Formations

"I have something I need to attend to. I'll be in touch later," Yaoguang said hurriedly before quickly taking his leave. Seeing that he genuinely seemed to have pressing business, Zhao He did not stop him. The current Yaoguang... Especially a Yaoguang who had displayed formidable command capabilities, carried weight that surpassed even his own as the Master of the War Hall. The upper echelons had held several meetings regarding how best to arrange his placement. Some felt he should continue artifact refining and become an Artifact Refining Grandmaster as soon as possible. Others believed that, given his talent, sending him to coordinate combat operations on the front lines was far better than having him serve as an Artifact Refining Grandmaster. Both sides were deadlocked. Yet regardless of which arrangement was chosen, the treatment Yaoguang would ultimately receive... would absolutely be on par with figures like Zhao Siliang and Xu Qiexing. ... As soon as he got into the car, he said directly to Lei Yun, who had taken over driving duties, "Head back. Drive smoothly; I'm going to close my eyes and rest a bit." "Yes." Lei Yun acknowledged, and the vehicle soon started up, departing from the Hall of Martyrs under the escort of two other vehicles carrying Qin Yi and the others. ... "Neither qi refining nor alchemy..." Yaoguang wore a complicated expression. All that time he had spent during leisure hours reading so many books and manuals on alchemy and qi refining had gone to waste. However... he could understand the appearance of this newly emerged branch. Because lately, the effort he had truly invested in it seemed... to have genuinely exceeded alchemy and qi refining. "Formations, huh," Yaoguang mused inwardly. The direction indicated by the sixth branch was unequivocally the path of [Formations]. Since it was here, he might as well make the best of it... "Though it's not the [Alchemy] I wanted most, nor the [Qi Refining] path I've been so eager for, if used well... its effects won't fall short either." He recalled Zi Qiangwei's assessment of the spirit artifacts he had crafted. The reason his spirit artifacts were capped at Generation 3.5 was partly due to his insufficient cultivation at the time, and partly... because his understanding of formations was too sparse. Now, if he upgraded formations, he might be able to craft fourth-generation or even fifth-generation spirit artifacts that had yet to appear in this world. "Originally, I planned to max out [Artifact Refining] and [Divine Path] first to unlock their 'Talents.'" Yaoguang felt a tinge of regret. The sudden strike by the Wuji Astral Palace's sky-patrol warship had thoroughly disrupted his calculations. Had he been able to complete the Golden Divine Temple's combined orders of 3,600 flying swords, he could not only have elevated [Artifact Refining] to a realm beyond Grandmaster, but also raised [Divine Path] to the Dharma Idol level. Yet the sanctions and pressure from the Wuji Astral Palace had caused the elders of the already unstable Golden Divine Temple to fear getting caught in the crossfire, prompting them to choose self-preservation. As a result, his [Artifact Refining] had only reached 81% progress toward Grandmaster. The remaining [Divine Path] had only advanced to 52% of the Origin Spirit realm. After all, he had only finished half of the Golden Divine Temple's order. He couldn't really blame the Golden Divine Temple for breaching the contract either. It was just like running a shop: if a brawl broke out with another gang, customers would naturally scatter in a hurry to avoid trouble. In this world, even if you wanted to do business honestly, without sufficient strength to protect your profits, others would simply plunder them by force. "Formations." Yaoguang glanced over the other branches on the ancient tree. Artifact Refining, Divine Path, Martial Path—all required advancement. And now, Formations on top of them... The deficit had suddenly grown enormous. Especially as his cultivation rose and his standing within the Nine Cauldrons Sect grew heavier, the labor cost of relying on [Merchant] to gain experience kept climbing. To max out a profession... the required spirit stone expenditure had multiplied several times over. "In fact, thinking carefully about the situation the Nine Cauldrons Sect faces right now, Formation Master is actually the most suitable profession." Yaoguang pondered. Advancing from Star Lord to Star God required a colossal investment of resources. Unless he was willing to accumulate in that realm for over a decade, or even several decades, there was no hope of rapidly attaining Star God without sufficient resources. As for Dharma Idol... It was a support profession. Not only would it place him squarely in the crosshairs of the top echelons, but it also offered zero self-preservation capability. Relying solely on the Nine Cauldrons Sect's single Golden Core might not suffice to protect him. A Formation Master, by contrast, was the secondary profession best suited to enhancing a sect's foundation aside from an Alchemist. Leaving aside defensive formations, offensive formations, and amplification formations, there was one crucial type among them—the Spirit Gathering Formation. How were the world's spirit stones produced today? They were drawn and condensed by Spirit Gathering Formations. Spirit energy was like dark energy: omnipresent, permeating every corner of the world. It was especially concentrated at spirit energy nodes. Formation masters had developed Spirit Gathering Formations to draw spiritual energy from the void and spirit energy nodes, condensing it into spirit stones for cultivation and daily consumption. The Energy Departments maintained by every major sect recruited cultivators who had developed divine sense, using their divine sense to power formations and condense spirit stones. A sect's efficiency in condensing spirit stones depended on various factors. For instance: the number of spirit energy nodes, the stability of those nodes, the quantity of cultivators with divine sense, the caliber of its formation masters, and so on. Yet all these factors could ultimately be boiled down to a single element—the formations laid down by the formation masters. If a formation master was formidable enough to optimize a formation's extraction efficiency, they could draw spiritual energy purely from the void, freeing themselves from dependence on spirit energy nodes. Likewise, if a formation master was skilled enough to optimize a formation's operation, the work efficiency