20 A Hilt with no Blade V

Bei Ling didn't say anything. Though she hadn't inspected the formations not even once because of common sense and Xia Feng Zi movements she knew there were some formations and by the looks of it some troublesome ones. However, she also knew that if her disciple took her time, she could break them but she was short of patience one things took too long ending in many broken pill cauldrons and backlashes from solving formations. It had been a surprise she hadn't flipped midway as she was cracking an aperture in the formation earlier.

"Haa-" At length, Bei Ling sighed and took over.

Bei Ling's strength had been weakened indeed but as someone with strong alchemy skills, she had come with ways of using efficiently her soul strength when she displayed it wisely.

Her soul strength entered the formation like a piercing fine thread of hair and extended like a changing spider web instead of covering the whole formation. In about five minutes she finished her scan.

'So that's why she opened it right here…'

It was quite the strange formation. All the energy in the formation was distributed perfectly except the place in front of her where it was obviously stronger and sturdier.

'Hmm…' Unlike Xia Feng Zi, Bei Ling didn't scan the formation behind as they weren't connected and as her disciple would have done, she began breaking the sturdier part.

She took one hour and a half to break it.

'…?' And before even feeling the next formation with her soul strength, she noticed it wasn't in its best shape, particularly in the place where she had trespassed from the second formation.

But that wasn't all. A normal weakened formation wouldn't have given Xia Feng Zi a headache. Upon close inspection, its difficulty alone was miles away from the second one and it shouldn't have been made by someone of this lower place. However, putting aside who had made the formation, who was the one who had weakened it and even made a well-covered hole? The second formation also seemed to be made by the same person…

'So weird… this Red Night Palace…

'Wait, could it be that the thing that gave her more of a headache was that issue and not really the formation?'

'.....' Bei Ling turned to see Xia Feng Zi with nonchalant eyes; nevertheless, her disciple was soundly asleep, just waiting for her to wake her up after everything had been done.