Death... and me

Rean didn't pay attention to any of that. He simply worked on his formation, thinking how good it would be if it was used in the Varen Tribe. In fact, he could see its use on a much larger scale like the cities. Of course, he had many problems while building it. The biggest one was Spiritual Energy. His plan was to work with the surrounding Spiritual Energy alone without the need for Spirit Stones.

'Hmm... it will have a limitation in places with scarce Spiritual Energy. Well, there's still a way around it. People just need to leave it working during the night, and it should finish its job by the start of the next day. Alright, I can't take too long thinking about it. Let's work with this plan in mind. There will be plenty of time to upgrade it when I start using Circuitry Formations.'

Qia went for a more specific type of formation, something she had been working on her own for a while. As a member of the Imperial Family and someone who visited the court before, she knew just how much information passes inside every day. Because of that, she had been working in a close-range multi teleport formation.

The idea was to use very small teleport formations linked to each other to pass documents around. It would use very little Spiritual Energy. Depending on the frequency of use, just the surrounding Spiritual Energy would be enough. After all, you were teleporting away nothing more than a few papers. The court already had a similar system, but she wanted to make it more energy-efficient.

It wasn't complete yet since she didn't get to save as much energy as she wanted, but it still worked for the purpose. Besides, it was practical and could be used in many other things as long as the formations were not more than a few hundred meters away from each other.

Milo was the type who liked big things, so he had been working on his own offensive-type formation.

Havek stayed still for almost three hours. Finally, he opened his eyes again and immediately ordered the assistant on his side.

"Bring me the cables used for the communication system. Also..."

Turin didn't give them a time limit. After all, formations could be both small and enormous. There were formations there that would need at least three or four days to be completed from what he could see.

Just like that, time passed in a flash. Rean's formation wasn't complicated, but it was something he had never attempted to build before. Because of that, he also took a long time to even come up with the initial base. It wasn't before the second day that he first tested it.

'Hmm... Not going as expected. However, at least I can tell where the problem is. The runes responsible for the Water Element do not receive the Spiritual Energy from the Energy Gathering Formation Runes. Sure enough, even though it is a simple system, making double-layered formations is anything but easy.'

Turin saw that quite a few formations seemed to have been completed by now. However, the participants working on them didn't stop as they continued to try and improve them. Turin didn't mind since there was no time limit. What the guild wanted was to see the best works.

By the fourth day, the first formations had finally been completed for real. Their Formation Masters couldn't think of any way to improve them anymore. In the end, there was only a satisfied expression on their faces. Of course, others weren't that happy. Because of the theme this time, some participants didn't know what to do. It's not like everyone had thought about their own original formations before.

At some point, half of the last 100 participants finally finished their formations. With that, Turin could finally announce.

"Everyone. Although there is no time limit, we can't stay here forever. As I can see, your decision-making is becoming slower as time passes. That's the side effect of having low cultivation and using Spiritual Energy to substitute sleeping. That being said, you will have three more days to finish your works. More than that, and I doubt anything meaningful would come out of your decisions. Be sure to finish everything before that."

Rean heard Turin's message and nodded.

'That's more than enough time. Well, they wouldn't give an impossible time limit anyway.'

Fortunately, Rean's cultivation allowed him and the other participants to ignore sleep. Still, he could feel his mind getting tired, just like Turin mentioned. Even his Light Element couldn't make up for his tired soul.

Qia finished her formation a day later. Milo did the same thing.

Rean finished his formation on the sixth day. Finally, Havek finished his one a day after Rean, just within the time limit.

During this time, Roan contacted him to see how things were going. After all, the last phase of the alchemist test only lasted one day. Roan left him alone after hearing the contents of the last Formation Master Test, though.

Seeing that time was up, Turin came forward and announced.

"Enough! If you haven't finished up till now, then I doubt you will anytime soon. Everyone, stay beside your formation while we go one by one, hearing your ideas. Of course, although it doesn't need to be perfect, your formation must be working. Otherwise, it won't even be judged."

Even though Rean, Qia, Milo, and many others finished their formations earlier than the time limit, they were still tired. They didn't dare go to sleep and leave their formations alone. As much as the Formations Guild was a safe place, who knows what could happen while they were out cold.

Havek was even worse since he worked until very close to the end. His hair was disheveled, while his expression didn't seem as confident as always. It was easy to see that this new formation he thought up on the spot took quite a toll on him.

Turin then came together with the other examiners beside the first formation. Saya quite liked this part of the test, so she came to watch it as well.

"Lani Turen, 67th position in the previous phase. Before telling us what it is about, does it work?"

And just like that, the judging began.