The day when he completed his training regime of six months and was finally allowed to leave the valley had arrived. Both of his sisters and his master Zhu would accompany him to the formation hall where he would take the level three trial. His sisters would also take a trial, but the level two trial.
Jiang Mang formation capabilities had grown to be peak level three. He had mastered all the types of singular core formations at level two while he had also created a thousand dual-core formations with distinctive uses at level two. His level three capabilities were of the same height as his level two ones. He had mastered all the singular core types, created three thousand dual-core formations, and one thousand triple-core formations.
He also started specializing himself in a certain direction, aside from learning all the basics. His specialization revolved around the duality concept using life and death diagrams as support and using illusion, charm, puppets, swords, sounds, beast, and poison diagrams as the core.
He had created a unique level three formation that used nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine diagrams through his specialization. This formation was a trapping formation that used life and death diagrams and the duality concept as support with the illusion, charm, and sound diagrams at the core. This formation created an illusion realm using the illusion diagrams and used the sound diagrams to use sound to carry streams of charm attacks that focused on making the target believe they live inside the illusion. The illusion realm represented a mortal kingdom, and every time the target's life in the illusion ended they would reïncarnate and live another life. This formation was modeled after his reincarnation realm illusion and was just as potent as the charm diagrams would fuse every experience from the illusion into the person's soul.
He named the formation as minor samsara formation due to it only being a level three formation. His master had praised this formation to be a pinnacle level three formation capable of rivaling level four formations. An unfortunate point was that the formation was incredibly complicated to engrave, and it required him an entire hour and a quarter of his soul's strength to create a formation plate. Setting the formation up required ninety-nine formation flags and three hours, while it drained half of his soul's strength and the formation was capable of covering a one hundred meter radius.
Jiang Mang and his two sisters were heading towards the cabin where elder Zhu was waiting. When they arrived, the elder asked if they were ready to which they nodded. They swiftly arrived at the formation hall, where they administered themselves for the trial. The two sisters would take the level two trial before Jiang Mang took the level three trial.
The level two trial exists out of ten formations, which have to be broken within the hour. These ten formations are all peak level two dual-core defensive type formation. Jiang Mang had broken the record during the previous visit and was awarded four thousand merits.
The two girls hadn't bought any formation blueprints from the hall when they studied level two formations but used the ones created by Jiang Mang, who gave them to his sisters with pleasure. His master Zhu also allowed it as they were his creations.
Lu Chang was the first to take the trial. The first formation, she encountered used the trinity concept of its support and core. She laid out a peak offensive formation that used the puppet and life diagram as its core and the duality concept of water and fire as support. She had created this offensive formation, which formed beast figures of water and fire that acted like actual beasts to attack.
She broke the first formation within three minutes. She managed to break another eight while only half an hour had passed when she faced the strongest formation until now. This formation was a creation of a formation grandmaster that used the unity concept of the water element as support combined with the soft and yin diagram as the core. This defensive formation absorbed and dispersed any attack against it and could only be broken by a power equal to the high saint stage.
Jiang Mang had broken this formation using a brute force method by laying out two formations with the provided formation flags, which numbered thirty. She, however, needed at least twenty to layout a level two formation.
She eventually decided to lay the most powerful offensive formation she and Zi Bai had created. This formation used the five elements to form the trinity concept as support while using the puppet diagram as its core. They had also included illusion diagrams, charm diagrams, and life diagrams that acted as a bridge between the five elements and the puppet diagrams at the core.
Normally bridges between the support and the core aren't needed as they form a whole through extended lines when engraved. Bridges are commonly used in level five formations and above.
The sisters had, however, strayed from the common path and experimented with it due to their limited focus on only nine foundation formation diagrams.
The bridges that exist out of these three diagrams allow the puppet diagram at the core to possess some of their abilities. It makes the formation form five massive giants that exist out of the five elements and is capable of an attack equal to the high saint stage when attacking the same point.
She managed to clear the trial within three-quarter hours. Zi Bai finished the trial in the same amount of time. It was now Jiang Mang's turn to take the level three trial. This trial is different than the other two as it doesn't require the users to break formations. The level three trial requires the challenger to lay a level three formation within an hour, which can defeat a peak saint stage puppet within ten minutes. A normal level three formation is only equal to high-rank saint beasts, which immediately shows the difficulty of the trial.
Jiang Mang was well prepared and used the ninety-nine provided formation flags to layout a cyclic offensive formation. It was a peak level three formation that existed out of 9999 diagrams. It used the trinity concept as support with the core consist of the sword, life, and death diagrams. It took him half an hour to lay the formation. When everything was alright, the puppet appeared inside the formation which activated. The formation immediately formed two swords. One was a life sword and the other a death sword. The two swords attacked the humanoid peak saint stage puppet. The swords attacked its punching fist and landed on the same point, which resulted in the puppet being instantly defeated. This formation was called minor life cycle formation by Jiang Mang and rivaled level four formations in explosive power.
There didn't exist a record for the level three trial, so he was awarded the regular three thousand merits. Grandpa Feng had also watched the trial and was impressed by Jiang Mang's formation. He promised Jiang Mang that the hall would buy this formation's formation plates for three hundred merits due to it being equally powerful as level four formation.
Jiang Mang was happy with this development. After all, he would be needing a lot of merits starting this year because he was interested in a technique from the Zither palace. It was, however, extremely expensive costing 100 000 merits due to it being a technique that could be cultivated from the saint realm to the emperor realm.
It was a qi song that consisted of two different music scores. The first had the name Child's birth while the second had the name Yama's call. The qi song had the set name mortal life.
When the first score is being performed a life will be saved. When the second score is being performed a death will be granted. This qi song embodies life and death and can only be used by those in the possession of life qi or death qi. These two qi types are extremely rare and Jiang Mang is the only one to be in its possession in the palace.
The great daos of life and death can be comprehended through this technique, but it can only be used on those weaker than the user.
Jiang Mang, the two girls, and elder Zhu returned to the valley and would celebrate this evening. Jiang Mang would also discuss his plans for the future as they, as his masters wouldn't be able to teach him much now as they had taught him all the fundamentals needed for his future cultivation. The future steps were his to take and comprehend to break through to the king realm.