漫画啦

Jin Yu was very handsome, his appearance even more delicate than that of the number one most handsome man of Blue Boiling Point’s training camp, Soul Flying Bird. He was clearly a man, but he looked like a girl. In terms of special ability, Jin Yu had inherited the Feather Flying Celestial ability of his family. To put it simply, Jin Yu could fly. He was a bird man.

Xia Fan took out a small notebook from his spatial ring. As he listened to Jin Yu explain his special ability and his fighting style, if there was something he didn’t understand, he would ask Jin Yu to demonstrate. Just like that, Xia Fan went down the line, and he soon had an understanding of what his seven comrades were capable of.

Xia Fan dropped his head and began to think. As he considered the abilities of each person, he made strange markings in his notebook, using the markings to make a formation.

!!

This formation ability was something Xia Fan had learned from an inconspicuous grandpa. He didn’t know the man’s real name, but the other scourges all called him Strategist, so Xia Fan called him Strategist Grandpa.

After a little analysis, Xia Fan discovered that there were four pairings, each pair having someone who could attack and someone who could defend. To use himself and Traveling Buddha as examples, Traveling Buddha was a backbone-type warrior, while Xia Fan was a guerrilla-type. When the two of them fought together, Traveling Buddha could defend the area while Xia Fan was in charge of attacking.

According to the special traits of the eight of them, Xia Fan quickly designed a 4-3-1 formation and explained it to his comrades.

“The Murder Shrine has brought many people with them, so we can’t fight as individuals. We have to combine our powers into a formation, everyone attacking and retreating together. No matter the circumstances, we can’t abandon our comrades!” Xia Fan earnestly lectured everyone while showing them the final formation.

Ping Feng frowned. Pointing at the formation Xia Fan had drawn, he said, “This formation is very strange. The group of four in a diamond formation should be the attack force, and the three in the middle of the diamond should be the support, so why is there one person outside the formation?”

It wasn’t just Ping Feng who was confused. The others were also puzzled by Xia Fan’s formation. He had said that they should fight together, but the formation ended up leaving one person out. Why had Xia Fan arranged things that way?

Xia Fan chuckled. “The person outside of the formation is me! I’m fast, so I can act as an open spot that can support everyone. If I need to be in the front, I’ll be in the front, and if I need to be in the rear, I’ll go to the rear. In any case, I’ll go wherever I’m needed.”

Everyone nodded. This arrangement made some sense. As a superb speed-type warrior, Xia Fan would only be restrained by a formation. The ideal position for Xia Fan was no position at all!

“This formation is pretty good. WIth the protection of four people, I can summon my combat beasts without being worried about being ambushed,” Thousand Ink stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Xia Fan, what’s the name of this formation?”

Faintly smiling, Xia Fan asked, “Do you guys know the Twin Towers Formation?”

“Of course. The Twin Towers Formation can both attack and defend. Two powerful warriors serve as the supporting pillars while everyone else works around them. If the Twin Towers charge, it becomes the Twin Strike Formation. If the Twin Towers hold the rear, it becomes the Rattlesnake Formation. If the Twin Towers move around the flanks, it becomes the Twin Wing Formation. In any case, the Twin Towers Formation is both steady and possesses many variations, being capable of dealing with numerous enemies at once, it’s a textbook formation,” the well-learned Nan Jing spoke up.

Xia Fan nodded. Raising for fingers, he said, “The Twin Towers multiplied by two is the tactic we’re going with, the Four Towers Formation. In addition, our Four Towers Formation has a free person position that the Twin Towers Formation doesn’t, so it can only be considered a variation of the Four Towers Formation.”

The Four Towers Formation!

A fire began to burn in their eyes. This Formation had a total of four supporting warriors. This would mean that their position would be very solid in a group battle, yes?

But not even Xia Fan could have known that this formation he had developed on the spot was actually eighty percent similar to Xia Fei’s Lone Wolf Formation. That free position was none other than Xia Fei’s position in the Skywing Formation!

…

Xia Fan led his brothers to a place no monsters frequented so that they could practice the important parts of the formation, namely the cadence and its variations. Most of the time, it was Thousand Ink who was the foremost of the Four Towers, the primary warrior. But the primary support wasn’t left to Thousand Ink, but to Luo Jiuyi.

Luoyi was the successor of the Nightcat Clan, and his special ability was Illusion-type, the Nine-Lives Cat Fiend!

Luo Jiuyi was extremely lazy, so he was always difficult to find. Sometimes, he would just inexplicably disappear. After each round of training, Xia Fan would gather his brothers and hold a meeting to summarize their deficiencies and modify the formation.

But at each meeting, Luo Jiuyi would run off to a tree branch to sleep, leaving a clone at the meeting to listen in. Once the meeting was over and everyone went back to training, Luo Jiuyi would stretch, jump down from the branch and call back his clone. In that way, he was still able to learn everything that Xia Fan had talked about through the memories of his clone.

