Death... and me

Without anyone paying attention to Rean anymore, he took his first step. In just a moment, he was already above another formation, a slaughter formation. The active formation immediately assaulted Rean when he stepped inside it. However, Rean didn't do anything as his steps continued forward.

The attacks then approached Rean in a flash and...disappeared! All the Divine Energy from the slaughter formation stopped flowing completely, making it impossible to sustain the attack. Rean already knew that. That's why he didn't even bother to stop walking.

On Rean's hands, hundreds of very tiny runes could be seen floating above it. There were all produced with the materials in the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm while Rean studied the previous formations. Around 70% of them were Circuitry Runes of several types, while the rest were normal Divine Energy Runes.

If one took a close look at the slaughter formation's Divine Energy Paths, he would see quite a few of these runes placed in specific areas. Those runes had completely sealed the paths of energy that fed the slaughter formation, not damaging it in the slightest.

Rean smiled as he passed by it, thinking to himself, 'This method is pretty much efficient for all those formations. Although the difficulty is increasing, the Formation Masters who set them up left many propositional flaws. After all, it would take very long to deactivate properly made formations of this level. The test itself could be said to test how good the Formation Masters are at spotting flaws in the formations.'

Rean then began to walk by a water protection formation as if the water wall didn't even exist. Once he reached the center of the formation, the water wall that was supposed to be holding him down blew up like a bubble. The formation wasn't damaged, though. It simply ran out of energy as well. 'However, once you get the gist of their thought process, you can more or less predict where these flaws can be found.'

No more than ten seconds had passed since Rean began to walk, and he was already over his third active formation...or so he thought. That's because this mini illusory formation stopped showing illusions the moment Rean put his feet inside. 'Of course, the main reason why I can deactivate them this fast isn't just understanding where the flaws are most likely located.'

Rean then stepped into the fourth formation. It was a haze concealing formation made for throwing off pursuers. It's just that it was extremely small for that purpose. It wasn't a problem, though. The test was all about deactivating them, so there was no need to care about the size of the formation, only about the time the participants would take to pass through them.

Too bad that no haze appeared at all. That's because the paths of Divine Energy were full of Circuitry Runes once again. 'The main reason for me to be able to deactivate them this fast is in my Circuitry Runes. When used together with common Divine Energy Runes, the restrictive effect is simply unmatched at the Silver-level.'

Rean then took another look ahead with a smile, muttering inwardly, 'I doubt even the Golden-level Formation Masters can beat the efficacy of my Circuitry Runes.'

At first, no one was paying attention to Rean. After all, he was far behind in the queue of formations. However, as he kept walking as if nothing was happening, the other participants around him began to take notice of his presence.

'Wasn't this guy all the way behind?'

'How come he got here already?'

'Could it be that he didn't deactivate the formations?'

Of course, once they paid attention to him, they immediately noticed that the active formations he was moving to were active...just to stop working altogether a second later. Naturally, those thoughts disappeared very fast.

'This...'

'How can he be this fast?'

'Hey, it looks more like the formations are deactivating on their own!'

Rean ignored the prying eyes as he kept moving forward. Every now and then, many of the runes floating on his hand would shoot out, entering the formations ahead. 'Hehe! If not because of these purposely made flaws, I would take a lot of time to deactivate these formations without damaging them. I have to say, they truly made a test where my Circuitry Runes are advantageous. I hope the others don't blame me later.'

At first, just a few participants paid attention to Rean during the time he passed by them. However, as time passed, the elders outside began to notice his presence as well.

"Isn't that human a little too fast?"

"That doesn't make sense."

"How come he wasn't as fast as that from the start?"

"Could it be that he was holding himself back?"

The Rumira Merchant Organization and the Formation Master Guild leaders noticed the commotion, which shifted their attention to Rean's location. Rean was still far behind their disciples, but he was truly passing by those formations way faster than their disciples did previously.

"Who is that guy?" Miame could not help but ask.

Zil shook his head in response. "I don't know? I don't recognize the emblem he's using either."

On the other hand, there was one group of elders who had been paying attention to Rean from the very start. Obviously, it was Kayla and company. "Why didn't he do that from the begging?"

"I think I was right," Cynthia mentioned. "Because the formations from his home were different, he didn't know how to deal with them. That's probably why Rean lost so much time in the first four hours. He was trying to understand our formations."

Wuxan, Jusis, and Tura, and the other nodded after that. They couldn't think of another reason.

Back in the Formation Master Guild and Rumira Merchant Organization's tables, their subordinates quickly arrived with more information. Well, they weren't the only ones. All the powers who had Golden-level Formation Masters participating in this test also looked into Rean's identity.

"Lukimira...Sect?" Sure enough, all of them were puzzled. "Does our Cosec City even have a sect with that name?" And once again, Lukimira Sect was reminded of how insignificant they were.