Cronix and the crow stayed like that for a few moments before Cronix pulled away, he still had work to do, so after he fed the crow, he went straight to his room.
He went through the memory of his time studying the formation at the mines, he also grabbed his book about formations and went through it.
After about an hour of this, he drew a formation not with mental energy, but with a pencil. He looked over the lines, and made sure they were structured correctly.
He traced over the lines with his finger, following the motion that the energy was supposed to take with his finger.
After he was sure of the trajectory was correct, he started drawing with mental energy, he did it over the already previous lines, making sure to follow them as perfectly as he could.
Originally, he could only do one line at a time and had to wait a few hours to do the second, but Cronix pushed himself, and went for a second line.
After the second line, he didn't push for a third, he knew his limits, pushing for a third line would only mess everything up.
Instead he took out some sheets of paper and practiced drawing the formation, he also continued reading the book.
While Cronix did finish it during his first read, he skimmed through certain parts, which may have resulted in things going wrong in the first place.
The second read was just as informative as the first, while he did find more information about structure, he also found another important thing he skimmed through, it was something called primary lines.
Primary lines were the base lines, these were the foundations of the formation, and were the lines that the energy travels through the most.
you would rather get a secondary line wrong than a primary line.
If you get a secondary line wrong there is still a chance for the formation to work, but if you get a primary line wrong the formation will no doubt explode.
Cronix went back to the energy sensing array page and checked its primary lines, out of the 15 lines only five of them were primary lines.
And according to the description, the primary lines have to be at least be an inch thick. Crap, I already made a mistake! My lines are only half an inch thick.
Out of the two lines he drew with mental energy, one of them was a primary line, and he always drew his lines half an inch thick.
Cronix sighed and destroyed the paper, it was useless now anyways. Cronix spent the rest of the day researching formations.
The following morning, Cronix had already created the most perfect sketch he could and after going through the book of formations a couple of times, he confirmed it.
Of course this wasn't perfectly perfect, or he wouldn't have to worry about a time limit, since perfect formations don't collapse on themselves, so he could reuse it forever.
But to create his most perfect formation all he needed now was the power to create it. He cycled his mental energy and thrust it into the first stroke. After that stroke he walked to the mines.
After a few hours in the mines, he took out the formation from his bag, and drew his second stroke. After he finished with the mine bringing home only two crystals, he did his third stroke of the day, and right before settling in for the night, he did his fourth stroke.
This loop continued, and by the end of the week the formation was completed, but Cronix didn't take it to the mines, he still wanted to do a couple of tests.
The energy sensing array was supposed to shine when close to an energy source, and it would get brighter the closer it was to the source, and if the energy had an attribute it would change colors to match that attribute.
Cronix activated the formation and like he expected, it didn't explode, while he did expect that, he couldn't help but be relieved, he then began his tests.
The first thing he did was start an hourglass as a timer. He then put a crystal near the formation, the formation shined brighter the closer the crystal got.
So it performs its most basic function correctly, but how far is its range?
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Cronix slowly backed away from the formation holding the crystal, the formation's light became duller and duller and when he was about a few feet away, the formation dulled completely.
Only five feet? That's a bit small. Does it react to different attributes?
Cronix gathered all the surrounding dark elements to his fingertips, creating a dark energy ball. The energy sensing array instantly turned completely black
That's pretty much all I can test, now I just need to wait for... Cronix didn't get to finish his thought before the formation exploded, this was the last thing he was testing: Time.
He checked the hourglass,
Only five minutes.
Cronix was mostly satisfied with the results, all he needed to do was get stronger and his formations would naturally improve with him.
At this point in time, he reached for another sheet of paper only to find out he ran out, but that wasn't all, when he checked how much magic crystals he had left, he frowned. There were less than 10.
A few months past, Cronix spent most of his time in the mine trying to recover all the magic crystals he spent, and the little free time he did have, he used up on his formations.
Over these past months, the amount of times he could use mental energy increased from four to seven, and the amount of cycles it took went down to three.
