A cultivator's divine sense, unlike the physical body and spiritual power, could not be strengthened through acquired cultivation techniques. Thus, in this world, cultivators who sought the Dao through divine sense were exceedingly rare.
Mo Hua was an exception.
Throughout the Nine Provinces, the orthodox lineage of divine sense had all but vanished into the long river of cultivation history.
But that did not mean there were no cultivators who made use of divine sense, nor that there were no arts related to it.
Divine sense was subtle, illusory, and endlessly mysterious. Although it could not be cultivated directly, a few methods that relied on divine sense had survived from ancient times.
These methods deviated from the orthodox Dao lineage and differed from the cultivation systems of spiritual power and the physical body. They were therefore dismissed as "Unorthodox."
They circulated among the common folk and were never recorded in the canonical texts. Most major sects and noble clans also looked down upon them.
The lineages of Unorthodox arts were incomplete. They pursued formless things, operated in darkness, could not be practiced openly, remained detached from the material realm, and sought to cultivate elusive mysteries. In the end, they could never attain the Great Dao.
But to Mo Hua, the Unorthodox Path meant something entirely different.
A profound light emerged in Mo Hua's pupils.
Golden light flooded the depths of his eyes as black and white intertwined. He began to see through the underlying principles of the Unorthodox Path.
With his powerful divine sense and profound heavenly derivation arts working together, the visible and invisible, the material realm and the realm of thought, gradually unfolded before him.
He could see the torn spiderwebs and insect remains, the tangible things that existed in the physical world.
But through his "Divine Eye," he could also see the formless divine sense clinging to those webs.
As he examined them one by one, Mo Hua quickly noticed something strange.
The mere existence of divine sense within the webs was unusual.
It did not seem to be human divine sense, nor was it divine sense obtained from a deity. It was also different from the divine sense found in curses and demons.
It felt more like...
The divine sense of a demon beast?
The divine sense was sticky and faintly tinged with blood. It was somewhat revolting, and a trace of purple light seemed to flow within it.
Could this be the demonic sense of a spider demon?
Mo Hua's mind stirred.
Ancient cultivators had once said that all things under heaven and earth possessed spirit.
In other words, flowers, grass, trees, birds, beasts, fish, insects, and even the countless demon beasts all possessed spirit, and thus possessed what could be called "divine sense."
Humans were not the only beings to possess it.
Since a human's divine sense could be regarded as a form of thought-force capable of driving various Dao arts and spells, a demon beast's "demonic sense" could naturally serve as one as well.
At least, the Unorthodox technique before him appeared to be using the spider demon's demonic sense as the spiritual source of the spell.
But this force seemed somewhat strange.
Mo Hua's gaze sharpened.
He noticed that the divine sense within the spider silk was faintly tinged with gray-black, with baleful qi coiled around it.
That meant the spider demon had been killed first, after which its divine sense had been forcibly extracted.
As a result, its remnant divine sense naturally carried traces of death qi and had become even more potent.
Beside the spider silk were the remains of insects.
This seemed to be some kind of...
Ritual?
Spider demon, spider silk, insects, corpses, death.
Were these all Unorthodox Path mediums?
Mo Hua separated the components of the Unorthodox technique before him one by one through heavenly derivation. He then connected and reconstructed them in his mind, trying to understand the principles and structure behind Unorthodox Path divine arts.
Deep in his eyes, black and white interlaced faster and faster.
As his deductions deepened, a rough framework of Unorthodox Path spellcraft gradually took shape within his sea of consciousness.
Unfortunately, he had seen far too few Unorthodox Path techniques, and the "catalysts" before him were rather crude.
No matter how powerful his divine-sense calculations were, he could not deduce the deeper principles of Unorthodox Path magic from such superficial remnants alone.
Moreover, the Unorthodox Path was different from formations.
Mo Hua was a brilliant formation master. He knew the structures and principles of formations by heart. If this had been an ordinary formation, a quick mental calculation would have allowed him to construct a rough model.
But the Unorthodox Path was not formations, and it had no formation structure.
To study it in depth, he would need to seek out more Unorthodox Path texts, secret techniques, spell ingredients, and ritual materials. He would also need to observe the casting process, study it carefully, and practice it himself.
