Chapter 51: Formation Completed

This, too, came as a surprise to Wang Feiyin.

Then, standing before the mountain gate, he laughed heartily for a full half-hour, until tears streamed down his face.

Pan Yun glared at him with a dark expression.

Wang Feiyin wiped away his tears. Looking down to meet her angry and aggrieved gaze, he couldn't help but chuckle again. Seeing her face grow even darker, he finally managed to quiet down, gazing at her through watery eyes. "Well? It's not so easy to take on a master, is it? Whatever you do in this life, you have to pay a price."

Pan Yun looked thoughtful. "So the reason I couldn't make money down the mountain wasn't just because selling talismans isn't suited for towns, but also because of Master?"

Stroke his beard, Wang Feiyin said, "Though the foot of the mountain indeed isn't the place for selling talismans, people are driven by desires. In a market that large, with people from nearly ten surrounding villages, it shouldn't be that not a single fated person existed."

He continued, "Whether it's me, your second senior brother, third senior brother, or fourth senior sister, our fortune in wealth is quite mediocre. Now you've just been added to the mix. Among us disciples, however, you and I have the worst financial luck, because our ties to Master run the deepest."

Wang Feiyin patted her head and comforted her, "Get used to it as soon as possible."

Pan Xiaohei let out a sympathetic "Meow," and then walked away gracefully.

Refusing to yield, Pan Yun returned to her room to ponder for a long time. Eventually, she pulled out that piece of merit stone and went to find Wang Feiyin. "Eldest Senior Brother, could you please help me cut this stone?"

She had drawn precise lines on it, asking him to cut along the markings.

Seeing the small section she had outlined, Wang Feiyin frowned and asked, "Such a fine piece of merit stone, why do you want to split it?"

"I'm going to make an array."

"The array you mentioned before, the one that measures merit?"

Pan Yun nodded. "I've been preparing for a long time. Now the array is thoroughly memorized, and I can start carving."

"You aren't planning to borrow merit to reverse your financial luck, are you?" Wang Feiyin thought for a moment before saying, "That is one way of thinking, I suppose. But shouldn't you focus on cultivation and strive to head down the mountain sooner to accumulate merit? What's the use of carving this? Regardless of whether there is a measurement or not, any merit you earn from doing good deeds returns to you naturally."

"Senior Brother, do you know what statistics is?"

Wang Feiyin: "What?"

"It's a distinct branch of science. Since it can stand as an independent discipline, it proves its inherent importance. Once I finish making this array, I'll be able to calculate precisely what actions allow me to accumulate merit the fastest and most efficiently."

Though Wang Feiyin had never heard of this discipline, he understood its purpose from the name, and the latter half made sense to him as well.

He was shocked—shocked by the utilitarian nature of his junior sister's cultivation.

"Junior Sister, you... you don't look like a practitioner of the Dao at all."

Pan Yun had heard such comments quite a few times lately. She waved her hand dismissively, unbothered. "I know, you all think I'm too utilitarian. But practitioners of the Dao not only draw closer to the Heavenly Dao, they also struggle against the Heavenly Dao and nature. Not contending is contending, and contending is not contending; I don't see anything wrong with improving my efficiency."

Pan Yun held out the stone. "Senior Brother, do me a favor."

Though Wang Feiyin was still pondering her words and didn't entirely agree with them, it didn't stop him from helping.

He condensed his vital energy into a sharp line and slashed downward with a swift swish. The line of energy passed rapidly through the stone.

Wang Feiyin withdrew his hand. The stone still appeared whole, seemingly without a single trace of a cut, but when he picked it up and snapped it, the merit stone split precisely along the lines Pan Yun had drawn, without the slightest deviation.

Pan Yun gave a cry of amazement, stuck out her thumb, and praised, "Senior Brother, you're brilliant! How do I practice this?"

"Come back to me for the method when you have a bit more Qi in your Dantian," Wang Feiyin hummed proudly. Finally comprehending her previous remark, he added earnestly, "Junior sister, what you said sounds reasonable, but cultivation places supreme importance on cultivating the heart and refining the body. Otherwise, if your cultivation level grows without your heart maturing, you ultimately won't attain the Dao."

Pan Yun replied, "I know. Once I get past this hurdle, I'll cultivate my heart diligently."

This tone was as casual and unconvincing as saying, "As soon as I finish this project, I'll start going to bed early."

Wang Feiyin looked at her, shook his head, and walked away.

Fine. If the child refused to listen, she would have plenty of regrets waiting for her in the future. He had already warned her.

Pan Yun returned to her room carrying the two divided pieces of stone, tossed the larger piece back into the spiritual realm space, and sat cross-legged to regulate her breathing.

When both her physical and mental states reached their peak, she opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on the small merit stone in her hand as it slowly levitated before her.

With a flick of her left hand, a fire talisman flew out. The moment it touched the merit stone, a burst of flames flared up, engulfing the stone in the center.

