The Whispering Willow Sect had received an alarming message: the Black Serpent Palace, still reeling from Elder Wei Han's humiliating Qi Deviation (Chapter 3), was preparing a massive, coordinated attack. Their plan involved deploying the Soul-Crushing Annihilation Array to bypass the sect's defenses and annihilate the mountain peak.
Sect Master Wu was in a panic. He ordered Lin Qi to assist the Formation Grandmaster, Elder Xuan, in reinforcing the Great Barrier Array, the ancient defensive shield of the sect.
"Disciple Lin Qi," Wu begged, thrusting a manual on defensive formations into Lin Qi's hands. "Elder Xuan needs your unseen guidance! Your understanding of 'Deliberate Destruction' must be used to make our defense absolutely impenetrable! Go! Save us!"
Lin Qi accepted the manual, though he couldn't read the complex diagrams. He reported to Elder Xuan, a meticulous, nervous man who specialized in complicated energy matrices.
The Misunderstanding of the Matrix
Elder Xuan was frantically trying to channel the last of the sect's spiritual reserves into the array's Main Matrix Core. The manual Lin Qi held was the master key to the array, containing the secret of its ultimate reinforcement.
"Ah, Disciple Lin Qi!" Elder Xuan cried, relieved to see the "hidden master." "The enemy will strike in one hour! We must reinforce the core's 8,000 internal pathways! It will take every second we have! I need you to focus your mind on the manual and guide my energy flow! Every moment counts!"
Elder Xuan began channeling his Qi, attempting the rigorous, time-consuming process of manually reinforcing the intricate pathways.
Lin Qi opened the heavy manual to the relevant page, which was covered in dense, spiraling diagrams. He stared at the sheer complexity of the circuits.
"This is going to take forever," Lin Qi muttered. "Why are there so many lines? It looks like a tangled noodle soup."
He decided that manually reinforcing 8,000 pathways sounded exhausting.
The Accidental Shortcut
The sealed Core of Infinite Density, triggered by Lin Qi's immense reluctance to engage in tedious work, instantly responded to his desire for a shortcut.
The original Grand-Emperor Void-Smasher possessed the Dao of Instantaneous Completion, a power that allowed him to instantly finalize any ongoing process. Lin Qi's procrastination triggered a miniature, unconscious application of this power.
Lin Qi took the manual, rolled it up into a tight tube, and used the rolled end to point to a specific, central node on the diagram. He was actually trying to point out a sticky spot on the page, but the result was the same.
The precise moment Lin Qi's fingertip (via the rolled manual) touched the central node, the Dao of Instantaneous Completion pulse surged from his hand.
The pulse bypassed the manual and the external arrays, shooting directly into the Main Matrix Core. It didn't reinforce the 8,000 pathways one by one; it instantly recognized the desired final state and forced the entire, millennia-long reinforcement process to complete in a single nanosecond.
W-H-U-U-M!
The Great Barrier Array flared to life, not just reinforced, but fully maximized to its ultimate, impossible defensive state. The dome of energy covering the sect became solid, shimmering gold.
Elder Xuan, who had just begun the first of the 8,000 steps, was violently thrown backward by the completion of his own process.
The Terror of the True Reinforcement
The enemy's scouting formation, which had been monitoring the slow reinforcement process, instantly registered the sudden, impossible peak in energy. They panicked, believing the Whispering Willow Sect had been feigning weakness.
Elder Xuan quickly recovered, his jaw hanging open as he stared at the perfect, maximized array. He looked at Lin Qi, who was now unrolling the manual and looking for his lost candied haw stick.
"He… he bypassed 8,000 steps!" Elder Xuan stammered, his mind reeling. "The Dao of Immediate Completion! He used the mere manual as a divine implement to instantly imprint the final state onto the Core! He is teaching us that time is an illusion!"
Sect Master Wu, who witnessed the entire, instant transformation, felt relief wash over him, quickly followed by terror.
"Magnificent! The 'Procrastination Mudra of Ultimate Defense!'" Wu cheered. "He has shown us that true mastery is achieved not by effort, but by the ultimate, deliberate avoidance of effort!"
He grabbed Elder Xuan's brush and wrote his new maxim on the defensive wall itself:
> "If a task is tedious and complex, do not attempt it. For the true master can use the sheer force of laziness to compel the universe to complete the work for them instantly."
>
The Black Serpent Palace, facing an instantly maximized, impenetrable array, aborted their attack in utter defeat. Lin Qi had accidentally saved the sect, not by fighting or reinforcing, but by demonstrating the supreme power of existential procrastination.