Pillar of Yita

At the top were two prominent characters — Failure.

Failure? Fang Hong was stunned; he hadn’t even started the connection. How could he have failed already? He didn’t believe in bad omens, so he casually turned off the Light Page and then reopened it, initiating the second test. But this time, failure came even faster, and the result wasn’t any different from before.

Fang Hong was dumbfounded.

He tried several times, thinking it was some kind of prank by the other party. But after returning to the start screen and observing carefully, he gasped when he discovered the complexity within this seemingly straightforward device.

Among this expanse of nebula-like Structural Points, there was more than one starting point.

”Could it be that this thing requires me to start from multiple points at the same time? How is that possible?” The thought that flashed through Fang Hong’s mind startled even him.

In all the design schematics he had handled up to now, no matter how complex or simple, without exception, there was only one starting point. This was also easy to understand — no task required the creator to distract themselves with multitasking, to start working from several places simultaneously while keeping the progress consistent — Alchemists don’t have that many hands.

With this incredulous idea in mind, Fang Hong carefully counted the number of starting points on this peculiar structure.

He counted them, and there were three in total.

After some thought, he decided to attempt connecting to this strange structural model with a mindset of giving it a try. But with this attempt, he immediately broke into a cold sweat.

This was damn difficult!

He understood why this device was used as a test for Combat Artisans as soon as he attempted to make connections from three points simultaneously: that feeling was, in fact, exactly the same as Multi-Control Flexible Construct.

Moreover, it went a step further, because controlling multiple lines of a Flexible Construct only required the person to possess the ability for precise calculations while multitasking, while this device also required maintaining a certain level of focus since it was still a craftsman’s production system.

To be distracted yet focused, this contradictory organic combination was truly headache-inducing.

Fang Hong tried several times but couldn’t grasp the balance; he failed right at the beginning on his first try. On his second and third tries, he reached twenty percent, then couldn’t make any further progress.

He couldn’t help feeling embarrassed; he had initially thought this thing was simple, but the very first challenge had stumped him. Considering there were a total of three levels to this infernal contraption, and the thought that the guy who gave him this program might be waiting to see him fail, Fang Hong felt a surge of determination not to be beaten.

Be it in Rodell,

at the Elf Ruins,

or within the team of Morning Dawn Star, when facing pursuit by the Jiefulite Red Cloak Team.

Fang Hong never knew what fear and giving up were, and naturally, it was the same now, as if it were an intrinsic and natural quality. He was brimming with energy, completely forgetting why he had activated this system in the first place, and was entirely focused on the task at hand.

The fourth time, the fifth time, and the sixth time, he failed at twenty-two percent.

The seventh and eighth times, he advanced another one percent.

Then came the ninth and tenth times; Fang Hong incrementally climbed in progress, with time slipping away unconsciously. By the eleventh attempt, the Silver Moon had already climbed past the pinnacle of the Forest; everything was silent except for Miss Fairy, who was quietly watching her Knight struggle against himself.

But Fang Hong had finally noticed some patterns.

He was gradually getting used to the rhythm, learning how to maintain the optimal balance between division of attention and concentration. Although he was still unskilled, he was becoming more aware of the benefits — when controlling Flexible Constructs in Combat, Combat Artisans often have to adjust where to focus their attention among the constructs.

If it was one-on-one, this naturally wasn’t a problem, but once it became one-against-many, it was often overwhelming.

Such a mode of operation seemed to be inherently designed for scenarios like this one, allowing Combat Artisans to disengage their focus from a single Flexible Construct and instead take in the broader picture, not just one corner of it.

But while easy to say, it was incredibly complex to do—

After grasping this concept, Fang Hong’s progress began to soar. The percentage leapt from forty-one all the way to seventy, then eighty and ninety. It was only the last ten percent where the Star Chart structure became extremely intricate, that he took a little extra time.

Ultimately, on his fifteenth attempt, he concluded the drawn-out campaign. When the success-indicating green characters popped up in the display window, Fang Hong couldn’t help but wipe off sweat and let out a sigh of relief.

Honestly, he hadn’t anticipated that the system these people gave him would be so difficult. The tougher the system, the more high-end it implied.

He couldn’t help but think back to the Combat Artisans from the Grand Guilds he had encountered during this period. Whether it was the Combat Artisan from the Jiefulite Red Cloak Team, or Wu Di, Red Leaf, or even Liuli Yue, he was certain none of these individuals could pass this test.

And they told him this was merely a Training System for trainees. If those people hadn’t lied, the only conclusion he could draw was that this system was probably used by the top Guilds in the Second World to train their own trainees.

As this thought irrepressibly sprang to mind, it startled Fang Hong himself. After all, even the Grand Guilds at the lower end of the ranking, like Silver Forest Crown, kept their trainee training methods highly secretive.

So, where on earth did those guys get such a Training System? And to just give it away to him? Does it mean that these top-tier Training Systems aren’t valued that much anymore?

For the moment, Fang Hong too found himself somewhat dumbfounded by the situation.

Although he had learned many techniques of top Chosen Invokers through video before, those were, quite frankly, just some ”tricks”. Most of the real core and basics were part of trade secrets.

With this in mind, Fang Hong couldn’t help but take another look at the small virtual system — it had seemed somewhat rudimentary at first, but now it appeared mysteriously profound.

Adjacent to it, just like all other similar virtual testing systems, there was a dedicated Light Page displaying the rankings of those who had used the system. Fang Hong glanced at the names; each person had masked their ID, with the top rank held by a player named R××××D.

Second place went to a player named F××××b. Fang Hong thought hard about these two IDs but couldn’t match them to anyone he knew. It seemed there was no top Invoker in the Second World whose ID started and ended with similar letters.

Then, in seventh place, he finally saw someone familiar: S××××a.

If he wasn’t mistaken, that should be his ”friend”, Shana.

With mixed feelings, Fang Hong hesitated before entering his own ID, causing a shift in the rankings; a player named Ai×××× appeared between the fifth and fourth spots.

Fang Hong felt a small surge of surprise at this revelation. Didn’t this mean he ranked quite high among the Second World’s top potential Chosen Invokers?

After all, the trainees from the top Guilds of the Second World were geniuses among geniuses. And Fang Hong had information suggesting that if he had mastered those skills from the start, his ranking would have risen even further.

With that thought, he closed the rankings and opened the second level.

He had completely forgotten what this was all about. Now, his only concern was to delve into this Training System.

But just then, in the small Carry House, came a quiet and steady knock on the door. Fang Hong was startled by the sound and looked up— outside the window, the moon was bright, in the depth of the night.

Who would be knocking on his door at this time?

He looked questioningly at Miss Fairy.

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