Master Chen asked hesitantly
"Mo... little brother, this formation of yours... is there... is there something wrong with it?"
"Where do you think it's wrong?"
"I don't quite understand it myself, but these formation patterns... they seem to have... an extra line?"
Mo Hua's eyes lit up. "You noticed?"
"Uh..." Master Chen asked, "Then is this formation... still the Molten Fire Formation?"
"Of course!" Mo Hua explained. "This is a six-line Molten Fire Formation. I just learned it from my teacher. It's still the Molten Fire Formation, but because it has an extra line, its effectiveness is much stronger..."
"Have you ever drawn one before?"
"Don't worry, I've practiced it many times on paper!" Mo Hua said with confidence.
"Then have you ever drawn one on a refining furnace?"
Master Chen didn't voice the question, but he didn't need to think twice to know that this kid definitely hadn't actually drawn one on a furnace before.
Master Chen's heart sank. *It's over. My refining furnace is being used as a practice tool by this little brat!*
But things had already come to this; there was no turning back.
Master Chen glanced at the disassembled furnace, then at the erased formation, and braced himself. "Then go ahead and draw it. This old man trusts you."
Mo Hua didn't catch the insincerity in Master Chen's voice; instead, he felt greatly encouraged. With a flourish of his formation brush, he began to draw.
Master Chen watched from the side, his heart in his throat. Every time Mo Hua's brush paused or he frowned in thought, Master Chen broke into a nervous sweat.
This furnace was his entire livelihood. If anything went wrong, he would truly be left with nothing to eat but the wind.
This ordeal lasted nearly two hours. It wasn't until Mo Hua finished drawing the entire formation that Master Chen finally breathed a sigh of relief. But before he could even catch his breath, he heard Mo Hua say
"It's finished."
Master Chen's heart jumped into his throat again.
"The formation... is wrong?" Master Chen's voice trembled slightly.
"The formation... isn't wrong, but the patterns won't activate, and the spiritual power can't conduct..." Mo Hua rubbed his small chin, frowning in thought.
"Then... then what should we do?"
"Don't worry, Uncle Chen, let me think."
"Oh, oh."
Master Chen nodded repeatedly, pacing anxiously by the side, but he didn't dare make a sound to disturb Mo Hua.
"The formation is exactly the same as the diagram. The formation pivot is correct, the patterns are correct, and the formation eye is a Spirit Gathering Formation. When the Spirit Gathering Formation absorbs spiritual power, it should be able to light up the entire formation..."
Mo Hua muttered to himself.
Generally speaking, once a formation is drawn on a spiritual tool, one needs to inject some spiritual power to light up the patterns to verify if the formation works.
Mo Hua placed his palm over the Spirit Gathering Formation. A faint stream of spiritual power flowed from his palm, seeping into the formation. The Spirit Gathering Formation glowed slightly, and the spiritual power gradually traveled into each pattern, but the entire formation remained unresponsive.
After waiting for a moment, Master Chen finally couldn't help but interrupt: "How about... let me try?"
Mo Hua thought to himself: *If I can't light up the formation I drew, how could anyone else do it differently?* However, seeing Master Chen's anxious expression, he agreed to the request.
Master Chen placed his palm over the Spirit Gathering Formation. As his spiritual power circulated, the entire formation suddenly lit up...
Mo Hua's mouth hung open. He looked at Master Chen, unable to hide his confusion.
"That's strange. Why can you light it up when I couldn't?"
"Is it possible," Master Chen said, trying his best to be tactful, "that your spiritual power is just too weak..."
Mo Hua: "..."
"You're only at the third level of Qi Refinement, right?"
"If nothing unexpected happens, I should have been at the fourth level by now!" Mo Hua explained.
If he hadn't learned the *Heavenly Evolution Art*, he truly would have had the cultivation of the fourth level of Qi Refinement by now.
Master Chen comforted him, "It's fine, it's fine. At your age, being at the third level is quite good. When my apprentices were your age, they were only at the second or third level."
"Mhm, mhm!"
The group of apprentices nodded along, though no one knew if it was true or not.
Mo Hua didn't want to explain further, so he simply said, "Let's reassemble the furnace and see if it works."
"Right, right! I almost forgot the main task. Hurry, let's put it back together and check."