For now, he should first find Uncle Gu and report what he had discovered.
Mo Hua withdrew the golden light from his eyes and released his divine sense once more, carefully sensing the changes in qi throughout the forest.
Earlier, when he had first entered the dense woods and stumbled upon this "Unorthodox Technique," he had not understood it.
Now, with his divine sense, he had at least deduced the rough outline of some of its spell structures.
He could not yet claim to be proficient, nor could he grasp the deeper principles or reconstruct the complete casting process.
But merely discerning a direction and finding a path was relatively simple.
Sensing the faint purple, sticky, and somewhat revolting traces of spider-demon divine sense drifting through the air, Mo Hua continued walking through the forest.
Within the dense woods, his route veered left and right, forward and backward, appearing completely chaotic.
Yet the picture in his mind grew increasingly clear.
The more he explored, the more completely the structure of the forest was reconstructed in his mind.
As he continued walking, his steps became more and more familiar.
Eventually, he could find his way without releasing his divine sense at all, as though he were strolling through his own backyard.
After traveling another few li, Mo Hua suddenly looked down.
Half-buried in the earth was a broken stone stele. It was weathered and cracked, with faint black moss growing across its surface.
Three damaged characters were carved into it:
Myriad Spider Forest.
Mo Hua's heart stirred when he saw the words.
Myriad Spider Forest...
The dense woods around him were filled with hallucinatory divine sense from top to bottom and in every direction.
In all likelihood, the entire forest was actually an Unorthodox Path maze constructed using spider demons as its medium.
Spider demons, spider silk, insects...
To arrange all these things, weave them into a spell, and eventually nurture them into something as vast as the "Myriad Spider Forest" would surely require many years.
A cultivator capable of bringing such a large-scale maze to life must possess an impressive mastery of the Unorthodox Path.
This person...
Was definitely an Unorthodox Path talent.
Mo Hua made a private judgment.
Every craft had its specialist, and a "talent" of the Unorthodox Path was certainly worth seeking out, exchanging knowledge with, and learning from.
Mo Hua had always been willing to learn from anyone.
He put the thought aside and continued following the invisible path through the Myriad Spider Forest.
After a while, the scenery suddenly opened up.
At the end of the path stood a broad cliff. At its foot was a small temple built against the mountain.
The temple was not large.
Its walls were mottled, its pillars half-rotten, and there was no plaque or inscription outside, making it impossible to tell what kind of temple it was.
Mo Hua had a premonition that this was the temple the woman with the child had mentioned earlier.
But...
Mo Hua looked around, his expression growing solemn.
This wild temple was hidden deep within the forest, and the Myriad Spider Forest was filled with so many illusory barriers that it was nearly impossible to determine one's direction.
How had the woman with the child managed to enter?
And how had she managed to leave?
Something was wrong.
Moreover, according to the woman, she had seen dozens of people wearing Dao Court robes moving through the forest, and they had also reached this temple.
In the Qingchou Prefectural Realm, dozens of Dao Court Bureau cultivators were most likely Uncle Gu's men.
Even if they were not, they certainly had something to do with him.
Mo Hua flicked the bronze coin balanced on his fingertip before catching it in his palm.
His mind stirred.
He could clearly feel the karmic pull within his hand suddenly growing stronger.
This meant that Uncle Gu had indeed appeared here.
And he was likely not far away.
Mo Hua's heart tightened, and his eyes brightened.
Without any further hesitation, he stepped directly into the ruined temple.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the light dimmed.
Backed against the shadowy side of the mountain, the temple was even colder inside. A stale smell of incense ash and dust struck him in the face.
Mo Hua held his breath and looked up.
Spiderwebs hung everywhere inside the decrepit temple.
In the center, wrapped in layers of webs, stood a dusty clay statue.
The statue was hunched over and had the face of an old woman. Its expression was kindly, almost as if it were smiling at Mo Hua.
Mo Hua studied the statue.
After staring at it for a while, he found nothing unusual.
It was simply a clay statue, with nothing concealed within it.
There was no mountain god like Lord Huangshan emerging from the clay to speak to him.
The only strange thing was the old woman's smile.
It was warm, yet carried a faint hint of menace.
