Mountain Sitting Immortal

He can say with certainty that If the Blood Skull sect has money but doesn't have the beast carcasses to buy, or if the beast carcasses are available but they don't have the money to buy them, a nascent soul senior being killed by a golden core junior will be the least of everyone's worries.

Arthur chuckled to himself when he thought about this. He said to himself, "I guess this is what it means to be at the top of the world."

With such a condition, he truly can't complain that forging the divine armament is too difficult. It will be foolish of him to do so.

He could only get a textbook and begin drawing schematics and working out the formulas to make sense of them.

At least, his mind is more powerful than when he was a mortal. He can learn better and faster now. So the difficulty lies primarily in the process being tedious. As long as he works hard and doesn't give up, he will eventually learn it.

He didn't give up at all. He worked on the textbook the whole day and the whole night. Then he left for the lecture hall very early in the morning to listen to the formation lecture.

When he got to the lecture hall, he sat down on a seat and waited patiently for the lecturer to arrive. He also listened attentively as the lecturer spoke.

The lecturer began his lecture by saying, "There are four production arts in the world. There is pill making, array formation, talisman writing, and weapon forging. These four are the cornerstone of cultivation."

"I won't count insect raising, beast raising, and sword raising as part of them. Those are offshoots and derivatives at best."

The man sneered and said, "I would rather die than recognize them as true production arts."

The disciples in the class chuckled. But no one went too far.

"Of the four production arts, one is the cheapest to learn and practice. That one is also the most difficult to learn and practice. As you might have guessed, that one production art is the art of array formation."

"You can learn pill making with a bit of talent, a lot of wealth, and a lot of time. As long as you practice, you will get better at it."

"You need even less talent for forging weapons. What you need for forging weapons is time and practice. As for talisman writing, it requires the highest talent but the smallest resources of the three."

"In the case of array formation, it also requires talent. In fact, it requires the highest level of talent, and this talent must be both in terms of energy manipulation and reasoning skills."

"No amount of resources or practice can overcome the need for these two types of talents. This is why there are so few formation masters."

The man coughed for a while. Then he continued, "What is a formation? What is an array of formations?"

"The two are the same thing. A formation is singular, while an array is plural. But both are forms of a language that speaks directly to nature."

"Formations are the language of nature. Believe me or not, weapon forging, talisman writing, and pill making all use and rely on formations. That's how essential formations are."

"But if formations are so essential, why is learning them so difficult? The answer is that apart from the concrete part of formations with clearly defined rules, there is also a large portion of formations that are not defined."

"This uncertain part is called expressions. It requires intuition and reasoning skills. It is why formation is so difficult to learn."

In order to make sure that they understood, the lecturer gave an example.

He said, "For example, humans don't communicate entirely with sound. They use facial expressions and body movement to communicate together with speaking".

"This is how you will know that something isn't fine when someone says everything is fine. It is because their demeanor and facial expressions indicate that everything isn't fine."

"Many times, humans don't even know that they are saying something else with their face and body posture. This is expression and I might say that expression is the true portion of communication, not what is said or the rules part of formation."

The lecturer paused to let what he said sink in.

Then he continued in a solemn voice, "Anyone can learn the rules of formation, but only those with special talent can understand the expression of formation. You need to be able to understand expression for you to become a great formation master."

The man turned to the board and began writing on it.

He said, "Let me give you a relevant example of the difference in rules and expression."

He drew two points on the board and pointed at them, saying, "These are rules. There are two rules."

Then he drew a line between them and said to the line, "That's an expression."

He drew two more points and a line to join them. Then he asked the class, "These are two cases of the interaction of rules. There are two rules in both cases and one expression in both cases. Are these expressions the same?"

Arthur saw the differences between the two diagrams, but he didn't know the point that the man was trying to make so he kept his mouth shut and listened.

The question was a rhetorical question anyway. The man answered it himself. He said, "These two expressions are not the same? Why is that? Because the lengths of both lines are different. Why is that? It is because the distance between the rules in both diagrams is different."

"So same rules, but different expressions. But wait, there's more. What if I add another point to the pair?"

He drew a third point beside the first two points. Then he drew lines to join all three points. This turned the diagram from a straight line into a triangle.