Mo Hua took out the map of the barren mountains in Nanyue City.

It was called a map, but the material was rough, the lines simple, only roughly outlining some mountain shapes, with no other content. This area of barren mountains was rarely visited by humans, so there were no detailed maps. The map in Mo Hua’s hand was one he had previously obtained from Situ Fang, a map of the mountains and rivers collected by the Nanyue City Daoting Division.

Mo Hua recalled the trajectory of the light spot on the Si Nan compass and drew Zhang Quan’s movements on the map. Zhang Quan’s movements seemed disorderly, but all his routes were concentrated in the barren mountains to the east, in the mountain forests between two peaks. He had come to this place to return to his old den. So his corpse refining and corpse hiding place must not be far away. And to avoid tracking, he must not dare to linger near his old den. Therefore, his old den was most likely just west of where he had been lingering. The two places were separated by a large mountain, facing each other from afar.

Mo Hua stated his guess.

Bai Zisheng doubted, “How do you know this?”

Mo Hua said, “I’m a demon hunter, often tracking demon beasts in the mountains. This is a basic skill for demon hunters.”

“But Zhang Quan is not a demon beast.”

“Almost the same. Anyway, he’s not really human, so he probably has similar habits to demon beasts.”

Bai Zisheng nodded and asked, “What if you guessed wrong?”

“If I guessed wrong, then I guessed wrong. It won’t have any impact anyway,” Mo Hua said casually.

Bai Zisheng sighed, “Alright…”

Anyway, they had to search, and having a direction was better than no direction. Mo Hua and the other two temporarily put Zhang Quan aside, crossed a mountain range to the west of the barren mountains, and searched for Zhang Quan’s hiding place. Mo Hua was not worried about Zhang Quan. With the Si Nan compass, Zhang Quan could not escape his grasp. He could ignore him for now and let him play hide-and-seek. And as long as they found Zhang Quan’s hiding place, they could even turn the tables, lying in wait to ambush Zhang Quan.

The western part of the Nanyue barren mountains also had no special features. It was still dry yellow grass, low trees, dry mountain rocks, and steep peaks. The three of them searched together for a while, and then separately for a while, but still found nothing. At least on the surface, there was only wild grass and mountain stones. Further out, although there were still continuous barren mountains, the distance was greater and the area was too vast, making it difficult to search.

Bai Zisheng doubted, “Nothing?”

Mo Hua shook his head, “Not necessarily. We’ve only searched once.” Demon hunters don’t just search a mountain once. The first time is just to get a general idea of the terrain, to have an overall impression of the landscape in their consciousness, and then compare it with the map to get a clear sense of direction. After that, based on experience, they select routes and search carefully.

Mo Hua recalled the terrain, guessing which places could be used for corpse refining or hiding, which places had special terrain, and which places had suspicious aura… Then he took out a pen, drew a route, and continued searching. This time Mo Hua searched very meticulously. Every time he reached a place, he sat cross-legged, released his divine sense, and perceived the thin spiritual energy flow between heaven and earth, as well as the circulation of various auras in the mountains. At the same time, he also performed calculations in his mind to see if there were any traces of formations.

Bai Zisheng and Bai Zixi then stood beside Mo Hua to protect him, preventing cultivators or demon beasts from sneak attacking.

Mo Hua finished searching, opened his eyes, and got up to go to the next place, searching one by one. Such searching was quite boring. And it required derivation, consuming a lot of divine sense. Fortunately, Mo Hua was patient enough, his divine sense was strong, and he had mastered meditation techniques, so his divine sense recovered quickly.

Just as he was walking and stopping like this, beside a group of bare mountain stones, Mo Hua suddenly made an “Eh” sound.

Bai Zisheng’s eyes brightened, “Found something?”

Mo Hua nodded slightly, “There’s a formation.”

Bai Zisheng released his divine sense and scanned it once, then said helplessly, “Where?” He didn’t find anything.

Mo Hua pointed to the group of bare stones in front, “These are formations.”

Bai Zisheng looked at those mountain stones, which were indeed bare, large in size, and quite numerous, piled together, blocking an entire mountain peak. “What formation is this?”

Mo Hua shook his head, “I don’t know either. It looks like… a kind of earth element illusion technique. Wait…” After saying that, Mo Hua sat cross-legged on the ground again. He closed his eyes and pondered, concentrating his thoughts, while also finding a tree branch and drawing something on the ground.

Half an hour later, Mo Hua opened his eyes and pointed to the pattern on the ground, “The formation patterns are like this.”

Bai Zisheng’s mouth dropped open, “You even calculated the formation patterns?”

Mo Hua corrected him, “It’s ‘calculated,’ not ‘guessed’.” “Calculating” made him professional; it was what a first-rank minor formation master with deep formation attainment should do. “Guessing” was simply being very amateur and had the suspicion of bluffing.

Bai Zisheng tsk-tsked in amazement and asked, “Did Master teach you derivation?”

Mo Hua nodded.

Bai Zisheng was extremely envious. Learning divine sense derivation allowed one to see through formations. The formation master in these barren mountains had clearly used formations to hide traces, but in Mo Hua’s eyes, they were as clear as day. He could even deduce the specific formation patterns through derivation.

Truly cheating… Bai Zisheng sighed. What a pity that his divine sense was not strong enough, so he still couldn’t learn it. Of course, even if he could learn, he probably couldn’t learn it well, and even if he learned it, he might not be able to use it as well as Mo Hua. In terms of formations, this little junior brother was always a “little freak” in his heart…

Mo Hua suddenly felt something, and his gaze looked at Bai Zisheng unkindly, “Are you speaking ill of me again?”

