Mount Luofu stretches wide in all directions, spanning nearly a hundred li. It boasts hundreds of peaks and ranks among the foremost of all the grotto-heavens.

It is said that spiritual energy runs especially thick here, and rare void rifts can also be found. These bring great benefits to cultivation, which is why the Luofu Sect has earned its place among the ten great sects of the world, standing alongside the Wangwu Sect, the Weiyu Soaring Crane Sect, the Western Xuan Dragon Pavilion, the Qingcheng Sword Sect, the Chicheng Sect, the Kuocang Sect, the Pingdu Eight Formations Gate, the Beimang Sect, and the Taiyuan True Sect.

With reverence in his heart, Liu Xiaolou arrived at the foot of Mount Luofu. He circled halfway around its outer ranges before reaching the southern peaks. These southern mountains, known as Fushan, together with Luoshan make up the whole of Mount Luofu.

The tallest peak of Luoshan is Feiyun Summit, while the highest of Fushan is Shangjie Peak. Liu Xiaolou stopped beneath a great mountain to the southeast of Shangjie Peak. Following the description given by Dragon Mountain Wanderer, he saw the sheer cliffs before him and the mountain shaped like a giant stretching out both arms. From this, he knew it must be Jade Goose Peak.

Mount Luofu has more than four hundred peaks, yet the Luofu Sect has fewer than a hundred disciples. They cannot possibly occupy every mountain. While all of it is their territory, they cannot watch over it all, nor could they afford to enclose hundreds of peaks within their protective formation. Nine out of ten summits lie untended and wild, patrolled only from time to time. Because of this, Liu Xiaolou was able to slip quietly into the mountains.

The entrance lay in a gorge formed between two mountain arms, called Qingxia Valley. Pines and cypresses grew thick, underbrush stretched deep, and birds sang now and then. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, breaking into shimmering bands of blue-green light.

Liu Xiaolou kept close to the cliff wall on his left as he walked, glancing upward from time to time. Mount Luofu was home to many experts, and there was no telling when an elder might be making a patrol. They often rode their swords through the air, passing right overhead. The last thing he wanted was to be spotted without realizing it.

As he looked up, he caught sight of a patch of dark grass growing from the cliff face. Each blade curled like a dragon’s whiskers, swaying lightly in the wind. It was Dragonwhisker Grass.

Dragon Mountain Wanderer had come here several times before, always to harvest this very herb. Rumor had it some sects used Dragonwhisker Grass as an ingredient in Foundation Establishment Pills. He had already gathered quite a stockpile, but since he never found a way to refine the pills, he had no idea whether the rumor was true or not.

Liu Xiaolou, however, doubted it. If Dragonwhisker Grass really were a key ingredient for such a precious pill, why would the Luofu Sect leave it growing openly on the cliffs for anyone to see?

Still, doubts were one thing, but leaving empty-handed was another. After watching carefully to make sure no one was around, he leapt several yards up the sheer wall, then flicked out the Mysterious True Cord. With practiced speed, he ripped the whole patch of Dragonwhisker Grass up by the roots and tucked it into the bamboo basket on his back. The entire process took only a few breaths, quick and efficient.

He moved cautiously until evening. When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, he quickened his pace. Along the way he came across a woodcutter and later a hunter, but both times he slipped into the treetops, doing his best to avoid being seen.

The gorge gradually sloped upward, the ground rising bit by bit. After passing several nameless caves, Liu Xiaolou finally reached the top. Before him spread a broad plateau, scattered with broken walls and ruined stonework.

This was Huashou Terrace, just as Dragon Mountain Wanderer had described. Sure enough, Liu Xiaolou soon spotted two massive characters carved into the cliff wall: “Huashou Terrace,” each character as tall as a man.

Night was falling. By the light of the moon, Liu Xiaolou stepped into the ruins. They covered three or four acres, taking up half the high plateau. The main hall lay collapsed, nearby dwellings stood with only half their walls remaining, overgrown courtyards were choked with weeds, and the pavilions were reduced to little more than stone foundations. In the night wind the place carried a heavy desolation, stirring an unaccountable melancholy in Liu Xiaolou’s heart.

Beyond the ruins stretched a deep ravine, its bottom swallowed in darkness. According to Dragon Mountain Wanderer, it dropped a hundred fathoms. On the far side, only seven or eight yards away, rose the summit of Jade Goose Peak. By the faint light, he could just make out a massive ancient pine spreading its branches across half the mountaintop.