of a hundred cultivators could rival that of a thousand. Furthermore, no matter how violent a spirit energy node was, an outstanding formation could still harvest sufficient spiritual energy from it to condense spirit stones. From this alone, the vital importance of a formation master was clear. The Nine Cauldrons Sect did not excel in formations and had no presentable formation masters to speak of, so they could only compensate with manpower. Yet even though the total workforce of the Nine Cauldrons Sect's Energy Hall approached nearly one hundred million people, the sect's total annual spirit stone output was still only around fifty million, with an average per-capita production of less than a single spirit stone. Out of these fifty million spirit stones, supporting the Golden Core alone required at least ten million. The daily expenses and cultivation of numerous Great Cultivators were another massive drain, added to the costs of infrastructure construction... Even the most vital department, the War Hall, was allocated only around ten million spirit stones a year. This severe scarcity of spirit stones was why the Nine Cauldrons Sect had set its sights on the spirit energy nodes of the East Sea Archipelago and Shiwan Dashan. The East Sea Archipelago had 14 spirit energy nodes, while Shiwan Dashan possessed as many as 22. Reclaiming these two territories would be equivalent to opening vast new revenue streams for the Nine Cauldrons Sect, likely boosting annual production to eighty million spirit stones. "Formations..." Yaoguang reflected. In the world today, the faction with the most spirit energy nodes was the Golden Divine Temple: as many as 311. Yet despite possessing 311 spirit energy nodes, their spirit stone output was only around two hundred million. By contrast, the Taiyin Sect had merely 71 spirit energy nodes, yet their spirit stone output was hardly inferior to that of the Golden Divine Temple. Of course, in terms of spirit stone production, the highest was naturally the Wuji Astral Palace. The Wuji Astral Palace held 246 spirit energy nodes and achieved a world-astounding spirit stone output of eight hundred million—accounting for 27.11% of the entire Cangwu Realm's total! Precisely because of such staggering production capacity, combined with global commercial reach that allowed them to continuously earn—and even seize—spirit stones from other sects, they were able to maintain sky-patrol fleets numbered in the double digits, cementing their supreme prestige as the world's foremost sect. "Formations in this world are extraordinarily advanced. Through formations, one can not only regulate the weather to ensure favorable conditions and shield entire cities from disasters, but also improve the cultivation environment of a whole region. Certain formations offer noticeable aid to cultivation—and while they can't match pills individually, their area of effect is massive..." High-tier formations were often regarded as vital national treasures. "This is viable." Yaoguang contemplated: "I wonder... do the spirit stones condensed by Spirit Gathering Formations count as revenue? In other words, if I help the Nine Cauldrons Sect deploy Spirit Gathering Formations everywhere and secure a portion of the yields for myself, will that award [Merchant] experience?" If it could... his rate of earning spirit stones would effectively jump from doing business straight to printing money, soaring to a whole new level. When that time came, even without orders for flying swords to earn spirit stones, he would still be able to max out [Artifact Refining], [Divine Path], and [Martial Path] at an incredible pace. With that thought, his gaze returned to the [Artifact Refining] profession. An 81% progress not only enabled him to forge top-grade Treasure Weapon flying swords, but even Generation 3.5 Treasure Weapon flying swords— meaning that when their side's Origin Spirit realm cultivators held the upper hand, they could unleash the power of fourth-generation flying swords. "Sky-patrol warships are powerful, but they're also massive targets. Once they intrude into another sect's territory, Golden Cores will intervene. Conversely, in skirmishes between small squads of cultivators, a Golden Core has no reason to act... because it's simply not worth it." For a Golden Core to mobilize their Golden Core and slaughter a squad of Great Cultivators, the spirit stones expended ran in the millions. All things considered, an operation barely broke even unless tens of millions of spirit stones were at stake. Not to mention that frequent action would compromise a Golden Core's condition. Under such conditions, no incident of a Golden Core moving against a squad of Great Cultivators had been heard of in nearly a century. Therefore, if the Nine Cauldrons Sect's sword cultivator squads could also be equipped with Generation 3.5 flying swords and operate in squad formation across various regions, the sect's deterrence would undoubtedly soar by several tiers. "First, use Treasure Weapons to reap a certain amount of profit from the Nine Cauldrons Sect and level up Formations. Once I can deploy and optimize superior Spirit Gathering Formations, I'll upgrade the formations across the sect's forty-three spirit energy nodes on a large scale..." Yaoguang reached a decision. Information obtained through "High-Dimensional Cognition" was always exhaustive. If everything went smoothly, once all Spirit Gathering Formations in the Nine Cauldrons Sect were optimized, even if production couldn't immediately rival the Six Great Immortal Sects... matching the Taiyin Sect's formation efficiency and doubling the output of each spirit energy node would be well within reach. Having established his plan, the vehicle arrived at Zixiao Institute. However, the moment Yaoguang stepped out, Qin Yi hurried forward with a look of surprise and a complicated expression. "The Wuji Astral Palace's sky-patrol warships... might be withdrawing from the East Sea." "Hm?" Yaoguang frowned. "What happened?" "Just moments ago, on the outer perimeter of the Wuji Astral Palace's territory, the Sun Moon Peak spirit energy node—outfitted with a Grade 7 Spirit Gathering Formation and yielding up to ten million spirit stones annually—suffered a catastrophic strike from a Great Spell Cultivator of the Liusha Sect while its formation was powered down..." Qin Yi took a deep breath. "Sun Moon Peak collapsed. The supermassive energy facilities built upon the mountain were utterly destroyed, and over a hundred thousand cultivators with divine sense were killed."