18: Chapter 18: Basic Military Formation Diagrams of Heaven, Earth, and Man!

Only three days remained until the federal practical examination.

Inside the campus of Tianwu First High School, a solemn and oppressive atmosphere permeated the air.

Gone were the usual laughter and cheers; the students walking along the white-stone tree-lined paths all wore hurried expressions, their brows carrying an undisguised sense of anxiety and fatigue.

It felt as though an invisible bowstring had been drawn tight in the air, ready to snap at any moment.

Lin Yunfei walked steadily across the playground.

From time to time, low conversations between chaebol scions and elite commoner students drifted into his ears, every word revolving around the impending cruel trial.

"Have you heard? The military hasn't requisitioned an ordinary ownerless plane this time, but rather a shattered world slightly contaminated by abyssal aura!"

"Abyssal contamination? That's a dead zone that will spawn berserk mutant beasts! If we can't even withstand the first wave of the beast tide, our divine kingdom's origin will shatter directly!"

"It's over. My Orcs only barely reached the mortal peak yesterday, how are we supposed to fight this..."

Lin Yunfei's expression remained unchanged, turning a deaf ear to these anxious discussions.

He walked straight into the special training classroom of Class 1, Senior Third Year.

At this moment, the classroom was packed to capacity.

Even Wang Han and Liu Ting, who usually liked to gather and celebrate together, were now sitting upright, their gazes fixed tightly on the podium ahead.

The pressure of the exam was fair to everyone.

Instructor Chen Zheng, draped in a federal-style robe, strode onto the holographic projection platform.

His gaze swept across the room, carrying a hint of a murderous aura.

"The exam is approaching, and you have all cultivated your dependents to their current bottlenecks. Today, I am not talking about resource allocation, only actual combat!"

Instructor Chen Zheng pressed his hands heavily onto the podium, his voice deep and powerful.

"Many new deities harbor a fatal misconception, thinking that as long as their individual dependents have strong combat power, they can sweep through everything in plane wars. How completely wrong!"

"In the abyss plane, what you will face is a massive horde of mutant monsters! Once you encounter abyss-contaminated beasts that master eerie magic or charge in organized groups, your scattered soldiers will simply be picked apart and destroyed without a whole corpse left!"

Instructor Chen Zheng pointed a finger and brought up a tragic war projection.

In the image, a group of Minotaurs with formidable individual strength, due to their chaotic charge, were slowly worn to death by a group of weak yet tightly-formed and well-coordinated undead skeletons, ultimately collapsing in pools of blood with miserable screams.

This bloody scene made all the students present hold their breath and feel a chill down their backs.

"If you want to successfully pass this cruel test, your dependents must master a military art that can tightly twist the originally scattered sand-like power into a rope: military formations!"

Instructor Chen Zheng changed the subject, his tone turning incomparably stern.

"However, do not think that throwing money at the starnet mall to buy those fancy high-tier formations can solve the problem!"

"Formations are by no means better the stronger they are! For example, the Tier 4 Nine Heavens Profound Fire Formation is indeed strong, but if you let your mediocre Tier 1 dependents set it up, the result will be their vital energy instantly drained by the formation, dying on the spot!"

"Only the formation that best fits the dependents' power system and suits their bodily structure is a good formation!"

Instructor Chen Zheng took a deep breath and threw out a theory that gave everyone a headache.

"The top-tier war fortresses in the sea of stars—their formations were never forcibly bestowed by the Creator. Rather, they were formations comprehended and created by the dependents themselves based on their own bloodline and laws during long years of slaughter!"

"This kind of military formation deduced by the dependents themselves can perfectly fit their breathing rhythm and muscle memory."

"Of course, this is extremely difficult, requiring wise men with super-high comprehension to be born among your dependents. But as long as you can take this step, the combat power of your divine kingdom will undergo a heaven-shaking qualitative change!"

The classroom was dead silent.

Let the dependents create formations themselves? This was simply a fantasy.

The dependents of the vast majority of people didn't even know how to read and were still lingering in the stage of drinking blood and eating raw meat; what would they use to create it?

Looking at the helpless students below, Instructor Chen Zheng suddenly smiled and threw out a blockbuster bomb.

"I know this is very hard, but under heavy rewards, brave men will surely appear. To stimulate your potential, the military and the school board have really spent a fortune this time!"

Instructor Chen Zheng stretched out a finger, his gaze burning bright.

"First, any student who performs excellently in this exam and successfully passes the test will directly receive a subsidy of one million faith points from the school. This money is equivalent to an interest-free loan, enough for you to squander recklessly for a long time!"

One million!

As soon as these three words came out, the breathing sounds in the classroom instantly became much heavier.

Even a chaebol scion like Wang Han couldn't help but turn red-eyed upon hearing this number.

