Heaven, Earth, Me

Looking at the relaxed little girl who decided to sweep the competition in the first section, everyone’s expressions were different. They were expecting the long-haired blonde girl to be powerful. However, they didn’t think that the difference between actual Transcendence Ranked cultivators and a Mortal Realm cultivator would be so large! 

“That girl… Her formation mastery is ridiculous. How has she trained and learned during her life to reach these heights?”

“I wonder if her master is a famous hermit. There are a few hidden powerhouses that have stopped taking in disciples. She might’ve had a lucky encounter and been taught by one of them.”

“That’s most likely. Otherwise, it really doesn’t make sense.”

A person, feeling slightly skeptical, commented. “The theoretical knowledge is very different from actual capability in formation building.”

“Formation crafting can be said to be the most theoretical of all professions. Knowledge is a requirement, and it is also the foundation. There are no good formation masters who have low-level knowledge. However, the opposite is not always true. I agree that we’ll need to wait for the competition to see her actual skills.”

For the second competition, as previously stated, the formation masters needed to create a defensive formation that could bear the full-power attack of a Transcendence Ranked cultivator. The cultivator was someone at the first level and with a Level 1 Intent Domain. Something considered as an average sixth realm cultivator.

Angel glanced at the person who was going to attack their formation with a pondering expression. She raised her hand and glanced at the judges with her big eyes. “Senior Judges, is it possible for me to ask questions to the person who will attack our formation?”

The Sixth Realm cultivator glanced at the adorable mortal woman with a touch of surprise. He had come today to fulfill a promise with the federation, so he was unaware of what happened during the competition's last few weeks. “You… Little girl, why are you here? This is the Transcendence Ranked Formation Master competition.”

Angel blinked her large eyes. “I know.”

The man frowned deeply and glanced at the judges. “I won’t attack that girl’s formation. What if something goes wrong? The last thing I want is to kill a junior when returning a simple favor!”

Actually, the judges were hesitant as well. Unlike the other competitions, here, the formation masters were in actual risk. The others, having reached the Sixth Realm, would be injured at worst. However, in their opinion, if a mortal received the shockwave of a Sixth Realm cultivator, her body could end up crippled at best, dead at worst!

Angel called the man. “Uncle! You are underestimating me!”

The man glanced at Angel’s pouting expression and felt even more reluctant. ‘She is so cute… What if I hurt her? No, this can’t do. Allowing a child to participate is completely asinine!’

He glared at the judges and scolded them without holding back. “Did you force her to participate because she is talented? Even if she can miraculously create a defensive formation strong enough, her body will not be able to bear the residual aura. If you don’t want your little genius to be crippled, tell her that she is disqualified and to retreat from the competition already!”

Angel panicked. “Y-You! Uncle! How can you say something like that!? At least, let me build my formation before you speak! I can promise you that you won’t be able to break it!”

The uncle crossed his arms and looked at Angel sternly. “Little girl. Perhaps your seniors have pampered you a lot because of how cute you look. However, I won’t hold back a little bit since this is my job. Do you really believe that, in just 20 days, you can create a formation strong enough to stop my full-strength strike? Think well since I can probably split open a small Celestial Body with a single strike!”

Angel harrumphed, crossing her arms below her well-developed chest. “Even if you throw a Moon at me, I’ll be confident to stay inside my defensive formation! I wanted to ask questions so that I didn’t waste materials, but now that you seem so confident, I’ll go and create an all-purpose formation. If you can break it with raw strength as the competition dictates, then I’ll stop making formations for the rest of my life!” 

The uncle sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You are so stubborn, little girl.”

“You are stubborn as well, Uncle!”

The man’s eyebrow twitched. “... Also, what Uncle? I look young and handsome, no?”

Angel harrumphed twice. “Handsome? There is no one more handsome, pretty, good-looking, alluring, and attractive than Yasenia!”

The Uncle almost choked on his own saliva. He said with disbelief. “You can brag to the sky and not feel your cheeks blush even a little bit? Even City Walls are jealous of how thick your face is!”

Angel pointed to the side. “Say that again after looking there. I dare you!”

The Uncle followed Angel’s finger, and his face froze for a second. Yasenia glanced at him and smiled gently, waving her hand. 

“Heh.”

Angel’s little scoff helped the Uncle snap out of his daze, and he cleared his throat. When he saw Angel’s smug little face, he really didn’t know what to say. “You… You are really not exaggerating.”

