Chapter 4:formations

Jahdiel revealed his breakthrough to the Dantian Compression Realm, but not to the Meridian Compression Realm. If people knew that at eight years old he had a cultivation equivalent to a sect elder, who would bully him and give him opportunities to get stronger. As a level 3 disciple, it was already hard to be bullied...

A level 3 disciple was the highest rank of a disciple, it was a rank befitting all disciples that had broken through the Dantian Compression Realm. All disciples have to work to get themselves sects credits to obtain cultivation, resources access to the library, and so on...

The sect library was inside the elder pavilion, each book read or rented would cost a certain amount of credits, so people usually only go there when they are looking for something very specific. Jahdiel is no different.

He had joined the Formation Pavilion. The place has its own inner working. Disciple workers there are divided into three ranks: beginner disciples, senior disciples, and elders. Tho reach the rank of elder one must not only be a sect elder but reach the rank of elder formation expert. The level of formation expertise is divided into four ranks: beginner, senior, elder, and master. Above the master in theory there is the grandmaster, but they are very rare in this world. The three main forces of this world only have one each. The clan head is the only formation master of the sect.

Formations were a very peculiar thing in Jahdiel's opinion, they sort of seem like a criminal mapping, that one would usually see in a criminal investigation series or movie. They do not have necessarily a core or a specific format, so each 'sentence' needed to have a connection, even if indirect with other 'sentences'.

A sentence is a group of nodes. Most nodes in a formation are a word written with ki, using a special qi ink, and in a special qi paper. Qi ink and qi paper were very expensive materials. Nodes can be objects like a sword with sword intent and so on... Nodes are connected through invisible small strings of qi. To keep a formation safe the nodes are usually hidden under chests underground, in secret passages, and so on...

Beginner formation experts were usually only able to make write individual nodes. Senior formation experts not only could do this but they knew how to balance a 'sentence' together. Formation elders know how to plan the production of a whole simple formation.

Formation masters know how to plan the production of a whole advanced formation. Jahdiel did not know what was the breakthrough necessary to become a formation grandmaster.

There is not much needed to learn from a beginner formation expert to a senior one, the problem is that the knowledge is hardly shared because the more high-level experts want to milk the most benefit from their cheap labor until they have no choice but to teach something significant to them.

This happens because writing nodes is the most tiresome work in building a formation, no one wants to do it because of this. It is also the least paid; so people prefer to coerce their junior into doing it.

Besides, the materials used are expensive so after three free tries, each failure will be discounted from one salary.

Generally, only wealthy cultivators pursue this endeavor, as it is necessary to gradually get experience until ones can get the gist of it and actually get money in the process. Alchemy beginners at least start learning to do pills with very low-level herbs that are cheap and alchemists, while blacksmiths can at least reuse wasted metal.

With his soul affinity Jahdiel's talent to learn new things increased sharply, so he quickly learned to write nodes without mistakes and became frighteningly productive, so he could get a good wage even as a beginner formation expert.

With it, he got himself to buy some pills to turn his parents into cultivators and let them out of their servitude bond. He also got them a small, but comfortable house in a safe urban city. He also gave his previous village head some pills as a gift.

By studying on his own he was able to reach the senior formation expert rank, which he proved by passing the promotion text, after which he started getting more gold each month.

He was still cultivating diligently, but he did not have much progress as the difficulty of breaking increased sharply in each realm. He was now twelve and he concluded he would already be fourteen when he reached the sect head rank.

He continued his advance in self-studies for more than two years, and he was already confident that he already had the knowledge necessary to become an elder formation expert. However, to have his advance recognized, he would have to present research of his own. He decided to pass the test and later review his real cultivation to get a formation elder rank.

Jahdiel misunderstood the aim of the research, because of all the self-boosting and hard-to-understand texts he read in the library describing it.

The research was more about building a whole simple formation on your own and presenting a resume about it and your knowledge, but he thought that he should create a whole new simple formation, a feat only possible to the most talented formation elders, a formation master and above.

Basing himself on some novel he read in his past life, he decided to create a body formation quite a risky endeavor, but that would make it cool research.

After a lot of painful and difficult tests on his own body, which could heal easier because of his vitality affinity, he was able to create a working formation.

It would send messages to his brain with analyses of each part of his body allowing one to have a perfect self-checkup and complete control of their body like a toy, one can other consciously the speed of their own heartbeat.

Some may wonder how he could get used to, being just a normal person not much ago, bare with the pain of experimenting in his own body it was because his one-hundred-and-one soul physique increased his willpower absurdly.

He thought the formation he created was only a bit more complex than a basic one, but it was a middle-level one, and could even have been classified as advanced, if not for its small amount of nodes. His inner organs form some of the nodes, while the rest were made with parchments that he carved in his own flesh.

He presented his research to his examiner, which was an elder, that was the second in command of the pavilion after the sect head. Different from the approval he expected.

"You mere disciple trying to show off to me. Know your place weakling. It is indeed marvelous and revolutionary research on this incredible body formation that I created thank you. Try better next time kid and be more humble next time." The elder named Long Ki said to him.

The elder was envious of Jahdiel's revolutionary research, as he after a hundred years was unable to establish his reputation as a formation elder genius. So he decided to steal Jahdiel's research, which would be easy because no matter how much of a genius Jahdiel was, people would not believe a twelve years old has created such a revolutionary new type of formation.

In the elder mind, leaving the disciple alive and uncrippled was his show of superiority, grace, and benevolence. Jahdiel's research was the first successful research in a living-body formation.

There have been several attempts before, but all failed. Not only because the researchers lacked the genius of Jahdiel, but because instead of performing the research on themselves, the b*st*rds used the body of slaves instead.

In this way, several deaths were attributed to this unsuccessful research, not that the death of mortals bothers cultivators in this world, where the strong prey on the weak. Controlling the qi precisely in other people's bodies, even if they were mortal, was an impossible endeavor so connecting the nodes with qi strings was impossible, making the whole attempt pointless.

The closest of the subject were puppets made with corpses, but his puppets lack the strength the bodies had when they were alive, and several expensive materials needed to be used to improve their strength.

As Jahdiel made the formation in his own body, it was not hard to make the qi strings. He even wrote a book about how safely make formations in one body, proposing other types of formations, ki gathering ones, defense ones, and so on...

Long Ki made sure to forcefully extract the writing nodes from Jahdiel and put them in his own body. Jahdiel waited for three days to click on his lovely revenge button. When the head of the sect left his seclusion, he found Long Ki quite strange after examining him he concluded he was healthy but for some reason, he turned dumb...

Long Ki was still a Meridian Compression cultivator, but he forgot many things: how to build formations, how to fight, how to cultivate, his life experience, how to eat, how to drink water, sh*t in the toilet, how to walk and how to crawl. He was now a very strong man with a newborn mind. The formations in his numerous manses all disappeared.

Jahdiel have his body formation returned to him and improved into a much better and stronger advanced formation. He also got all the years of experience, secret runes, and knowledge from Long Ki. He presented his research to the sect head and got promoted, even though he was not technically an elder yet.