Array formations were structures used to alter the natural flow of Qi. In this discipline, the natural Qi was called Wandering Qi. By using various means such as flags one could force this Qi to follow a specific path that would then produce many results. In other words, it was just like practicing martial arts by guiding one's Qi through specific meridians, but outside of the body. The amount of Wandering Qi expressed how powerful and stable the array formation was. Indeed, too much Wandering Qi would slowly erode the array formation and it wouldn't last very long. Besides, the effects would be lacking.
Within array formations, there were structures called Gates and Palaces. To go on with the analogy, the Palaces were the Dantian and the Gates the main acupoints. Palaces were there to stabilize the array formation and Gates gave entry points into the it. Both were essential, but they were also weaknesses. If one was able to see through them, he could exploit them or alter them. However, great masters usually created fake Palaces and trap Gates as well.
Cao Yun was facing the Temple of Grace and Submission. Along with Dian Mo, they were analyzing the array formation according to the various principles of the Eight Directions. Cao Yun's understanding of Qi Circulation, Yin-Yang Alternation, Five Transformations and Eight Trigrams were beyond what anyone on the Piaolu planet could currently achieve, especially with Dian Mo helping him. After all, Dian Mo was the spirit of a powerful array formation himself. Cao Yun had already analyzed the entire Holy Hongxue City with the Nine Halls principle and had drawn several Bamboo Maps that were extremely useful at the moment. Instead of losing himself in every single detail, the young man was able to look at an abstraction. In his mind, the world was reduced to the things that were really necessary.
The two principles that were still a bit mysterious to Cao Yun remained Sixty Rotations and Twelve Earthly Branches and Ten Heavenly Stems. Both of them were meant to synchronized the array formation with the cycle of the natural world and were related to space and time. Although Cao Yun had touched upon the Dao of Space in the Wubei Sect and had gone through a distortion in space, his understanding was lacking compared to everything else. Thankfully, Dian Mo could help on that point. With the two of them combined, they were probably above even Spirit array formation masters.
Flying around the Temple of Grace and Submission, they admired the array formation. Apparently, it had quite literally been carved into the temple itself. Among the many statues of full-blooded asura, several were in fact part of the array formation. Cao Yun could clearly see how they would attack him if he tried to enter without deciphering the array formation. But it wasn't just a killing array, there were also traces of Death Energy and Ghost Energy which meant that this array formation would also unleash mental and even soul attacks. At the same time, it was obvious that it would warn about the presence of an intruder. Unfortunately, many of those statues were there as decoy to hide how the array formation really worked.
In fact, Cao yun quickly realized that there were many small array formations intertwined with each other. Unraveling one array formation could easily trigger another one. It was a very complex web that would take several months if not years to fully go through. In fact, Cao Yun himself wasn't confident he could do so in less than a year. After all, it had probably taken years or decades to whoever set up it. And that person was obviously a great array formation master, bordering on the 1-star Spirit rank, but not quite there yet. Thankfully the array formation had no spirit or it would have become a completely different problem. However, Dian Mo could feel that it was very close to such an achievement. Even he was in awe.
"How long would it take you to...?"
"Five months at least."
Dian Mo knew exactly what Cao Yun wanted. And he also knew this wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. But unfortunately, this was the hard reality in front of him. Of course, Cao Yun could try to force his way through. But he wasn't arrogant enough to do so. The Supplicant Tyrants had been a real threat and the Blood Gushing Holy Heart pill could have been his demise if General Meng Tian had not been completely consumed by it. Right now, his best advantage was his stealth. So charging forward and making his presence known would be a terrible mistake indeed. Most likely, the Temple of Grace and Submission was getting ready for an assault. So Cao Yun had to be careful. And he was.
After analyzing the array formation from every possible angle, Cao Yun took out his compass. He had obtained a very specific compass to go along with his current understanding of Twenty-Four Mountains. This was the 'Ancient Veins in the Void', a 5-star Heaven compass meant specifically to see through Gates and Palaces. It obviously had the twenty-four mountains divisions but also the Sixty Rotations and all the Earthly Branches and Heavenly Stems intertwined with each other. The compass itself was perfectly round with seventy-two circular sections. Some of those circular sections were divided into ten, twenty-four, thirty-six, sixty, seventy-two and a hundred and eight parts. In each part, there were characters. Everything was engraved directly into the compass.
This 'Ancient Veins in the Void' compass had some Void Obsidian in the center and was made from the bones of an Ancient Eightfold Dragon, a powerful 8-core demonic beast. Such a beast was extremely rare. But they were known for their great intuition and their deep ties with the natural world around them. It was impossible to tell of course, but this 'Ancient Veins in the Void' had been made from the skull of the Ancient Eightfold Dragon. In fact, some of the natural ridges had been used and they did look like veins.
As Cao Yun spread his Qi and spiritual senses into the compass, various shapes appeared above it. Only Cao Yun, and Dian Mo, could see them. It was like a constellation of stars of various colors and shapes. Some stars were connected while others were isolated. Using his Qi, Cao Yun moved them around and tried to create new pathways between those stars. From time to time, runes also appeared briefly. This work was extremely tiring, especially while keeping up his stealth technique. Dian Mo was absolutely right, there was no way they could decipher this array formation in a couple months. Five months was already a very conservative estimate. In practice, it could take them seven or eight months without doing anything else but analyzing the array formation.
