Chapter Twenty: Formations (Info-dump)

A light blue energy surrounded Yanqing as it chilled the surroundings, beginning to freeze the air itself without much effort. Spiritual Energy poured into Yanqing at an immense pace.

Gathering the newly formed Qi inside his dantian and circulating it, Yanqing seemed to have finally reached the middle-stage of Foundational Establishment consolidation. 

He sighed a breath of relief before he once more broke away from meditation. It's been roughly four years since he broke through to Foundational Establishment in Longxin city.

Due to the way that the [Frozen Azure Sword Art Essence] was structured, it took much longer to consolidate his cultivation as the main focus of this art was condensation. It results in a much greater purity, concentration, and quantity in comparison to other cultivators.

But, it also means that cultivating would take much longer than usual. This was one of the main reasons that many had not chosen to cultivate this art, even if it provided them an advantage over their peers. It was simply not worth it as by the time they broke through, their enemies would be a step above. 

Such annoyances did not apply to Yanqing as he already had a top tier qualification in cultivation, along with the fact that he had no enemies and was functionally immortal. 

As Yanqing finished this breakthrough, his cave was filled with ice everywhere. If a mortal were to walk into his cave or nearby surroundings, there is a chance of death due to the coldness and sharp aura surrounding his cave.

When he broke through to Foundation Establishment, many cultivators greeted him. One of the major ones was the Xin family as they wanted to recruit Yanqing, but wanted to retain his freedom.

The two parties did not leave on bad terms, as no one would offend a faction and no faction would make an enemy with immense potential. It was simply not a good idea, and as such the Xin party still gifted Yanqing with several pills to help in his cultivation. 

As a result, Yanqing was actually quite free right now… Unless one factored in his studies. Ever since he broke through he has been cultivating, practicing his sword arts, and studying formations.

Formations were incredibly annoying to learn as it relied on several factors. It required one to be a master or at least someone who wasn't a novice to refine the flags needed. 

This was not including the fact that one had to create the perfect geometrical shapes, lines, intent, and also learn about trivia. 

Drawing a near perfect circle was one of the most annoying parts about learning formations, but there were things that were much worse than that.

For example, there were natural formations created by Heaven and Earth itself, but that was rare. The most important was learning about how the stars could divine certain events, how the land itself has different concentrations of energy, how the elements interacted with one another, and so much more.

Yanqing could barely learn a couple of formations, but he was still an absolute novice at utilizing and creating them. Though this was due to another issue.

The formation inheritance he received contained several formations, but with its effectiveness only up to the peak of foundational establishment. Anything higher would belong to a massive family or a sect. 

This also meant that even with notes, one would best learn with a tutor teaching them as there were many things that were hidden behind a poem or a word play in order to prevent the leakage of inheritance. 

Trying to understand what a 'Mountain's tear' or what a 'Fish's breath' was torturous. Though Yanqing had an advantage in learning about how the elements collided and interacted with one another. 

Due to Divination Master Fu Xuan's involvement and mastery in divination, she would sometimes come over to the general to speak of certain events. She would continue rambling on and on about these things to the point that Yanqing himself had memorized quite a bit. 

This proved helpful in his calculations because a formation master also had to be a master of mathematics, physics, and energy science. Formations were basically science as it was the study of the Heavenly Dao and the world. 

He was honestly starting to feel that it was not worth it to practice formations. His enthusiasm further dwindled when he saw that there were no actual formations to boost speed as that was part of refining.

Inscriptions and formations were similar, but they functioned differently and only a master of both could fuse the two. This discovery left Yanqing a sobbing mess as he spent hundreds of hours deciphering the texts. 

Since Yanqing had already invested so much time it was not worth it to stop. Therefore, he had to continue his studies as [Aurora] would spar with him to sharpen his skills. Only time could dull his sharpness after all. 

His current plan was to finish studying formations so that he could use it as a trump card. This was due to the fact that he had discovered [Ice Control] was incredibly compatible with formations. 

Since formations relied on the energy concentration, type, and landscape he would be able to instantaneously deploy a formation without the opponent knowing. Through this, techniques such as [Glacial Parade] and [Arctic Shatter] would become much more deadly. 

His current use would be using the formations to change the elements at will, for example for each reaction there would be a counter reaction in the elements. With formations one could reverse it entirely, which was miraculous since it did not bend to any other rules. 

For example, a true master of formation could go to the seas and turn it into a desert by using the humidity and energy to swap the elements. By changing this, they would effectively heat up the entire area so much that it would simply turn into gas. 

With this, he was now able to counter his weakness towards the Fire element as it would simply melt his ice. Now, he could use the elemental reversal to change the energy increase to removing it, effectively dispersing most fires. He could also use this to further lower the temperature, boosting himself. 

He was starting to get the handle of formations, and he was happy since it meant getting one step closer to creating his own sword formation. 

He was honestly starting to like formations as it would be an integral part of his strength in the future, as it would let him become the ultimate sword master after all.

Taking the title of Sword Champion, The Sword of Preeminence, was his future after all. 

Just imagining the thought of deploying hundreds, thousands, no hundreds of thousands of swords was something that brightened up Yanqing's mood every time he thought of it.

There was a slight problem that occurred during this period of time, which was the fact that his [System] was gradually fading, every time he called out [Status] the light would become duller and duller. 

It wouldn't even display his stats other than his health, his talents, and skills. Everything else was just being removed as if it was optimizing itself. It was quite saddening as it was one of the few things that stayed with him across his entire journey so far.

He also wondered where he was when he got transported to this world as well, what was the [Punishment Zone]? How did he get there in the first place?

Anyways, he also began having some weird dreams. For example, a blonde man with greenish eyes started appearing. Though, his eyes looked quite soulless. It was honestly quite sad. A giant yellow tree also appeared in his dream too–

…

Yanqing had discovered a horrible truth as he slowly realized that he was still not aging. As a Xianzhou native, one would stop aging after reaching their prime around the age of 50 and signs would appear around their twenties. 

Yet, he looked the exact same… Although he was not complaining about his own appearance he was more so worried about the fact that he would not be able to physically exert all his strength. 

The adult body had more muscles and therefore strength. Not to mention the other advantages, the fact that one's reach would grow longer, longer legs for easier sprinting and jumping, and so much more. 

He hoped that this would not be an issue while he cultivated. [Masked] could only imitate someone else's image meaning that his true height was still there. 

He had to locate a body transformation technique now. Which was going to be a pain since these techniques were incredibly rare. 

Ever since Yanqing had settled into the cave he had only gone out to get some food or look around for news, which was absolutely non-existent. He was really starting to wonder if people even had friends in this world. 

He would sometimes talk to the Xin family cultivators, but none of them would not say answers that were more than a couple of words. He tried countless times, but it seemed that no one would open up. 

It was getting a bit lonely, even with [Aurora] as his sword could not speak. 

Thankfully he was not old enough to experience genuine dementia or Mara yet. 

These days continued onwards as he kept up his studying of formations and sword arts. Cultivation was temporarily put to the side as he reached a critical point in formations. 

His mind was slowly adapting to the language and poems that the formations spoke of, and he was also fearing that his own language would become archaic as well. 

He could only imagine how complicating and annoying it would be for outsiders to hear formation masters or refining masters speak. It would just be filled with countless jargons and terms one would not know. 

There were even terms for unknown areas as well, which made communication even more painful. 

But soon, he would reach the next level of formations. He was becoming a true master of formations in his own right. Well… it would still take several more years, but he was getting close!