Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Su Ming folded his hands steadily on his knees and did not answer immediately.

Outside the cave dwelling, the mountain wind moaned through the pine trees.

“Master, what do you think I should specialize in?” Su Ming raised his head, his gaze deep as he countered.

Lin Yu snorted coldly. His soul body drifted back and forth in midair twice with quick motions. “How should I know? The path of formations has endless permutations. Some people demand a single, killing strike, others seek the flourishing of all things. Since you’ve formed your Golden Core, you should have a foundation for your own formation path. Are you planning to perform in front of Xuanheng, showing them how to repair a broken old formation plate?”

Su Ming was silent for a long time. His fingers tapped slowly on his knees, once, twice.

He watched a single deep-blue droplet quietly form at his fingertip, then spoke slowly, “Senior Sister pursues killing, Second Senior Brother pursues vitality, Third Senior Brother pursues explosive power. Those three paths—they’ve each pushed their road to the extreme. If I compete head-to-head, not only can I not win, I’ll come off as frivolous.”

The dark-blue droplet lengthened slowly on his fingertip, and under extreme compression of spiritual energy it turned into a tiny shield that gave off a heavy aura.

“My path is—” Su Ming paused, lifted his eyes, “stability.”

“Stability?” Lin Yu stopped drifting; the sheen on his soul body brightened a few degrees, as if piqued. “What kind of stability?”

Lin Yu was silent for a moment. His deep eyes stared at Su Ming, and the soul body’s luster flickered faintly.

Then he spoke in a tone two notches lower than usual: “Right. Show them stability. Don’t chase flashy attack formation lines. Just explain your defensive concept of overcoming hardness with softness. Make Xuanheng see you as an unbreakable shield. As long as you are hard enough, the Formation Peak will always have a place for you.”

Su Ming nodded slightly, closed his eyes, and sank his entire mind into his Consciousness Sea.

The massive divine sense of a Golden Core cultivator unfurled instantly. Seven hundred and fifty basic formation runes in his Consciousness Sea turned into a sky of stars, arranged and combined according to rigorous logic.

He didn’t need to design a world-shaking new formation for the debate. He only needed to extrapolate the most fundamental elements to the extreme.

The “Solidify” rune provided the most basic spiritual support, like the cornerstone of the earth; the “Control” rune created an outward resisting force to strip away direct shocks; the “Lead” rune, a variant he’d stolen from that rustic formation plate at Myriad Treasures Pavilion, was used to divert irresistible forces.

Su Ming’s right hand traced slowly through the void. As his fingertips moved, three runes with different sheens formed in the air in sequence.

“This is still not enough.” Lin Yu hovered in midair and pinpointed the flaw. “If the opponent’s impact exceeds the bearing limit of these three runes, even if you divert half the force, the remaining half is enough to shatter your formation core.”

Su Ming’s fingers froze in the air.

In his mind replayed the time at Pill Cauldron Peak, facing that terrifying Pill Fiend tentacle and Elder Qingyang’s method of slicing flame temperatures into ten thousand tiny layers.

“Transform.” Su Ming breathed out a single word.

A fourth rune lit up in the void. It was no longer a hard line but concentric ripples like water waves.

Immediately after, the fifth rune, “Seep,” formed. It was like an invisible net, silently integrating into the gaps between the previous four runes.

The five runes connected head to tail in the air, forming a palm-sized miniature defensive formation. It no longer looked like a rigid shield; it resembled a transparent jellyfish slowly pulsing in midair.

“A flexible force-dissipating structure.” Su Ming retracted his hand and watched the formation. “When force lands on it, it will be absorbed by seepage, diverted by lead, and finally decomposed by transform. As long as my Golden Core spiritual energy doesn’t run dry, it will never shatter.”

Lin Yu stared at the miniature formation and said nothing for a long time. Only after the time it takes for half an incense stick to burn did he exhale, as if releasing a non-existent breath of dust, and utter one word: “Perfect.”

Night grew deeper, and the ever-burning lamp cast a tranquil shadow on the stone wall.

“Grrr…”

A hoarse hiss, tinged with chill, suddenly sounded from the corner of the stone chamber.

Su Ming opened his eyes abruptly, his gaze like lightning sweeping toward the nest woven from spirit herbs.

The shadow that had been curled up and sleeping was now fully upright. Its iron-black feathers bristled like sharp steel needles. Those pupils ringed with double golden circles emitted a cold murderous light in the dimness, fixed on the heavy stone gate of the cave dwelling.

A faint trickle of the force of the stars circulated between its wings—the sign that the “Edge” rune was about to be forcibly triggered.

The deep-blue glow dimmed in an instant.

Lin Yu’s soul body did not return to the Xuantian ring. Instead he pressed close to Su Ming’s back, compressing his voice to the utmost so that it sounded only within Su Ming’s Consciousness Sea: “Do not move your divine sense! Someone is sweeping this place with divine sense. They are extremely concealed, and their rank is very high.”

Su Ming’s body tensed in an instant, but he forcibly suppressed the instinct to retaliate. He did not alter his breathing rhythm in the slightest.

“Nascent Soul?” Su Ming asked inside his Consciousness Sea.

“Higher than that.” Lin Yu spoke rapidly. “If it weren’t for that shaggy beast’s unusually sharp perception of the force of the stars, I almost mistook it for an ordinary mountain wind myself.”

Su Ming’s right hand was hidden within the wide sleeve of his robe. His thumb and forefinger rubbed slowly, fingertips touching the edge of the storage pouch where the Grand Teleportation Talisman given by Xuanheng rested. The talisman’s texture kept him utterly composed.

When the enemy is concealed and you are revealed, curiosity is the fastest poison in the cultivation world.

Su Ming slowly moved his finger off the Grand Teleportation Talisman and placed his hands back on his knees.

He released no divine sense. Only by faint resonance with the cave dwelling’s formation did he recheck the spiritual energy nodes of the five-layered defensive formation. After confirming the Minor Heavenly Cycle Water Rhythm Formation ran flawlessly, he naturally closed his eyes.

“Sleep.” Su Ming issued a forced command with a soothing undertone to Shadow.

The low growl in Shadow’s throat persisted unwillingly for a few breaths, but under the suppression of the blood contract it shook its feathers irritably and lay back into the grass nest. Still, those golden eyes remained wide open.

Lin Yu’s soul body made no sound and silently slipped into the Xuantian ring, but the soul power guarding the perimeter of Su Ming’s Consciousness Sea was heavier than ever.

That mysterious divine sense lingered like a real night breeze outside the stone gate for roughly the time it takes half an incense stick to burn. It seemed to detect nothing unusual, and finally withdrew without a sound, disappearing into the vast sea of clouds.

Su Ming sat motionless on the cold jade bed.

Was that divine sense from his master Xuanheng, concerned whether his realm was stable? Or from the Shadow Hall stewards of Punishment Peak, who still harbored doubts about him? Or perhaps from some unknown mighty being coveting the Border Defense True Seal within him?

He did not know, and he did not want to know.

He only guided the spiritual energy within his Golden Core along the Like Water Art’s route, conducting the steady and tedious circulation cycle. The core of the Way of Survival was never to solve every mystery, but simply to survive until morning.

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