A red light flashed from Han Xuhan's sleeves, illuminating the entire room. However, neither Fang Xie nor he could see it.
Outside the cabin, Zhanxian, Tun Shi Tian, and Hai Yin Zhe were running around the yard placing formation fuelling materials everywhere. In just a matter of minutes, thousands of spirit stones had been spent on this small construct. The older minions knew they couldn't afford the consequences of a failure.
The moment the red light flashed, Tun Shi Tian noticed it through the window and screeched.
"Master has sent the signal! Third step!"
Zhanxian pulled out a scroll from the pouch Han Xuhan had left him. The law alphabets drawn on the scroll were both familiar and alien to the minions, but they knew what to do.
Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian told Hai Yin Zhe to keep an eye on the cabin before cranking up the power of the Soul-Confusion formation. Then the two of them sent a trace of their qi inside the scroll. A moment later, both of them felt a tumultuous heave of suction force draining the qi from their skeletal forms!
"Keep replenishing! We need to keep supplying him with our combined mental strength inside that formation!" Zhanxian roared.
Both minions became flux junctures of qi. All the qi from their surroundings were being drawn into their bodies and then being injected into the scroll.
Inside the cabin, the scene was much more serene.
Han Xuhan's consciousness was ripped out of his body brutally the moment the power of the Soul-Confusion Formation was turned to its maximum.
Perhaps a moment later, or perhaps after a long, long time had passed, Han Xuhan distinctly felt aware of himself.
But his senses, his perception, his very existence felt different. He couldn't feel his body or his sensory organs. Rather, he felt like he was inside a lucid dream where he knew everything about the world around him without even 'seeing'.
A brief time was spent this way with him trying to make sense of his current form of existence. His memories, plans and concerns began to grow coherent and cohesive, strengthening his perception of himself and the world around him.
He realized that he could perceive all 360 degrees around his existence as if his current form was filled with countless eyes. This strange mode of vision wasn't at all jarring to him somehow!
However, although he could 'see', the world around him had changed so drastically that he couldn't recognize any elements in his surroundings except one.
Apart from him, there were a total of fifteen large masses of colors pulsing like boiling water nearby. Fourteen of them were spherical in shape, while the remaining one was more akin to a blooming rose, each of its petals of a different color while the center of the rose was a ball of purple lightning cackling continuously. The rose petals spun around the ball of lightning slowly in an organized manner. Amidst the other fourteen chaotic masses of colors, this one was too eye-catching to ignore.
Han Xuhan's curiosity made him strive to 'see' himself. But it seemed impossible, given that he wasn't inside his actual body and his eyes, head, or neck weren't even here to assist his vision. Moreover, he could also feel a faint disturbance in his current state of existence. This dream-like scene wasn't exactly stable, and he was losing focus too often, much like a dream gradually growing out of control.
By now, his thoughts had become more stable and anchored. He knew he had only one chance to make this work, a very brief window of opportunity.
"...Senior, there are fifteen bodies here for you to choose from. Please leave me be and possess somebody else's dao foundation."
With much effort and short-lived bursts of focus, he managed to speak in his current form.
No reply came.
"...Senior, I know you're here. This is a temporary domain of our spiritual selves. Every person inside the cabin has been trapped inside the Soul-Confusing formation to be blinded and separated from their physical form. As long as you're connected with my soul, you can hear me, I'm sure."
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After a moment, a tired sigh came from within the depths of his perception, as if blocked by a layer of walls. The voice was unfamiliar, as Han Xuhan had never actually heard this senior speak to him directly.
"Young man, you're quite stubborn. Unnecessarily so, I say."
Han Xuhan chose not to reply. The aged voice continued to speak.
"I had not imagined I would see someone capable of arranging a Concealment Formation so sophisticated on this barren planet, so far away from the true civilizations of cultivators. Meteor dust as a shield from the sky, abyssal rocks as a shield from the earth, crushed sunshine pearl to block out prying eyes...truly innovative. Where did you learn this from, if you don't mind me asking?"
Han Xuhan was silent for a moment.
"Senior, I thought you could read my memories...? Surely, you know the source of this formation."
The senior sounded flabbergasted as he replied, "What? Reading memories isn't that easy! Besides, I can't leave any trace of myself in the current world without incurring the wrath of the Celestials. Why would I go through your memories at the risk of exposing myself?"
It was Han Xuhan's turn to become confused, but he chose to set the issue aside and focus on the matter at hand. The window of opportunity was almost running out!
"Let's not talk about that. Senior, you told me you were open to the option of choosing other bodies to hide in. Look, there are fifteen options here, all better than me. With the Concealment formation hiding us from the heavenly eyes and earthly ears, and the Soul Confusion Formation blurring the identities of the occupants of this formation temporarily, and the Blood Contract Formation connecting all sixteen of us inside the formation, you can easily move from one soul to another! Then, after the formation is deactivated, all souls here will return to their bodies, and with your newly possessed host, you'll be able to burrow into their original body too! Hide in there! Would that not be much better than hiding inside crippled little me?"
