Chapter 202-1: Battle Formation System, Too Brutal (1) |
Sitting on the open ground beside the training field.
Li Zheng and the other Grind Kings players each held a bottle of potion, sipping in small gulps.
“Damn, this is so hard to drink. I do not even know how to describe the taste. It is like water steeped with stinky socks that have been sun-dried for three days.” Dirt Poor pinched his nose and spoke in a muffled voice.
“Dirt Poor, how do you know what socks sun-dried for three days taste like? Have you drunk it before?” Family-Sharing Stepdad frowned and gave a father’s incredulous look at Dirt Poor.
“How could I have drunk it? It is just a metaphor. Do you understand metaphor, you silly son?”
“If you have not drunk it, how can your metaphor be this vivid? I suspect you definitely drank it, and drank quite a lot, which is why it left such a deep impression.”
Amid the teasing and occasional gagging, they finally finished the potion in their hands.
After confirming they would undergo innate organ modification, they performed detailed preliminary physical examinations.
After that, the Rune Physician distributed the special potions in their hands.
The potion was meticulously blended by the Anti-Tide Legion’s Rune Physicians, fusing many rare materials and special energies. It was one of the keys to the success of the modification surgery.
The potion came in three types.
Energy Purification version: clears bodily impurities and unstable energies to provide a pure internal environment for the transplanted innate organs.
Bloodline Resonance version: allows the body to adapt in advance to the energy frequency of the transplanted organ, reducing rejection reactions.
Enhanced Bearing version: temporarily strengthens the toughness of bones, muscles, and nerves to ensure the body can withstand the energy load of the new organ.
Drinking the potion was to lay the foundation for their modifications, ensuring they could better adapt to the innate organs implanted in their bodies.
These days they could not participate in training projects and could only sit near the training field to watch.
At this moment, a 30-person team battle formation drill was underway on the training field.
“Each of you is the psionic hub of the battle formation. Link with each other to release boundless might. Form the array.”
With the sub-instructor’s barked order, a team of trainees quickly took their positions.
Like stars returning to their places, radiant light flared beneath their feet.
Each trainee served as a formation node, and the spirit patterns they released interlinked with one another.
Heavy earth-yellow energy surged from the preliminarily formed battle formation and spread across the ground to form an energy earthen platform.
Energy runes glimmered faintly, laying a solid foundation for the entire formation.
Every inch of the platform’s texture connected with the earth, causing the strength of the array to climb without cease.
Next, azure energy like a lively water dragon shot out of the formation.
Water flowed along the edge of the earthen platform and gradually formed a water-curtain barrier encircling the formation.
This water curtain was not only for defense. It was also a medium for the formation’s energy circulation. The energy released could protect the internal warriors and could also be used at any time to repair damage to the formation during battle.
Then wisps of breeze rose in the center of the formation, transforming into arcs of cyan light.
They spiraled rapidly around the earthen platform and water curtain. Cutting wind roared to life, its blades shearing the air and drawing the water curtain’s vapor into the gale to form rotating fog barriers.
The howl of wind and the murmur of water interwove, sounding the prelude to a war song.
At the formation’s eye, the squad captain sat cross-legged with eyes closed.
A spirit mark surfaced between his brows. His mental power turned into invisible threads that spread in all directions, precisely linking with the energy threads released by the other trainees.
These mental threads served as a communication bridge that helped the captain regulate the flow of energy throughout the formation.
As the coverage of the formation beneath their feet expanded, blazing flames spewed forth from it, converging into a gigantic flaming avian phantom. Flames churned around its body, and every wingbeat sent out spreading waves of scorching impact.
“Rise.”
The flaming bird phantom spread its wings. The formation lifted off from the ground, and the phantom’s energy body solidified in turn.
Once the battle formation was complete, all the warriors were a single whole, making it impossible to be picked off one by one.
This scene reminded Li Zheng of a very popular newbie playstyle on the forum.
Immortal Fusion Vajra build.
With one player as the control core, all the other players served as trait attachments.
But this playstyle was only for newbies.
The strongest growth system for players was star vein combinations. The Combine Mecha playstyle was far inferior to a player squad trained with the same resources.
Only in the early phase, when newbies had only one Inherited soul and no increase in body tempering level, could the Immortal Fusion Vajra widen a significant combat power gap against other player squads.
