Deciphering a formation like the one Wu Guang intended to was a long and arduous task. The process was fairly simple, instill a bit of mind power into the formation and use it to map it. Afterward, disassemble the created diagram in one's mind and understand what part does which.
Thankfully that only applied in the case of an unknown formation, while the one in front of Wu Guang was not. For him, it only took a few moments to map the formation and then compare it to the formation he knew. Surprisingly, he found that there were absolutely no differences.
This meant that the formation was normal and had not been changed to accommodate the qi disbalance. In short, the means used to make it work were not part of the formation, but something external. This also discarded his first, and main, guess at how the formation was able to activate.
"Hmm, what could it be? A treasure? The materials?" Wu Guang muttered while remembering all of the possible external factors to make a formation work when it was not supposed to.
And so, his search for the reason began. He carefully sensed every inch of the formation and found no indication of a treasure affecting it. Afterward, he examined the wood panels in hopes of finding any traces of special materials, and again, found nothing.
"What it could be then?" After discarding this two, Wu Guang submerged into thought.
"Wait, could it be...?" Suddenly he opened his eyes, which he closed while thinking, and sent his mindpower into the formation again. This time, he did not examine the formation itself, but only its placing.
Such a formation, affecting an entire room, was obviously created around the room and so was decently big and encompassed the entirety of the surrounding space. Still, after a few attempts, Wu Guang managed to find a small space that had no trace of the formation. In fact, it looked like the formation was created to avoid that small, not more than a few inches, space inside the wall.
"It can not be!" Unable to conceal his surprise, Wu Guang checked the space with both his normal senses and his mind-power. What he found was indeed the thing that had occurred to him before, a stabilizing orb!
Qi disbalance affecting an entire world was something rare, but local instances of such were present practically on every plane and so methods to counter-act them existed. Still, all of them were based either on materials or treasures. There was another one, namely using a one-time, disposable item called 'Stabilizing Orb'. It was a workable method, but almost no one used it as creating one was expensive both in effort and time. After all, such an orb had to be finely attuned to the disbalance it was meant to stabilize, and so would not work anywhere except an exact place. Also, the orb would siphon part of the formation power, dropping the latter quality a few notches. So it was easy to guess why the method was unpopular, after all, what formation master would want to leave a weak formation for others to see?
"But... how the hell they managed to create a 'Stabilizing Orb'? It does not requires much skill, but to create one you need a working analysis formation" Indeed, Wu Guang could not help but be surprised. To use such an orb could be understood as the entire plane had a qi disbalance and so there was no problem to use it anywhere, but how could you create one without being able to actually use formations?
Regretfully he could only depend on the promised explanation as he could not really think of anything himself at the moment.
In any case, with the mystery resolved, at least partially, his next step would be to grasp control over the formation. He did not intend to fully control it as it could be found out later and raise unneeded questions, but a partial control to improve his breakthrough was indeed needed. Luckily the formation itself was unchanged from the one he knew, and so after an hour or so, Wu Guang had control over ten of the seventy nodes that formed up this entire 'Soul-Calming cultivation formation'. He could actually grasp control of more, but ten were enough for him to change the function from Soul-Calming to Soul-Suppressing.
To put it shortly, he had now the ability to make the formation suppress his soul in case he met with the outcome of having a too powerful soul to control. As for the case of being stranded on the first level of the Soul realm because he could not improve it as to reach a breakthrough, well, he had already thought of a plan. It would be risky and extremely painful even for him, so he did not really want to resort to it, but... If needed, he would harm his own soul.
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Wu Guang had no actual need to get accustomed to the formation as he perfectly knew how it worked and even had partial control over it now. Still, he decided to meditate for a few hours before attempting the breakthrough. Mainly because he felt that his emotions lately had been a bit extreme and so decided to make sure of his mind-state.
The reason? he had caught himself at the thought that he had been getting angry at random or otherwise reacting extremely in other cases for the past weeks. He also noticed that some of his actions and thoughts were slightly off, per example now. Normally, he should have checked the formation from all sides before starting to double-guess, but he did not and so lost a pair of hours discarding other theories before reaching an answer. An answer that could have been revealed during the first mapping if he paid attention to all of the details.
