Alex roamed the city for a few more hours before returning back to the caravan. The woman in red let him enter without questioning anything and she herself stayed outside.
"Oh, Brother Yu Ming, you're back. How was the city? Was it good?" Ying Wu asked as soon as he returned.
"It was okay; it couldn't compare to the Cardinal City, however, "he said.
"I doubt any city can compare to the Cardinal City," Ying Wu said.
Alex spoke for a bit and went to his corner before taking out a talisman. He was about to read it when it was suddenly ripped away from his hands and fell into the hands of the woman in red.
She quickly checked the talisman and returned it back.
"What was that?" he thought, but the woman would never say anything. 'Does she still think I'm a criminal and will harm the people in this caravan?' he wondered.
He forgot about it and checked the formation information in his hand. He slowly read it all and finished in about 30 minutes.
He put down the talisman and thought, 'so that's how it is. No wonder I didn't understand so much of the information,' he thought.
As he knew, formations were made run using different patterns. One could make that pattern by carving into a specific metal plate, or through connections of Qi that were made using a metal rot with a specially made cloth as a transmitter for the Qi.
Every single pattern in a formation was made up of multiple straight lines forming a symmetrical shape. Each of the single straight lines was called a stroke.
Strokes were what made the formation. You could have a formation when the strokes reached a pattern that could do something when energy was put into it.
Even if the metal plate was wrong and the formation itself didn't work, as long as the pattern was something that could be used, one would know by its absorption of their Qi.
Formations were ranked in two different ways. One was a ranking based on strokes and another was a ranking based on the number of individual patterns that were joined to create a formation.
For strokes, any formation that had less than 5 strokes wasn't even considered a proper formation.
From 5 to 10 strokes, the formation was called a Common Formations or Base Formations
From 11 to 30 strokes, the formation was called a True Formations.
From 31 to 60 strokes, the formation was called a Saint Formations.
Above 60, the formation was likely called an Immortal formation, however, no one was sure of that as making that many strokes for a formation were night impossible.
Similarly, one could use different base formations to put together a formation that brought together two formations to do something entirely different.
With 2 or 3 base formations, the formation would become a True Formation as well, and with 4, 5, or 6 base formations, the formation would become a Saint formation.
Higher ranked formations weren't known to use more than 4 patterns base formations, which were just simple base patterns.
Alex already knew the pattern for 2 base formations on his own. One was the Fire formation that he used a create fire for the alchemy. The second one was the communication formation that he discovered along with the fire formation.
He didn't know what that one did however aside from just doing some… communication.
He took out another base formation that he had just bought and started studying it. He had the Qi and energy source for activation, he had the metal plate for carving, and the pattern was a simple one that he could remember with just a single glance.
He took out the inscription pen he had bought and started carving. The caravan still hadn't moved so it was prime time to try it. The woman in red appeared right next to him but didn't disturb him.
He slowly carved the formation on the metal plate with one stroke at a time. He made sure each stroke he made was straight and without any ragged edges.
That was quite hard to do when you were not really knowing of formations but he still tried. The inscription pen was truly amazing. Instead of cutting away metal, it felt like the tip was simply removing what was already cut.
The cutting was super smooth and he didn't make a single mistake, or at least it seemed so to him. He felt like he had followed the blueprint to perfection.
He blew on it softly to throw away any remaining metal dust that was on the plate and looked at it.
This base formation had 7 strokes that were placed in a weird formation. Since the formation was done, he took out a spirit stone and placed it at the base.
He slowly breathed in and out getting ready to activate it. At the same time, the woman in the red robes walked over to the opposite side blocking his view towards Ying Wu and her mother.
"You made a formation?" she asked.
"Yes," Alex said.
"I heard you were an Alchemist though, how are you making formations?" she asked.
"Oh, I'm just starting. This is my second formation only," Alex said.
The woman looked at him with a scrutinizing eye. Then she said, "give me the information about this formation."
Alex handed it, and she read it for a few seconds. "Alright, try it out. If it does anything other than what is written in this talisman, you will have to suffer punishment," she said.
Alex sighed and ignored her. He then pointed his fingers towards the metal plate. Slowly, Qi was released from his fingers which flew all the way to the formation.
It entered the carvings and slowly filled it up. Once every single nook and corner of the pattern was filled, the Qi penetrated through the metal plate and made contact with the spirit stone on the other side.
Right in front of his and the woman's eyes, the formation activated.