A cash flow of one million was enough to buy a fragmentary miniature spiritual vein.

Instructor Chen Zheng continued: "Second, during this practical examination, the upper echelons of the major chaebol in Tianwu City and the officers of the Interstellar Expeditionary Army will observe the whole process on the holographic star-viewing platform."

"Every decision and every charge you make on the battlefield will be seen by them. The better your performance and the greater your displayed military potential, the more additional investment you can get! The chaebols' investment has no upper limit!"

"Finally, the top ten students in the exam rankings will also receive mysterious rewards issued by the military! It is said to be a rare treasure that can directly enhance the origin of the divine kingdom!"

"Whether you are a dragon or a worm depends on three days from now. Class dismissed!"

Instructor Chen Zheng strode out of the classroom.

But inside the classroom, it was already like a boiling pot of oil, and crazy ambition and fighting spirit burned in everyone's eyes.

Night fell.

Lin Yunfei returned to his old apartment, locked the door, and quietly sat cross-legged in front of the desk.

Instructor Chen Zheng's words during the day hit the nail on the head.

His divine kingdom currently possessed three thousand Tier 1 armored soldiers practicing the Primary Qi Gathering Art, and even top combatants of the late Tier 1 like Leader Yan Er.

Individual soldier quality and troop scale were already maxed out.

But if they really rushed into the abyss plane like a sheet of loose sand and faced unknown eerie traps, unnecessary casualties would definitely occur.

The human race was not easy to propagate, and every armored soldier was a treasure he had accumulated with massive resources and time; they must not be lost in vain.

"There must be a military formation to integrate the power of the three thousand people."

Lin Yunfei immediately opened the creation terminal and switched to the starnet trading mall.

As soon as he entered the [Formation Special Zone], rows of eye-catching red price tags came into view.

Because the exam was approaching, senior high school students across Tianwu City and even the entire federation were frantically sweeping up goods.

Strategic materials like formations that could instantly enhance legion combat power had been hyped to astronomical prices by those impatient chaebols, and most showed as sold out.

[Tier 2 · Raging Prairie Fire Formation: Price 200,000 Faith Points (Out of Stock)]

[Tier 2 · Freezing Ice Storm Formation: Price 250,000 Faith Points (Out of Stock)]

[Tier 3 · Lesser Heavenly Cycle Star Formation: Price 800,000 Faith Points!]

Looking at these outrageous prices, Lin Yunfei's expression remained calm.

Although he held ample funds in his hands and could afford these formations, he did not play the fool to be ripped off.

More importantly, he deeply agreed with Instructor Chen Zheng's view.

These high-tier formations seemed infinitely powerful, but they required strict elemental bloodlines to drive them.

For example, that [Raging Prairie Fire Formation], if his subordinate human race were to deploy it—since the human race cultivated the most basic Primary Qi Gathering Art, walking the path of pure physical and white true qi combination—once they forcibly operated the fire-type formation, the berserk fire elements would not only fail to harm the enemy, but would instead instantly burn the armored soldiers' own meridians.

Expensive elemental formations were very chicken-ribs to them; using them forcefully would only backfire.

"Instructor is right, the most suitable is the best. Since there is no ready-made suitable one, let them comprehend it themselves."

A flash of deep thought crossed the depths of Lin Yunfei's eyes!

Since the divine kingdom had already formed a perfect ecological closed-loop, it meant that the human race already possessed an extremely high capacity for autonomous evolution.

Lin Yunfei decisively closed the hyped-up high-tier zone.

He dragged the search criteria to the very bottom of the mall, patiently searching through those long-dusty, neglected low-tier piles of old papers.

Half an hour later.

Lin Yunfei's gaze locked onto a tattered ancient book emitting a faint yellow light.

[Basic Heaven, Earth, and Man Three Talents Military Formation Catalog]

[Tier: Ungraded (Enlightenment-grade reading material)]

[Characteristics: Records the oldest and most basic methods of changing the three-talents positions in the sea of stars. It has no elemental attribute bonuses and can only provide the most basic joint combat ideas.]

[Price: 300 Faith Points.]

In the eyes of modern deities, this formation book was completely useless trash.

Who would spend money to buy an enlightenment catalog that didn't even have a shred of elemental attack bonus?

But in Lin Yunfei's deduction, this was currently the most suitable formation for the wasteland human race.

Great skill is clumsy; returning to simplicity and truth.

It had no attribute restrictions; it was just the cleanest sheet of white paper, which could precisely allow the human race's pure white true qi to splash freely upon it, evolving into infinite possibilities!

"This is it."

Without any hesitation, Lin Yunfei gently tapped his fingertip.

[Transaction successful! Deducted 300 faith points.]