Chapter 174 - 151 Formation_1
“The Celestial Defense Array!”
“The Great Spirit Gathering Formation!”
“The Land Veins Array!”
“The Giant Stone Array!”
“The Six Phases Array!”
White River City is merely a minor marketplace with limited resources. Both the Chi and Lu families also didn’t have much savings. Although Xu Mu had piles of array manuals laid before him, truly advanced formations were few and far between.
The highest-tier among them was an incomplete tier five auxiliary array.
worldwide, arrays can be categorised into three types: attack arrays, defensive arrays, and auxiliary arrays.
Attack and defensive arrays don’t need to be mentioned. As for auxiliary arrays, it refers to the Spirit Gathering Formation, Alarm Array, Illusion Array, Mind Tempering Formation, Testing Formation, and so forth.
“I originally wanted to skip the low-tier formations and learn a few high-tier formations, it seems like it is impossible now!”
Xu Mu doesn’t need to study step by step thanks to having the system. He can improve any high-tier formation as long as he understands the basics and has enough Luck Value.
However, high-tier formations are even rarer than top-notch divine skills and secret techniques because only top-ranking powers can arrange and use large- scale high-tier arrays. Even if an ordinary person gets a cultivation lineage, it would be difficult for them to learn due to certain restrictions.
Array Masters are the rarest among all professions, and among these rare Array Masters, most of them can only manage small arrays.
In the region where the Liyang Sect resides, Array Masters, who can set up large arrays above tier four, can be counted on one hand, and what they set up are the most basic defensive and attack arrays.
Even so, it’s not easy to call upon them. Not only it costs a hefty price, but it also depends on whether they have time or not.
In the current state of restoration, many Foundation Establishment Families are waiting to set up a Great Array, hence the cost is even greater.
White River City, for now, can only manage small arrays to guard important areas.
If a marketplace wants to thrive, it’s indispensable to have a guardian Great Array. Otherwise, if safety cannot be guaranteed, who would want to come here?
When Xu Mu was in White River City, the population was close to twenty thousand. But according to Chi Feiyan’s count, there are no more than two or three thousand now, only a tenth of what it was.
This shows how much White River City has declined.
Of course, most regions belonging to the Clear River Sword Sect are in a similar state. The Demon Gate’s initial blow was too heavy.
This is an objective condition that Xu Mu cannot change. What he can change is to set up a defensive Great Array first and gain an advantage in future development.
Had he not activated the family’s Luck, he wouldn’t have bothered to manage the future development of the marketplace. If it doesn’t work, he can just move to the city.
But now, this place is his foundation. He must plan thoughtfully.
Xu Mu picked out all similar arrays one by one to level up. The purpose of doing this was to merge them into a high-tier array.
After integrating nearly thirty arrays, Xu Mu finally got an array called “Five Elements Illusion Thunder Formation”, a name that he came up with himself.
This array mainly forms illusions but also has some defensive function.
This is a formation that Xu Mu deliberately integrated together.
Being ‘deliberate’ means intentionally selecting the arrays that fit one’s mind during the selection process, and then merging them together causing the arrays to naturally lean towards his desired formation.
The reason why he chose illusion array as the guardian Great Array wasn’t because of Xu Mu’s meticulous planning, but merely because he has a treasure handy, suitable for the key position in inspiring illusion arrays.
The Demon Core from the Illusion Thunder Silver Shark!
The power of a formation, apart from its own grade and the person who manages it, also has to do with the materials used for setting it up, especially the key position.
If the treasure used for the key position is of high-grade, it can increase the power of the formation by several levels.
Actually, Xu Mu preferred to use the magical tool, ‘Red Embroidered Ball’, for the formation. It offers both offense and defense, unlike the current Great Array, which can only be used for passive defense. As long as no one enters the range of the formation, you can’t do anything to them.
But the Red Embroidered Ball needs to be soaked in Spiritual Liquid and can’t be used for the time being.
Xu Mu has obtained the formula for the Spiritual Liquid from Lu Jingkong, and he has instructed Chi Feiyan to buy materials when she is out.
Although the materials needed for the Spiritual Liquid are precious, they are rather obscure and not many people need them, it should be no problem purchasing them.
If he could wash away the marks on the two magical tools and then refine them, his strength could be further improved.
He would have a land whale’s bloodline for attack, a purple cloud kerchief for defense, a red-embroidered ball for control, and the Flame Thunder Wings for speed. In other words, there wouldn’t be any weakness.
Xu Mu now has five to six hundred Luck Value coming in every day, coupled with his initial accumulation and the system rewards, he could be deemed wealthy, so he decided to directly upgrade the Five Elements Illusion Thunder Formation to the Transcendent realm.
The formation reaching the transcendent realm cannot be compared with martial methods and divine skills. The increase in power is very limited. The main part of the enhancement lies in its “arrangement”.
For instance, if arranging a formation originally required the expenditure of one hundred Spirit Stones and took a year, once this formation is upgraded to the transcendent level, it would only require a few Spirit Stones and a few days to complete. The difficulty is reduced by a factor of tens or even hundreds.
Initially, Xu Mu was concerned about the lack of materials for setting up the formation. After all, it’s a tier five formation. Even if the most precious key position is taken care of, the rest of the materials for setting the formation are not cheap.
But he found that the low-grade materials in the family’s treasury were somewhat enough if scraped together.
Undeniably, it’s good to reach a high realm.
No wonder there are legends about some Array Masters who could set up peerless great formations only using a few stones.
Xu Mu even felt that if he only cultivated the way of the formation, his strength might increase more quickly.
Because the formation’s setup has extremely low cultivation requirements, even a Qi Cultivation Stage practitioner can set up a tier nine or tier ten array. Although the setup time might be a little longer, once the formation is complete, even a Nascent Soul Stage practitioner can’t deal with him.
Of course, this is just an illusion because Qi Cultivation Stage practitioners can’t afford the materials needed to set up tier nine or tier ten arrays. Even if the level of difficulty decreases by a hundred times, they would still struggle to collect the materials.
As Xu Mu was preparing to make the foundation stones and set up the defensive Great Array for the marketplace, an unexpected incident occurred.
“What happened?”
When Xu Mu checked the system, he found that the family’s Luck Value had suddenly dropped by over fifty points, and he could now only increase by three hundred and twenty-one Luck Value points per day.
In fact, the Luck Value had been stable for the past few days and had been slowly falling, but the amount was so small that Xu Mu didn’t pay much attention to it. The family had just been cleaned up, the population had sharply decreased, and people’s minds were restless. A drop was normal. As long as the array was set up, he believes that it can quickly rise back up again.
However, when it suddenly dropped by fifty or sixty points, it was definitely not a minor issue.
He released his divine intent to investigate.
After a long while, he retracted his divine intent and muttered to himself, “It seems like I have to step in to straighten things out.”