Chapter 2005: Three-Dimensional Formation

Elder Zhen raised his brow when he heard this. He looked at the Yin Elder and said, “What do you mean? Little Hai is your disciple, that’s a given. Why are you afraid that I’ll rob you?”

The Yin Elder smiled and said, “Alright, remember what you just said. We brought Zhao Hai over to let you see something. Didn’t I get a copy of formations from you a few days ago? That was for Little Hai. He took responsibility for farming the land below Lower Earth Mountain. So he asked for formations so that he could build defenses. That’s why I asked you for formations.”

Elder Zhen nodded and said, “I heard about the lands below Lower Earth Mountain. Information about Little Hai taking the task has spread throughout the sect. That’s why I gave you the formations immediately. Did something go wrong? Although I wasn’t the one who arranged the formations on Lower Earth Mountain, I have serviced it several times before. If you want, I can help you repair the formation.”

The Yin Elder shook his head and said, “There’s no need. Little Hai already rebuilt resident complex 52 and arranged 3650 formations to protect it.”

As he was in the middle of nodding, Elder Zhen suddenly froze and said, “What? 3650 formations? In resident complex 52? That’s a very small space. How can you arrange so many formations? Because of resonance, sometimes two formations would get in conflict with each other. If it’s not done well, it would weaken the formations instead. You’re lucky that the first peak didn’t blow up.”

The Yin Elder gave a smile when he heard Elder Zhen. Then he said, “Old Zhen, just because you can’t do it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. We have seen the formation that Little Hai arranged. It works pretty well.”

Elder Zhen waved his hand to interrupt Elder Yin. Then he said, “What do you know about formations? These things aren’t a joke. If something goes wrong, you won’t even need your enemies to attack you, the formation will kill you itself!”

Seeing the look on Elder Zhen’s face, the Yin Elder couldn’t help but smile. He knew that Elder Zhen was sincerely worried. It was precisely because of how serious Elder Zhen was about formations that the Yin Elder said it.

The Yin Elder smiled and said, “Alright, Old Zhen. Wait until I’m finished. Little Hai made some modifications to the formation. Have you heard of a formation that could keep its functions even though half of its cores are destroyed? Little Hai’s formation can do that.”

“Impossible! How could a formation function once half of it is destroyed? I’m not a fool!”

“Why would I lie to you? It was because Little Hai told me that I brought him to you. I want him to tell you about this method. If you don’t want it, then that’s alright. We can just go back.”

Hearing the Yin Elder, Elder Zhen couldn’t help but look at Zhao Hai. Zhao Hai smiled faintly and then cupped his fist as he said, “This disciple has the blueprints to the formation in resident complex 52. Martial Uncle, please take a look.” After he said that, he took out a jade slip and handed it over to Elder Zhen.

Elder Zhen snatched the jade slip and immediately scanned it with his spiritual force. Then he stood there for a long time as his two eyes stared at the jade slip. His mouth was muttering incoherent words.

Seeing Elder Zhen, the Yin Elder smiled. He knew that the old formations master was shocked by what he was reading. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have shown this appearance.

The Yang Elder looked at Zhao Hai and said, “Little Hai, can you roughly estimate what kind of attacks your formation could defend against?”

Zhao Hai thought for a moment, then he shook his head and said, “I can’t make an accurate guess. I haven’t seen attacks from powerful experts of the True Spirit Realm. However, I have seen Senior Brother Lin make a move as well as Senior Brother Dao Shu and the others fight against beasts. If I base it on their attacks, then even 10 thousand of them would not be able to break through the formation. And this is only when the formation is on full defense. If the formation attacks as well, then not only would they fail to break through, they might even die.”

The expressions of the two elders couldn’t help but change. They knew Lin Ling’s strength. Among inner disciples, Lin Ling would be in the upper-middle level. He’s at the peak of the Fusion Stage and could become an Earth Monarch at any time. If 10 thousand of him couldn’t break through the formation on resident complex 52, then how strong was the formation?

“The kid isn’t lying. This formation can truly become this strong. Kid, tell me the truth, did you design this formation? No matter how I look at it, it looks like a scattered formation. It would be difficult to control them.” At this time, Elder Zhen recovered his senses and turned his head to Zhao Hai.

