Chapter 150: Life 66, Age 30, Martial Lord 1
The time I spent with Tie Yang’s group was all about learning to be a participant in the creation of grand formations. He didn’t teach me their underlying principles since that was beyond the scope of his mission. His goal wasn’t to teach me how and why grand formations worked. It was to teach me how to be a participant in their creation.
A grand formation was capable of covering an entire city. To accomplish this, instead of using a single formation stone, grand formations consisted of a series of formation nodes scattered throughout and around the area they were designed to affect.
As the group leader, Tie Yang was responsible for designing the overall structure of the formation and adjusting it to fit the unique geography of each city. After he developed a blueprint, he then assigned us outer disciples specific tasks without explaining all of the intricacies of the formation as a whole.
As a member of his team, I only needed to go to marked points in the city and create a formation node following the instructions I was given. Each node was composed of at least 10 different inscriptions. This meant that each individual node was usually more complex than most of the complete formations I had created in the past. Despite their complexity, these outer nodes were incapable of functioning on their own. They only worked when connected to a control node that was placed in the Lord’s compound in the center of the city.
At first, learning all of the new inscriptions and how to place them properly was a bit of a challenge. However, thanks to my boosted formation comprehension, I was able to function as an independent team member by the time we were setting up our third formation together.
With some ability to assist with grand formations, I had a method for completing the missions required for my advancement. Sadly, as I was working under the direction of an inner sect disciple, I didn’t receive full credit for missions.
Originally, I had been told I needed to complete five formation-related missions before I would be allowed to purchase a portion of karmic energy. Working under Tie Yang, I would need to complete at least twenty of these team missions for every stage of advancement. This delayed me, but my progression was only a matter of time. As long as I could complete missions, I would be able to advance.
As soon as he decided that I had a solid handle on the basic knowledge I needed to meet my requirements for advancing, Tie Yang moved on to the second condition of his mission. He needed to help me gain a solid enough grasp on general Rank 4 formation knowledge so that I could re-enter the inner sect as a Martial Lord.
To do this, I needed a high level of proficiency with at least one sub-class of Rank 4 formations. When I told him how I had specialized in disposable formations in the Academy, he was extremely dismissive.