With the 'Ancient Veins in the Void', Cao Yun quickly found out where any potential Gate was. The problem was obviously to identify which ones were true Gates, which ones were fake or even traps, and which ones were simply nothing at all. Besides, he had almost no idea where the Palaces were, or how many there were. Any array formation had at least a Master Palace and a Gate of Life. Obviously, this array formation would have more than those two.
After many hours, Cao Yun and Dian Mo were able to identify one small array formation within the larger one. It was simply comprised of a Master Palace, a Gate of Life and a Gate of Sorrow. Indeed, Cao Yun was able to recognize this array formation as the 'Tears of Sorrow and Pain'. This was a mere 3-star Earth array formation but quite insidious. This array formation would alter the normal flow of Qi within anyone going through it and cause the person to reveal painful experiences from their past. In itself it wasn't a major problem, this array formation was simply meant to create a distraction. But it could also be used to meditate, to face one's past and fears.
In this context, it was clear that it would act in synergy with other array formations to assault any intruder while distracting them as the rest of the array formation activated. Looking more closely, Cao Yun realized that the Gate of Life was intertwined with the Gate of Death of another array formation he had not identified yet. In other words, trying to go through the Gate of Life would trigger a worse array formation. In fact, this simple 'Tears of Sorrow and Pain' was a decoy itself. But putting several Gates at the same spot was a very advanced technique. Cao Yun had even more respect for whoever had set up this array formation.
In Cleansed Asura's documents, he had found a technique names 'Inviting the Tiger to Chase the Dragon'. The main principle behind this technique was to use a more powerful array formation to replace the Gates of another one. Like that, it was possible for the array formation master to destroy an array formation by literally setting up another one on top of it. But another side of this technique was 'Dragon Lying With the Tiger'. And this was exactly what he was seeing right now. This made unraveling any of the two intertwined array formations even more complex and difficult. Moreover, there could be dozens of array formations or more all intertwined with each other.
Within his sea of consciousness, Cao Yun was slowly duplicating the array formations he identified, allowing him and Dian Mo to work with them. They stayed two weeks observing the Temple of Grace and Submission without doing anything else.
"It's also a sealing formation. Once triggered, it could even trap several 9th-grade Spirit Warriors or Accomplished Demons within. Even they wouldn't have any hope of leaving before years. Once the array formation is activated, there are many small arrays meant to slowly alter it, making breaking it harder. Most array formation masters would have to resort to sheer force because of such complexities... I have to admit that this is a very good work."
"And the use of souls as well..."
"Yes, I saw it too."
Indeed, Cao Yun had been able to find a few potential Palaces. And he had realized that at least one of them was quite literally using a human soul as its root. In other words, someone's soul had been extracted and was being used as fuel for the array formation. One could imagine the pain of the soul slowly being drained while it was producing Death Energy, Ghost Energy and even turning some of the Wandering Qi into Evil Qi. Most likely, several other souls were used like that. Indeed, the environment wasn't favorable to such Yin energies so they had to find a way to keep them flowing. This was absolutely disgusting!
While he was observing the Temple of Grace and Submission, Cao Yun's emotions were helping his Devouring Robber. Instead of anger or pity, Cao Yun was actively focusing on his resentment. At the same time, he also focused on the envy he felt for stronger cultivators. He did desire more power and Emperor Weide or Empyrean Asura had this kind of power. This feeling was weak but Cao Yun was still trying to make the most of it to stir his Po of Death and cultivate his Devouring Robber. Honestly, resentment was a better means and there was no shortage of it, especially around this Temple of Grace and Submission. Using someone else's feeling of resentment was dangerous though and could make Cao Yun's cultivation unstable.
An entire month had passed by. To be honest, Cao Yun was wondering whether he should simply leave and go directly toward the Hongchen Kingdom. But there were secrets that could be invaluable within this Temple of Grace and Submission. He had to get into it and find out everything he could. Besides, this Temple of Grace and Submission had probably created those Supplicant Tyrants. If they could make more of them, this was a huge threat to not only the Hongchen Kingdom but the entire Piaolu planet. Cao Yun could imagine an army of late Accomplished Demon undead warriors. Obviously, they wouldn't be too stable and no one could produce many of them in a short amount of time, but even in a matter of months a few of them could change the course of the war. By sending them as reinforcement in specific situations could turn the tide of the entire battle. The Empyrean Asura Theocracy could conquer everything. At the very least, Cao Yun wanted to learn more about them and to find an easy way of getting rid of them.
By discovering how their seals worked, it would be easier to destroy them. Indeed, those things were almost falling apart on their own. Without those seals to keep them together, they couldn't stay active very long. But those seals were also very complex. Besides, Cao Yun thought he could learn a bit more about the Dao of Death.
As time was passing, Cao Yun felt more and more trepidation. He had a terrible feeling. The more he felt it, the more he wanted to go back to the Hongchen Kingdom. He was losing so much time right now. And he had already spent a lot of time in the Yanbei Region. Now that the Hongchen Kingdom was so close, his desire to get back home was getting stronger and stronger. Besides, analyzing this array formation was extremely exhausting, even for Dian Mo. Thankfully, Cao Yun had Dian Mo or he wouldn't have been able to stand this process.
The two of them were constantly talking to each other. Clearly they were both tired and frustrated but their conversations were keeping them going without taking any pause.
"I have an idea..."
"A bad idea, I guess. I know what you have in mind, boy, but be patient."
"I can't! They could be making more Tyrant Supplicants right now. Deciphering the array formation just to be swarmed by those abominations would be useless..."