Elder Zhen could see that Zhao Hai’s formations had achieved a perfect union. He couldn’t see any point of conflict between the minor formations. Even if there were, it has been resolved by Zhao Hai. As long as he controlled the formation, he would be able to stop the attack of 10 thousand people.

Hearing Elder Zhen, Zhao Hai stared, then he smiled faintly. He knew that the elder must have not discovered the most important aspect of three-dimensional formations. After all, the elder has been arranging two-dimensional formations all his life. It would be hard for him to imagine a three-dimensional formation.

Zhao Hai opened his mouth and said, “Replying to Martial Uncle. Actually, my formations can form into a larger formation. However, the formation I used is arranged differently from other formations. Unlike the majority of formations, mine is arranged in a three-dimensional manner.”

As he was talking, Zhao Hai took back the jade slip he gave Elder Zhen. Then he injected the jade slip with his spiritual qi to produce a three-dimensional projection. The projection was the exact formation that Zhao Hai arranged under resident complex 52. The entire formation looked chaotic, but the connections between the lines made it into one coherent formation.

Zhao Hai pointed at the lines on the formation and said, “These places are the cores of the formations. There are a total of 81 cores. Some of these cores are placed low while the others are high. The lines in the middle connect them to each other. The reason for this design is because there are conflicts in these spots. But sometimes, conflicts aren’t bad. We can use external forces to balance these conflicts. When the time comes, we can release the energy caused by these conflicts to send a powerful attack…….” Zhao Hai continued to point at the formation and explained its processes. Elder Zhen stared at the formation in a daze, forgetting to speak.

He has never heard nor thought about three-dimensional formations before. This concept completely subverted his previous understandings with regards to formations. Although the idea was new to him, he can see that Zhao Hai has proven the existence of three-dimensional formations. Moreover, Zhao Hai has reached a deep level of research to the point where he was able to form a systematic concept of process.

Elder Zhen kept quiet as Zhao Hai explained. Once Zhao Hai was done, Elder Zhen stood up and then said, “Little Hai, come with me.” Then he walked out. Zhao Hai followed behind him while the Yin Yang Elders looked at each other and then followed.

Before long, the group arrived outside a laboratory. Elder Zhen opened the door of the lab and walked in. The three followed behind him. Upon entering, Zhao Hai as well as the Yin Yang Elders couldn’t help but stare. The laboratory was huge. It was about three to four hundred square meters. Inside were multiple formation flags, disks, and runes. There were also plenty of metal, wood, stones, and other resources. Zhao Hai believed that the items in this room could arrange thousands of formations without going out. 

After entering the laboratory, Elder Zhen pointed towards a set of formation runes and said, “Little Hai, show me how you arrange these runes into a three-dimensional formation.”

Zhao Hai nodded. Then he walked along the shelves in the laboratory and picked formation runes. Judging by the process Zhao Hai selects runes, the three elders knew that Zhao Hai was proficient in formations. This was because he didn’t hesitate at all in choosing which runes to choose. With a glance, he knew which runes he could use. After a while, he selected all the runes and took them to a table.

Under the gazes of the three elders, Zhao Hai assembled the formation. The formation was arranged in three dimensions. What surprised Elder Zhen was that the runes that Zhao Hai used for higher layers of the formation were floating in mid-air without any external aid.

Elder Zhen looked carefully at the formation. He knew this information since it was a simple defensive formation known as the Five Elements Lock. This formation uses five elements in order to ward off enemy attacks. Naturally, the formations that Elder Zhen saw in the past were flat. However, Zhao Hai’s formation looked like a mountain range with five peaks.

Elder Zhen walked beside the formation and gave it a careful inspection. Then he stretched his hand and tapped one of the formation cores.

The formation absorbs the energy of the surroundings to power itself. Additionally, since the formation was small, the energy it absorbed was small as well. It only took Elder Zhen a bit of effort to destroy one of the formation cores.

The entire Five Elements Lock has 12 formation cores. Normally, once a formation core was destroyed, the formation would lose its function. However, Zhao Hai’s three-dimensional formation continued to operate despite having one of its formation cores destroyed.