Lao ended the class after giving everyone a pass since he screwed up. He asked John to stay behind.

"You wouldn't mind me testing your ability to recall built in functions?"

John didn't think he needed to hide his 'talent' in formations.

"Go ahead."

"What does slice do to an array?"

In John's sea of consciousness he was saw millions of lines of logic rotate around him like a tornado. He then saw the slice function and it unraveled and went from unintelligent nonsense into understandable logic.

This takes some time to describe, but it happened in an instant.

"It creates a new array from the selected portion."

"Give me an example..."

John went to the board and began to write out a function.

var test = ["Example 1","Example 2","Example 3","Example 4"];

var splitTest = test.slice(0, 3);

John then spoke:

"This will make splitTest be a new array that equals:"

SplitTest = ["Example 1", "Example 2", "Example 3"];

The teacher then spoke.

"I never taught you about slice. Where did you get this information from?"

"I got it from the runic library..."

The teacher was wondering if it was just a fluke. So he did more test.

"Tell me, what does sort do to an array?"

John repeated the process of looking into the millions of lines of logic. He didn't even wait for it to become readable before he had an answer in an instant.

"It just sorts the array in order of the 52 value runes."

"Give me an example."

var test =["C", "B", "A"];

test.sort();

The output will be test changing into:

test = ["A", "B", "C"];

The teacher was starting to think this wasn't a fluke.

"Alright. Tell me what does splice do?"

John gave an answer right away.

"It just adds more data to the array."

"Example?"

John sighed.

"The first value is the index, it is where you will be adding the value..."

John continued to write out examples as the teacher continued to ask questions.

After eight hours of constantly explaining built in functions. The teacher sighed.

"You're not some reincarnation of a formation grandmaster right?"

"I'm definitely not..."

"I don't believe you! Your ability to understand the runic library is insane. Can you explain how you do it?"

John just described how his mental body is in the middle of a tornado made from the runic library.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The teacher just became confused at the explanation.

"You're not a genius! You're a goddamn monster..."

"Let me talk with my teacher. You... are you interested in becoming a formation master for the sect? The pay is 1000 low grade spiritual stones a year. You can replace me and teach this class. I'll have the spirit stones submitted for this year transferred to you."

John couldn't help but think this was too soon.

"I still basically know nothing about formations though..."

"Bullshit! You know everything there is to know... hmm. Let me do a few more test."

"Tell me about the function of a component!"

The tornado rotated in John's mind looking for the keyword. He found information on the component, but it was just relating to artifacts.

"It has something to do with artifacts?"

"...Ha! I finally found your weakness!"

"..."

"Sorry. You must remember, formations are only really good at calculations. It takes a formation master and an artificer working together to accomplish the impossible."

"For example. We're currently working on building a shield to protect the sect. The identification system is handled by a formation master. But the actual device that generates the shield is made by an artificer. We call these devices components."

John and the teacher spent the next ten hours discussing the parts of formations John was clueless about.

At the end of things the teacher told John he would likely become a formations grandmaster in a few years!

"With your ability, it may not be impossible to become a formation cracker."

"Cracker?"

"Someone that specializes in getting around the encryption of signatures on a formation. They are able to calculate the program through the alignment of the runes! It takes an insane amount of processing power and not just anyone can do it. We have one formation cracker in the entire sect and he is a heavily guarded resource. Formation crackers are extremely dangerous!"

"But even with your ability. It may be too soon to think about this. How about this. I'll retire as a teacher starting today. You take over the class. Just sprinkle some of your knowledge everyday with everyone. "

The teacher rushed out the classroom.

John couldn't help but say:

"I never agreed to become a teacher!"

All he heard was an evil laugh from the teacher as he rushed away.

The next day everyone was in class and John walked in.

He went up to the front of the classroom, and wrote his name on the board.

'John Destinatus'.

At this point the students were looking at him weirdly.

He coughed.

"Starting today. I will be replacing Lao."

Everyone was shocked.

Chen Zhao smiled and gave a thumbs up.

A person spoke out:

"Dude... you were literally a student just yesterday..."

John spoke:

"If you don't like it, you can leave at any time. But remember, I will not be refunding your spiritual stones."

Everyone soon accepted that this was their reality.

Lao showed up randomly in the middle of the lesson and sat down like a student.

The students couldn't help but whisper among themselves until someone asked him:

"Why are you acting like a student?"

"I'm enjoying my retirement... by brushing up on my built in functions!"

Lao laughed and signaled John to keep teaching.

John felt that this whole situation was awkward.

John continued teaching everyday for the next year. When he wasn't teaching he was condensing his forbidden dao pillar. After a year, he had 3.4 million lines of code inscribed into it. He also had part of his signature formed overlapping it.

By teaching, he had to search for topics and prepare lesson plans. He learned more from this, then he would have as a student!

He had also befriended the ex-teacher and often had discussions on formations with him.

John didn't forget about his plan to bring magic to this world. But after seeing the endless hole that was formations. He realized that the 'magic circles' he knew was far more fantastical.

He might bite off more then he could chew right now by setting up a fake inheritance for himself. But he didn't drop this plan and continued to study in this direction.

After a year. The classes ended and he had 3 months of free time until he needed to start with a fresh batch of students.

Lao invited him to work on the formation for the sect. He was introduced to the administrator for the project and given operator status in the form of another signature.

The other formation masters were in shock when they found out he didn't have a forbidden dao pillar. So a master artificer modified his ring with the signature needed for operator status. This was against regulations, so they added a few fail safes to ensure it could only be used by John. It took a few weeks to modify his admin ring to be able to edit the console for the sects main formation.

John didn't make hardly any progress in his forbidden dao pillar in this time as he was constantly cleaning up logic and rewriting algorithms for this big project.

The other formation masters found his ideas were original and efficient.

The protection formation was finished! John would always have operator status and could come and go freely through the barrier generated. Now those that wanted to leave the sect would have to carry a special type of talisman on them. This was unique and could only be powered by their Qi.

This was a system John had done most of the work in designing.

While at a banquet in celebration, the formation masters praised John and asked what he planned to do now.

John just told them he would be a salted fish and focus on teaching the next generation of formation masters.

But in reality he wanted badly to become a nascent soul cultivator and use soul domain. But that was still a far away goal.

So he continued to teach and work on his forbidden dao pillar in his free time.

He also had been paid all of the tuition from the students. Some of it had to go back into resources for teaching, like the gold disk and admin rings. But this left him with 500 low grade spiritual stones a year.

He continued to teach for the next decade...