Chapter 2277 Formation Prelims
Chapter 2277 Formation Prelims
Sam stayed in his room the whole night.
But there are no more attacks. However, Dove did pay him a visit.
"You almost destroyed a whole floor."
That's her opening line for the conversation.
"Can't help it. The opponent is a bit too powerful and I cannot let him drag the fight out. Or I would have been dead."
"I am glad you are safe. You might be the biggest variable that ever stirred up an Inter academy tournament. Even with my limited experience, I participated in these for over twelve times, I have never seen anyone that is as eventful as this one with all the hundred academies participating.
As if that is not enough, you are here and created such a large commotion on the first day itself.
I hope that you will be careful."
"Don't worry. I will. My actions might come off as reckless and might make me look like I am looking for death, but I do like living. I still have a lot of things to do before I die."
"That's good to know. And I hope that you can reach out to us when you need help. That is what I wanted to tell you. It is true that there is some tension between you and other students. The Gambler academy did suffer a bit and a lot of them blame you for it.
They do know, the academy would have done the same thing for them as well. Still, they are only people. They will come around in time. So, please don't hold it against them and don't stay isolated."
"Don't worry. I am fine and I am not really the shy type. I will keep your words in mind and reach out to you when needed."
"Good. Now rest well. I am hoping you would show us some great things in the formation prelims tomorrow."
"I will try my best."
That night the city was full of encounters and battles. However, Sam was left undisturbed. He managed to get some good rest while he worked on some designs and calculations for fun.
The next morning, he followed the gambler academy team to go to the formation event. On his way, Sam kept an eye on surroundings to see if anyone would attack. But he didn't see anything unusual. Most of the Gambler academy people are targeted across different grades.
But to his surprise, he wasn't targeted at all.
At least he could think so, until he reached the entrance of the academy.
As soon as he started climbing the stairs to enter the academy.
*SWOOSH*
A spear came streaking towards him. Sam turned to the side and it went past him. A few feet away, there stood Rashma, who caught the spear that came at her.
Sam look at his token and then at hers. Rashma's turned green while his stayed yellow.
It was clearly aimed at Sam and it was done at the last moment, maybe they thought Sam would be too lost in the nervousness of attending the formation contest. But he was attentive enough.
All in all, he could only say that whoever that made this move is an idiot. They should have at least tried more stealth, better strategy and better technique.
Rashma looked in the direction from which the attack came from.
The attacker didn't even hide properly. She leaped and disappeared into the buildings going after the attacker.
Sam felt a bit sad for whoever threw that spear.
"That guy is dead meat."
Crow said it out loud as they walked into the academy. Sam and the other formation competition participants moved to the testing area.
This is actually the same open air auditorium that they were at yesterday. They were all assigned a position and in front of each of them was a large stone table with multiple inscriptions. Sam placed his hand and used his observation ability.
What he got from the analysis made him a bit intrigued. The inscription has a pretty simple purpose. That is to erase the elemental nature of the stone. Basically, the earth element that is inherent to the stone table is now nullified. So, whatever formation that is created on that stone table will not be effected by that earth element.
Apart from that, there is also a large red circle on the table.
This is not connected to the inscription and it was just there.
Soon, three elders appeared on the stage on which Olaf stood the day before. Each of them wore different robes.
One is the standard Thor academy's ceremonial robes, the elders wear on special occasions, the other two belonged to Hel academy and Heimdall's academy.
The Thor academy's elder cleared his throat and explained.
"Hello my dear students.
Good morning to you all. Today the official competition for the best formation master of the second grade among all the academies will begin.
For this competition, we have a lot more people that previously anticipated because of the sudden change of rules. So, we are going to change the competition model a bit.
You have two preliminaries before we pick the top ten people who will reach the finals. The finals will be conducted in the Formation castle. The same castle in which the freshman formation competition was conducted.
Of course, the necessary requirements for the second grade have been made.
Anyway, the first preliminary is based on elemental harmony. Each one of you is assigned to a table. On that table, you need to create a formation. The scale of the formation has to be limited to that table.
The goal of the formation is pretty simple. The area of the stone table within the red circle has to be protected by the formation. The elders here will use the same attack on all your formations multiple times.
They will keep on attacking until the table breaks. The longer your table endures, the higher your score will be.
I hope everyone understood until now. After all, it is pretty straightforward."
The students nodded.
"Now, here comes the twist. The formation you have to make should project the concept of elemental harmony.
You should create the formation with at least three elements which coexist without any conflict between them. If your formation has less than three elements involved, you are automatically disqualified.
The more elements you use and more layers you use, the more points you will get. It is your choice what elements that you want to use and how you want to use them. But all the elements should have equal importance and equal role in the formation.
You are also disqualified if the formation collapses before you finish construction.
You only have once chance.
You can also use any materials that you can handle.
You can even request the materials and our academy will provide it to you. You have two hours to finish the formation.
And the time starts now."
As soon as the elder announced the start of the time, everyone hurriedly started taking out their simulation devices. These devices are very uncommon in the lower levels. Like the planets that only has Astral Plane cultivation as limit.
However, in these high level realms, there are some formation plates that could be used to simulate the formations using the spirit stones.
Sam looked at them with intriguing gazes.
They are all nervous, excited and anxious about the results. It seems like not a lot of them are confident about this.
However, all Sam had to do was close his eyes and think a bit. That too not to design something right now, rather to decide on what design he has to pick.
All the requirements that the elder has spoke, he has done these a million times before and the 'million' part is not even an overstatement. Every time he tries to create a new thing, invent some new formation, a device or anything new, he always experiments a lot.
These formations are also parts of those experiments.
Literally, any part within the machinery of the hub is a dozen times complicated than what the current task is.
The formations used in the bird puppets are behemoths when compared to this task and these things can only be considered as measly ants. He wondered what all these people are even doing without practicing such things when they are hoping to become experts in the art of formations.
Sam took out a liquid energy capsule and placed it at the center of the table. It has enough energy to sustain Sam's recovery needs by half.
After placing it in the middle, he closed his eyes and placed both of his hands on the stone table. Both of them are outside the circle.
The next moment, orbs of different elemental energies flew out of his hands and started circulating around the red circle with the energy capsule as the center. Every element that he could control is revolving there.
After that, the orbs started spilling up into smaller orbs as they all connected together with energy lines, creating a formation.
The orbs acted as energy nodes.
Finally, the nodes are then connected with the energy capsule which acted as both energy source and as the core of the formation.
That is all, the formation is done.
It has only been five minutes since the competition started and for two minutes, Sam was just looking at others.
Now, he didn't know what else to do.