Angel raised her chin to the sky, proud as a little peacock. “Of course! My Yasenia is the prettiest!”

The man sighed and threw his hands up. “Whatever. Do as you please. However, I won’t test your formation unless it looks sturdy enough!”

Angel blinked twice and nodded with a smile. “Okay! I’ll make it so sturdy that Uncle will hurt his own fists!”

One judge coughed. “No retaliatory damage, please.” 

Now, Angel needed to create the Transcendence Ranked formation. The difference between a mortal ranked one and those above was relatively simple. The number of items used to create and activate the formations. 

Before the Transcendence Rank, the formation could be painted by having a formation core and painting the formation lines with special ink and pen. Connecting those, a formation would be born with a myriad of effects depending on countless factors. 

However, after Transcendence, the powerful effects of the formation, more often than not, would need extra material conductors for them to function properly and to their full power. These extra materials were also incredibly varied. You could find flags, rocks, pillars, pits, ropes, gems, animal parts, precious metals, and many more things! For more ominous formations, using living sacrifices of all kinds was not too far-fetched as well.

Angel started simple, creating the formation lines and picking the materials she was going to use. To block a full-powered attack of a Transcendence Realm cultivator, she needed to create something that could literally block the direct impact of a large meteor.

She had experience with creating similar formations in the past, to surround Astral Sky City, Astral Sky Sect, and many other territories together with Tatyana. Therefore, her movements when crafting the array were extremely fluid. 

To test that the formation worked, there was a pillar inside of a circular arena. This pillar would need to survive the aftershock of the attack. According to what Angel heard, the pillar had the durability of a recently entered Unification Realm cultivator. If you damaged it, points would naturally be deducted. 

In the end, everyone would be rated in a similar way compared to the other three competitions. The gist of it was that a participant would receive points for how much they could protect the pillar and also depending on the evaluation of the judges.

The pillar points could go from 10 to 0, 10 meaning that it was untouched, and zero only occurred when it was destroyed. Adding to the scores of 1 to 10 from the judges, with 10 being the best score, one could score a total of 20 points. Almost double compared to the previous competition.

The Uncle was not in a hurry, so he sat cross-legged and looked at the judges. “What is wrong with that girl? I didn’t expect someone as young as her to participate in this kind of competition. Is she qualified?”

“She has the acceptance letter. The letter that only arrives to people who have been identified by us to be exceptional. Those tests were anonymous to avoid favoritism, so the fact that she is here is already very impressive.

The man was surprised. “So that’s the case.” He glanced at the girl and laughed. “Quite bold on her part. After all, if you send the participation letter for the Transcendence Ranked competition, you can’t send another one for the mortal one. She was confident that even with anonymity, she would be able to shine between so many rotten apples.”

While they spoke, they noticed that Angel was standing a few steps away from the circular arena that she had to defend. “Hm… Isn’t that pillar too solid? It should be a mortal human one, or else, how can someone live inside your formations?”

A formation master at the side felt their lips twitch as he thought. ‘If you could create a city-surrounding protective formation for mortals in just 20 days, we wouldn’t need to be afraid of the wild beasts!”

Creating a city-wide formation was expensive and also time-consuming; not many masters were willing to take on such tasks. 

After Angel planned out the design, she began crafting the required Formation Inks and taking out the materials for it. The cardinal directions were quickly painted and adorned under Angel’s movements, and the center and outer circles became a land of gems and pearls. Then, in the middle, a conspicuous formation core was placed on top of the pillar in the middle.

Seeing that action, many couldn’t help but praise Angel’s bravery. “Placing the formation core there will make it much weaker. If the pillar gets damaged, the energy might not get transmitted as much!”

Meanwhile, inside of Angel’s head, Mirrory was laughing. “You really want to smack that Uncle’s face, eh? Isn’t this a bit of an overkill?”

Angel snorted twice. “Hmph, hmph. How could that be? This is a competition, and since Andrea couldn’t take first place, I will!”

Mirrory laughed. “So, revenge for the tall girl?”

“Exactly~.” Angel giggled. Then, she asked. “Yasenia said that there is something iffy going on. I wonder if you’ve noticed it?”

Mirrory agreed with Yasenia. “It’s probably someone you’ve offended before. I would lean towards the Mo family. Still, you don’t have to worry. Just be yourself and compete as you please. I’ll make sure those judges tell the truth and only the truth when evaluating you.”

“Ohh! Hahahah. Thank you, Mirrory!” 

“No problem, little girl.”