Chapter 147 - Spirit Array!
but at the end of the day, Dante was still a student, A very powerful and influential student, but a student none the less.
Powerless, Dante could only sigh as he accepted his fate and went back into the battle formation.
seeing Dante had gave up trying to weasel his way out of his task, Mr Kriel nodded before turning to roar at the rest of the students
"What are you guys lazing around and waiting for?!"
"Stop looking around and get back into formation!"
With Mr Kriel's brutal shouts, the group students scattered like mice as they rushed to quickly try and get back in the Spear formation.
as all this was happening, Mr Kriel slowly approached Dante as he asked.
"seeing as you are the
Dragon Son of war, I'm assuming you know the role of the core of a battle formatation."
"Yes." Replied Dante.
"The person who has the role of the core of a battle formation is supposed to act as a central link in a battle formation.
Their duty is to form links and connections with the other soldiers in the formation and, using these links, draw energy and power from the other soldiers and use it to activate the formation.
The activated formation can be used to strengthen the soldiers in the formation and also create some strange special effects."
Hearing Dante's thorough explanation, Mr Kriel was impressed
"good." Replied Mr Kriel.
"your understanding on the purpose of a spirit array is up to the level I would have expected of a dragon son of "
"The only question left now is, if you know how to set up a spirit array." Asked Mr Kriel.
hearing this question, Dante wasn't scared to tell the truth and just lightly shook his head.
"My education on battle formations had only reached the point where I learnt about spirit arrays. I have never been taught how to personally set one up." Said Dante
Hearing this, Mr Kriel just walked up to Dante and patted him on the shoulder.
"boy there's no need to worry about that small detail. It's quite easy to catch on to how to create a spirit array once you see one in action." said Mr Kriel in a reassuring tone
"as you said, the first part of a spirit energy array is to form links and connections with each soldier in the formation.
Now to do this, as the core of the battle formation, you are required to use your mental energy to form a slight connection with each soldier and control the way in each soldier contributes to the Battle formation.
This process requires a lot of mental strength to complete and normally, students in the martial novice realm never have the required mental strength to complete the process.
In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that you had two Martial Spirits, I would never have bothered to teach you this so soon.
You are different to other students in the sense you have two Martial Spirits. This fact alone puts your mental strength, levels ahead of your peers, so this next step should be possible." Explained Mr Kriel
"Now Dante, this next part is not that difficult. Just watch what I copy me. As long as you follow my instructions, I'm sure you'll be fine"
Hearing this, Dante took in a deep breath to ready himself before turning to nod at Mr Kriel to confirm he was ready.
Slowly, Mr Kriel helped Dante to release his mental energy.
As soon as Dante released his mental energy, he immediately entered into a strange state
In this strange state, the way Dante viewed the world had completely changed.
The only Dante could describe it was like seeing everything from a third person perspective.
It was like having a sixth sense where images were instantly placed in his mind.
There was no lag between the image being picked up by his eyes and transmitted to his brain.
It was a instantaneous, encompassing, 360 degree image. In This state, Dante really had no blind spots!
The only negative about this new way of seeing was that the distance that Dante could see was extremely short, but even with this, Dante was still impressed by this strange state.
But Dante didn't spend too much time thinking about this new strange vision, as he knew didn't have time to admire the changes.
Getting himself back in a concentrated state, Dante focused and started using his mental strength to see what Mr Kriel was doing.
As Dante spread out his mental energy, he could see that Mr Kriel had already started forming the spirit array!
Mr Kriel had his usual cold expression on his face as tendrils of mental energy quickly spread out with him at the centre, quickly weaving and crossing over each other in order to attach to the body of each student.
The strings of mental energy kept moving in strange directions ,forming some sort of strange web of mental connections with each soldier.
Dante knew he couldn't afford to sit back and watch so he hurriedly tried to mimic Mr Kriel's actions and in doing so, allowed for his mental energy to form connections in the same way Mr Kriel did.
This process wasn't easy for Dante in the slightest, as even with two martial spirits that could boost his mental strength, Dante was still struggling to make these countless connections with His Mental energy as sometimes his links would randomly collapse or simply be too short to connect with the other students.
The process was truly grueling and monotonous, but In the end, Dante managed to persevere and eventually successfully replicate the same connections as Mr Kriel did. The only problem was that these connections still weren't up to the same quality as Mr Kriel's.
The connections Dante had made were all much thinner than Mr Kriel's and sometimes they even lightly flickered, as if even the slightest breeze would be enough to put them out!
but even with all its problems, in the end what Dante had created could still be seen as a successful spirt array.
Even Mr Kriel himself was shocked at Dante's actions.
Although he had expected Dante to eventually be able to form the spirit array, he was expecting him to get it after trying around 20-30 more times. He hadn't expected him to form it on the first try!
Mr Kriel had already told himself that he would no longer be impressed by Dante's talent, but every time the boy did something so ridiculous like this he couldn't help but marvel at Dante's seemingly endless talent once again.
But even though Mr Kriel was impressed, he wouldn't let such blatant admiration show on his face.
Mr Kriel still knew the temperament of the student he was teaching.
Dante was a very prideful boy and if Mr Kriel ended praising the kid, then Dante might end up getting too full of himself.
So to prevent this, Mr Kriel kept the usual cold expression on his face as he spoke to Dante.
"Not bad Kid. In the end, you still managed to form the required spirit array for the Gaping Maw formation."
As soon as Dante heard Mr Kriel's compliments, a slight smile appeared on his face.
Forming this spirit array took an unbelievable amount of concentration and hard work out of Dante, so of course he would be a bit proud when someone else complimented his work.
but before Dante could even fully admire his accomplishments, Mr Kriel started speaking again,
"But even with that, this is nothing to be too proud of. Your formation is still sloppy and weak. It even still looks like it could fall apart at anytime!" Criticised Mr Kriel.
"But even so, this formation is still good enough to go onto the next stage."
"next stage?" Asked Dante
"Obviously there is going to be a next stage. Don't tell me you expected this lesson to end here?"
Dante could only stare awkwardly at Mr Kriel as he continued talking.
"Now you have finally learnt how to set up the battle formation, the next stage is to use it mock combat situations."
hearing this, Dante almost couldn't believe his ears
"Combat situations! Mr Kriel, you have to be joking?" Asked Dante in disbelief.
"We've not even done combat situations with you yet Mr Kriel so how...