The Dao of Formation and Spirit Array was truly profound. Even the knowledgeable Niu Chang found it difficult to learn from scratch, and without any manual but solely relying on the stories he had read enough.
It was like when you put Thing A in position A, and then Thing B in position B, suddenly you got the Heavenly Obliteration Formation! Does it make sense?
Yes, since it worked. But does it really make sense? 'No,' Niu Chang shook his head, feeling a headache.
'No matter how much I think about it, this dao seems utterly nonsensical among the countless other nonsensical things I've already deciphered. There are martial dao, alchemy dao, talisman dao, forging dao, beast taming dao, and more, but this Formation and Spirit Array Dao is beyond the limit of nonsense and has reached the realm of absurdity.'
He remembered a story where the main character focused on formation, and the author did a good job of explaining how formations work through the manual that the main character found by chance.
"The heavenly stem… Has twelve… The heavenly father…."
Niu Chang's memories about it were full of holes, but he remembered one thing clearly. It was when the main character started to teach his potential partner, who he naturally married a few hundred chapters later.
"MC, I don't understand how this works. You said two plus two is three, and then on another occasion, you said two plus two is six."
Niu Chang stopped his recollection at that point since he already got the idea.
'Basically, using logic and math would be impossible when learning the Dao of Formation and Spirit Array. I should just turn off my brain entirely or find a new approach.'
Then he began to ponder.
It didn't take too long since he only needed to check the ideas given by his second brain.
There he found it.
'When you put A in the first place and then B in the second place to achieve a chain reaction result. Isn't this basically like a card game?!!!'
'I put my monster card and activate it first to summon another monster card. Then this second monster card activates its first effect that allows me to pick one spell card from my deck. With that spell card, I summon another and stronger monster….'
Niu Chang could vaguely remember some character saying all those words in his mind.
He mentally imagined everything according to how card game mechanics work when he tried to implement formation and spirit arrays in this world. It works, albeit only in his head, but that's what he needed.
He just needed to point in a direction and let his second brain fill in the details later.
. . .
Niu Chang filled the place where he was standing with various formations that superimposed on each other to create a bigger and more powerful formation.
He didn't have a limit since with the system, he could personally support its energy consumption. Not only qi, but also vitality, and more.
The outer layer naturally had a defensive formation since what Niu Chang hoped for was someone stronger than the golden core level, which seemed non-existent in the information he has now.
The next layer was an auxiliary formation to support the defensive layer to make it sturdier.
As for offensive, trapping, and confusing formations, they were naturally at a deeper level. Because if the enemy was able to break his fortress-like formation, it showed his means were ineffective towards the other party.
So at the core, what he prepared was a world extermination class formation that, in theory, brought the same amount of destruction as when the sun exploded.
After he finished his preparation, he calmed down his mind for a moment simply by hitting the calm button.
'System, increase my Impossible Idea to the fourth level.'
He had already calculated how many levels there were in the Impossible Idea and at what level it became a new major realm.
According to his second brain, the Impossible Idea should have nine levels, with the first four levels equal to the qi refinement realm, the second four levels equal to the foundation establishment realm, and the last level, the ninth level, equal to the golden core.
[Increasing the level of Impossible Idea to level four requires 85,000 karma points. Do you wish to continue?]
Although he had already asked the next question, he just wanted the last confirmation. 'How about the fifth level?'
[Increasing the level of Impossible Idea to level five requires 385,000 karma points. Do you wish to continue?]
Seeing how the value of karma points increased tremendously, it gave assurance to Niu Chang's soul. 'This huge increment in karma points should be because it breaks through to the next major realm.'
'System, increase the Impossible Idea to the fourth level.'
'Confirm.'
After he gave the confirmation, Niu Chang could clearly feel how his body was disintegrating to find particles before finally reconstructing again and again three times.
It was magical since now he was able to retain his consciousness clearly.
He observed his body and the second brain recorded everything with great detail.
'The cultivation itself was simple and didn't require some heavenly material or earthly treasure. It is just pure destruction, but the problem comes after that; it is to perfectly recreate the body. I can do it with my Verdant Will, but I can't protect the soul as the destruction itself reached the level of existence.'
As his body now regulated with more strict control, he no longer turned into a noodle after the baptism of creation.
He checked various parts of his body and did some movements to gather more data. 'Just like the second brain predicted, each level increases my body strength by ten times. Since it was the fourth level, naturally my strength is equal to ten thousand men.'
The strength of ten thousand men, even Niu Chang didn't know how strong that would be.
But he could vaguely feel the ground beneath his feet feel too soft. His weight didn't increase and his overall appearance as well, but the sense of the outside world greatly changed.
If he wanted to move his hand at normal speed, it would easily break the sound barrier.
Beyond his expectations, he didn't turn into a freak that somehow resisted the world, since his body compressed the strength of ten thousand men, naturally there would be many problems biologically and physically.
But there were none, since this body cultivation technique already took care of all of it since it was a mix of various body cultivation techniques, so there was no apparent problem.
'If I reach level nine in the future, doesn't that mean my strength would be equivalent to ten powers of nine? One billion men compressed into a single person?'
Just imagining the numbers made his mind numb; if he reached that level, would he need to use fancy skills anymore?
With a stomp on the ground, the continent would be destroyed.
It would be an endless task to think about the future, so Niu Chang gave his second brain a new task. 'Go and adjust my mind with my new body.'
Since he had already perfected the Massacre skill, it would be a natural occurrence for him to control his newfound strength, but that was unconscious control. If he needed more precise control, he still needed his second brain to do the task.
While Niu Chang was cultivating his space of mind, he suddenly opened his eyes in shock. He opened the system and checked the log of the karmic bond.
There he found it, [Established karma with Da Jiu]
He frowned when looking at the name. 'What kind of name is this? Big nine?'
Naturally, he felt conflicted with such a ridiculous name because the feedback he received from Da Niu was on a different level than anyone he has formed a karmic bond with. Even much stronger than the Heavenly Demon.
Using the second brain to deduce Da Jiu's location, Niu Chang was able to make a mental map of the Southern Region according to Mo Qi's knowledge and frowned even more.
There he saw the map of the Southern Region and the dot that represented Da Jiu. The dot didn't stay still nor did it move in a linear path; instead, it blinked and the position would change.
'What is this? Teleportation?' Niu Chang couldn't help but ask in annoyance, even though he was still in progress to deduce the teleportation skill.
It was impossible for Da Niu to cheat the system's karmic connection; it was even more impossible for his second brain, which only contains a binary approach, to have any error.
'This is crazy,' Niu Chang shifted his face towards the direction of Da Niu. 'Thankfully, he didn't approach me directly; instead, he headed towards Shenyi City.'
It seemed like that, but considering Da Jiu's ability to do short teleportation, maybe he would have a means to track Niu Chang's trail.
After the second brain does a thorough scan of the feedback from Da Jiu, Niu Chang was finally able to see a virtual representation of Da Jiu's strength.
Basically, everything that he saw was beneath him. Da Jiu alone would still allow Niu Chang to have more qi and vitality than him, thanks to the nature of his system.
'The physical strength was much worse than mine, only reaching three digits. The amount of qi was much larger than any golden core, around five times more. The highest stat was his mental power, equal to two and a half times of mine before bonded with him.'
Since Niu Chang was unable to cultivate on his own, his soul level was very low, and so was his mental strength. But even so, with his various auxiliary skills and the second brain, he should be on top of every golden core in the continent.
So having someone with a higher mental capacity than him only means one thing.
'The next stage after the golden core should focus more on the soul, spirit, and mental aspects of cultivation.'