Above the clouds, Liǔ Qīngyáo stood on her sword.
Black Mountain Ridge gradually shrank beneath her feet into a blurred patch of dark green, but her Divine Sense remained firmly locked onto the unremarkable young man in the camp.
"Jiāng Zhé..." she murmured to herself, her voice carried away by the wind.
"Senior Sister, the Seal entrance has been inspected," came Junior Brother Li's voice transmission from behind. "There are indeed signs of leakage, but strangely, the leaked pollution... has been purified by some kind of power. The method is extremely exquisite, like..."
"Like what?" Liǔ Qīngyáo asked.
"It's like using a formation to inversely analyze and decompose the pollution into harmless primordial spiritual energy." Junior Brother Li's voice was filled with disbelief. "This is completely outside the scope of any known formation techniques in the current Cultivation World. The oldest Fragmentary Records of Forbidden Formations in the Cloud Sword Sect's library do have similar descriptions, but that was at least three thousand years ago, from the Path of Logic/Reason lineage – "
Junior Brother Li suddenly stopped speaking.
Liǔ Qīngyáo's breath hitched slightly.
The Path of Logic/Lineage.
The words 'Path of Logic/Lineage' were a taboo in the Cloud Sword Sect.
"Continue," she said calmly.
"Senior Sister, this is impossible," Junior Brother Li's voice was tight. "The Path of Logic/Lineage has been severed for eight hundred years, its inheritance destroyed, and its remaining followers were all..."
"Erased," Liǔ Qīngyáo finished for him.
The atmosphere fell silent.
Only the wind howled.
After a long while, Junior Brother Wang's voice came through, "Senior Sister, what do we do now? Report to the Sect?"
"Report what?" Liǔ Qīngyáo retorted. "That we discovered a potential inheritor of the Path of Logic/Lineage? A mortal youth with no spiritual root?"
"But – "
"No buts," Liǔ Qīngyáo interrupted him. "This matter is peculiar, it may not necessarily be the Path of Logic/Lineage. Perhaps it was a fortuitously triggered ancient lost formation. The two of you are not to mention anything you have seen or heard today to anyone else."
Her voice was soft, but carried an undeniable authority.
"...Yes." The two hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing.
Liǔ Qīngyáo knew what they were thinking.
She was covering up.
Covering up someone who might be connected to a forbidden inheritance.
But she had to do it.
The matter dated back a long time.
That year she was twenty, and had just successfully established her foundation. She was ordered to sort through damaged ancient texts accumulated over the years in the Scripture Pavilion.
Amidst a mountain of tattered scrolls, she accidentally discovered an ancient scroll, containing some archaic script. She recognized it as relating to the Path of Logic/Lineage.
That night, she secretly brought the scroll back to her cave dwelling and, facing the "heavenly texts" on it, began to deduce them on her own.
The more she deduced, the more astonished she became. This was clearly another path, separate from the immortal path.
From that moment on, Liǔ Qīngyáo understood:
She was not a lucky person who "accidentally" discovered the inheritance of the Path of Logic/Lineage.
She was the chosen one.
She was the last ember of the Path of Logic/Lineage in the world... not yet extinguished.
So when she investigated the situation at Black Mountain Ridge and saw Jiāng Zhé, she instantly understood two things:
First, Jiāng Zhé had used the power of the Path of Logic/Lineage.
Because only the power of the Path of Logic/Lineage could allow a mortal with no spiritual root to maintain the operation of a formation purely through mental strength. At the time, she saw Jiāng Zhé's mental energy was severely depleted, and it was evident the Seal's repair was related to him. Moreover, he was right under the Spirit Suppressing Pillar.
Second, Jiāng Zhé himself didn't know.
His actions left many flaws, something only someone on the same Way of Repair could discover.
When Liǔ Qīngyáo investigated the situation under the Spirit Suppressing Pillar with her Divine Sense, she discovered that what seemed to be the Path of Logic/Reason's methods had been used.
And when she swept her Divine Sense over Jiāng Zhé's body, she clearly detected the aura of the Path of Logic/Reason.
All signs indicated that Jiāng Zhé might be a genius of the Way of Repair, possibly far surpassing her own talent.