Life as a Rogue Cultivator

After a series of twists and turns, Liu Xiaolou finally managed to prove once again that he wasn’t bent. A close call, to say the least. Of course, from Green Bamboo’s point of view, it was all thanks to her own ability. She’d taken someone crooked and straightened him out, and she was quite pleased with herself.

Next, it was only natural for Liu Xiaolou to make good on his promise and let her into the formation for a closer look.

After another three days of rest and recovery, Liu Xiaolou’s injuries were fully healed. He opened the Abyssal Blackstone Formation again, enclosing Green Bamboo inside.

This time, he lasted twice as long as before. Though Green Bamboo was still not very satisfied, she no longer criticized him. The difference in cultivation was just too great. A demonstration of a formation was, in essence, a duel. Lasting through two sticks of incense was already quite good for Liu Xiaolou.

Every day Green Bamboo would enter the formation for that same span of time. After coming out, she would sit to the side, replaying and reflecting. Sometimes at night she would compare notes with Liu Xiaolou. After several days of this, the illusions she saw inside grew richer. Once, she even saw a great bed appear behind a curtain.

One day, after stepping out of the formation, she pondered aloud, “I’ve noticed this formation shows no passage of time, no change of seasons. It feels stiff and lifeless. Why is that?”

Liu Xiaolou’s formation manual had come from the late Xishan Hermit, but Lord Xingde was skilled in refining artifacts, not formations. So what Green Bamboo mentioned, he didn’t really understand. “The flow of time? The shifting of seasons? Is that even necessary?”

Green Bamboo scoffed. “And how exactly was this formation disk of yours refined? Didn’t the manuals mention such changes at all?”

Liu Xiaolou, not too proud to ask questions, pulled out the Abyssal Blackstone Formation manual and handed it to Green Bamboo. She flipped through it casually, then tossed it back at him. “Throw it out! This book is trash. But tell me, how did those illusions inside your formation get added in?”

Liu Xiaolou didn’t mention the Bewildering Fragrance. Instead, he pushed the credit onto yin-yang arts. Green Bamboo accepted that explanation. Still, as a formation master, she simply couldn’t stomach such a shoddy, half-baked formation. “It needs to be fixed,” she declared.

“What should I change?” Liu Xiaolou asked quickly.

“The formation disk has to be rerefined. Add in the Three Wonders and the Six Harmonies! No, forget it. The Six Harmonies are beyond you. But at the very least, you’ve got to put in the Three Wonders.” Green Bamboo’s answer was firm.

“The Three Wonders?”

“Yi, Bing, and Ding! They have to be added.”

“Huh? What’s Yi, Bing, and Ding?”

“Yi is the Solar Wonder, Bing the Lunar Wonder, and Ding the Stellar Wonder. Once you add them, your formation will have the flow of seasons and the cycle of day and night.”

“Seasons and day and night? Sounds nice, but what’s the point?”

“Of course it has a point! In spring you wear spring clothes, in summer summer dresses, in autumn autumn wear, and in winter winter coats. Each season brings different clothes, and that makes it all the more fun. Don’t you think?”

“Ah… that does make sense.”

“Besides, your illusion formation is based on yin and yang illusions. Day and night should look different. The people inside the illusions should also change. Their clothes, their expressions, their movements. No matter how good an illusion is, if it’s always the same, people will lose interest after a while. I heard you’ve been taking spirit stones from that circle of young masters who can’t perform, charging them one stone for ten demonstrations? Let me be blunt, you won’t even need ten. After six or seven times, they probably won’t come back.”

“That’s fine too. I’m not giving refunds anyway, so it saves me the trouble.”

“You...” Green Bamboo was exasperated. “Don’t you want to keep this going?”

“If I do it long-term, it won’t exactly give me a good reputation, will it?” Liu Xiaolou shook his head.

“You’re a wandering rogue cultivator from Wulong Mountain!” Green Bamboo jabbed a finger into his chest. “Who do you think you are? How much worse could your reputation get?”

Liu Xiaolou scratched his head. “Ah… you’ve got a point. A man shouldn’t forget where he came from.”

