"Break formation!" Daoist Snow shouted as she cast her spell.
Her speed in casting spells was far too fast; she completed it before the Detachment Wizards could finish their secret technique.
The "Break formation" spell is not very strong when cast from outside of a formation, but once cast from within, it can decimate the formation. Of course, there are ways to create formations that are resistant, but this formation wasn't one of them.
What are formations? There are a few ways to look at this. It can be said that formations are spells that constantly run without the need for full supervision by an outside operator. To answer the question of a formation, one must first understand what a spell is.
Mana is a form of energy that is controlled and belongs to an operator. One must manipulate mana into very specific abstract shapes to cast a spell. There must not be any deviation; if the caster fails to create the specific abstract spell shape, it will result in a casting failure.
To make it easier, cultivators invented spell symbols and runes, simplifying abstract spell shapes into visuals that are much easier to understand. However, these spell symbols and runes are only for lower-level cultivators. For high-level cultivators, using spell runes is inefficient because it increases casting duration and mana wastage during casting.
A formation is set up to manipulate mana in a way that produces desired spell shapes, but that is the simplest form of formation. Creating a simple 'fireball' formation is not too difficult; one only has to set up a formation that shapes the 'fireball' spell and seal the core parts of the formation to prevent it from being damaged. By injecting mana into the formation, one can easily cast endless fireballs.
The catch is that pure energy cannot be used to cast spells. Pure energy has nearly no sharpness, which makes it useless in casting spells. On the other hand, mana usually has quite good sharpness and can be used to cast spells.
There are many formations that use energy stones as their source of energy, but those never use pure energy as their fuel. They always have an internal mechanism of turning pure energy from energy stones into mana. That makes formations that operate with energy stones more complicated and harder to craft.
Creating a complete formation with its own independent energy source is only possible for those skilled in the way of formations. But in the grand scheme of things, even these types of formations are elementary.
The next step is formations that cast two or more spells. Doing so is much more difficult because one must ensure no conflict among the many different components. Only those who are proficient in the way of formations may do this.
The next level is to create formations that can draw energy directly from the environment and, in theory, can operate indefinitely. These formations are even more difficult because drawing energy directly from the air complicates things much more than one may expect.
First, the formation must have internal filters to ensure the intake is only pure energy. For example, if the formation takes in cold elements, it can completely freeze and destroy its core parts. Each formation that draws energy from the environment has many different, separate sub-formations inside it to ensure only pure energy without any elements can enter the core parts.
Another difficulty is purifying energy intake. If a formation receives impure energy for too long, it can cause damage in the long run. This is why only high-quality energy stones are used in fueling formations.
Another challenge is that formations that directly draw their energy from the environment must have 'mana battery' sub-formations built into them. Energy intake may not always be sufficient, so the formation has to store energy when there is excess and use it from its batteries when there is insufficient intake.
Then, there is the issue of compatibility of all components, smooth channeling of energy, size of the formations, defenses, and more. In all, formations that can cast more than one type of spell, have mana batteries, and draw energy from the environment can only be crafted easily by those with quasi-master attainment in the way of formations.
The next level involves much more complicated formations that can cast hundreds of spells simultaneously, even spell combinations and elemental spells, operate them intelligently with their artificial intelligence, and last for thousands or even millions of years. This level of formation is Usually only found in the headquarters of super forces; their complicity is beyond belief; it must be noted that any conflict within these supermassive formations can have devastating consequences; these formations run so smoothly that there won't be even the slightest damage or conflict even after billions of years. These can easily be built by those with master attainment in the way of formations, provided that they have enough resources.
It is also possible for quasi-masters to build supermassive formations, but they require years of research, many trials, and errors. Master attainment is enough to build supermassive formations based on intuition alone, but a quasi-master's intuition isn't enough.
The formation of the wizard headquarters was crafted by a quasi-master. It has excellent defense against the outside but lags in defense against internal attacks.
All that said, it's not as if it would easily break from the inside, either.
Even if a peak detachment wizard casts a 'formation break' spell from the inside, the formation would be able to resist for a few minutes.
