Bamboo Mound

With a look of enlightenment on his face, he channeled his spiritual energy to create another water tiger of roughly the same size.

Five water tigers surrounded the fire snake, each striking a different pose.

The disciple of the Huayu Sect suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and shouted:

"Five Elements Dragon Trapping Formation!"

The Qingyun Sect disciple's expression changed drastically. He tried to control the fire serpent to leave the center of the formation, but it was too late!

Strands of array patterns appeared on the stone platform, and the fire serpent was right at the center of the array!

The five tigers transformed into five beams of blue light that shot into the fire serpent, instantly causing it to crumble inch by inch and sending up a large amount of water mist.

The Qingyun Sect disciple suffered a backlash after his own fire serpent was destroyed, spitting out a mouthful of blood and turning pale.

Looking at the water tiger that had re-formed, though it was already illusory, he no longer had the spiritual power to resist it.

With a sigh, he surrendered.

Seeing their opponent surrender, the Huayu Sect disciples breathed a sigh of relief and withdrew the Water Tiger's spiritual power.

He stepped forward, took out a few pills, and handed them to the Qingyun Sect disciple, saying, "Thank you for your kind offer."

This underdog victory also attracted the attention of some people, who cheered and applauded.

Beside the Huayu Sect's viewing platform, an old man in green robes watched all this. He nodded slightly, a hint of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.

After the competition, the disciples of Huayu Sect approached the green-robed elder and bowed in respect.

"Well done. You were able to forcibly activate the Five Elements Dragon-Trapping Formation and even replace all the elements with water," the old man praised.

"It's all thanks to the guidance of our mentors," the Huayu Sect disciple said modestly.

"However, don't be arrogant or complacent. Tomorrow's final ranking will eliminate another twenty-five people, and you'll have to give it your all then," the old man said earnestly.

"Yes, disciple understands." The disciple of Huayu Sect replied respectfully.

Afterwards, the Huayu Sect disciples turned and left, heading towards their residence.

Ning Chang, however, was lost in thought.

"Spiritual energy materializing... an array..."

"Although it has some visual effect, isn't it too wasteful of spiritual energy to spend a lot of spiritual energy to condense a fixed shape?"

The fire serpent was alright; its body could coil around it. But the water tiger, aside from its four claws and head, had practically no other useful parts, and it actually increased the area vulnerable to attack.

"Simply transforming spiritual energy into physical form is easy, but transforming spiritual energy into fire and water does require understanding the underlying principles."

He was certain that the two disciples were not using elemental spiritual power, but rather a form of spiritual power conversion. This could be seen from the steam generated during their fight. After all, elemental spiritual power is merely a secondary attribute; in essence, it is still spiritual power.

"And that formation is quite interesting. Even though it's incomplete, it can still kill opponents two levels above you, and it can still leave some backup plans."

He was somewhat curious about the formation, even though it didn't suit his habits, but it was always good to learn more.

Because of the distance, he didn't hear whether the disciple called out the name of the formation, but he didn't think it mattered.

After all, he could see the general shape of the formation clearly, and was even somewhat familiar with it.

Five circles are symmetrically distributed at the edge of the formation, and each circle branches out four spiritual energy lines that connect to the other circles.

It's clearly the diagram of the five elements connected!

Having understood the reason for that sense of familiarity, he immediately tried to condense array patterns above his palm.

He is now extremely proficient in projecting and shaping spiritual energy, so he completed the array pattern in just a few breaths.

However, after the formation was completed, it did not react.

"Does the circle need to contain something? A physical object or spiritual energy?"

He slightly enlarged the array, took out five smaller bamboo leaves and placed them into the circle, waited a while, but still there was no reaction.

"That's spiritual power. Do we need to activate it or what? We can't just draw a pattern and put in some spiritual power to create an array, can we?"

So he retrieved the bamboo leaf and condensed five more clusters of spiritual energy, placing them above the five circles.

Seeing that the formation was still unresponsive, he tried to channel spiritual energy into it again through the circle.

He thought that if that didn't work, he would ask his master how to activate the formation.

If the method taught by the master still doesn't work, then the array pattern requires specific symbols.

After all, the distance was too great, and Ning Chang couldn't tell whether it was a rune array or a spirit pattern array at the time.

Just as the five clusters of spiritual energy were being injected into the array patterns, the entire array suddenly lit up, and a screen faintly appeared, like an upside-down bowl covering the entire array.

Before he could examine it closely, another light flashed at the center of the formation, and then the formation cracked and shattered.

The recoil caused Ning Chang, who was caught off guard, to stumble and almost fall off the bench.

He steadied himself and looked around.

Because he was sitting on the edge of the stands, a little further back, and Wang Yan and the elders were all focused on the battle on the field, he didn't notice anyone watching his movements.

After taking a deep breath, Ning Chang began to ponder the reason for the formation's explosion.

Unbeknownst to him, several elders sensed the fluctuations in spiritual energy as he condensed the array patterns, and secretly observed Ning Chang's movements.

When he directly condensed the array patterns of the Five Elements Dragon-Trapping Array, the elders were astonished.

They were all focused on the battle on the thirteenth stone platform and immediately recognized that Ning Chang had condensed the Five Elements Dragon Trapping Formation used by the Huayu Sect disciple!

They knew perfectly well that the Qingyun Sect had absolutely no record of the array patterns of the Five Elements Dragon Trapping Array!

In other words, Ning Changzai replicated the Huayu Sect's formation after only one look!

Judging from Ning Chang's actions, the formation even demonstrated its power!

"It seems to be a problem with my technique; after all, it didn't explode instantly after I provided the spiritual energy."

He recalled the details before the formation exploded. After the semi-transparent light shield appeared, it paused for a moment, the formation patterns flashed, and then the explosion occurred.

He felt as if he was awaiting some kind of instruction from the other party.

Then he thought of the five beams of light that the five tigers, disciples of the Huayu Sect, had transformed into.

"Does it require a target? Or does it mean the attack needs to be launched immediately? Can't it be delayed..."

With this thought in mind, he redrawn the array patterns and took out a bamboo leaf, placing it in the center of the array to reactivate it.

This time, after the formation condensed the light shield, it paused for a moment and became slightly unstable, with light beginning to emanate from its center.

Ning Chang suddenly became a little anxious, as he really didn't know how to guide him next.

Before he could make his next move, the five circles suddenly lit up, shooting out five beams of light.

However, in order to prevent another explosion, Ning Chang reduced the amount of spiritual energy provided by activating the formation this time, and the spiritual light emitted by the formation appeared thin and transparent.

But even such a faint glimmer of light contains considerable power!

The five beams of spiritual light shot straight toward the bamboo leaf at the center of the formation, and in an instant, the bamboo leaf disappeared without a trace!