Gaming Sword Magician

Chapter 169: Learning Formation!

After finishing his intense battle with the authority core, his three holidays were used up just like that and Whittaker will not able to participate or climb the Monster tower until the next Friday. Although he had wasted his three holidays in becoming one with the authority core, the benefits of being titled a ruler were much better. He felt satisfied just by thinking about them. 

Only a ruler can go instantly go and down the floors of the monster tower. However, there were two conditions. First, they must have reached and explored that floor. Secondly, they have to use the entrance to teleport to any floor they have visited. Moreover, every ruler possesses a cheat-like ability and can crush a normal contestant pretty easily.

'Furthermore, as a low-rank ruler, I don't need to climb the tower one floor at a time. I can directly enter floor-10 from floor-0. That's gonna save about ten days of my life. Now, I am just 21 floor away from earning the key to the palace treasure and have 7 weeks left!" Whittaker internally exclaimed in glee. Right after, he closed his eyes to try to utilize the authority in real life but no matter what he did, nothing happened. "It probably only works in the monster tower as stated in the records of monster tower otherwise it would have been cool to use gravity magic in real life!"

He was just trying to confirm whether he can use gravity in real life or not, and he was met with slight disappointment.

He then laid down on the bed. Exhausted and tired, he fell asleep on his bed without a care in the world.

Three days passed by. During the past three days, Whittaker has impressed his teacher so much that his teacher has no choice but to teach him about formation. Before Zachary was lecturing only about inscription to his students but when he learned that he can already create an intermediate-level talisman he considered giving him lectures about formation. Lest he be the reason behind the wastage of the young boy's potential. 

He needed to explain to the boy how formations were created and worked. After all, it would be a first time learning formation for his young student.

"The creation of formation depends solely upon its fundamentals. Without mastering the fundamentals of formation, one can never hope of creating a formation. There are three fundamentals of formation. The first step to become a formation master is being proficient as an inscriptionist master. The second is to memorize a lot of magical rune designs. The third and the most important is positioning the formation items in such a way that it will become an array once activated. In more simpler words, a barrier that will entrap your enemies inside."

"You, young friend, are proficient in the first two fundamentals of formation creation, and are just one last step away from becoming a formation master, and today, we will be talking about it!"

An old man wearing grey old clothes jovially began to explain the fundamentals of formation to a young snowy-haired boy.

Whittaker listened attentively and realized why not many show any interest in becoming a formation master. First of all, it's very hard to become a formation master as a person needs to be at least proficient in drawing inscriptions and have had memorized a lot of magical rune designs. Secondly, they also need to learn about positioning formation items to set up a formation. Lastly, they need to be extremely "Rich" to buy formation items.

"Positioning is a term formation master uses to define the various ways formation items can be placed on the ground, air, water, and other places to create a sync line between them." Elder Zachary began to explain the third fundamental of formations to Whittaker.

Just like that, three hours passed by. In the past three hours, he has explained a bunch of stuff to Whittaker. Such as why formation items were considered a necessity for formation masters although it was not really necessary.

Without formation items, it's very hard to create a formation. Formation items are used to reduce the calculation, inscribing, and setting time.

For example, formation items have a ready-made magical rune design inscribed on them which is hard to erase by anyone other than their owners. In a battle, Whittaker just need to inflate the formation items with mana or other energy, and bam, the sync lines will link the formation items and they will be activated to create a barrier or array which will encompass him or his enemies in a defensive or offensive formation, respectively.

But, If he manually create a formation in a battle, he will need to calculate, manually design magical rune design on the ground whilst fighting his enemy and hoping that the enemy is a person with -999 IQ and won't throw dirt over his magical rune design to disturb the flow of mana or cut the synclines which sync various magical rune designs to form a formation.

"Without the sync lines, a formation can not be created. Once the sync lines are formed, the formation items will create a formation. Once more than 50% of the sync lines are cut off then the formation will instantly become nulled, more specifically, the formation will be destroyed. Below 50%, and the formation will lose its strength. Do you get it?" He asked.

"Yes!" Whittaker nodded in reply. It was too easy to understand for him. "But I would still like to read some books on formation. Elder, are there books on formation in the library? If so, where are they placed?" 

One must never be too overconfident. That's why he wanted to research and study formation by himself too. Plus, Formation has gained his interest, and Whittaker was ready to invest his time in it.

"There are a bunch of them jumbled together in the library. You will probably have to ask Goguard for help to look for them." Elder Zachary replied. He was happy that his student wasn't a lazy type, and that his sacrifice wasn't gonna go down in a drain even after he dies.

For Whittaker, it was too easy to become a formation master. However, it wasn't easy for others to become one. He was lucky enough to have Zachary as his teacher and access to Zachary's palace library with tons of books on formation but the same can't be said for the others. Even though there exist some books on formations in the kingdom's libraries, the information on them was sparse. They only spoke of the first two fundamentals. As for the third one which explained how one could set up a formation and how one activated it there wasn't any information at all.

Just looking at the first two fundamentals and the amount needed to be invested to learn them would cause many to turn around from this profession. Lastly, everyone knows that they will have to become the student of a formation master if they want to learn about the third fundamental. That's the reason why there barely are any youngsters interested in becoming a formation master.

"From today on, I will be explaining to you about 1-star to 7-star formation all in the same lectures. It won't be a hard task to understand it since you have already understood everything about inscriptionist and memorized hundreds of magical rune designs of various grades." Elder Zachary said to Whittaker before the lecture ended.

"Okay. Elder, I will be heading to the library for some self-study. Please tell that to my elder sister, and tell her to take my lunch there. See ya tomorrow and take care of your health." Whittaker said his piece and went away, leaving the old man behind.

He was perplexed when he saw Elder Zachry's complex but wasn't too worried. As his teacher was an almighty figure in his heart, after all.

Sadly, the poor boy didn't know that the time his teacher had left to enjoy the pleasure of the mortal world was lessened. That too because Zachary tried to protect his information from being revealed to beings from another world.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Elder Zachary began to cough violently after Whittaker went away.

Fresh black blood dyed his clothes, and some of it trickled down the corner of his mouth. 

"My end is near," he said while calmly looking at the palm of his right hand. It was dyed in black blood and was trying to erode his skin but a mana shield coated it. 

During the war of the two kingdoms against  Abaddon and his minions called Abaddon shaman and savages, he was cursed very badly. The curse was no less than a poison that has been corroding his body ever since but he remained alive by using the treasured pen of the tenth King of Death and then connecting his life with the 10-star reality-management formation.

However, even these two weren't enough to keep him alive and his end was nigh.