She had specifically drawn this talisman after attending the lessons. Eldest Senior Brother had said that talismans borrow the power of deities, and she needed to believe in the existence of gods so that she could channel divine power through her spiritual energy and anchor it onto the talisman.

For the past few days, Pan Yun had been self-hypnotizing, forcing herself to believe that talismans, which she once thought were generated purely by spiritual energy, were actually forged through divine power invoked by spiritual energy.

Now, she could firmly believe that the God of Fire was watching over her in the unseen realm, assisting her. The talisman she was activating now harnessed true divine power.

Under her steady gaze, the fire talisman burned intensely, and the merit stone slowly melted under the heat, turning into a circular, viscous mass.

Her spiritual awareness heavily depleted, the white-glowing Triple-Jade Spiritual Realm flashed and flew out from between her brows, hovering quietly in front of her.

With a single thought, the two masses merged into one. Pan Yun pressed the thumb nail of her right hand hard into the pad of her middle finger, drawing a bead of blood. Gathering her spiritual energy at her fingertips, she began carving the array—which she had long since memorized—onto the Triple-Jade Spiritual Realm.

Pan Xiaohei sprang up the moment she broke her fingertip, its glass-like eyes filled with absolute fury. She was actually using her own blood to carve the array, further deepening her connection with the spiritual realm!

Yet, it dared not interrupt her. Given Pan Yun's current level of cultivation, carving this array was already a stretch; had her spiritual awareness not been far stronger than an ordinary person's, she could never have succeeded.

Therefore, in the short term, they only had this single chance.

Pan Xiaohei cursed inwardly, not daring to make a sound that might disturb her.

As the final stroke was drawn and Pan Yun withdrew her finger, a beam of spiritual light flashed along the carved array lines. The other two hidden arrays instantly burst into radiance, and together with it, an encompassing aura of light locked the three arrays into a unified whole.

The Triple-Jade Spiritual Realm flashed with golden light. A streak of gold swept across the jade-white fragment, its edges looking as though they had been inlaid with a thread of gold, while a golden hue faintly shimmered within the jade itself, making it even more resplendent.

Pan Yun looked at it with deep satisfaction, drawing it back into her Niwan Palace to let it take root in its old home once again.

Exhaling a breath and ignoring her throbbing temples, Pan Yun looked at Pan Xiaohei.

Pan Xiaohei sneered continuously. "I hope you remember that the spiritual realm is my body. Even if my spirit is currently outside and it occasionally mistakes you for me, an outsider is an outsider. Much like a borrowed corpse's soul—no matter how closely it fits the body, it can never be a hundred percent seamless."

Pan Yun retorted, "Just like the black cat body you're using right now?"

Pan Xiaohei was choked by her words, unable to utter a response.

Pan Yun said, "Don't worry, I'm doing just fine being a human; I have no desire to become a spiritual realm. Using blood as a medium was simply meant to bring the two of us a little closer."

Whether Pan Xiaohei believed her or not, it offered no reply.

By this point, Pan Yun had removed the concealment spell from Pan Xiaohei's arrays. All three arrays were now activated, and the Triple-Jade Spiritual Realm now displayed three glowing lines: one golden, one red, and one blue.

The golden line represented the merit value, the red line represented the spiritual energy value, and the blue line tracked the sealing and unsealing progress bar of the Triple-Jade Spiritual Realm.

She curved the corners of her lips in profound satisfaction. "Later on, create a table in the jade fragment's storage space dedicated to recording the changes in these three lines. We'll run statistics at regular intervals from now on to see what actions allow us to unseal it most efficiently."

Pan Xiaohei protested, "Isn't this a researcher's job? You're making me do it?"

"There are no researchers left now. You're the realm spirit; recording this is just a matter of a single thought. It takes no time at all," Pan Yun said. "My time is tighter than yours. Didn't you say we need to accelerate cultivation speed and break the seal as soon as possible?"

Pan Xiaohei thought about it and finally agreed.

"That's the spirit. Everything for the sake of growing stronger, everything to break the seal."

Pan Xiaohei let out a huff and remained silent.

The next day, Pan Yun threw herself passionately into doing good deeds around the Daoist temple.

For instance, she helped Wang Feiyin tend the fire for alchemy, helped Miaohe knead dough to make steamed buns, brought a basin of washing water for Xuanmiao, and swept the courtyard for Miaozhen. Yet, the golden line remained completely motionless.

Pan Yun figured these trivial matters must be far too minor. Unable to help herself, she almost ended up doing Miaozhen and Miaohe's homework—ah, no, seeing that they were struggling with their assignments, she wanted to tutor them.

In the end, after spending two whole quarter-hours teaching them the lunar mansions, the golden line still didn't budge at all. "Does teaching them such useful knowledge not count as doing a good deed? The propagation of knowledge—what a magnificent undertaking!"