Earth's Greatest Magus

At the moment, formation in Emery's mind was simply about having to rotate the duty between defense and offense. Alternating between the two with the right timing  – when to attack and when to defend.

Such a straightforward formation would work well when fighting against a similar number of opponents or even higher like his experience during the battle of Camelot and Andora.

However, when fighting a smaller number of opponents, ones that were stronger individually, such a formation would lose its effectiveness. 

The 'gaps' that appeared during the transition between attacking and defending would be taken advantage of by the other side, which possessed more mobility thanks to their fewer numbers. 

The battle against the lizard – 400 against 18, and Jai Strider's metallic humanoids – 300 against 15 – clearly showed the flaws of this crude formation. Both times, the other side forced Emery's summons to fight in turns, nullifying the number advantage and lowering their fighting power significantly.

Therefore, Emery needed a more advanced formation to make use of his army of summons against such battles.

Seeing the cheeky smile on Klea's face, Emery let the girl explain to him the ideas she had cooked.

"Emery, I can see that your jade soldiers are able to perform a sword skill similar to yours… the Dao sword. So I think you can also teach them the Hexagram technique and use its essence for the foundation for their formations. This is the best idea ever!"

Unbeknownst to her, the brilliant yet incredulous idea actually gave Emery a headache. Even now, he still found it difficult to comprehend the essence of the Hexagram technique with its 384 variations; what Klea told him to do was exactly to transcend what he was still trying to do – to control all his 100 summons to the same thing. 

It was an inconceivable thought for him.

Emery heaved a sigh as a response and said, "No, Klea. I don't think I can do that.."

The girl stood point-blank to him, both her arms placed on her waist, saying, "No! Of course you can! You don't need to teach all the variations, silly!"

The Eastern Sage's Hexagram technique was created based on the path of 8 Elements.

It consisted of 6 stages, each with 64 unique variations, making a total of 384 variations in its entirety.

The one Emery and Klea currently trying to master was a slightly modified Hexagram technique, which divided the technique into two halves. That way, each of them only needed to comprehend half the complexity – each half of the 162 variations. It was a dual Hexagram formation.

Klea quickly explained her thoughts in detail, how he could possibly consolidate such a complex technique to the summons.

"If you have 64 people, you only need them to cover 6 variations each! Actually, even if they only do 3 variations, or even just one, you can already have an army that employs the variations of the Hexagram technique in your hand!"

As if a bolt of lightning had struck his body, the idea sent chills down Emery's spine. His mind couldn't help but immediately think of the endless possibility, the strength his army of summons would have if this idea came to fruition.

"Klea, you are a genius!" Emery kissed and hugged the girl tightly. After that, he immediately tried to carry out the idea, choosing 64 of the 100 Jade Warriors he summoned.

Under his command, the 64 Jade Warriors quickly separated themselves into three layers.

The first layer consisted of two major formations; the Sky Array and the Mountain Array respectively, each consisting of 32 Jade Warriors.

The second layer was the branches of the two formations of the first layer. The Sky Array was divided into four minor formations: Ice, Lightning, Wind, and Fire; while the Mountain Array was also the same way, separated into Metal, Earth, Water, and Plant.

The last and third layer encompassed the cardinal and ordinal directions, where each element would consist of eight Jade Warriors that would cover the eight principal winds: North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, and Northwest.

With this arrangement, each and every Jade Warriors had their own unique position within the formation, with their own function which ultimately formed the 64 variations of the Hexagram technique.

The way it worked was Emery just needed to send one command to the 64 summons, each to cover their respective positions and fight according to defensive or offensive tactics.

Just like that, Emery was motivated. He immediately gathered his focus and trained his summons in the Hexagram technique formation, which would elevate their strength to another level altogether.

Emery quickly tried to fight the first Lizard pack with this concept and the result was unsatisfactory.

The formation was far from being a functional one. Fortunately the genius Klea was with him and with enough practice, he would eventually be able to do it.

He decided that before he could 'teach' the Hexagram technique to his army of summons, he would only fight small packs of Lizard creatures and completely avoid the big groups and the Naga.

****

"6 lizards coming from the right! 4 from the left!"

"We will go on the offensive! Klea, you lead the Sky Array to the left while I lead the Mountain Array!"

After relaying his command to half of his summons to follow Klea, Emery was left with the remaining 32 Jade Warriors to deal with the six approaching Lizard creatures. Immediately after, he commanded the Mountain Formation to charge.

16 Jade Warriors, which were part of the Earth and Metal Formation, swiftly clashed with the six Lizards, working together to hold them in place. In the next second, the 8 Jade Warriors of the Water Formation who dashed past the two formations launched a pincer attack from behind, while the Plant Formation quickly covered the gaps that appeared.

The 6 lower-level legendary creatures were held down with just 32 Jade Warriors – something unthinkable for the Mineralized Warrior. This made Emery's life easier as he was able to casually finish off each Lizard creature one by one, eventually all being devoured under his claws.

Along with the summons' formation drill, both Emery and Klea also put themselves into the formation in order to further refine their Hexagram technique through live battles. Slowly but surely, their fighting power increased.

It took a whole week before Emery finally managed to finish collecting all 300 Tier 5 Crystal Flower and some for himself to keep. At the same time, he had also trained enough with his army of summons to have the confidence to give the Naga another shot.

"It's payback time!"