The battle formation was a similar combat power combination mode.
However, the increase in power was not simply the internal members’ combat values added together. There was a refined and complex logic behind the power boost.
The chief instructor Shiasura’s explanation could be simply understood as two points.
First was cyclic empowerment.
In Li Zheng’s eyes, the battle formation could be regarded as a precision-running machine. Each trainee serving as a node within the formation could be regarded as the parts required for the machine to run.
The energy they released was not a one-way consumption. It flowed cyclically among the nodes and empowered one another.
For example, the elemental flaming bird released by this squad before him.
It utilized the complementarity of five elemental energies.
The rapid flow of wind-type energy drove the diffusion of fire energy. The high temperature released during the burning of fire energy further stimulated the stability of earth energy. Once the earth energy stabilized, it in turn fed back stronger growth to wood energy. The exuberant vitality of wood energy provided more fluency for water energy, and water energy then moistened wind energy through smooth circulation, making it even more nimble.
In this elemental cycle, energy utilization rose greatly.
This energy complementarity setting reminded Li Zheng of the five elements mutually generating principle on Earth.
The heat of fire, the softness of water, the agility of wind, the heaviness of earth, and the lushness of wood formed a mutually generating cycle.
Elemental energy was strengthened through conversion among different attributes.
It snowballed, growing more and more, allowing the entire battle formation to maintain a constant supply of energy. The total energy released far exceeded a simple sum of the energies released by each trainee individually.
The second point was life reconstruction.
One could regard the battle formation as a brand new lifeform composed by multiple trainees.
Through combination, it achieved transcendence in life strength.
The complex formation spirit patterns served as the meridians within a lifeform and as the channels through which energy flowed.
Like rivers among mountains, they carried the surging circulation of power.
The trainees within the formation played the role of acupuncture points and could also be seen as the energy release points within the life structure, as well as relay stations during the flow of energy.
When the battle formation combined, the 30 trainees connected to each other and expanded the formation into a vast and complex energy circulation network.
The carrying capacity of this network surpassed the limits of individual meridians and tightly linked the power of the 30 trainees.
The captain at the formation’s eye served as the soul-brain of this new body and could also be regarded as the consciousness of the new life.
He controlled this new body fully to fight.
On these two foundations, the battle formation’s performance in actual combat was ever-changing.
Li Zheng had seen more than a dozen basic battle formations.
The flaming bird form was only one combat mode. Others included a Godlight Giant composed purely of energy, a hundred meters tall, its whole body radiating dazzling brilliance. Although its close combat was weak, its spell damage output was very strong.
There was also a colossus composed of trees, vines, and rocks, more than 30 meters tall, with vibrant green light swirling around it.
In battle, it could generate an enormous ancient tree above its head whose branches and leaves blotted out the sky. Its arms were woven of vines and could extend without limit.
Upon activation, it could swiftly generate an oasis nearby and release life particles that healed injuries.
There were also mountain-and-sea giant turtles formed from ocean elements and mountains, shaped with small peaks rising from the carapace and limbs entwined with waves, possessing powerful defensive capabilities, and so on.
Each battle formation form corresponded to a distinct set of abilities.
All that was needed was for the trainees serving as nodes within the formation to change positions and rearrange according to specific placements into a new formation to switch to an entirely new combat form.
Becoming proficient in the evolution of battle formations was not easy.
Energy release frequency, meaning synchrony and rhythm, unity of will, meaning emotion control and consciousness transfer, and positioning and movement, meaning evolution, among other factors, would all affect the stability of the battle formation.
Externally, the battle formation was a whole, but if internal discord appeared, it would collapse from the inside out.
This was a core knowledge of the war system that required all trainees to study for a lifetime.
Every trainee needed to master the basic, intermediate, advanced, and ultimate levels, totaling more than 500 combined battle formations.
In the brutal front-line war, battle formations often got broken by external forces, and there might be internal casualties during that time.
At such times, the remaining warriors needed to quickly integrate into a nearby battle formation and combine with another battle formation team to form a new formation.
The current stage of battle formation training connected with familiar dorm-mates as the target.
But once on the battlefield, warriors needed to have very detailed knowledge of all battle formations so they could integrate into other nearby formations at any time, become a node of that formation, and provide power support.