If someone had asked Wei Zian at the end of the first week which training sessions he thought would give him the most trouble, he would have answered Formation Arrays and Advanced Trigrams. Combat Arts, maybe. Two weeks later, he could safely say the answer was 'Spirit Protection'.
Spirit Protection, the art of safeguarding objects and places with qi formations, was a surprisingly complex field. You had to take into account what the item you're trying to protect is made of, its dimensions and spiritual properties, how the protection technique would interact with existing formations... or you could just apply a general-purpose protection talisman to your target and hope for the best. But the Elder would fail you for that answer, so that wasn't an option in the training hall.
But these complexities aside, the class should have been manageable, or at least not this confusing, Wei Zian was a patient, methodical person when it came to cultivation techniques, and had worked through worse subjects with decent results. The problem was that their instructor, a stern woman with hair cut so short she might as well have gone all the way and shaved her head completely, didn't know how to teach. At all. Oh, she clearly knew the subject matter very well, but she simply didn't know how to translate that knowledge into proper instruction. She was leaving many things unexplained in her lectures, apparently not realizing that just because certain concepts were obvious to her, they were not obvious to her disciples. The jade slip she assigned for the class wasn't much better and read more like a manual for a professional formation master than a beginner's guide.
Question 6: You are tasked with establishing a spirit outpost on a first-grade qi vein in the Northern Wilderness. The compound is meant to support a team of 4 cultivators at any given time, and scouts have reported concerns over prowling winter wolf packs and an infestation of iron-eating beetles in the surrounding area. You have a budget of 25,000 spirit stones and are assumed to be a certified second-tier formation master.
Assuming only qi extracted from the local vein is available for powering the formations, which combination of protective formations do you feel would be the best choice for the outpost? Explain your reasoning.
Draw basic formation layouts for the planned outpost and explain how the planned room placement and architectural design affect formation efficiency.
Do you think the issue of the iron-eating beetle infestation is best resolved by using a pest repulsion formation or by careful choice of building materials? Explain your reasoning.
Assume that you are commissioned to build not one but five outposts. The budget remains the same. How does this change your answer? Do you believe it is better to make the formations identical for all five outposts or do you feel some amount of variation between them is appropriate? Explain the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
Wei Zian rubbed his eyes in frustration. How was he supposed to answer a question like this? He hadn't selected the architecture path, and wasn't aware that you had to take it to do well in Spirit Protection. Not to mention that the question assumed they knew what the market rates were for buying the necessary materials, or that they knew where the Northern Wilderness was. Wei Zian was quite good at geography, and he had no idea, though considering the presence of spirit beasts like winter wolves, he suspected it was somewhere in the northern mountain ranges.
At the very least he knew how to answer the third part of the question. The correct answer was definitely formations. Even if the outpost was made from materials inedible to iron-eating beetle larvae, it would still make a prime place to build a nest. Considering how territorial these insects were, you didn't want them living anywhere near you. Theoretically, the 'careful choice of materials' option would free up qi that would otherwise be spent on maintaining pest repulsion formations, but those formations required very little qi flow to stay active. Especially if they were keyed specifically to iron-eating beetles.
His thoughts were interrupted by a girlish giggle coming from the back of the training hall. Wei Zian didn't even have to turn around to know what was happening, Zhao Hong was entertaining the disciples around him again. He wished the Elder would penalize the boy for the disruption he was causing, especially in the middle of an assessment, but Zhao Hong was a bit of a favorite to the stern woman because he was the only disciple acing her tests. No doubt the young master had already finished his test with perfect accuracy. Which, by the way, made no sense whatsoever, during their first two years, Zhao Hong was a below-average student more distinguished by his charm than cultivation talent. Much like a nicer version of Wei Fu, actually. This year, though, he was acing everything. Everything. He had a wealth of knowledge and a work ethic he hadn't had at the end of their second year, far in excess of what could be gained through normal cultivation in such a short time.
How does one get so much better in the span of a single summer meditation break?
Fifteen minutes later he threw his brush down on the table, calling it quits. He only filled in eight out of ten questions, and he wasn't sure how correct these eight were, but it would have to do. He would have to set aside a couple of days for Spirit Protection self-study, because the lectures were making less and less sense with every passing day. The only other disciple who stayed in the training hall as long as he did was Ao Jiao, and she handed in her paper only a few breaths after he did and followed him outside. Of course, they stayed for very different reasons. He stayed so he could scrape together a few stray points. She stayed because she was a perfectionist who wanted to triple check everything to make sure she didn't forget anything.
"Wei Zian, wait!"