"Where did you get all this, Erik?"
Ethan asked as he looked over each of the materials with a complicated expression. Erik smiled calmly and replied.
"Trade secret."
"…"
Ethan looked at Erik with a somewhat helpless expression, at which point Christine stepped forward and remarked with a smile.
"There are things it's better not to ask about, Ethan."
Ethan looked at Christine for a few seconds, then at Chen, who was calmly inspecting the items with apparently not a shred of curiosity about their origin. Though curiosity was eating at him, Ethan let out a heavy sigh and nodded, then spoke in a steadier voice.
"… You're right. It's not a good idea to try to pry into other people's secrets." Ethan gave a slight bow to Erik and continued in a serious tone.
"I'm sorry, Erik. I overstepped."
"Don't dwell on it. Let's just focus on deploying the formations." Erik said, his tone calm but firm, and the others quickly nodded.
"Then let's get to work." Chen said seriously, then picked up metal ingots, a flask of blood, a bone, and a couple of pieces of wood and handed them to Erik.
"Erik, help me refine these ingredients a bit while I take the measurements."
"Then I'll ask for help with the 'ink' as well."
Ethan quickly took more blood, some charcoal, a copper ingot, and some herbs and passed them to Erik while speaking in a serious tone. Erik nodded quietly as he took everything, and Christine chimed in in a sing-song voice.
"Disciple Erik, allow me to help. I'm not an alchemist, but as an artificer, I can be of use when it comes to refining materials."
"Thank you, Disciple Taylor." Erik nodded with a calm expression, then looked at Ethan and Chen as he took a notebook and a pencil from his storage pouch.
"I need the specifications for each thing."
…
Once he noted all the specifications Ethan and Chen gave him, Erik pulled a worn piece of chalk from his storage pouch along with a stone mortar, a wooden bowl, and two boards. After dividing the tasks with Christine, Erik split the worn chalk and gave half to the beautiful blue-haired girl along with a board, then got to work.
While Ethan conjured different runes in the air—dividing them into two groups, one he spread evenly throughout the area and the other he arranged neatly in front of him—Chen performed eight hand seals, then formed a square with his fingers in front of his right eye. As if his fingers were a window that let him see the invisible, Chen began to study the surroundings in detail while stepping in different directions to measure the terrain.
Meanwhile, Christine and Erik drew different runic-geometric refining circles on the boards and began refining various materials. Christine handled the Falamite ingots, which, after she refined them a bit in the refining circle, she struck with an ice hammer, then refined again—slowly changing their shape, turning it into a flat hexagon.
At the same time, Erik ground the charcoal and some of the flowers in the mortar, then used his machete to shave tiny filings from the true copper ingot. Once everything was ready, Erik began adding a little blood to the mortar while activating the refining circle, which caused all the materials to fuse into a kind of iridescent ink.
Quickly, Erik poured the ink into one of the wooden bowls to the side, then drew two new refining circles. Leaving a mana crystal on one of the circles, Erik set the bowl of ink on it, then placed a broad bone on the second refining circle. He then began carving it with his machetes into a hexagon similar to the one Christine was making.
…
"Erik, do you have the ink?"
Not long after, Ethan asked in a serious tone, with what looked like a fractal hexagon made up of a great many runes in front of him. Using a phantom hand, Erik delivered him the bowl with the iridescent ink, and Ethan quickly took from his belt what looked like a handmade brush.
With a focused expression, Ethan dipped the brush into the ink and began drawing runes on the ground, using the fractal hexagon as a reference—though the runes he drew looked simpler. At that moment, Chen, who had been sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them and looked at Erik.
Without saying a word, Erik sent over six different hexagons of wood, metal, and bone. Along with several mana crystals and several small vials of blood mixed with different proportions of plants, charcoal, and SARI, plus an improvised brush made from a branch and the hair of some magical creature.
"Thanks."
Chen thanked him in a serious tone, quickly took the brush, dipped it into one of the blood vials, and began drawing runes of the Zazen Discipline on one of the Falamite hexagons.
Erik watched with visible curiosity as Ethan and Chen used different magical systems to create the same thing: a "formation." Formations were artificial structures designed with different runes, materials, and patterns tied to the geographic location that allowed the surrounding Myst and mana to be manipulated in a stable, repeatable, and programmed way to achieve various goals.
In other words, formations were basically stationary spells many times more powerful than the mana user capable of deploying them. Essentially, they turned a "place" into a sort of extremely powerful "pseudo-magical artifact" with almost infinite applications. Setting aside the fact that they couldn't move, there was practically nothing a magical artifact could do that a formation couldn't replicate.
For that reason, formations were one of the most studied and developed disciplines in the galaxy, as they formed the cornerstone of territorial defense. For example, the shields that protected planets were "intelligent formations" that allowed passage only to those who met certain requirements and defended against any external attack.
As proof of the colossal power of a formation compared to that of an artifact, there was the case of the shield of the University planet. It was capable of withstanding the full onslaught of a Legend-level being and remaining intact as long as it had enough mana crystals to feed it—something practically no magical artifact could achieve.
