Death... and me

Rean pondered for a bit and thought about his circuitry formation. However, this was something that he hadn't shown to anyone other than Droman. Of course, Roan knew it as well, but he didn't care about it since it wasn't his field. However, it was also true that Droman and Rean were planning to show the Circuitry Formation to the Formations Guild instead of the Imperial Family.

'Should I take this chance to give them an example?'

In the end, Rean shook his head.

'I still haven't had time to work with it. With just so much time to build a formation, I'm done for if something goes wrong. Well, they just said that the number of layers destroyed would be our final results. There are no rules stating that the formation had to be standing by the end of the test. Maybe I should make another one-time-use formation to use the full power of the runes.'

Rean then looked at the dome inside the Lightning Field when all of a sudden, he got an idea. He looked around and saw that the other five Elemental Domes were located very far from other elemental fields. Each one of them was at least 5km away from the borders of the other elemental areas. Besides, the closer one was to the edge, the weaker the field's elemental support would be.

'The distance is quite far, and I would lose too much support from the Lightning Element from the Lightning Field if I build it closer to the other fields. However, attacking a Lightning Type Defensive Formation with an Offensive Lightning Formation is pretty inefficient... No, wait!'

'Lightning Formations can use Spiritual Energy to guide Lightning to the place they want. However, the amount of Spiritual Energy I would need to guide it out of the Lightning Field would consume most of the power necessary for the Lightning Strike itself.'

'But... what if I don't need to use Spiritual Energy to guide the Lightning? Lightning released without Spiritual Energy Guidance will simply follow the path with the least resistance. Maybe I can use a wire? However, a wire capable of holding a Lightning Formation Strike's power would need to be incredibly thick. Besides, how will I make it leave the wire to attack the other protection formations?'

It was then that Rean remembered an experiment he saw on TV in his previous life. During that test, a thin copper wire was attached to a rocket that was launched in the middle of a storm. The result? They got a lightning strike that came down in a straight line. The trick was that the copper wire was so thin that it got pulverized as the lightning passed by it. Nevertheless, the path of lightning was still created.

'That should work. If the copper wire is immediately destroyed while still showing the right path for the lightning strike, then I won't need to care about removing it from the wire later.'

Rean then looked at the Lightning Protection Formation inside the Lightning Field and smiled playfully.

'Well, no rules say that I can't do it, right?'

Rean immediately rushed to the Water Element Field and began to analyze the formation. Havek was there as well, so he was surprised to see Rean.

"I thought your abilities focused on Lightning Type Formations."

Rean laughed as he answered.

"Indeed."

Havek was taken aback but laughed in the end as well. He could tell that Rean was going to try something crazy again.

After that, his body burst with Light Element as it entered the Water Protection Formation. The participants couldn't build their formations yet. However, an analysis was still allowed. In fact, the examinators expected the Formation Masters to do it since analyzation was an essential part of being a Formations Master.

Rean didn't have much time to analyze since he had to ask for the necessary materials, so he only looked at it for 15 minutes before asking for the materials. After that, he looked at the assistant and began to make his requests.

The assistant was taken aback by that sudden list. Most of the items didn't have anything wrong. But when Rean asked for a thin spiritual copper wire that could go from one field to another, he didn't know what to say. Still, copper was indeed listed in the available material list. In the end, the assistant could only grit his teeth and flash away to prepare such a weird request.

Meanwhile, Rean rushed back to the Lightning Field and... jumped over the Lightning Protection Formation! The Lightning Formation was indeed using the Lightning Element to fortify itself. However, it didn't change the fact that it was solid. So one could really stand above it. Rean looked down and saw the several layers inside it as well.

"What is he doing?"

"Is he intending to attack the Lightning Formation from above?"

"That makes no sense. The Lightning Field Element is evenly distributed. Doing such a thing would be a waste of time."

Rean quickly finished thinking about it and soon came down.

Just as the test was a minute away from the start, the assistant came back with the materials Rean asked for. He was forced to teleport to the Blacksmith Guild and pay quite a price for their members to forge such a long and thin spiritual copper wire. Immediately, everyone's attention was dragged in Rean's direction. After all, Rean had almost 10km of it in the middle of his material pile. Naturally, Saya, Droman, and the other elders noticed this as well.

Unfortunately, they didn't have any time to ask anymore. That's because the thirty minutes were gone, just like that.

Turin, who also couldn't help but look at Rean's materials, then stepped forward to do some talking.

"Time is now up. The third phase of the Formations Guild Exam shall now begin. Remember, only one hundred of you will make it to the final stage. Just like before, you have one hour to build your formations. The test starts now!"

As soon as Turin announced that, all the participants put themselves to work. As for Rean, he grabbed everything and jumped above the Lightning Protection Formation. There... Rean began to build his own formation. Yep, he was making the formation on top of the testing formation.

"Is... that valid?"