The last time Dragon Mountain Wanderer visited, the piece of pine resin essence he gave Liu Xiaolou had come from this very tree. It was also the reason Liu Xiaolou had journeyed so far to Mount Luofu. The supply of Bewildering Fragrance was long since exhausted, yet it was one of the Sanxuan Sect’s founding pillars. The sooner he refined a new batch, the sooner he could sleep soundly again.

Pine resin essence was a rare spiritual material, found only in ancient pines that had lived for ten thousand years. Such trees had to grow on mountain peaks, drinking in the radiance of sun and moon for countless ages, weathering storms of lightning, and steeped in mists and poisonous vapors. Only then could they produce this essence.

The Luofu Sect did not value the pine resin essence itself as highly as the ancient pine it came from. Its wood was prized as material for refining superior magical tools, so they had set up a small formation here to guard the tree.

The formation was a type of trapping formation. It lacked killing power and served mainly to confine intruders while alerting disciples at Feiyun Summit and Shangjie Peak.

Years ago, when Dragon Mountain Wanderer came to Mount Luofu to harvest Dragonwhisker Grass, he happened to meet an old acquaintance. That acquaintance had somehow purchased a piece of inside information: at dawn, this formation would falter, making it easier to break through. So the two of them took the risk. They slipped into the formation, each cutting a section of pine wood. When they fled, the formation really did stutter in its movements, allowing them to escape before the Luofu disciples arrived.

The pine resin essence Dragon Mountain Wanderer later traded to Liu Xiaolou had condensed from that very piece of pine wood.

Afterward, Dragon Mountain Wanderer never dared return, unsure whether the sect had repaired the formation’s weakness. But Liu Xiaolou had his own view. He believed it was still possible to enter. Whether the formation had been reinforced or not, he didn’t particularly care.

His reasoning was simple. Neither Dragon Mountain Wanderer nor his friend had even reached the Foundation Establishment stage, yet both had made it in and out. That proved this was no high-level protective formation. The Luofu Sect did not guard the ancient pine too heavily, since it stood so far from their two main peaks.

Since that was the case, why shouldn’t he, someone who had already made it into the ranks of formation masters, come here and try his luck?

Across the deep ravine, Liu Xiaolou carefully studied the terrain on the opposite side. He had once learned from Tang Song that the first step in setting up a protective formation was to examine the feng shui.

This wasn’t the kind of feng shui fortune tellers talked about. For formation masters, feng shui meant things like the rise and fall of the mountains, the seasonal and daily winds, the way sunlight and moonlight struck the peaks, and how mist and clouds gathered or dispersed.

Once those factors were understood, a formation master could begin to design a formation suited to the spot. Looking at the protective formation guarding the thousand-year-old pine with that mindset, he could start to make out its general structure.

Liu Xiaolou spent an entire day observing from twelve different locations, even climbing down to the bottom of the ravine. By then, he had a fairly complete picture of Jade Goose Peak as a whole. He also formed an initial theory about why the formation faltered at dawn. It wasn’t complicated: the trouble likely came from the mountain fog that often rolled over the peak right before and after daybreak.

Fixing this flaw wasn’t all that hard, but it required several rare spiritual materials, such as Spirit-Fragrance Mistweed, Beidou Coldstar Jade, and the Ninefold Shaded Cloud, all mentioned in the Thousandfold Formulas Manual. Each of them was costly. If it meant replacing the formation disk, the Luofu Sect probably wouldn’t be willing to spend that much.

Since that was the case, the chance of the formation disk being replaced was slim. Liu Xiaolou made up his mind and chose once again to enter at dawn.

A bank of mountain mist rolled in, swallowing the summit of Jade Goose Peak.

The ravine, seven or eight zhang wide, was no longer an obstacle for him. He tossed across the vine rope he had woven during the day, and it caught neatly on a boulder on the opposite side. A quick tug cinched the knot tight, and just like that, a rope bridge was in place.

Sliding across the rope to the far side, Liu Xiaolou immediately fell into the formation’s trap.

All around him, earthen ridges three feet high suddenly rose up, layering him in from every direction. The ridges shifted without pause, surging back and forth like waves. Each crash drove them closer together, and if he were pushed into the center, he would be buried beneath wave after wave of these earthen mounds.

Some of what he saw was illusion, but much of it came from the trapping formation itself, drawing on and manipulating the power of Earth within the Five Elements.

Caught in the trap, Liu Xiaolou remained calm and began to calculate with his fingers.