"Come on, come on and work already" Hayden almost begged as he worked. Another stroke of the brush yet once again failure. He'd check the lines, shapes and measured the width and everything was exact as he could make it.

Hayden shrugged and tossed his current attempt of replicating a piece of the treasure nurturing formation aside to join the other stack of failures. He'd be at this on and off for the past day and a half since they'd gotten Markus stabilized. It was an extremely close call and if Alchemist Tang hadn't acted when he did Hayden had no clue what would happen but it wouldn't be good.

Talking with Tang Markus's body was in a magical starvation state where his energy body was rapidly growing without anything to fuel it. Hayden hated that he had to pretend to be an expert as he desperately wished he could interrogate the man for everything he could about not just cultivation but this world in general. One thing Tang did mention off handedly was there's a difference between the energy reinforcing the body and the energy body. One powers the body's natural functions like muscles, organs and that sort of thing while the energy body was what let's a person preform the more magical feats.

Hayden admitted he might be misunderstanding something and it was almost guaranteed that he was but he felt like he was onto something here. In his mind thighs got split into two archetypes, the warriors and sorcerer respectively. The energy body was like mana pool in a video game allowing you to use abilities or cast spells while body cultivation was like a warriors build increasing physical stats and passive abilities. His analogue somewhat broke down as the two seemed to be interlinked in a way he did yet understand but it seemed to be a working theory so it was good enough for now.

His specialized program and relatively high level materials ment that his trainees warrior class was steadily improving while also being far stronger, faster and more durable than their sorcerer level would normally suggest. The foundational realm seemed to be measured by the energy body and the locals seemed to put a much greater focus on that. Hayden could somewhat understand why as with techniques you can throw around magic, manipulate whatever elements you've tempered yourself with to some degree and temporarily boost your body's abilities.

Compared to being able to run faster and being able to lift more Hayden completely agreed with the sentiment but there was a little problem. The only actual technique they had access to was a battle formation ment to link auras with those around you. Not only was it useless until they had enough energy power it but it couldn't be used in a duel like the foundational champion's tournament. It might be helpful for the Westbank tournament as it was a team based event but that's assuming they'd make it that far.

Without proper techniques or any idea how to actually train an energy body he was left training warriors and that ment more resources. They didn't have the foundational coins to buy anything and they'd already tricked,traded and gambled with every asset they had access to. This led Hayden to his quest of reproducing the formation.

Tang had pointed out the main component which was the energy gathering rune he'd painstakingly replicated. With this much experimentation he was sure that their was more to it than simply applying the rune. With a sigh Hayden stood from his desk and made his way over the the formation. He passed the few cultivators training with Pierre's team while the rest of the men yet to cultivate acted as judges, fetched water and helped in any way they could. One of the most interesting tasks was helping Calvin tend to the lighting aspected hens and collect the eggs.

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After a quick walk Hayden was once again inspecting the runes of the formation. They were glossy blue runes layed out on four metal plates placed around the frost orb. They faintly glowed but it was so soft Hayden wasn't really sure if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. "Why do you work" Hayden scratched his chin "if it wasn't the runes why bother with them".

"What do I actually know about formations" Hayden spoke slowly trying to figure out this puzzle. "It's supposed to gather energy from the air and focus it" he said recalling what the Blackrock auction house said when they'd purchased it. "That's not exactly what they'd said though" he shook his head "something about converting it to a water aspect". Hayden peered closely at the faint blue glow. "Wait if the frost orb naturally absorbs energy and this formation simply speeds it up" Hayden's eyes grew wide in realization.

After some pleading and negotiations with Tang Hayden returned to his office with a bottle of refined yokes in his hand. In hindsight it had been obvious but Hayden was too narrow-minded to see it. Just like cultivators the formations needed resources to draw out energy.

Hayden took a deep breath before he dipped his brush into the yoke extract and carefully drew out the rune. After ten or so minutes and two failures from minor mistakes a light glow started to form. Hayden stood up with a cheer marveling at the glowing parchment in front of him, this lasted for approximately two seconds before a tiny jolt of electricity released from the rune igniting the paper and releasing all the energy stored into the yoke used.

Lightning blasted outward causing a chain reaction to ignite the failures also sitting on the desk, Hayden was extremely lucky that he'd taken a step back to celebrate because his desk was smoldering while he was luck enough to only be launched through his cheep office door.

Dazed and confused Hayden was sure he was hallucinating as a chicken with spanking wings was sitting on his chest and silently dancing with flapping it's wings at Pierre. Yes he must be dreaming, Hayden let his head fall back down and passed out.

Pierre had been holding matches between his mercenaries and his employer's team all day. They were a bunch of real oddballs. The noble brat was still sleeping off his breakthrough their other heavy hitter was out playing bodyguard for the corporation rep so they were left with four on four. From the quick assessment yesterday they didn't seem like anything special, a little bit stronger and faster than they probably should be but that's nothing too strange. They were obviously groomed as support for the noble kid even following the same manual by the looks of things. No Pierre only noticed something wrong after the hours started to drag on.

The just didn't stop! Yeah his would win ten times in a row but then they'd fight an eleventh, twelfth and so on. Darnell was the first to go down being disarmed and slammed into the ground. He had to rely heavily on techniques as the matches progressed putting him into a downward spiral until complete exhaustion. One by one all his man and woman got taken out not because they weren't skilled enough or outclassed with techniques but simply because they got tired out. Pierre himself had to start taking it seriously with a four on one using techniques at times to gain breathing room.

He was pushed to the point he was considering using his gravity domain. He'd been reducing his weight for a while now to stay ahead this opponents but too think he'd be pushed so far. Whomever the noble brat was his family's manual was on a completely unheard-of level for a place like Blackrock port.

Before he had to unleash his trump card a loud clap came from as side room and that Pryor guy came hurdling out. Everyone stood in shock at the abrupt scene. Too make things stranger the alchemy birds they kept immediately flew over to eat the sparks that danced in the air. Pierre made his way over to render aid only to have the hens try and chase him away.

"This place is so strange" as he manipulated the birds weight tossing them away too check on the man.