Mo Hua frowned.
A thought flickered through his mind, but he soon shook his head.
"Forget it. Staring at someone else's statue is not a good habit."
He walked around the wild temple.
The temple was small and contained nothing but spiderwebs and dust. The walls were bare and gray, with nothing particularly worth examining.
But there was one unusual place.
Directly behind the clay statue was a doorway.
Inside was pitch-black and cold.
Two cloth curtains hung over the entrance, each bearing a line of dark red characters.
"Mortals may not enter. Violators shall die."
Mo Hua read the words and thought for a moment.
Given his current standing, he could hardly be considered a "mortal."
Therefore, those words were not addressed to him.
Since they were not addressed to him, they had nothing to do with him.
Mo Hua reached out, pushed aside the curtain bearing the words "Mortals may not enter," and very obligingly stepped through the doorway.
At first, his eyes met nothing but darkness.
Then, a flash of blue light passed through his eyes. Mo Hua activated Spiritual Vision, and everything around him became clear.
Behind the doorway was a hidden chamber.
The chamber was filled with dead spiders and the corpses of all kinds of insects, piled so densely that it was unnerving.
At the center of the chamber stood an altar.
Mo Hua walked closer.
On the altar was a spider-patterned wooden basin, an incense burner, and an open clay urn.
The urn was also filled with dead spiders.
These spiders were larger than ordinary ones, with deeper markings and a far more vicious appearance.
The largest and most heavily marked spider had been torn open and lay dead inside the spider-patterned wooden basin.
Mo Hua's heart suddenly jumped.
"This is... some kind of Unorthodox Path ritual?"
"Was it used to sacrifice to something, or to open something?"
"Where's Uncle Gu?"
"Could he have been sacrificed?"
He looked left and right.
Only after confirming that there was no human blood, flesh, skull, or remains did Mo Hua slowly breathe a sigh of relief.
It seemed Uncle Gu had not been sacrificed yet.
But the ritual had clearly already been activated.
Mo Hua could sense a sinister and secretive divine sense descending upon the altar, continuously pouring energy into it and sustaining the ritual.
This seemed to be another characteristic of Unorthodox Path techniques.
And Uncle Gu was, in fact, quite strong.
Within a third-grade province, he was not someone who could be killed easily.
Since they could not kill Uncle Gu, this ritual was probably intended to trap him, torment him slowly, and grind him down until he died.
If that was the case...
Mo Hua looked toward the wall behind the altar.
Sure enough, someone had painted a nine-colored spider diagram on the wall using spider blood.
Nine colors.
Nine patterns.
Nine kinds of spider blood.
Together, they formed the image of a spider.
The diagram contained mysterious and profound Unorthodox Path techniques, linked together and condensed into a spell.
Beside the diagram was a round disc.
Inside the disc, nine tiny spiders matching the nine colors were sealed.
They were still alive, writhing feebly.
A bone-white needle was embedded within the disc which could rotate.
Each time it turned, it pierced one of the living spiders and extracted some kind of demonic thought-force.
This Unorthodox Path ritual was exceedingly complex, while the mechanism that operated it was cruel and vicious.
Relying on his extraordinary attainments in the Divine Path and his broad yet arcane store of knowledge, Mo Hua only needed to examine it a few times before he roughly understood its function.
The nine-colored spider diagram was an Unorthodox secret-art mechanism.
The disc containing the nine small spiders was the lock.
A lock required a password.
And the order in which the disc was turned was that password.
If the correct sequence was followed, the bone-white needle would pierce the corresponding spider demon's brain, extract its demonic sense, and activate the hidden Unorthodox Path door.
If the sequence was wrong, the person attempting to open it would most likely suffer a backlash.
The bone-white needle would probably drain the person's divine sense or, worse, plant a curse within their mind.
"This is a little troublesome."
Mo Hua frowned.
Normally, there were two ways to open the door.
The first was to know the password in advance, meaning the correct sequence for turning the disc. If one followed the sequence, the door would naturally open.
The second was to dismantle the spell, finding a way to break the Unorthodox Path technique formed by the nine-colored spider diagram.
Once the spell was undone, the hidden door would naturally open.
