Chapter 22 Clues

Teacher Yan left the formation pavilion and returned to Tongming Peak of Tongxianmen.

Teachers of Tongxianmen all have separate rooms on Tongming Peak, three bedrooms and one living room, with a small courtyard, where they can grow some spiritual flowers and herbs, or raise spiritual beasts.

Teacher Yan's room is clean and tidy, with formation diagrams neatly pasted on the walls, and there is no other decoration.

He flipped through the basic formation books, prepared several formation patterns to be taught in the second half of the month, and then began to correct the formation homework submitted by the Qi Refining disciples.

There are nearly a thousand Qi Refining disciples on Tongxuan Peak of Tongxianmen, and he will correct all the formation homework one by one and mark the errors.

This takes a lot of time and patience, but Teacher Yan still does it meticulously.

This is his habit, and it is also in line with the teachings of his master for many years.

His master also corrected the formations of these disciples in this way, meticulously and patiently.

Teacher Yan's master is a first-class formation master, who may not be considered a great formation master in the entire cultivation world. But even so, throughout his life, he did his best to teach and pass on the formation that adheres to the laws of heaven.

Now that his master has passed away, he has become a teacher and can also appreciate his master's painstaking efforts.

As the sky gradually darkened, Teacher Yan lit the lamp and continued to correct the formation.

Tongxianmen is still a remote small sect, and the inheritance of cultivation is weak. Among the nearly one thousand disciples, there are only a few who can draw the basic formation patterns in a decent way.

Those who draw better are generally those who have family learning, or those whose families are rich and willing to spend spirit stones to cultivate, such as the children of cultivators working in the Daoting Division, or the children of the elders of the sect, or the disciples of the cultivation families in the city.

There are very few people who are truly poor and casual cultivators who can draw good formations.

However, no matter what their origins, Teacher Yan treats everyone equally and only looks at the formation.

If the painting is not good but the attitude is serious, more comments will be made to explain; if the painting is not good and the attitude is sloppy, the comments will be more severe, and the name will be recorded by Yan Jiaoxi;

Occasionally, if there is a good painting, Yan Jiaoxi will feel gratified and write a "excellent" next to the formation to show encouragement.

Yan Jiaoxi patiently corrected it, and when he turned to a formation, his eyes lit up.

The brushwork is very skillful, obviously hard work, and there is a bit of method. Even if it is used to draw a formal formation, this formation pattern is qualified.

Yan Jiaoxi looked up at the scroll eyebrow, the two words "ink painting", and nodded, then wrote a "excellent" next to the formation.

This "excellent" is written bigger than the other "excellent".

Yan Jiaoxi turned it over and continued to correct it.

While correcting, Yan Jiaoxi turned it back again and found the formation pattern of ink painting, and frowned.

The brushwork of this array pattern is too skillful, and even looks a bit... effortless?

For a cultivator at the second or third level of Qi Refining, being able to draw a complete array pattern is already good enough.

Thinking of meeting Mo Hua in the Formation Pavilion today, Teacher Yan was in deep thought, and suddenly a question popped up:

"Mo Hua, does he have an elder brother?"

"If his elder brother is good at drawing formations, and he is also good at drawing, then he should have family learning. But if I remember correctly, Mo Hua is obviously just a poor casual cultivator. If he has a family learning of formations, his family background will not be too bad..."

"His elder brother can help the Formation Pavilion draw formations, then he should have a lot of talent in formations in Tongxianmen. I have been teaching in Tongxianmen for nearly ten years, and it seems that I have never taught this person..."

"In other sects? It is unlikely. Brothers of the same family usually join the same sect, not to mention that Tongxianmen is already the largest sect in the city..."

Teacher Yan tapped his fingers on the table and thought, then temporarily suppressed all kinds of thoughts and concentrated on correcting the formations.

The next day, Instructor Yan got up very early, found the manager of Tongming Peak, and asked for a list of the disciples' hometowns. He found the column for Mo Hua and saw the following:

Mo Hua: 10 years old, third level of Qi Refining, middle-lower grade five-element spiritual root...

Father: Mo Shan, demon hunter; Mother: Liu Ruhua, chef.

