Chapters 68: Formations and Feng Shui (1/2)

“what’s wrong?” lu yun frowned when he saw the old man gaping at him.

“i—i don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man responded, shamefaced. he could tell the governor was discussing the intricacies of formations, but he, qin xianhuo, a renowned formation master in the whole of nephrite major, couldn’t understand what he heard!

lu yun rubbed his forehead. an eight trigrams layout was a little too complicated for contemporary formation masters in the world of immortals. knowledge of feng shui must’ve been lost in the great war a hundred thousand years ago, so even feinie might not understand what he was talking about.

resigned, lu yun moved on. “i don’t have time to teach you. give me four formation stones.”

even more shame blanketed qin xianhuo. though being reprimanded by a teen was humiliating, the desire to understand burned even more fiercely in his eyes.

unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time for a lesson, nor was there time for lu yun to give him detailed instructions, as he had before. they had less than an hour left, although the bolstering formation itself could stand for more than an hour under lu yun’s control. but once the peak of yang energy dissipated after noon, the island, along with the tomb for the living, would return to the abyss beneath the river.

his sect’s warnings about entering these kinds of tombs prickled in lu yun’s mind all the while. he just couldn’t wait to get inside and see what they were all about.

qin xianhuo handed the formation stones to lu yun, who sent them into the gates of the abyss.

“give me a hand, feinie. heaven and earth, fire and water, wind and thunder, mountain and pool. they’re not just forces, but rather eight different systems. express them through formations and etch each pair on a stone.”

he then relayed his knowledge of feng shui to feinie through the tome of life and death. ever since she’d become lu yun’s envoy of samsara, her experience was his. similarly, lu yun could transfer his knowledge back through the book if he so desired.

surprise and appreciation flashed through feinie’s expression. she bent her head and began working diligently on lu yun’s instructions. from what she could understand, feng shui and formations were two sides of the same coin, but the dao of feng shui was much more complicated.

both formations and feng shui tapped into the forces of everything in the world. formations channeled forces to directly achieve their purposes, whether to kill, demobilize, protect, mislead, or trap.

feng shui, on the other hand, used forces to influence the surroundings, exerting changes on living creatures, the environment, and even the most intangible of all, luck.

for example, the enneawyrm provenance formation in the dusk governor manor directly channeled the might of heaven and earth. lu yun had used it to kill immortals and give lu yuanhou a proper beating.

however, the corresponding feng shui to the enneawyrm formation also impacted the environment, giving rise to the enneawyrm coffinbearers layout, which ended up destroying the fortunes of dusk province and would eventually lead to the province’s decline.

the dao of feng shui had disappeared from this world. immortals could only recognize formations, but failed to see their influence on the other side of the coin. compared to the relatively straightforward formation dao, the possibilities and complexities were endless when it came to the subtle shaping of feng shui.

lu yun’s way of destroying feng shui layouts was through destroying the source formations. he identified the feng shui, then traced its arrangement to its basic structure, which was composed of formations. destroy those, and the feng shui influence they naturally exuded would be gone as well.

what he didn’t expect was that feinie would identify the relationship between formations and feng shui with her newfound knowledge and return her comprehension to lu yun, which further improved his own understanding of feng shui.

after digesting the new knowledge, the envoy began etching the formations at a speed ten times faster than qin xianhuo. systems of the eight opposing forces emerged on the four stones, turning them into formation disks.