Green Bamboo rolled her eyes. “Forget? You couldn’t even if you tried. And besides, if you quit this line of work, it’d honestly be a real loss for us cultivators.”

“Alright, alright. So how do I add in these Three Wonders?” Thɪs chapter is updated by novel✶fire.net

“This formation disk can’t have true qi carved into it anymore. It’ll have to serve as the ground disk. You’ll need to add a sky disk on top, and that’s where you refine the sun, moon, and star Wonders.”

So Green Wanderer began teaching Liu Xiaolou, showing him the method to refine the sun, moon, and star Wonders. In simple terms, it meant rerefining a formation disk, carving the sun, moon, and star Wonders into it using true qi. Once the refinement was successful, the sky disk and ground disk would be merged, forming a structure where the sky disk rotates around the ground disk. With this, the formation would now reflect the changing seasons and the cycle of day and night.

To go even further, one could refine the Six Harmonies and Nine Stars, or even higher-level concepts like the Eight Gates or Nine Deities. Even Green Bamboo hadn’t reached that stage; for now, she could only carve the Six Harmonies.

When Liu Xiaolou had originally refined the formation disk, he had used the earth fire from Xingde Mountain. Refining the sky disk also required fire, but not earth fire. It needed celestial fire, which is the essence of heavenly timing.

Carving the Solar Wonder had to be done at noon, guiding the solar essence with true qi to etch the disk. Carving the Lunar Wonder required the hour of the ox (1 to 3 am), again using true qi to guide the moonlight. Carving the Stellar Wonder meant choosing a bright star and directing its essence to the disk; Liu Xiaolou chose Mars, the Great Fire Star.

As for the jade pieces needed for the disk, that was even simpler. Liu Xiaolou didn’t have any, but Green Bamboo had several in her bracelet. She tossed one to him without hesitation, leaving him embarrassed. He couldn’t help thinking to himself whether he should take out some of Bewildering Fragrance for her to smell, as a gesture of fair and mutual cooperation.

After a month of hand-in-hand, face-to-face, heart-to-heart guidance, Liu Xiaolou finally succeeded in refining the sky disk with the Three Wonders. The next problem was how to merge it with the original ground disk. Combining two disks required earth fire.

Not to mention Qianzhu Ridge, even the entire Wulong Mountain showed no trace of earth fire. Or if it did exist, some local hero occupying the mountain was keeping it a secret.

“If that doesn’t work, you can come with me to Yuezhou. The Red Water Heavenly Sect there specializes in formation arts. They have multiple earth fires in Siming Mountain, and I borrow from them often,” Green Bamboo suggested.

“I’d rather go to Xingde Mountain. There’s a patch of earth fire there,” Liu Xiaolou said.

“You mean that guy who taught you to refine formation disks? Lord Xingde? His skills aren’t that impressive. Will his earth fire really be any good?" She looked skeptical.

“He’s a craftsman, not a formation master,” Liu Xiaolou defended. “He just specializes in refining formation disks.”

Green Bamboo shrugged. “Fine, let’s go take a look first. If it doesn’t work, we can head to Siming Mountain.”

After instructing Big White and Little Black to guard the house, the two set off down the mountain. With Green Bamboo, a cultivator who had reached the peak of Qi refinement, by his side, Liu Xiaolou took a shortcut, cutting straight across Wuling Mountain and bypassing Tianmenfang, heading directly for the Taoyuan range.

“This is Xingde Mountain,” Liu Xiaolou said, returning to familiar ground with a wave of nostalgia.

Because Lord Xingde had once been surrounded and hunted by the Qingyu Sect, the commotion had been enormous. Even though nearly two years had passed, no new master had taken over Xingde Mountain. Everyone feared being associated with the trouble. Xingde Temple was empty, left in ruin.

The main hall’s deity statue had been chopped in half, two pillars had collapsed, and the eastern annex was in complete disarray.

Liu Xiaolou pointed to the copper cover in the center of one side room’s floor. “It’s right here.”

Green Bamboo kicked the copper cover aside, and a rush of heat hit them in the face.