At the courtyard within Ruby’s artifact space, Li Lang paced back and forth while glancing down at the recreation of the formation he had set up for Starpoint Island. It had numerous small marks or so-called runes, reminiscent of highly detailed magic circles that were trying too hard to look cool. However, none of the lines in the formation were superfluous. They were the summary of all the basic formations Li Lang had studied so far, having already boiled it down to the essence.

At the time, he had tried his best to update his knowledge of formations up to the Earth-grade standard, but that still left a lot of room for improvement. It wasn’t that his work was bad. It was just simple. It did what it was intended to do: defend the island from any external threats, but that was it.

In comparison to the grand formations the other sects and organizations had, it was child’s play. To them, a simple defensive formation would never satisfy their requirements, as any decent formation master could overcome it by spending some time to observe and probe it for weaknesses.

Formations were static. They were fixed from the moment of creation, operating within the realms of what the creator intended. That inflexibility was its greatest weakness, but in exchange, it could draw on an inexhaustible amount of energy to fuel it. There was no contest between the reserve of Qi available within a cultivator’s body compared to the ley lines of the earth. The only chance a cultivator would have against a formation was by overpowering it with a huge spike of energy, overloading the channels—or circuits, as Li Lang understood it—that made up the formation itself.

That was why all the grand formations were much more sophisticated. They had a myriad of hidden functions that worked to obscure their true nature. It was also why illusion formations were so common. It was the easiest way to prevent enemy formation masters from analyzing the formation.

Thinking up to that point, Li Lang began recalling all the instances he faced such illusionary formations.

He naturally recalled the first round of the Dark Sea Arena on Sword Saint Isle. They were transported to a desert world, forced to face off against the various Qi beasts native to that biome. However, when the trial was over, he learned that it was all an illusion. The formation master in charge simply made them see a desert and changed the appearance of the Qi beasts they had captured to align with what they saw.

Then, his own disciple, Wu San, had also demonstrated a different kind of illusion in projections during the same event. Making use of his affinity with water and light, he created clones of himself to use as decoys. Even when the opponent knew some of them were fake, it was still remarkably effective.

And more recently, within the crypt of Kan Wuji, Li Lang once again fell under the spell of the formation there. It trapped him within its halls until he snapped out of it. It made a good showing of how powerful illusions were, even if their victims had methods to break out of them. As long as they didn’t realize they had been enchanted, it wouldn’t matter.

From these experiences, Li Lang concluded that there should be three main types of illusions. The type that affected the enemy, the type that affected the environment, and the type that affected oneself.

For the last type, Li Lang hadn’t encountered it yet, or even if he did, he wouldn’t have realized. It was just conjecture, but he could see the potential of being able to fool yourself. As he had learned from his research, willpower and mental state had a great effect on a cultivator. Being able to control that was no doubt a boon, if used correctly.

Willpower, huh? I still have to finalize the curriculum to train our new students. Maybe what I’m trying to do will have benefits on that end as well?

With a framework of how to proceed established, Li Lang began testing various miniature iterations of the current formation of the island used. He would try his best to emulate what he had seen, obscuring the nature of the formation lines.

It didn’t take long for him to realize the power of an Earth-grade formation was his biggest limiting factor. It had limited bandwidth, meaning it likely wouldn’t be able to fool anyone above the Foundation Establishment Realm, or at least, not for long. That’s why he swiftly changed gears and focused on the second type of illusions, applying it to the environment.

He made it so that when the barrier was under attack, other parts of it would channel their energy over to reinforce the area being struck. It would leave the other areas weakened, but that was where the illusion came in. It would hide the cracked sections on the verge of collapse, showing weakness elsewhere. Then it would occasionally restore its appearance, appearing as if it had completely regenerated.

It didn’t make the island an impenetrable bulwark, but it was an improvement.

As Li Lang drew more and more formations in the courtyard, simulating the effects on a much smaller scale, his curiosity began to wander back to the first type of illusion, where you fooled the enemy. He refused to just give up on that line of research, despite realizing it would take some time. Naturally, he messed around with the third type of fooling oneself as well.

These experiments were the hardest to observe within the artifact space, as their small scale meant it wouldn’t normally affect him. He had to completely open himself to the formations for it to barely work. Even then, it was clunky and easily discernible from reality. To him, it was as if he had put on some ancient VR system with numerous defects that had pixelated resolution.

Wait a minute…

His eyes opened wide as an epiphany struck him. Memories of his past life flashed across his eyes as a victorious grin crept onto his face.

Even if the formations we have are too weak to affect experts, they’re not too weak to affect us!

With his passion reignited, he redoubled his efforts to test various formations. It was time to implement his ideas into reality.

***

When Li Lang landed on the island, he was immediately greeted by a crowd of his students. The older ones were lined up in the front, while the younger newcomers nervously took up their positions behind them. Overall, they were orderly in formation. Though their attire wasn’t uniform, it was a display that demonstrated discipline and unity.

Yet what made Li Lang the most gleeful was spotting his friend with the wooden mask at the forefront of the students.

“Welcome back, B-Boss,” Wei Ping greeted. “We re-received messages from the Rolling Tide Sect th-that say everything is under control, but h-how did it go? What did that big oaf d-do this time, an-and why isn’t he with you?”

“He found a girl there, so he isn’t willing to come back so soon.”

“Wh-What?”

Murmurs began to spread through the area as the students were evidently just as shocked as Wei Ping. It took the masked man a dozen seconds before his brain restarted.

“He foun-found a girl??”

Li Lang simply let out a chuckle as he shook his head.

“Relax, it was just a joke. He’s busy recruiting his quota of students after having escaped the troublesome area he had been trapped in. He should be back within a few days.”

“I see. Y-You were just joking, huh? Y-You must be in a good mo-mood, boss.”

“I guess you can say that,” Li Lang said as he revealed a wide smile. “I’ve made some great progress in formations on the way here. I plan to implement them immediately, so you’ll see soon enough what it’s about. Oh, and I agreed to build a mortal city nearby so that the Rolling Tide Sect can set up an outpost and have their people conduct trade with us. I can do most of the work, but can you organize those who have helped with the construction efforts to come assist me? I think I’ll get started once I’ve laid down the new formations.”

“Boss, sl-slow down! What is th-this about building a city? Why? And ho-how big? Did y-you design the lay-layout for it already? If it isn’t som-something urgent, can it wa-wait until after the new students have se-settled in?”

“Hmm.” Li Lang brought a hand up and pinched his chin. “What do you think? You should have grasped how everyone’s doing while we were gone, right? I’ll leave it to you.”

Li Lang patted his trusted friend on the shoulder and briskly walked off toward the island’s core, where the formation was set up, but not before stealing a quick glance at the unfamiliar newcomers that Wei Ping had brought back. They all looked bright and reliable, just as you would expect of Wei Ping.

It relieved Li Lang to leave everything up to him, causing him to empty his mind of all thoughts that had nothing to do with formations. It also caused him to be completely deaf to Wei Ping’s words as he walked away.