155 Formations

"Oh...", Serge responded disappointedly.

"Ha. Do you know how lucky you are to even have this opportunity?", Irena asked.

That was something everyone had to agree to. It was hard to enter either an alliance or become a retainer of a high enough noble, and thus it was hard to gain such a skill. But to them, it basically fell from the sky and it was thanks to Ivan.

"Anyway, do you know what we will be doing in fighting class today?", Irena changed the topic before Greg could say anything.

"No. Only what Mr. Martin told us yesterday.", Greg shook his head, before explaining to Ivan, "Yesterday he said that we are now finished with the basics and would start something different today. Of course, he also told us that although he said we have finished the basics, that wouldn't mean that we have already learned enough about basic combat skills."

The last sentence was typical for Mr. Martin. He would always emphasize that for combat skills, one could never finish learning. And especially the basics. In his opinion, there was no end to training them. After all, they would be the foundation on which they would build their combat skills. And so he had ingrained into them the attitude of always training and improving their basic techniques. Before training any advanced technique, they would always first repeat the basic techniques required.

This resulted in them having a lower number of advanced techniques, but all of them were better mastered and could display higher power than those of students of other teachers. Something they had found out during their explorations in the training dungeon. Although the effect wasn't much, it still showed.

"It should be formation training.", the always silent Serge threw in. Resulting in everyone looking at him questioningly. Although he didn't talk much, his input always had value and if there was one situation, where he would start talking, then it was to explain things.

"Didn't any of you read the school curriculum?", he asked, seemingly surprised that they were unaware of it.

Everyone else looked at each other. Who would read the school curriculum? Although it was easily accessible there wasn't really a need. What use was there in knowing what would come next during class? Preparing in advance? If they did that, then what would be the use of the class? As such, the general attitude of the students was to just go with the flow.

"According to the curriculum, after basic training comes formation training, so what we will start with today, should be this.", seeing their clueless looks, Serge started to explain, "During the training dungeon they threw us into the cold water and let us experiment around with how to fight as a team. Now there should be a formal training on team formations and how to maximize the strength of a team."

"Ah.", Ivan was enlightened. "Now that everyone has gotten stuck on the fifth floor of the training dungeon, it would be a good time to teach us something new, which should enable our team strength to increase."

The others instantly understood what he meant. It truly was the best timing to start with a new topic. Everyone had gotten stuck and as such would be searching for a way to increase their strength. But it would be hard to increase the student's individual strength in a short time. Now that they had come to understand that their individual strength wasn't enough, it would be easy to motivate them to learn how to work together, while if they thought it before there would be many who wouldn't focus on it since they would think that individual strength would be more important.

For Ivan, this came at an even better timing. As Celine had told him, he had to learn to work better together with his pets and use them in combat, although he only had one. So what could be more useful than learning how to cooperate during combat? He was sure that the techniques they would learn in combat class could also be applied to combat with pets.

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*Maybe I should check out the offers in the alliance more?*, he thought. He now felt that there should be more available in it. Besides doing the required tasks, he didn't really have any contact with it, which might be a huge mistake. And even the tasks he had done, where mostly centered around pill refining or other easy tasks. He had only done them because it was required.

In the Alliance Shop, there were not only items for sale, but also teaching lessons. And over the time he had collected some CP, so it should be enough to attend a few. *Let's check it out after school*, he decided.

After a bit more chatting, it was time for class.

The first class was magic theory, which was thought by Mrs. Mertinez and as usual, she was extremely punctual with starting the class.

"Good morning everyone.", she greeted them and waited for them to greet back, as had become their daily habit.

"Today we will start with studying formations.", she then started class, "I hope some of you have read the school curriculum and know that later on, you will be thaught about some formations in combat class.

So the first question we have to ask ourselves is, what are formations?", she then looked questioningly at her students.

One of the guys raised his hands and after she had called him out, spoke his answer, "Formations should be combining the strength of many for one goal."

Mrs. Mertinez nodded, "You aren't wrong."

The student smiled proudly but was instantly shot down when she continued, "But that is just a small part of it. Or to be exact it is just a form of applying formations.

Still, there is one important point you have mentioned. And that is combining.

Formations combine different things and use the synergy effects between them to accomplish a goal that can't be accomplished by just the things alone.

All of you have already come into contact with other techniques that use synergy effects, such as rune inscribing, pill refining, or skill merging. But we don't talk about formations in this context. Can anyone guess why that is so?"

This time someone else answered, "Is it because those techniques create something new?"

"Correct. All these techniques use up material to create something new. The new thing exceeds the sum of its parts by using synergy effects. But it is impossible to split it up again. We call this merger.

But besides creating something new, synergy effects can also be used if objects are combined temporarily. Or are positioned in a specific way. This is what we call formations.

All of you have already experienced the simplest form of formations during your training dungeon run.", after the last sentence, only a few students looked surprised, while everyone else instantly understood.

According to the definition she had given, their simple team formations would already count as a formation.

"I'm sure most of you have already guessed it. Team formations are a basic form of formation, as the name already implies.

Now let's talk about how to categorize formations. First of all, there are two types of formations. Powered ones and unpowered. Powered ones have stronger effects, but require a constant supply of energy. Unpowered ones are weaker but don't require a constant supply of energy. Well, most of them still require some energy to kickstart them."

"Simple team formations, for example, belong to the unpowered type, while expert team formations can belong to the powered type."

After that, she continued to tell them a bit more about formations and their usage.

"Alright, now that you know the basics, let's try a simple formation. This one belongs to the powered type and can be powered directly by any kind of energy."

She then pulled out some gemstones. They were nothing special which she let everyone test by passing them around.

"While the choice of material is not that important, it will influence the effect of the formation and each formation will react differently to different materials. But there is one thing that works quite well with any known formation and that are gems."

She then positioned five different gems on her table. Between them, there was some distance and the positioning looked random, but they roughly formed a circle.

"The three most important points of a formation is the positioning of the material, the activation phrase, and the energy circuits.

The first step is to position the material. Then you have to draw the energy circuits. This can be done by using mana threads positioned in the space between and around the materials." while explaining, she used her mana to draw glowing threads on her table. There was an outer ring and inside it was connected to each material. But not only was it connected, but she also formed many more glowing threads, that went around inside the outer circle until they formed a complex image.