The pocket dimension had its own light source in the distance, no one knew if it was real or an illusion because if you left the small rock formation you would quickly run out of air. Every platoon was gathered outside the dorm building, each officer was standing in front of their squad while another member of the Zhang Clan was in the middle.
“By the order of the Patriarch, I will be your ‘Drill Sergeant’. From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be ‘Sir.’ Do you maggots understand that? If you do, reply with “Sir, yes Sir!”
The Drill Sergeant was a middle-aged man, with a military-like haircut and scars all over his face. The man was trying to keep a straight face as this was ordered by the Patriarch himself. He had written down some mean sounding quotes to him and told him to use them while training the juniors. The foundation establishment elders wouldn’t be part of the training drills, so they were free to train on their own accord for now. The formation training would be practiced later, first came the physical drills and some sparring among the youths.
“…Sir yes, Sir!”
The kids shouted out, some of them feeling a bit dejected at the treatment.
“If you juniors leave this island, if you survive the training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death, praying for war. But until that day, you are nothing but unorganized pieces of amphibian excrement.”
Question marks could be seen above the youth’s heads when the ‘amphibian’ was mentioned, from the context they somehow knew that it wasn’t anything good. While the foundation establishment elder was belittling the new soldiers, he was exuding an aura that was making the Qi condensation juniors buckle under the strain. Everyone in the surroundings was starting to feel pressured, this clearly wasn’t going to be easy. After some shouting they finally left for a run, the robes they were carrying had a function to decrease and increase the weight just for this. The juniors quickly found themselves sweating profusely under the increased weight of their enchanted clothing.
The first one to fall behind was Zhang Hong, due to his increased bodyweight he wasn’t really fit for cardio all that much and collapsed. The drill sergeant instantly was on him, shouting and even kicking his rear end to get a move on, some of his fellow platoon members helped him up and they all started moving once more. The Sergeant looked at the fatty wobble away, now remembering a certain instruction that he got. The clan leader had told him, that if there was someone that started falling behind the others, he should let up on him just a bit, even more, if he was overweight. He wasn’t sure why, but he would follow orders to not be so hard on Zhang Hong.
The drill Sergeant pulled out a jade slip, on it he had all the lines that the Patriarch gave him. He looked at it, his eyebrows twitching slightly while he sighed inwardly. Orders were orders and he would follow them to a t, he moistened up his lips and started talking while the youths were jogging around the compound. The Patriarch kind of told him to try to sing this part, he wasn’t sure about that though. He also didn’t know what the ‘Totally original Patriarch lyrics, plz don’t steal :)’ at the end meant.
“Let’s get down to business, to defeat our foes. Did they send me servants, when I asked for cultivators?”
“You’re the saddest bunch I ever met, but you can bet before we’re through. Junior, I’ll make a cultivator out of you!”
The training switched to hand to hand combat, the platoons competed against each other as they were learning some basic teamwork. Most of the time they were bumping into each other though, the 9th platoon wasn’t doing all that well as Zhang Peng liked to solo everyone, letting his muscles do the talking. Zhang Ai liked to hang in the back while spamming ranged attacks, just using her teammates as meat shields. This resulted in her hitting Peng in the back of the head with a water serpent technique while he broke of defensive formation to attack an enemy. Some semblance of teamwork could be seen between the two pairs of siblings, the twins along with Xue and Liu were somehow not getting into each other’s way.
“Tranquil as a forest but on fire within. Once you find your center, you are sure to win. You’re a spineless, pale, pathetic lot And you haven’t got a clue. Somehow I’ll make a cultivator out of you.”
A week had passed now, the members were still not doing that well as they were slowly learning the ropes with the formation arts. You could see the formation’s blue lights all over the place as everyone tried to make the shield appear. Some of the platoons were succeeding while some were nowhere near finished, their shields breaking and the people suffering cultivation backlash from the rampant spiritual energies in the area.
“I’m never gonna catch my breath, say goodbye to those who knew me…”
Zhang Hong said while collapsing, his robe all sweaty from the constant running and physical training that he was being forced to do by the drill sergeant.
“Boy, was I a fool for not preparing more, Now I really wish that I didn’t come here.”
Said Zhang Teng as he suffered a hit to the face from a clan member during a mock battle against the 7th platoon, his team members just looking at him as he ate dirt.
“Be a Zhang! We must be swift as the coursing river. Be a Zhang! With all the force of a great typhoonBe a Zhang! With all the strength of a raging fire, Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!”
Which of the moons did the drill Sergeant even mean, thought the youths while their physiques were getting better and better. Their understanding of the two formations was increasing as they didn’t blunder so much anymore. There were even close to moving on to the next step of every clan member forming a giant formation together.
“Time is racing toward us till the Patriarch arrives, Heed my every order and you might survive Even if you’re unsuited for the rage of war, Don’t pack up and be through because I’ll make a cultivator out of you!”
Three weeks in the juniors were showing promise, they were all working together with each other. You could see a large muscular man together with a wide chubby youth standing side by side while shielding their teammate from attacks while she charged up a finishing move. The team mentality was slowly clicking together as even the unlikable Zhang Tai was seen working together with a smaller junior, pummeling away at some other platoon people. Everyone was slowly singing the catchy tune that the drill instructor repeated each day, it started getting integrated into their minds.
“Be a Zhang! We must be swift as the coursing river. Be a Zhang! With all the force of a great typhoonBe a Zhang! With all the strength of a raging fire, Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!”