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Going back in time, he tracked hints of such behavior up to his duel with Wang Yong. After all, he had almost gone overboard, while in reality, there were no life-death issues between them. Granted, Wang Yong spread lies, or what should be considered as lies, about him. But that did not require to actually try and destroy him entirely, did it?
A possible cause could be an internal disbalance in qi, but Wu Guang had made sure to check himself regularly during this time. Mainly to confirm that his fairly extreme method of training with natural energies did not leave any hidden issues. So that reason should be brushed aside.
Another reason for the lack of control over emotions would be internal demons, but normally they would have surfaced in some other way already.
Plus, Wu Guang had no real hidden fears or crimes that could lead him to such... or had he?
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It took him half a day and some unexpected help to actually understand and counter what was happening with him.
The issue was a lack of control over his emotions, which led to the sudden changes in his normal reactions and thoughts. As for the thing affecting them, it was none other than a side effect from taking over the body. If Bai Qi at that moment had waited for a few hours to let Wu Guang's original consciousness and soul dissipate, then he would not meet with this. Still, he simply did not know and did not calculate such an issue, so now he was struck with a remnant of Wu Guang practically living alongside him.
After his consciousness was fully fused into the body and the memories of Wu Guang were absorbed, the situation had improved. But now that he was on the verge of awakening a soul, the original one of the body began to waver. Emotions were a thing that defined a person, while the Soul was the actual repository for them. So there was no wonder why he had such strange umps of emotions, after all, he was being affected by his own and the ones from the inexperienced boy that died.
Thankfully he had a method to calm both souls with the formation, while a bit of unexpected help from Chun Hua who could sense his emotions via the connection allowed him to control the suppression.
In truth, he did not expect her help to be actually helpful, but after sharing with her what was happening in response to her questioning... He found out that she could perfectly sense everything he did! That meant that their connection was a full one, something that he had no indication or knowledge of. Especially as she remained something distant and not understood by him.
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Having achieved the secret level and already having his previously awakened soul, there was no need to resort to pills or other external methods for the breakthrough. So after resting for a bit, getting in the right mind state, and explaining to Chun Hua that he may be affected badly by the process, Wu Guang simply entered his inner world and began connecting to his, Bai Qi's, soul.
As expected, it took him only a pair of hours to make the connection and he successfully entered the Soul realm...
*Plop*
For the first time during all of his current life, Wu Guang lost consciousness and fell on the floor.
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Time quickly passed, and on the 7th day Wu Guang was brought inside by Xian Zhenya, the formation stopped.
A few hours later, seemingly worried about what happened, the latter entered the house, only to find an unconscious Wu Guang.
Indeed, he had not awoken for this entire six days!
"!" With an alarmed expression, Xian Zhenya rushed towards him. She checked his condition and right afterward sent a message glyph.
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A few hours later, a few people clad in black armor deposited Wu Guang on a bed before retiring themselves. This left the unconscious youth alone with an extremely beautiful, black-haired, white-skinned, young lady standing near the bed.
"It seems that the theory about you having inherited memories was wrong. Such a long coma after awakening one's soul can mean a single thing, the awakening of an inherited soul. I wonder... Who's soul could have entered your body?" She spoke to herself, but her words seemed directed to Wu Guang.
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A few days passed with Wu Guang's condition unchanged, still, his cultivation steadily stabilized itself and the young woman that had been staying near the bed for almost all of this time could only usher in surprise
"I thought that being such an aura could be only from someone reaching the peak of the Soul realm, but it turns out that it's just a 2nd level of the Soul realm! What kind of soul was awoken in truth? And most importantly... How did it get into a common mortal?"
At this moment, almost as if in response to her questioning, Wu Guang's eyelids twitched and after a pair of breaths his eyes opened.
A careful observer would have noticed that a dark flame was hidden in the pupils. but disappeared almost instantly.
"Haaaa" He exhaled loudly, before saying a phrase that the lady would never come to understand...
"I have at last finished... Or should I say that I was allowed to?"