Master Chen regained his energy and quickly called his apprentices to reassemble the furnace. Then, he took out two spirit stones and embedded them at the back of the furnace.
Once he lit the fire, the flames surged upward.
Master Chen's eyes brightened. He took out a knife-shaped spiritual tool blank and placed it in the fire. After a moment, the blank glowed red-hot. Master Chen pulled it out, struck it a few times with a hammer, and grinned from ear to ear.
"Good! This fire is excellent! The heat of this furnace is almost comparable to a large-scale refining furnace."
Mo Hua also breathed a sigh of relief. Although he was confident, he had been afraid of an accident. It wouldn't have been good if he had actually ruined Master Chen's furnace.
"Then, Master Chen, I'll be heading back now."
"What about the spirit stones for drawing the formation..."
Mo Hua waved his hand. "We agreed it was free. Forget the spirit stones."
Master Chen still felt uneasy, so he gave Mo Hua all the remaining spiritual ink used for the Molten Fire Formation, and even forced a few formation brushes into his hands.
The brushes were brand new, likely commissioned by someone else for Master Chen, and were much better than the ones Mo Hua used. As for the spiritual ink, it went without saying—it was Mo Hua's first time using such high-quality ink, and he had been eyeing it for a long time.
Mo Hua went through the motions of being polite before accepting them quite contentedly.
Master Chen added, "In the future, if you have any spiritual tools you need to refine, just come find me. As long as it's not something exceptionally large, I won't charge you any spirit stones."
This promise was quite valuable.
"Thank you, Uncle Chen!"
Mo Hua headed home happily, thinking about which spiritual tools he might need in the future so he could ask Master Chen for help.
Once Mo Hua was far away, Dazhu whispered to his master, "Master, is this little bit of stuff really enough? If we had hired Master Jia to draw this formation, it would have cost a lot of spirit stones!"
Master Chen said irritably, "I'd love to give more, but where would the spirit stones come from?"
"The spirit stones for the Shen family's batch of spiritual tools haven't been settled yet. Lighting the furnace here costs spirit stones, buying refined iron for refining costs spirit stones, and you little brats need spirit stones just to eat. Even if I break one spirit stone into ten pieces, it's not enough. I can only thicken my skin and take advantage of this little kid."
Fearing he would anger his master, Dazhu fell silent.
Master Chen stood up, paced a few steps, glanced at the furnace fire, and after a moment of thought, gritted his teeth.
"Bring that box of century-old Water Poria. We'll deliver it to Mo Hua later. I heard his mother is in poor health and suffering from internal heat; this medicine should be perfect for her."
"Wasn't that box of Water Poria meant for Master Arrayist Jia? If we give it to Mo Hua, what about Master Jia?"
"Forget him. He's polite when we give him gifts, but the moment we ask him to draw a formation, he acts all high and mighty and won't miss a single spirit stone. With an appetite that big, he shouldn't be afraid of choking to death," Master Chen said with some resentment.
"If we don't give him gifts, he might get unhappy and refuse to draw formations for us," Dazhu said worriedly.
"It's fine. We have Mo Hua now."
"But asking Mo Hua to draw formations without giving him spirit stones... isn't that a bit wrong?"
Master Chen glared at Dazhu. "Am I that kind of person? Right now, I truly have no spirit stones. When I have them in the future, I'll naturally give them!"
"That's good, that's good." Dazhu nodded, but then added uneasily: "But I heard that Master Jia might be promoted in rank in a few years. A First-Rank Arrayist... if we offend him, won't it cause trouble?"
Master Chen gave a contemptuous laugh. "Rank promotion isn't that easy. He just bullies people who don't understand formations by talking a bunch of nonsense. When it comes to actually drawing a formation, he's not even as efficient as that kid Mo Hua. I bet even when Mo Hua gets his rank, he might not reach that level."
"That can't be right. Mo Hua is only at the third level of Qi Refinement. It'll take forever for him to get a rank."
"Stop talking nonsense. Just go when I tell you to. I know what I'm doing."
Dazhu weighed it in his mind and decided that, compared to Master Jia, he would much rather give gifts to Mo Hua.
"Then I'll go later."
"Go do what later?" Master Chen asked, puzzled.
Dazhu scratched his head. "If I go over later, I can snag a meal. Auntie Liu's cooking is delicious."
Master Chen: "..."