Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

"Cultivate as if your life depends on it!" Layn didn't say those words for no reason.

Right now, the entire group was spread out across the entire, seven-ringed formation. With the magic-infused earth serving as the perfect padding for the formation, Layn managed to turn all of its rings online with a far smaller amount of energy that would otherwise be necessary to break through the restraints of insufficient padding.

'I wonder if it will work?' Layn thought as he continued to activate layer after layer.

Layn's entire idea was based on the fact that even if one loses a part of their body, their cultivation drive should still remain the same. By circulating the energy through the path enveloping their entire, full-body, Layn's disciples could alter how the world around them would perceive them.

By cultivating and pushing their energy through the parts of their body that are no longer present, they could alter what the world would see as 

an anomaly.

And Layn didn't need to wait long for the effects of his plan to start showing.

At first, a mercenary who lost his eye suddenly started to suck on the mana that filled the air within the formation sphere of influence like mad. Most likely not aware of it himself, he appeared to just drive his cultivation as usual, completely ignorant to the fact that all the excess magic that he would otherwise be unable to absorb was actively gathering around his wound and slowly rebuilding it.

'In that regard, magic is still a miracle, isn't it?' Layn thought when he noticed what was going on. Even though it was all part of his plan, he relied on nothing more but a hunch.

Even back in his times, Layn was far from understanding the true nature of magic. In a sense, studying it made Layn feel like peeling the onion. Whenever he or someone else would stumble into a discovery that gave others hope that the crux of the magic was finally revealed, some other discovery would quickly prove such hopes wrong.

No matter how much one tried, getting to the bottom of the knowledge well that magic was, appeared to be impossible. In his current situation, without the manpower, tools, and scientific background with all the perks it offered, Layn couldn't even test his theories out.

The only thing he could do was to implement his ideas right as he came up with them. And so far, his ideas appeared to be right.

Once the first man started to shine from all the mana converging over his injuries, the same phenomena started to occur all over the place. Soon, everyone was enveloped by the thicket of mana, even those who never received any serious injuries in the first place.

'I wonder what the hell does that mean,' Layn kept a close watch of the events, ready to stomp at the killswitch of the formation at any given moment. While killing a formation like that was pretty dangerous, allowing a seven-ringed formation to run amok could potentially have way worse consequences.

"Layn, are you there?" Irea suddenly asked, not daring to open her eyes. She was focused on her cultivation, yet from the small wrinkles on her face, Layn could tell just how worried she was.

'Right, I never told her what I was planning,' Layn suddenly realized, only to notice how little he could do. As annoying as it was, he could only use his voice right now as stepping off this crucial part of the formation would bear too much risk for everyone.

"I'm here. Don't worry about anything and just keep cultivating," Layn ordered, ignoring the fact that he was the only one not heeding his own words. Seeing how Irea obediently calmed herself down and moved all her attention back to the task at hand, a wave of relief made the archmage shrug.

"Everyone, just a little more," Layn encouraged his people while watching over the formation. And there was a lot to watch out for, given how the magic of the crystal continued to turn more and more ground into formation-suitable padding. But as great as it was for setting up new formations in any place desirable, this process couldn't go on for much longer either.

'I need to remove this stone soon,' Layn thought grimly, watching how more and more of formerly fertile ground turned into a magically unstable matter.

When it came to formation padding, there were limits on both extremes. If the padding used were to be too small, the formation wouldn't fit on it. Even if some kind of genius managed to condense the formulas used in it, circumventing the problem, unless the formation padding was big enough, it simply wouldn't be able to hold all the energy that the formation would make course through it.

But the other extreme was also possible. If the formation padding were to be too big for the formation, the guided changes of the mana that the formation was implementing would simply diffuse in the sea of mana of the padding. Just like a fistful of salt couldn't turn lake water salty, a formation set on padding exceeding its upper limit would simply cease to work.

But for now, Layn simply kept observing the situation, ready to kill the entire thing at the first notice.

And there was a reason why he abstained from playing safe right now. The mana that converged around his disciples was now slowly starting to work as intended. The lost limbs were slowly growing back. Given how everyone has their eyes closed, Layn couldn't tell whether the same was happening with the two mercenaries who lost their eyes…

But the mana that revolved around their heads was more than proof of it.

Yet, as much as Layn wanted to rejoice, he was simply too busy controlling the formation to do so.

'That will be it.' The process of healing has yet to conclude, yet Layn already reached forward and picked up the crystal stone that stood in the middle of the formation. While its most important role was turning the ground into formation padding, the sheer amount of mana that would infuse itself into the ground was also the main source of energy that filled the formation itself.

But the size of the magic-infused ground almost reached the limit of what Layn's formation could manage. Any bigger, and the flow of energy through the padding would disturb the flow of mana managed by the formation. One thing would lead to another, and soon, rather than a formation that was tasked with returning the world to its normal, non-altered state would turn into a magical disaster.

'Given how all those places are just rotting away, one of the disasters could be caused by a crystal, just like the one in Layn's possession just falling on the ground and doing its work….' Layn thought to himself while stashing the crystal away in a special container he prepared.

By combining the godly brick of his with the infused ground taken right from below his feet, Layn managed to come up with a container capable of separating the crystal from the rest of the world. As simple and makeshift as this kind of container was, this was the best of what Layn could figure out on the spot.

Without the main source of energy, the formation instantly started draining the energy from the infused ground it was set on. Yet, with the rate at which everyone was consuming mana to regenerate their injuries, it was only a matter of minutes before the ground would turn into its previous, although no longer fertile state.

'I hope it will be enough,' Layn thought while raising his eyes at the mercenaries. They were all still busy cultivating, not paying any mind to their regenerating limbs, not to speak about Layn and his expressions.

From the looks of things, the healing was mostly complete. Some of the fingernails and fingertips have yet to be regenerated in the case of the two mercenaries who lost their limbs quite high. As for everyone else, with all their injuries gone, the energy they were using went directly into furthering their cultivation.

'Dang, as the last resort, this method works pretty well,' Layn thought while casting a glance at the small, bricky box in his hands. 'Given how easy I should be able to obtain more of them, should I try to figure out how big of a padding it could create?' Layn asked himself, sinking deeper into his thoughts.

If a seven-ringed formation was too small to assimilate all the energy stored within the crystal, then eight rings would do. If not, then nine, ten, or as much as necessary for this crystal to be fully utilized.

"Well, if I use a ten-ringed formation as the baseline for the academy," Layn muttered to himself as the formation slowly started to choke due to the lack of fuel.

"I just can't wait to see what kind of face others would make!"