Mo Hua did not know the password, so he could only attempt to dismantle the spell.
But dismantling a spell was similar to breaking a formation. It was an advanced Unorthodox Path skill that required profound attainments in said path.
Mo Hua's own Unorthodox Path attainments were not merely lacking.
They were practically nonexistent.
He only knew brutal Divine path killing arts. The insidious offshoot techniques of the Unorthodox Path were something he had never properly studied.
But Uncle Gu was most likely trapped inside.
He had to try anyway.
Mo Hua did not hesitate.
He concentrated, activated his heavenly derivation method, and stared at the nine-colored spider.
A faint light gathered deep within his eyes.
He calculated for a long time, but made little progress.
After all, although his divine sense was powerful, his understanding of Unorthodox techniques was too shallow.
Even the cleverest craftsman could not work without materials.
He had to calculate the medium of each spell from scratch, determine the causal changes of its materials, and then find a way to verify his deductions.
The results were difficult to confirm.
After calculating for a while, Mo Hua gave up.
As expected, it was not going to work.
"The wider realm is a place where the Unorthodox Path thrives and occultists run rampant. My own Unorthodox Path attainments urgently need to improve..."
The contradiction between his excessively developed Divine Path and his severely underdeveloped Unorthodox Path spellcraft had become almost irreconcilable.
To possess such overwhelming Divine Path strength yet lack suitable techniques with which to use it was practically a waste of heaven's gifts.
Mo Hua nodded slightly.
Then he looked back at the spider diagram before him.
Since he could not dismantle the spell, the clever method was off the table.
He would have to use the crude method.
Mo Hua stepped forward, placed his hand on the disc, and used his divine sense to forcibly turn it.
He did not know the password, so he simply turned it at random.
In other words, he was trying passwords.
Sure enough, he got it wrong after only a few turns.
A sinister divine sense seeped from the bone-white needle.
Ordinary cultivators could not see it, but Mo Hua clearly sensed a thread of vicious spider-demon thought-force flowing backward along the divine sense he had used to pick the lock.
It entered his sea of consciousness.
Within his sea of consciousness, a green venomous spider opened its mouth and began feeding on his divine thoughts.
This seemed to be the sinister backlash of the nine-colored spider Unorthodox technique.
But it could not bite through him.
Instead, with a light flick of Mo Hua's divine sense, the venomous spider's demonic sense shattered.
Mo Hua felt only a slight sting.
Apart from that, he felt nothing unusual.
He shook his head, somewhat dissatisfied, then stopped being polite.
He began rotating the disc back and forth.
Whenever he got the sequence wrong, he turned it back and tried again.
He continued for a long time, making mistakes constantly and enduring countless backlashes.
At one moment, the bone-white needle absorbed the demonic sense of the small spiders. At another, it drained Mo Hua's divine sense.
After who knew how long, even the bone-white needle seemed somewhat worn out.
Mo Hua himself was completely fine.
The small spiders sealed within the disc, however, had been tortured to the brink of death.
Finally, after more than twenty additional attempts, Mo Hua guessed the correct "password."
A burst of nine-colored light flared.
The "ritual" on the altar was forcibly disrupted by Mo Hua.
The enormous spider diagram on the wall seemed to come alive, slowly writhing before splitting into nine smaller spiders.
The nine spiders scurried toward the corner of the wall.
Where the diagram had been, a hidden door appeared.
Beyond the hidden door lay an even deeper forest.
It was gloomy and tinged with blood, carrying the stench of rotting spiders and insects.
It felt like the lair of some enormous spider.
Mo Hua's eyes narrowed.
He crossed the Unorthodox Path spider threshold and stepped into the depths of the wild temple.
The atmosphere was oppressive.
A thick miasma hung all around him, so dense that he could not even tell whether it was black or purple.
The stench was unbearable.
The woods grew deeper.
Fallen leaves rotted beneath his feet.
And somewhere in the depths, an unknown and eerie consciousness seemed to lurk, stirring an instinctive sense of fear in the heart.
Mo Hua had not gone far when his expression suddenly changed.
He crouched down and touched a bloodstain on a withered tree with his finger.
His karmic intuition suddenly began to tremble once more.
This was...
Uncle Gu's blood?