Besides his parents, there are no other relatives, and no brothers at all.

Instructor Yan had a vague guess in his mind, but he felt it was unlikely.

During the formation class in the morning, Instructor Yan announced that a temporary assignment would be added, to draw all the five-element formation patterns that had been learned, and to hand them in three days later.

The disciples present were all like eggplants hit by frost when they heard the bad news.

Mo Hua didn't care. He had helped the formation pavilion draw formations, and now it was just a matter of drawing a few formation patterns, which didn't take much effort.

But why did Instructor Yan suddenly assign these homework?

This didn't seem like what an instructor would do on a daily basis.

Mo Hua was a little confused.

Then An Xiaopang came to Mo Hua for help.

"Mo Hua, you must help me!!" An Xiaopang almost cried.

Who knows why the teacher suddenly assigned homework? Usually, he would assign homework to test the disciples' formation skills every few months.

An Xiaopang was caught off guard. He couldn't draw a single formation pattern, and time was tight, so he could only ask Mo Hua for help.

Mo Hua didn't care. These basic formation patterns were no longer difficult for him now.

Mo Hua helped An Xiaopang draw the formation, and even only charged a friendly price. There were also several fellow disciples who had good families but were not good at formations who asked Mo Hua for help, and Mo Hua agreed.

Mo Hua had formation drawings and earned spirit stones, so he didn't have the heart to think about anything else.

Three days later, the formation homework was handed in. Yan Jiaoxi picked out the formation pattern drawn by ink, looked at it carefully, then put it into the storage bag, and went to Youyuanzhai to find the fat steward.

When the fat steward saw Yan Jiaoxi, he was a little wary, "Are you here to drink tea with me this time, or are you here to ask me to do errands?"

Yan Jiaoxi said: "I won't drink tea, and I won't let you do anything. I just ask you for something."

The fat steward breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh, that's okay."

"Do you still have the array diagram that Mo Hua gave you?"

"Mo Hua?" The fat steward was slightly startled, "Oh, that little brother, yes, there is one. What do you want to do?"

"How many pairs are there?"

"There are still several pairs of open fire formations and solid earth formations. I keep spare ones."

The fat steward each took out an ink painting of the open fire formation and solid earth formation that he had delivered before, and handed them to Yan Jiaoxi.

Yan Jiaoxi looked through it once, then took out the formation homework he handed in with the ink painting, and compared it one by one with the formation patterns on it.

After reading it, Yan Jiaoxi took a deep breath.

The fat steward stretched his neck to look and asked, "What are you looking at?"

Yan Jiaoxi pointed to the formation patterns and the formations at hand and asked:

"Do you think these formation patterns and these two formations were painted by one person?"

The fat steward took the formation patterns and formations, frowned and looked at them carefully, nodded and said:

"The brushwork is quite similar. No surprise, it must have been written by the same person..."

The fat steward thought for a while and suddenly said: "Have you met Mo Hua's brother?"

"Mo Hua has no brothers."

"No brother? Then who drew these formations?"

Yan Jiaoxi looked at the fat steward with intriguing eyes.

The fat steward was stunned for a moment, "You wouldn't say that he drew it himself, would you?"

Yan Jiaoxi nodded.

The fat steward was silent for a moment, then sneered,

"What nonsense are you talking about?"

"Not to mention the open fire formation, it is still possible that he can draw it. There are four formation patterns in this solid earth formation. Where did he get so much spiritual consciousness? Could it be that he has two heads and two seas of consciousness? Can’t do it?”

The fat steward looked at Yan Jiaoxi suspiciously and continued:

"You want to say that you taught a genius who knows how to draw formations at the third level of Qi Refining? You don't want to deliberately put yourself on the line... I have known you for so many years, and you are not such a person!"

Yan Jiaoxi looked at him coldly, pointed at the formations in front of him and said: "These formation patterns and these two formations are from the hands of one person. You said this yourself. These formation patterns are drawn by ink Yes, then who should have drawn these two formations?"

The fat steward was blocked and speechless.

After staring at the formation pattern on the left and the formation on the right for a long time, he murmured: "No way..."