"...Impressive! How impressive!" the old man grunted. "I've been observing your actions since the start of this conflict. So your real target was never Fang Xie, but me! You used Leng Qing as a bait to lure over Fang Xie into a formation where you could trap him! Now you hope for me to possess that man so that I can neutralize the threat he represents for you, as well as remove myself from your list of threatening existences! Moreover, to confuse the heavenly dao, you established the Concealment formation and dragged in a dozen other victims to ensure that no hint of our exchange could be traced amidst so many disturbed souls. Judging by the fact that we haven't been struck dead by Erasure grade Heavenly Calamities, I'd say this plan of yours is a tremendous success so far!"
Han Xuhan groaned in frustration and requested once again.
"Senior, your assessment is correct. Fang Xie is indeed the host I planned for you to possess! Out of all the participants in this formation, he has the highest cultivation! He meets your requirements almost perfectly!"
"...And how do you know that?" the old man asked, curious.
"You told me you needed someone beyond the Soul Reformation Realm, tied up and unable to retaliate in any manner, physically or spiritually. The latter half of the requirements is apparent. As for his cultivation, Fang Xie was originally a very powerful cultivator capable of feats such as long-distance teleportation, memory erasure, and much more, at least enough to oversee the affairs of the cultivators of this entire planet. However, he ended up suffering from a backlash half a year ago, just before I entered the world of cultivation. Since then, his powers have been declining erratically, reducing his actual strength lower and lower until he is barely around the benchmark of the Soul Reformation Realm. Here inside the formation, I have activated a ready-made trap known as the Minor Seal of Myriad Laws. Its ability is to fuel itself by stripping all cultivator of their qi. Nobody in the Soul Reformation Realm or below it can control any qi here. So he can only rely on his body to counterattack here, which is immobile now that his soul has been separated from it."
"...That's as meticulous as it can be, but how do you know so much about Fang Xie's cultivation and this strange backlash?" The old man asked. Han Xuhan had his reply ready to be fired.
"I was accompanied to the Crimson Snow Sect for the entrance test by a senior who had some connections in the world of cultivation. I overheard him speak to his companion guards several times about some powerful Inspector suffering a backlash during a critical juncture of his cultivation. This was the first clue, although I did not think much of it at that time.
"The second clue was unearthed when I first met Fang Xie. He spoke to me like a madman in public and ran away. But except me, not a single person around us in that busy street remembered him or anyone with his overly prominent appearance. I linked this ability of his to the power of memory erasure.
"The third clue came to me when I sent out investigation missions to learn about him. It was certain that some people, be it cultivators or morals, remembered him. That he was frequently sighted in some areas meant that he didn't always erase the memories of those around him. Or was it because he was unable to? His behavior certainly isn't stable! Why bother memory-wiping some people while sparing others? The investigation report also ascertained the fact that he is suffering from mental demons after failing to break through in cultivation. It said that Fang Xie was originally a cultivator of a realm called the Dao Integration Realm, but his insanity was surely affecting his cultivation!
"The fourth clue was given to me when I was looking at the weight allotment scheme of our sect in the massive Gateway spell that teleported us to the venue of the tournament. On sect master Xuan Zi's mountain, I saw a black dot that signifies the existence of a fourth or fifth layer disciple hiding in sect master's mountain. But the only other person whom I've seen hanging around that mountain other than Master Zi is Fang Xie himself! Could this mean Fang Xie's actual cultivation level was so low that he could be grouped in the same level as trash like me?
"No! The answer lay hidden in the mechanism of the Weight Allotment Map! This mechanism helps the talented disciples carry their less powerful, less talented fellow fellow disciples in their own mountain peaks. But Fang Xie isn't a disciple of our sect, nor an Elder! Since he has accompanied us here, it means someone accommodated his existence in the Map, which could only be Sect Master Zi himself! So Sect master Zi was using his own cultivation to hide Fang Xie's cultivation level.
"But the weight allotment map doesn't offer so much of a space that one talented disciple can host another disciple of his caliber in his slot. He can only carry those far inferior to him in terms of their cultivation of the Stub-type Gateway technique. This meant that Fang Xie's cultivation was far, far below Master Zi's realm. Otherwise, there's no way the meager slot space could hold both of them! And since the map showed him to be in the middle layers of the Physique Transformation Realm, I assumed that he had to be around the middle layers of the Soul Reformation Realm or below to fit into master Zi's slot.
This also supported the theory that Fang Xie was slowly losing his cultivation! From this unknown Dao Integration Realm, he had fallen down to the Soul Reformation Realm! I may not dare face a man in the former real...but someone just one major realm above me can be managed with external help, as you can clearly see.
As for the final clue, it was when I activated my Ghostsight and scanned his body just before he attacked me inside the formation. Without his qi assisting him, his spiritual body was almost identical to mine except being slightly more organized...unlike the Elders in my sect whose Celestial body I can't even perceive with Ghostsight. This meant he was barely near the Early Soul Reformation Realm, which only spurred me to take him on and activate the final phase of my plan."
Han Xuhan completed his explanation with much more enthusiasm than he had started with. It felt good to boast about his accomplishments!