If it was an attack from outside, not even ten perfection cultivators could have easily damaged it. But now, with 'Formation break' cast from the inside, the whole formation broke with a loud boom.
Unfortunately for the wizards, Daoist Snow was much stronger than peak detachment wizards.
The wizards, who had cast their secret spell, their trump card against the blood masters, didn't care about the formations; they didn't even think that there were even more 'blood masters' waiting outside.
Their secret spell was called 'Infinite Mirror Worlds'. Casting it would take a relatively long time, but it would be very powerful.
Joint spells are much harder to cast; they require the cooperation of many people. Usually, only very high-level beings with millions of years of experience can cast joint spells, but their power would be amazing once cast.
This is not to say that joint spells are stronger than the usual spell a peak perfection cultivator can cast; that is not possible at all. Peak perfections are the strongest below rank 10; they can cast anything that is not rank 10. But the advantage of a joint spell lies in its scale.
Cultivators, even very high-level ones, have limited brain capacity for casting complicated and grand spells. It would be impractical to waste a minute casting a single spell in battles. But when cast jointly, a spell that would take 60 seconds for one person can be cast in 1 second by 60 people.
Also, even Perfection realm cultivators have a limited brain capacity to operate complicated spells continuously, but it becomes much easier when done by many people. The reason joint spells are possible is not that they increase the power of the spell but that they allow much more complicated spells to be cast.
Among high-rank beings, the most important factor is not pure firepower; each rank 9 being can destroy the entire world, so firepower really doesn't matter. What does matter is the complexity.
The battle among rank 9 beings, whether detachment wizards or perfection cultivators, is about who can crack the other side's spell faster. Obviously, spells cast jointly are much harder to crack.
For example, the spell 'Infinite Mirror Worlds' was not beyond peak perfection; it was within the range of the perfection realm, yet it was extremely terrifying because it was difficult to crack.
...
Daoist Snow looked around; all she could see were her own reflections. Without hesitation, she cast 'Spell details.'
Information regarding 'infinite mirror worlds' entered her brain. The spell forms a mirror bubble around the target, reflecting back all attacks. It can be said to be more of a sealing spell than an invasive spell.
Those trapped inside have only one way out: discovering its weak points and then popping the bubble. However, it has very few weak points, which makes popping it very hard; what's more, one can not aimlessly attack all of it in hopes of hitting weak points by luck because each attack would be reflected back to the caster.
If she fought with the ten Wizards outside, she could have crushed all of them, but because of the spell, she was trapped; this shows how masterful the spell is.
The spell was terrifying, but Daoist Snow wasn't worried. It would indeed work against one person, but she wasn't just one person; she had already achieved her aim of breaking the formation; she only needed to wait. She and her allies even have a numerical advantage, let alone the fact that each perfection cultivator is much stronger than peak detachment wizards.
She knew she had allies, so she just stood in the middle and didn't do anything more.
She knew the details about the spell and knew that it couldn't manipulate time in the least bit. Sealing spells that can manipulate time are dangerous; for example, one second outside can be turned into a trillion years inside. If the spell could have manipulated time, then Daoist Snow couldn't just wait for her allies.
She had few methods against this specific spell; formation-breaking spells wouldn't work, and any damaging spell would be reflected back to her. Her only way was to sit down and find a flaw, but the spell was masterful, and it would take a long time to find flaws. What's worse, its internal shape is always changing, so the challenge is finding a flaw before its shape changes.
After a few minutes, someone from the outside popped the bubble, allowing Daoist Snow to walk out with a graceful smile.
...
Jack looked at the ten wizards, all on their knees on the ground.
When Jack and his grandpas arrived, the wizards directly surrendered. They had already done their best against Daoist Snow, and with 12 more as powerful as her appearing, they had no chance. So, as rational wizards, they surrendered.
The chairman, Wizard Sharping, said, "Wizard civilization surrenders! Please show mercy."
Detachment wizards are nearly impossible to kill, but they can be sealed. What's more, if they lose their soul and body, it would take a long, long time to recover.
Jack smiled, took out high-quality data crystals, and said, "Upload all your knowledge into these."