The sea breeze stirred the shell wind chimes hanging beneath the eaves of Tīngtāo Lodge, but their crisp tinkling was no match for the dry rasp of my fingertips tracing across the beast-hide scroll. Three days — only three days remained before the "Sea-Lock Formation" that Elder Kai had spoken of would take shape. The ancient beast hide spread across the stone table gave off a faint luminescence, its surface covered in intricate water-element array patterns drawn in some nameless blood-red pigment — the "River-Overturning, Sea-Inverting Formation." Every line writhed like a living thing, dense with the vast Dao of Water, and staring at it set my temples throbbing.

"Tch. Rookie — your hands are shaking like a sieve. Didn't sleep well last night, or did that Core Formation old monster scare the guts right out of you?" The old geezer's voice floated up from the bronze ring, carrying its habitual mockery, yet unable to fully conceal an undertone of gravity.

I ignored his jab. I pressed my fingertip to the "Tide-Summoning Eye" rune in the upper left corner of the hide, and the moment spiritual energy flowed in, the entire array diagram erupted in a blinding blue radiance. An ocean of open water surged before my eyes — mountainous waves crashing skyward, as though the next instant they would swallow me whole. I stumbled back half a step, heart hammering wildly.

"What are you panicking for! This is nothing but the array's entry-level illusion — feel the direction the tidal force is flowing! Do you see those main current lines? Guide your spiritual energy along them, not against them. Go against the flow and you'll be sorry!"

I drew a long breath and forced the fear down by sheer will. The spiritual energy of my eighth layer of Qi Refinement surged through my meridians, and I carefully guided it along the "Surge-Tide Main Currents" marked on the array diagram. Sure enough, the moment my spiritual energy resonated with the array, the illusion before me grew docile — the towering waves softened into a murmuring stream that wound and wandered through my consciousness.

"Not bad," the old geezer's tone eased slightly. "This River-Overturning, Sea-Inverting Formation was created by an ancient water-element grandmaster. It uses the tides as its trigger and the Spiritual Eye as its core, and its principle is 'overcome the hard with the yielding, borrow the force already in motion.' At your current cultivation, drawing out thirty percent of its power would be respectable."

Thirty percent? I let out a bitter laugh. With the massive operation Bǎizhēn Tower had mounted — Elder Kai said there was at least one Core Formation expert holding down the formation — would thirty percent be enough?

Just then, the sound of Elder Kai's footsteps reached me from beyond the wooden cabin. His expression was grave, the gourd of wine in his hand more than half empty, and undriedn droplets still clung to his beard.

"What did you find, Elder Kai?" I rose at once, my eyes dropping to his soaked trouser cuffs. "You went to investigate again?"

Elder Kai waved a hand and spread a damp, seaweed-covered map across the table. "Don't even ask. Those little bastards move fast — the outer ring of the Sea-Lock Formation is already complete." He jabbed a finger at several points on the map marked with shells. "See these? These four corners correspond to Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise — the four cardinal positions, matching the four main halls of the Xuánmén Administration."

My heart plummeted. "People from the Xuánmén Administration are here too?"

"More than just here," Elder Kai took a long pull from his gourd, his throat working. "I dove down near the sea-floor Spiritual Eye and nearly had my meridians shattered by a shockwave of Core Formation spiritual energy. The one behind it was hiding inside an underwater volcanic vent — masked, nothing showing but a pair of eyes, cold as ten-thousand-year ice."

"Core Formation…" I murmured, my fingertips absently picking at the edge of the stone table. "Masked? Could it be one of the higher-ups inside the Xuánmén Administration?"

Elder Kai gave a slow nod, his gaze sharp as a blade. "My thoughts exactly. Back in the day, I crossed a few moves with the Tower Master of Bǎizhēn — his strength should have been in the late Foundation Establishment stage. For them to now be able to invite a Core Formation cultivator to anchor the formation, someone inside Xuánmén must be backing them. And look at this Sea-Lock Formation layout — it's clearly built on the Xuánmén Administration's standard formation templates. An ordinary person wouldn't even know how."

I stared at the shell markers on the seaweed map, their ring slowly closing in, and felt a chill shoot from the soles of my feet straight to the crown of my head. To deal with me — a mere eighth-layer Qi Refinement nobody — Bǎizhēn Tower had deployed a force like this, even going so far as to move a Core Formation expert from the Xuánmén Administration. Were they truly intent on sealing me and Tīngtāo Lodge here, trapping us until we perished?

End of Chapter 34: The Sound of the Sea