As soon as Mo Hua entered the leftmost fork, after just a few steps, he sensed the formation layout around him, and immediately said, "Something’s not right."
"What’s not right?" Mr. Hui was stunned.
"It’s the same," Mo Hua said.
"The same?"
"Yes," Mo Hua nodded, mentally calculating, "The leftmost path, the middle path, and even the other two paths, they’re all the same."
"These paths are connected to the same fork."
"If you walk along this path, or the middle one, the result is exactly the same: we’ll still be trapped in the branch paths filled with mechanisms."
"This..." Mr. Hui frowned, "So among these five paths, four are wrong paths, and one is a dead end?"
"Four wrong paths, but the remaining one is not a dead end," Mo Hua said, "My previous calculation wasn’t wrong. This is a fake layout of the Earth Formation, four false and one true. The path I led us on initially is the correct one."
"But..." Mr. Hui’s gaze was heavy, "That was indeed a dead end."
Mo Hua shook his head and said, "Formations don’t lie. If it is, it is; if it isn’t, it isn’t. Even if a path seems like a dead end, if the formation deduces it to be a life path, then it is a life path."
As he said this, Mo Hua’s gaze was calm, his expression confident, inadvertently exuding a steady confidence.
This was the aura only a truly accomplished Formation Master possessed.
The pupil of the black-robed young master shrank slightly.
Even the black-robed elder glanced at Mo Hua in surprise.
Mr. Hui pondered for a moment, then nodded, "Alright, let’s take another look."
So the group retraced their steps and, following Mo Hua’s instructions, entered the fork on the far right from the beginning.
They entered the fork and walked straight to the end, where a dead-end stone wall blocked their way.
On the stone wall was an opening that Mr. Hui had previously punched through, revealing an unseen depth of the mountain behind it.
At a glance, it indeed seemed to be a dead end.
"If there is really a path, there should be a formation to break it, right?" Mr. Hui said.
Mo Hua shook his head, "If there was really a formation, I would have noticed it. It’s precisely because there isn’t a formation, it can deceive people."
Mr. Hui considered this for a moment and nodded, "Makes sense."
Since there was no formation, the only solution was to "dig through" it.
So all the Golden Core cultivators took turns using various methods to excavate the mountain stone in front of them.
They dug for a long time without seeing an end.
Everyone was a little hesitant, but Mo Hua was resolute, "Keep digging."
All the Golden Core cultivators could only continue to follow Mo Hua’s instructions and dig deeper.
As they dug, they gradually noticed something unusual.
The mountain stone before them seemed naturally formed, but it wasn’t.
Its interior was composed of a mix of second and third-grade stone materials, unusually solid, but upon breaking it open, they found traces of artificial construction inside.
In other words, this wasn’t a natural mountain body but an artificial "rockery."
If not for the combined deep excavation efforts of six or seven Golden Core cultivators, it would have been impossible to detect.
Several of them looked back at Mo Hua, secretly amazed at his mastery of formations and sharp insight.
After digging for a while, Mo Hua suddenly called out, "Stop."
"What’s the matter?" Mr. Hui asked.
"There’s a formation now!" Mo Hua’s eyes lit up.
If there’s a formation, they can’t forcibly dig through it, or it might cause the formation to go haywire and lead to a mountain explosion and collapse.
Mo Hua took out a brush and ink, beginning to calculate the formation-breaking method.
After he broke the formation, Mo Hua said, "Continue digging."
The Golden Core cultivators dug for a while before Mo Hua called "Stop" again, then proceeded to break another formation, and after breaking it, he let them continue digging.
They kept alternating between breaking formations and digging into the mountain.
No one knew how long it took, but finally, the soil and rocks in front collapsed, revealing an opening.
All present were invigorated.
Rock walked ahead, using his sturdy body to break through the opening, and then everyone followed in succession. When they looked up, they couldn’t help but be stunned.
Before them was a massive underground palace, eerie and majestic.
But this underground palace was not enclosed, with corridors layered over one another, visible all the way to the end.
At the far end of the underground palace was a huge deep pit.
Inside the pit sat a gigantic, resplendent coffin made of golden yellow copper ore.