Bai Zisheng was completely helpless, “I’m praising you in my heart…”

Mo Hua lightly snorted, “Do you think I’ll believe that?”

Bai Zisheng sighed, had to apologize, and then immediately changed the topic, “How do we break this formation?”

Mo Hua said, “No need to break it. This is just to deceive eyes and ears.” He released his divine sense, and after observing, said, “Follow me.”

Bai Zisheng and Bai Zixi nodded. Mo Hua walked directly to the bare stones in front, then gently reached out, and his fingers sank into the mountain stone. Mo Hua continued to walk forward, his entire body walking directly into the stone. Bai Zisheng was startled, and Bai Zixi was also slightly stunned. This bare mountain stone was originally an illusion, not a real object. The two exchanged glances and also followed Mo Hua inside.

After entering the mountain stone, it was pitch black in front, but Mo Hua seemed to know everything clearly, leading the way familiarly in front. After walking for a moment, their eyes brightened, and a stone gate appeared in front. The gate was gloomy, with lingering death aura, and a faint rotten stench at the door. On the gate were engraved three mottled, rough characters: “Xing Shi Cun.”

Mo Hua frowned, Xing Shi Cun?

The three of them did not go in directly, but hid themselves, found a large stone nearby, squatted under it, and gathered their three small heads together. “Another village…”

“A village in the mountains is naturally a mountain village,” Bai Zixi said.

“Xing Shi Cun… this village isn’t used for refining corpses, is it?”

“Possible.”

“This is a bit troublesome now…”

“What’s wrong?”

Mo Hua thought and said, “Since it’s a village, then inside, there won’t be just one cultivator, but there should be many cultivators…”

“Zhang Quan is also not alone, but should be a leader, at least a boss.”

Bai Zisheng asked, “Then what do we do now? Charge in and kill them all?”

Mo Hua said helplessly, “Can you kill them all?”

“How do we know if we don’t try?” Bai Zisheng’s gaze was bright, his expression eager to try, wishing to rush in immediately and exterminate the village.

Bai Zixi silently twisted his arm, and he then became honest.

Mo Hua said, “Everything must be prepared in advance, we can’t act rashly. I’ll go in and hide first, and see the situation before deciding.”

“You’re going alone?”

“Um.” Mo Hua nodded, “I’m familiar with this.” He had previously mixed into Black Mountain Village alone, unnoticed. At that time, mixing into Black Mountain Village was still somewhat dangerous. But now it was different. Now his divine sense was more profound, his concealment techniques were stronger, and his formations far surpassed general first-rank formation masters. He was not even afraid of Foundation Establishment cultivators. Although Mo Hua could not defeat Foundation Establishment cultivators, he could rely on concealment, and Foundation Establishment cultivators could not see him either.

Bai Zixi disagreed, “Let’s go together!”

Bai Zisheng also echoed and nodded.

Mo Hua shook his head, “Your concealment is not good, you will be discovered by Foundation Establishment.”

Bai Zixi was still somewhat worried.

Mo Hua then said, “I’ll go in. You respond here. If something goes wrong, I’ll release fireworks, and you rush in to help me.” Although he said so, it probably wouldn’t happen.

Bai Zixi thought, there was no other good way, so he could only nod.

Bai Zisheng was a little disappointed, then instructed, “If you encounter danger, don’t be afraid. Release fireworks immediately, and I, your senior brother, will rush in and kill them… no, I’ll protect you!”

Bai Zisheng was still thinking about fighting. Mo Hua was somewhat helpless.

After that, Mo Hua said nothing more, but hid his figure and quietly entered Xing Shi Cun. Before entering Xing Shi Cun, Mo Hua first released his divine sense, confirmed the positions of several cultivators at the gate, then quietly avoided them and circled in. After that, he found a hidden place and pushed his divine sense to the extreme. He released it only a little each time, then quickly retracted it, like a dragonfly touching water, leaving no trace.

He waited for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, then released his divine sense again. After probing with his divine sense three or four times without discovering any abnormality, Mo Hua relaxed slightly. It seemed that there were no Foundation Establishment cultivators inside Xing Shi Cun. Or, even if there were Foundation Establishment cultivators, their divine sense was not strong enough to discover Mo Hua’s peeping. Mo Hua’s mindset became much more composed.

He began to observe the layout of Xing Shi Cun and the cultivators inside. Xing Shi Cun was built against the mountain, with a simple layout. There were wooden houses and also excavated mountain caves. What was not simple was the dense corpse aura inside, and numerous heavy dead auras. Mo Hua just scanned slightly with his divine sense and could discover many coffins. Most of these coffins were made of wood, but several had a heavier corpse aura and were cast from refined iron, with evil formations to nourish the iron coffins. They should be raising stronger iron corpses inside. The whole village had many dead people and few living people. The living cultivators, from their appearance, were not all corpse cultivators. Only a few cultivators could control corpses, dressed in gray robes with pale skin. Most of the other cultivators looked more like bandits.

Mo Hua was somewhat surprised.

Besides that, there were formations. As expected, many formations were also set up around Xing Shi Cun. The level of these formations was mostly below first-rank, with seven or eight patterns at the lowest and nine patterns at the most. Mo Hua deciphered several formations, carefully observed them, and was suddenly stunned. He was very familiar with the brushwork of these formation patterns. They were neat and rigorous, even somewhat rigid. When he learned formation patterns at Tong Xian Gate, it was with such formation patterns as templates.

This is… Yan Teach Practice’s formations…

(End of this chapter)