Strongest Hammer God

Chapter 1189: Input and Output

For a while, Kyle just looked at his working Formation Array with a smile.

'Don't need to use my own Energy. Don't need to use Energy Stones. Don't need to recycle materials. It just works!'

'I've managed to make a Grade One Karmic Energy Source! With this, I've taken a big step towards becoming a Beginner Immortal Formation Array Master!'

After reading a lot about Formation Arrays in Wild's Summit, Kyle had learned about the official levels of Formation Array Masters and what criteria one needed to fulfill to become one.

The first official rank was a Secondary Formation Array Master. Kyle had counted as one when he had acted as Azure Comet. His Formation Arrays had been on the level of a Secondary Formation Array Master.

Primary Formation Array Masters needed the skills to create a Gravity Energy Source while also having several powerful Formation Arrays. Kyle had already reached that level about 2,000 years ago.

The next level was Beginner Immortal Formation Array Master. In order to become one, one needed the power to build a Grade One Karmic Energy Source, but that wasn't the only thing.

Immortal Formation Array Masters were graded based on two things.

Energy input and Energy output. Energy input referred to how little Energy a Formation Array needed to run, while Energy output referred to how much power the Formation Array could exhibit when activated.

These two metrics by themselves could adequately show how good a Formation Array Master was. Increasing the output required more Laws and complexity. The more one put into a Formation Array, the more the Energy Wave could be refined and transformed. However, every addition of complexity also came with a drop in efficiency, which increased the amount of Energy the Formation Array needed to run.

To become a Beginner Immortal Formation Array Master, Kyle's Formation Arrays needed to hit the required values for both criteria for three Formation Arrays of all three categories.

Formation Arrays could be split into three categories. Offensive, Defensive, Auxiliary.

Explosive, Throwing, Cutting, Tearing, and similar Formation Arrays were Offensive Formation Arrays.

Concealment, Warping, Barrier, Blocking, Diverting, and similar Formation Arrays were Defensive Formation Arrays.

Sensing, Teleportation, Time-Slowing, Recovering, Investigation, and similar Formation Arrays were Auxiliary Formation Arrays. Gravity Energy Sources and Karmic Energy Sources were also Auxiliary Formation Arrays. After all, they were Formation Arrays to begin with.

'By creating a Karmic Energy Source, I've made it much easier to fulfill the criteria for Energy input. Every Beginner Immortal Formation Array Master has their own Karmic Energy Source, and they design their Formation Arrays around its output. As long as my Formation Arrays can use it as an Energy Source while exhibiting a certain level of power, I can become a Beginner Immortal Formation Array Master.'

Kyle sighed. 'Sadly, making the Karmic Energy Source is the easy part. This only opens the door for me. The hard part hasn't even started yet.'

'Anyway, I should look at the eighth task.'

Black looked at his Communicator and read through the eighth task.

'Glad that I've already made my Karmic Energy Source. Most of the requirements are pretty stringent. Having a Karmic Energy Source makes it a lot easier to hit these numbers.'

Kyle started his experiments, and after just a couple of years, he created a Formation Array that fulfilled all of the requirements. However, instead of submitting it, Kyle used his remaining time to learn more about Formation Arrays. He still hadn't gone through all of the contents of the Guides.

Kyle worked on reducing the complexity of his Formation Arrays, but that wasn't easy. There were several ways with which the Energy Wave could move to achieve a certain result. By simplifying ten Law Infusions, twenty other Law Infusions might become necessary to compensate for the earlier change. Those Law Infusions could also be simplified, but they might need even more compensation.

Without experience, it was very difficult to tell if a change that lowered complexity actually lowered complexity after the Formation Array was realigned to accommodate the change.

Designing a powerful Formation Array required a lot of time and effort. It had to be refined over and over again to see what worked. One also needed to experiment with different Advanced Materials, of which there were essentially infinite varieties.

After experimenting for almost a thousand years, Kyle made some progress, but not a lot.

'My Energy output is three times lower than it is supposed to be, and that's for my best Formation Array. The others are five times too low.'

'I'm struggling,' Kyle thought as Black looked at the Formation Arrays. 'I haven't finished reading through all of the Guides yet, but I don't notice a lot of improvement. It's like I'm missing something essential. In fact, I probably am. All of these Guides are cheap and basic. Actual Beginner Immortal Formation Array Masters are valuable. Sharing their knowledge increases competition, which would make them less valuable.'

'If I were a member of a Higher Supreme Organization, I would probably get access to valuable knowledge in exchange for loyalty. As an unaffiliated member, I can only learn more by purchasing Guides, but there's also a limit to what I can buy.'

Kyle submitted the Formation Array for the eighth task.

'Luckily, I'm a member of the Cult. If I can prove my value by getting through the Screening, I can learn as much as I want.'

Kyle glanced at the ninth task. "This is not easy to achieve, but I can do it."

Within about 30 years, Kyle created the Formation Array he needed. Then, he went back to looking at the Guides.

While fulfilling the tasks had become relatively easy for Kyle, the same wasn't true for the other participants. The goal of the Screening was to test the participants' knowledge of the alien Formation Arrays. The Screening wasn't designed to work with traditional Formation Arrays.

For the False Immortals, the Screening became more and more difficult, while it almost became easier for Kyle.

Yet, Kyle was the only outsider who had ever gotten this far. The reason for that was pretty simple.

The Screening asked for things that were easy to achieve for alien Formation Arrays but hard to achieve for traditional Formation Arrays. Even more, the designs were already mostly shared with the participants. They just needed to complete the Formation Array, while outsiders needed to design new Formation Arrays.

The purpose of the Screening wasn't to teach Formation Arrays but to test aptitude. During every task, more and more parts of an alien Formation Array would be missing until, at the very end, the participants needed to design one from the ground up. If they could do that, it meant that their talent was high enough to justify further investment.

But for outsiders, the Screening was just a wall. If Kyle hadn't bought several Guides with Green, he would have already failed. Even more, Kyle had burned through ten times more materials during his experiments than what he had received.

Without any of these things, he wouldn't have gotten this far.

After another thousand years, Kyle submitted his Formation Array and fulfilled the ninth task.

'Now, let's take a look at the last task.'

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