-buried in the foundation of nothingness, like a stepping stone supporting countless magnificent formations above, yet no one paid it any attention.

Su Ming walked over and probed it with his divine sense.

"True Meaning of Basic Rune Deconstruction."

No domineering name, no earth-shattering descriptions of power.

The content of this text did not discuss a single complete formation. Instead, it deconstructed thousands of basic runes, dissecting them like a corpse, exploring the energy structure of every stroke, the symbolic origin of every turn, and the combinatorial logic between different runes.

It discussed: Why is the "fire" character rune drawn this way? Why would adding one stroke cause an explosion, and removing one stroke cause it to extinguish? Why does combining the "Gathering" character and the "Scatter" character produce a repelling force?

This was practically a "Xinhua Dictionary" and "Grammar Compendium" for the formation world.

"This is it!"

Lin Yu's voice was so excited it almost cracked. "This is what I was looking for! This is the real treasure! Disciple, think about it. If you master these foundational logics, you'll be able to create, modify, and optimize any formation as you wish, like building with blocks!"

"This is practically tailor-made for us! With this, we can fundamentally launch a Dimensional Reduction Strike against those natives who only know how to memorize blueprints!"

Looking at this earthy-yellow light sphere, a flash of understanding also appeared in Su Ming's eyes.

What he needed was never to learn ten thousand types of formations.

What he needed was to master the method of creating formations.

"This is... the foundation for establishing one's own path."

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Ming reached out and grasped this seemingly most basic, yet directly core-focused, light sphere.

The moment he made his choice, the noisy formation starry sky above his head seemed to instantly fade away.

A tranquility of returning to the source enveloped him.

He seemed to see countless threads intertwining in his hands, weaving the warp and weft of the entire world.