chapter 10: one-stare formation master.
Today was a highly significant day for Gu Lingtian. He woke up early, donned his finest robe, and headed straight to the headquarters of the Formation Association for the test.
Just like yesterday, it was Attendant Lin Rui who welcomed him. Without further ado, she guided him to the testing room, where an old man was waiting inside, meditating.
"Sir Gu, I'm Ming Lao, and I will be overseeing your test today." Seeing Lingtian walking in, the old man spoke as he stood up and nodded as a form of greeting.
"I will be in your care, Elder Lao." Lingtian cupped his fists and said. At a glance, he could see that this old man was at the perfection stage of the Foundation Establishment stage.
"Let's not waste any more time. In front of you is a paper with different questions. You have to answer them correctly to pass the first part of the test. I will give you two hours starting from now. Good luck." Elder Ming explained to him and settled back down to monitor him, preventing any cheating attempts.
Lingtian didn't waste any time and sat down at the table in the middle of the room. He started reading the paper. After ten minutes, a smile appeared on his face. After reading all the questions, he was confident that he would pass without any problems.
And just like that, the two hours passed in the blink of an eye. He took his time and didn't try to finish early, taking advantage of every moment.
"Time's up." Elder Ming stood up and took the paper. He examined Lingtian's answers on the spot for some time and then spoke again.
"Really good. Your answers are detailed and clear. Congratulations, you passed the first test. Now, for the second and main test, you have to choose between the Concealment Formation, the Essence Amplifying Formation, or the Turtle Defense Formation and set it up. There is no time limit, but if you take too long and I see that you are messing around, I will disqualify you directly."
"I choose the Concealment Formation." Lingtian chose without any hesitation. He knew how to set up all three of them but was more familiar with the Concealment Formation, as he had set it up before in his house.
"Let's begin then. You will find the essence crystals you need in the hall, so follow me." Elder Ming took him to a spacious hall, inside which he could see was empty, with just some essence crystals lying on the floor.
Lingtian started working on the formation. He was quite skillful, and with his strong spirit power, he was able to do it in less than five hours, which surprised Elder Ming watching from the side.
Generally, new formation masters took at least a day to set up a Concealment Formation, but Lingtian did it in just five hours. With his experienced eyes, Elder Ming could see that he was not playing around and was doing everything flawlessly, demonstrating a level of proficiency generally seen in formation masters with a lot of experience accumulated over the years.
'This young man has some talent. With enough work, he can become a famous master in the region.' Muttering in his heart, Elder Ming stood up and started testing the Concealment Formation in front of him.
After a few moments, he nodded his head in satisfaction. Seeing this, Lingtian was thrilled, as he knew that he had passed the test.
"Good, very good indeed. You passed with an excellent performance. Congratulations. From now on, you are a one-star formation master." Sure enough, Elder Ming said with a warm smile on his face.
"Thank you, Elder Ming." Lingtian didn't hide the joy and excitement in his voice as he thanked him.
With this identity, many things he planned on doing would be much simpler and more convenient. On top of that, he would now get the Spirit Foundation Technique and finally be able to start cultivating again.
"As your reward, you will be allowed to stay in the inner library of our Formation Association for eight hours. You can't take anything out, but feel free to memorize as much as you could. I advise you not to waste this opportunity and choose wisely." But before he could ask, Elder Ming's words reached his ears.
This library was usually only opened for the higher-ups of the association and needed a lot of essence crystals to be able to get in. It contained a large variation of formations and insights from accomplished formation masters.
This form of reward was a way for the association to entice the experts to work hard and strive to rank up within the association ranks so they could access the library again. They gave them a taste for free for the first time and waited for them to come back for more, but this time they had to pay the appropriate price to do so.
Lingtian knew this. He already knew what he wanted. After memorizing the Spirit Foundation Technique, if he had enough time, he could try to get more, but he knew his priorities.
"Follow me." Following Elder Ming, he arrived at a huge hall filled with books and scrolls. It was a marvel to look at, as the number of books inside dwarfed that of the royal library, even though they were just about formations. But that was to be expected from this kind of organization, after all.
"You can go in, and for the time being, I will take care of the paperwork for you. And when your eight hours end, your one-star formation master identification token should be ready." After saying this, Elder Ming left.
'He left just like that? Isn't he afraid that I would do something inappropriate here without him around? Wait, don't tell me...' A thought struck Lingtian's mind, and he directly spread his spirit sense, examining his surroundings. And sure enough, he sensed a terrifying presence in the middle in the northern direction from where he stood.
A chill ran through his body. This kind of presence was like nothing he had seen before. It was simply terrifying.
'A Core Formation Realm expert!'