When Xia Fan questioned him, Luo Jiuyi shrugged and lazily replied, “What? Did I break any rules? Isn’t it just dumb to have a clone and not use it? I’m just being efficient.”

Xia Fan wanted to beat this cat up, but Thousand Ink and Traveling Buddha stopped him. Thousand Ink persuaded Xia Fan, “Luo Jiuyi has always been like this. Don’t mind him. To tell the truth, in their Nightcat Clan, Luo Jiuyi is actually considered quite diligent. At least if you give him a mission, he’ll execute it.

“If you ran into his father Luo Jiuling, or his grandfather, Luo Bajiu, you would know what true laziness was. They’re lazy down to their bones, and even when the battle is red-hot, those two old cats will be snoozing, abandoning their comrades to find a place to take a catnap. Unfortunately, it’s a genetic trait of their clan.”

Xia Fan glared in anger. How could there be such irresponsible people in the universe?

Luo Jiuyi shrugged and said innocently, “Ink is right. My father and grandfather have held up a lot of important things because of their laziness, which has led our family’s reputation in the union falling. That’s why I swore an oath when I was little to be a hardworking person!

“Isn’t it fine so long as I complete my mission? Just let me rest the rest of the time. It takes a lot of brain power to keep up a cat clone. If I don’t get enough sleep, I won’t be in the right state of mind, and that will affect the clone’s performance.”

Xia Fan was still a little angry, feeling like Luo Jiuyi’s attitude wasn’t proper. Traveling Buddha sighed. “Ink is right. The Nightcat Clan has always been like this. Luo Jiuyi’s grandfather is called Luo Bajiu, and his father is Luo Jiuling. Wanna take a guess as to what Luo Jiuyi will name his son?”

Xia Fan asked suspiciously, “It can’t be Luo Jiu’er, right?”

Thousand Ink, Traveling Buddha, and Jin Yu all nodded. Jin Yu said, “You’re right on. If Luo Jiuyi has a son, he would call him Luo Jiu’er, and his grandson will be Liu Jiusan, and his great grandson will be Luo Jiusi. Even their family’s names are made so lazily! Their names are actually numbers that just keep going down the line. Luo Jiuyi is actually the most hardworking person in their clan in the last few generations.”

‘Hardworking my *ss!’

Xia Fan was completely speechless. So lazy that even giving a name was a hassle? Just who were these people?

It wasn’t just Luo Jiuyi who was a problem. Birdman Jin Yu also had a lot of bad habits. He was a chatterbox who babbled like a parrot.

After training was over, Xia Fan would often ask them what they thought. The others were very normal, but when Jin Yu started talking, everyone would have to wait. He would take at least half an hour to finish. Most horrifying was that Jin Yu was never able to come to his point, chattering on and on, but in the end, nobody was able to understand what he was getting at.

As for Thousand Ink, as an artist, was very refined and cultured, but he often fell into a daze, frequently getting lost in his own mindscape.

According to the man himself, this was a common habit of his. It was because he had found an inspiration for the next combat beast to draw, and his mind would go off in pursuit of that flash of inspiration. While Luo Jiuyi was lazy, at least it didn’t affect his work. But when Thousand Ink was lost in his train of thought, he would become deaf to the world. When tactics were being discussed, he would be right there listening, but in truth, his mind had wandered off long ago.

Together with Traveling Buddha, who didn’t care about a thing, Xia Fan felt like being around all these noble scions was truly tiring!

In comparison, Nan Jing, Duanmu Heng, and Ping Feng — the three comrades who hadn’t originated from noble clans — were very normal. They didn’t have any serious flaws and studiously carried out whatever task they were assigned.

Xia Fan had to wonder, did all noble scions have some sort of mental illness?

Xia Fan didn’t realize that he himself had the traits of the Skywings. It was just that they had yet to make themselves obvious.

——

The days went by. Once the training in the formation was over, Xia Fan led them in an actual battle, using combat against the monsters of the black forest to hone their tactics.

As they were drilling in the formation in preparation for the ultimate battle, Thousand Ink’s combat beasts had been tracking the Murder Shrine’s army. One week after Xia Fan had designed the Four Towers Formation, Thousand Ink related his latest intelligence report.

At one of their meetings, Thousand Ink said to Xia Fan, “Right now, the Murder Shrine has already fought their way out through the second level of the Demon Chasm and entered the third level. My pets have been following their army.”

Xia Fan was stunned. “The Demon Chasm has a third level?”

Thousand Ink nodded. “Indeed. The first level is the black forest, the second level is sealed in ice, and the third level is a maze. The Murder Shrine sacrificed twenty thousand people to get to the third level, the blood even forming rivers!”

A smile formed on Xia Fan’s face. “Good! The more the better! Keep following them and see what they do. After all, we lack strength, so we should only strike at the most critical moment.”

Thousand Ink thumped his chest and nodded. “Understood. They can’t escape my eyes!”