He also created more than 30 formations, most only lasting the average five minutes but occasionally there would be one that lasted eight minutes.
To tell these ones apart you would have to carefully check the primary lines, and see that their primary lines were a bit more refined than the other five minute formations.
Cronix made sure to give these formations a green mark.
Now the final test had to be completed before he was confident in selling them. He had to see how well the formations worked in actual action.
Cronix kept the formations inside his magic bag as he entered the mine and grabbed a pickaxe. He didn't want anyone to see his formations, or who knew what they might do.
In Cronix's mind, people in the mines were all like him and needed money. He wasn't confident to protect himself until he was at least in the five star Caster stage.
After entering the third level, he entered the eastern tunnel instead of the northern.
The eastern tunnel was a very secluded part of the mine, this was because this tunnel was known to be a dead vein since there were little to no magic crystals here anymore.
Cronix knew this was a perfect place to test his formations.
Before taking out any formations, Cronix first looked around and made sure there was no one around.
Once he was sure, he activated the formation, and to Cronix's surprise, the formation brightened up. This wasn't the activation type brightening up, but an energy source nearby type of brightness!
He got extremely lucky, and instantly found a crystal in the place that was known as dead to most miners!
Cronix gathered the magic elements to form a small ball of dark magic at his fingertips, he drilled a small hole revealing the crystal. With that small hole, he grabbed the pickaxe and dug out the remaining stone blocking the crystal.
Once it was fully revealed, he took out the magic crystal. In quality and size, the crystal wasn't much, but its meaning to Cronix went beyond those things.
This meant his formations had the power to be useful when locating more crystals. With this discovery, Cronix had no more reservations about selling his formations to trustworthy people.
This brought a small smile to Cronix's face. Digging out the crystal took the remaining time the formation had, that was fine for now, but if he wanted to maximize the use of the formations, he would have to find a way to extract crystals faster.
Cronix took out another formation and activated it, this time there was no change to the brightness, but that had to be expected, he was in a spot in the mine that was known as dead.
The formation ended up exploding before he found anything worthwhile, he most likely would've had a better time finding crystals if he moved to a different part of the mine, but his movements would've brought too much attention.
When Cronix went through five more formations, his hopes started to dwindle, but when he went through 10 formations, that's when he debated whether to give up or not.
But after he went through 15 formations, he had to give up, but how could Cronix allow himself to do that?
If we give up now, then all our previous efforts would've been wasted. Did we spent months working on these, just to let it all go to waste?
After a few minutes Cronix managed to convince himself to give him one more chance, and this time he didn't bring out any regular formation, but a formation with a green mark.
The first five minutes of time lasted like the other 15, and he found nothing, this was really all of Cronix's fault for choosing the eastern mine.
But when it hit the final three minute mark, Cronix's expression instantly changed into one of pure excitement.
The formation's light grew bright signaling that a crystal was nearby, but that wasn't what changed his expression so much. The formation's light also changed to an aqua blue color!
Although Dark magic was Cronix's main magic, among the Kerata Genus, dark magic was a type of special magic, like light magic is to humans.
It was special because very few of their kind had this magic element and the people who had these special types of magic, also had sub-elements, which meant they were talented in two areas of magic.
Of the other five elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Lightning. Water was Cronix's sub-element, so he couldn't help but be excited.
He moved towards the mine's wall but unexpectedly the light dimmed. Cronix frowned, he moved in another direction and the light again dimmed.
He moved in every direction but the light always dimmed. Cronix's frown deepened, but an idea suddenly came to him, he lowered the formation, but it dimmed again.
Cronix had a weird look on his face, and cursed under his breath, he raised the formation up and the light brightened.
This was honestly the worst place for a crystal to be in, if he breaks the roof that will no doubt draw attention, even in this secluded part of the mine.
Cronix didn't want anyone to find out about this crystal, and that wasn't only the other miners, but also the organization in charge of the place, the Magic Miners Company or the M.M.C.
Cronix closed his eyes, then opened them, his eye as bright as the formation. He didn't destroy the roof yet but focused on finding other magic crystals.