To make the best use of such power, many formation specialists throughout history attempted to control and streamline the deployment of formations, which led to the birth of formation disks and formation flags.
Formation disks were extraordinarily complex artifacts that allowed formations to be deployed almost immediately. Their internal structure housed a wide variety of materials, formation runes, and wisdom runes that preconfigured the design. However, once activated, the formation remained fixed, and its power was less than that of one developed by traditional methods.
Formation flags, on the other hand, were created to improve the control and power. Each formation depended on different nodes interconnected through the Myst to function; those nodes were the system's weak point. The flags—magical artifacts designed to maximize efficiency—replaced those nodes.
Thanks to this, a formation that used flags reached at least 50% more power than an equivalent one without them and offered near-surgical control of its operation. Moreover, being specialized artifacts, they incorporated defensive mechanisms that made attacking the nodes exceedingly difficult, making the formation several times more resistant and robust.
…
(Maybe I should set aside some time to study formations in more detail…) Erik mused with a calm expression as he watched Ethan and Chen work, but he quickly shook his head and turned to look at Christine.
"Disciple Taylor, shall we complete our transaction while the formations are being deployed?"
"Sounds good to me." Christine nodded, then began explaining every aspect of the method for creating formation flags to Erik.
After a while, as Erik took notes with a focused expression, he suddenly stopped writing and turned toward Ethan and Chen, which caught Christine's attention. While Erik curiously analyzed the movement of the Myst in the area, Ethan placed a mana crystal at the center of the fractal hexagon of runes. He then tossed another six mana crystals a few meters out from the corners of the hexagon.
At the same time, the runes Ethan had conjured that were floating in front of him—a fractal hexagon several times more complex than the one drawn—moved to align with the one on the ground. The moment they aligned perfectly, Erik could feel the Myst beginning to organize in a structured way around several large runes that formed over the mana crystals at the corners of the hexagon.
Soon, a strange mist began to fill the area, completely covering Ethan's figure, then started to rise into the air, somehow forming a "hexagonal castle." Immediately after, all the mist vanished at once along with the runes, as if it had only been an illusion—but Ethan could no longer be seen anywhere, as if he had turned invisible.
Though through the Myst, Erik could tell Ethan hadn't moved from his spot—he simply couldn't see him anymore. After a few seconds, Ethan reappeared, walking toward them looking a bit tired. When he reached Erik and Christine, Ethan let himself drop to the ground, then looked at Chen and said in a weary voice.
"I'll let you do the honors."
Chen nodded with a serious expression, then placed around "Ethan's hexagon" the six hexagons of different materials that Erik and Christine had made, which were filled with runes of the Zazen Discipline. As he positioned each hexagon, Chen set a mana crystal on top of each one, and once they were all perfectly arranged, he began executing at least a dozen hand seals with both hands in rapid succession.
When he finished, Chen struck the ground with his hand, causing the six mana crystals to light up along with the runes on the hexagons beneath them, and the Myst began to move erratically. In Erik's perception, the Myst soon reordered itself into a hexagonal pattern interconnected by threads, at which point large amounts of mana began circulating throughout the array.
Over each of Chen's mana crystals, what looked like doors made of shadow took shape. They remained for a few seconds, then all shut at once and vanished.
With the disappearance of the doors, the entire area returned to normal, making it practically impossible to notice anything strange. Even for Erik, he could only feel that the Myst was moving unnaturally in the area, but little else.
"It's done. This should hide us from anyone below the Illuminated level." Chen looked at the group and said with a satisfied smile. Christine quickly stood and spoke in a soft, sing-song voice.
"Can I test it?"
"Of course." Chen answered calmly, then formed a hand sign and stepped backward, disappearing like a mirage.
Seeing Chen vanish, Christine quickly extended her Ethereal Projection to the maximum, creating a sphere of just over 50 meters of pure mana around herself, then took a step forward. But no matter how hard she searched the place, even while staying as alert as possible, Christine couldn't find a single trace of Chen. Erik couldn't find him either—whether through the Myst or with his Mystic Awareness.
"How was it?" Out of nowhere, Chen appeared like a mirage a few meters behind Christine's back, taking a step forward, and asked with a smile.
"… Impressive."
Startled, Christine quickly spun around, then spoke in a somewhat complex tone. Chen and Ethan laughed enthusiastically. At that moment, Erik put his notebook and pencil away in the storage pouch at his waist, then stood up and brushed off the dust with light pats as he commented,
"Although this is more of a temporary base than a proper one, it's more than enough for now. Let's regroup with the others—our three hours are almost up."
"Sounds good. This is pretty much the best we can build without formation flags. For a more stable and durable base, we'll definitely need the flags." Ethan said, looking at Chen, who nodded in agreement and added,
"With Erik's and Disciple Taylor's help, getting the flags isn't just a dream, so we'd better make the most of the time to gather the materials."
"Then let's go. Tomás should already have arrived with what we had stored at the base, and there are some quite interesting things there for creating formation flags."
Christine rejoined the others and spoke with a smile, so the other youths nodded and started running toward the stairs.
***
You can support me on patreon.com/lordanl and get up to 18 advanced chapters.