After the ‘training montage’ was over, they all returned to the dorms to talk. They had all increased their mastery in their techniques, but they still needed to do more. There was still about a month left before the time was up, they could still level up their masteries and get better. Due to spending so much time with people with the same mindset everyone started slowly thinking as a unit, the petty squabbles between the purebloods and the side families were shoved to the side while everyone concentrated on the future of the Zhang family.
At this time Zhang Dong was not in the vicinity of the Zhang Clan, he was on a tall mountain experiencing an increase in power. The lightning energies in him were a lot more chaotic this time which caused a huge explosion. Any creature in the vicinity would get electrocuted as the cultivator in white hovered in the air slightly. Yes, he was hovering this was an early sign of a cultivator getting close to the nascent soul level as experts of that caliber didn’t require flying swords anymore.
He couldn’t fly just yet though, as you required a lot more juice to do that without a flying sword to hold you up. Matt was only at the late stage now, but he could give anyone at the pinnacle of the core formation a run for their money due to his immortal grade cultivation method. He was frowning though, looking at his opened palm on which the blue lightning energy was forming.
“Damn, it took me a whole damn month to finally get through to the late stage…”
He noticed a serious decline in his advancement speed, it still was swifter than any other cultivators, but it would take him at least a year to get to the great circle at this rate.
“Guess cultivating more won’t make that much of a difference, but every bit counts… maybe I should try getting some new skills, the guys should be back with the spirit stones by now.”
He had a minor amount of points left, not enough to do anything with them. He wanted to get enough to upgrade to that golden lightning art, but he needed a million for that, and he didn’t think he would be able to gather that many spirit stones from the sales. The clan blew through all of the resources that they had stashed behind, so there wouldn’t be much more. What was left was hunting beasts, gathering points from his students, or just cultivating more as even one percent more in the cultivation art made him slightly stronger.
He looked through the wanted lists, but since his last hunt, most of the criminals were laying low. People were afraid of the strange cultivator that was hunting core formation criminals, so most of the evil cultivators decided to hide and wait it out. All of them had long life spans, so waiting a couple of years wasn’t that hard. Matt, on the other hand, didn’t have much time left, so spending time on a needle in a haystack was out of the question.
*Heh, wonder if that guy actually followed my instructions…”
He got a bit curious as he returned back to the Zhang clan, a month had passed and he saw his disciples progressing in their skills a bit. There wasn’t a big change though as the focus was teamwork and formations instead of cultivation arts. When he arrived, no one noticed him as he was hiding his aura. He peeked at the youths that were training and could hear them singing the tune that he butchered a bit.
*Haha, they are really doing it.*
Matt was holding his hand to his mouth, trying not to burst out into laughter. Soon enough he was spotted by some people, the small floating land didn’t really have many places where a white-haired buff dude could hide. He came out of hiding, which caused everyone to take notice and stop with the training. Everyone gave him a proper bow, they were all wearing the gear that he made which made them look like a small army of Chūnibyōs.
*Well… I got myself an army of edgy teenagers, who can stop me now?*
He nodded at the people, telling them if they could show him the fruits of their labor. They demonstrated the formation techniques, some of the youths were quite nervous while looking at their patriarch which caused some fumbles here and there but somehow they pulled through. The giant two hundred people formation needed some work though, he told them to form the water serpent one so that he could test the formation’s power.
Matt watched as the crowd worked together like an almost well-oiled machine, they quickly got into their designated spots and started forming the large water serpent. It was quite huge, larger than his avatar form with the many cultivators floating around in its spirit energy body. They were all in the lotus position, with the strongest member that was Zhang Zhi in the snakes head acting as the core. He was controlling the giant thing, the snake gave out a roar that blew the Patriarch’s hair a bit.
“Well then, give me all you’ve got.”
Matt produced his lightning shield, setting it up in front of the snake. He was quite used to the technique now so he was even able to layer the barriers together. He made it so that the first one was the weakest starting off at the foundation establishment lower level, all up to the late stage of the core formation. He wanted to see how far the attack would breach in, hoping that it would at least get through the early core formation level.
The snake opened its mouth, he could see the sharp watery fangs protruding. A large water ball was forming in that maw, he could see the spiritual energy getting sucked in from the surroundings like a whirlpool, then a bright blue beam of light was fired off towards the shields. The cultivators inside the battle formation grimaced from the skill usage, the attack draining them of their spiritual energy.
The beam attack hit the shield, going through the first three barriers without a problem stopping briefly on the fourth one before blasting through it as well. When it hit the fifth one it stopped though, this one was the early stage of core formation. The beam continued as the snake kept at with the attack, the people within giving their best to not disappoint the Patriarch. Due to this, you could see some of the youths passing out and flopping out of the formation due to spiritual energy depletion.
After seeing that, Zhang Dong wanted to stop the test but he noticed the determination in their eyes. The attack continued and the shield finally started to show cracks and with a resounding boom, it shattered to pieces. The attack hit the next barrier, but before it could do any more damage the formation started breaking and it collapsed due to too many cultivators tiring themselves out.
“Okay that’s enough, you did well. It can be used as a trump card, you just need to keep the formation more stable.”
Zhang Dong nodded while trying to give his clan people a pep talk. The youths seamed invigorated as he saw some of them smiling while panting, probably proud of their monthly achievement.
“But don’t get cocky, there is still much more work to be done.”
He ended it on a serious note, time was of the essence and there wasn’t much more left as the last month started ticking down.