The carriage continued for another couple of days until the scenery finally began to change. While before, it had been thick forest after thick forest on either side of the path, there were now more and more buildings and passing people.

Emmet marveled from inside the carriage. He had spent his entire life inside the tribe’s village area, so all of this was new to him. As they traveled further and further, and the little buildings became more and more frequent, Emmet’s excitement grew more and more. So there was such a world outside! He had heard about it, but never seen it for himself.

When the carriage finally actually reached the city, humbly named Winding Town, Emmet’s mind was blown. Buildings… with more than ten stories, lining block after block in a packed pattern, and tens of people walking each and every way… it was almost too stimulating. Buildings back in the tribe village were almost never more than two stories! His eyes were never stagnant - one moment, he would be ogling at a beautiful gilded sculpture of an angel enveloping a man with her wings, and the next moment, he would be in awe at an enormous marketplace where hundreds of people were buying and selling goods at once. There weren’t even a few hundred people in his home migrant farming tribe!

Seeing Emmet’s country bumpkin awe, Tauruk rolled his eyes. This wasn’t even a big city! In fact, it was more of a town. Compared to where they were going, this could even be considered rural.

The carriage stopped to pick up supplies for the next stretch of the journey, and along the way, some traders recognized Tarhoh. Bowing humbly toward him, they asked if he would grace them with his presence and join their caravan. In exchange for his protection from the numerous bandits that would notoriously hide in ambush within these winding paths between cities, they would pay him a portion of their sales at their destination city. This city happened to be where they were traveling, so called Soaring Heights City, so this would match up with Tarhoh’s plans.

Laughing jovially, Tarhoh agreed to their proposal, but denied their offers of payment. He just requested that they spare some of the best and most delicious food rations for them.

Thus, like that, they were now travelling in a twenty-carriage large caravan. Emmet’s excitement level grew even higher. He had heard of things like large merchant trading caravans, but never had seen one for himself. And now, he was part of that caravan! How could he not be overjoyed?

They left Winding Town a day later, and set off for the next stop - Torus City. This would be the last rest stop before they finally reached their destination, Soaring Heights City!

The food, as promised, was indeed amazing. Emmet had one mind blowing experience after another. He had no idea food could be this delicious, this juicy, this tangy, this vibrant, this sophisticated. He felt that in less than a week, he had experienced more cuisine that he would have in five lifetimes.

It was a week into the journey when something finally happened. They had been travelling through some thick woods as normal when some movement appeared in the surrounding woods, and suddenly over thirty masked bandits emerged and attacked the carvan!

This was when Tarhoh’s reputation shined. Although the caravan had warriors in preparation of dealing with bandits, they weren’t needed. Tahoh merely took out a big, intricate disk out and with one movement, trapped all thirty of the bandits within a large multicolored formation. No matter how the bandits tried to escape or attack through the formation, it was useless. In the end, it was the bandits who ended up getting robbed for all they had.

Seeing the outcome, the leaders of the caravan could only laugh merrily and thank Tarhoh. As expected from a formations expert! So they were this amazing! As expected, it was a good idea to invite Tarhoh onto their caravan.

Witnessing this stunning feat, Emmet’s eyes widened like saucers, and he absorbed every detail. So this was the power of formations! He tried to sneak some glances at the disk that Torhah had used, but although he recognized some tiny embedded mini circuits within the structure, it was a mystery to him how it worked. There seemed to be some sort of multilayered nucleus with materials unknown to him, combined with strange high-level embedded miniformations and circuitry that puzzled him. He had certainly never seen anything like that before, not even in the book. Although, he was only currently on page 51. - maybe in the later pages, it would approach something like that.

Speaking of the book, he found that the more he advanced in the book, the slower he would get. Although he still worked tirelessly on its problems every day, it was taking him longer and longer to solve them, and the puzzles were getting more and more advanced and intricate.

However, recently, he had sped up! Before they had set off in the carriage, he had actually only been on page 44. However, now, when he was stuck on something, he could ask Torhah if he had any pointers, and sometimes, he would give a mysterious piece of advice that could allow Emmet to reach a revelation and reach a conclusion much faster. He also corrected some of Emmet’s original misconceptions, causing him to create a better base intuition, and progress multiple times quicker. In just a few weeks, he had advanced seven whole pages!

Curious, Tauruk glanced at the book Emmet was studying from, but immediately looked away in distaste. There were no words! So primitive! He himself studied from a traditional textbook along the way, also receiving guidance from his father.

Like this, another week passed, and they reached Torus City, which blew Emmet’s mind once more. Buildings with twenty stories, stretching endlessly into the horizon, and literally hundreds of people walking back and forth through some of the long busy streets - it was a total culture shock.

Yet, Emmet got the biggest shock when they set off again, and a few weeks later, finally reached their destination, Soaring Heights City. At this point, an entire three months had passed overall. Their destination was really far away! To Emmet, these three months passed incredibly quickly. He had so much fun that even if he was going away just for the trip, he felt it would be worth it.

With one look at the gigantic metropolis that was Soaring Heights City, Emmet nearly fainted on the spot.

My lord… was all he could think. At that moment, he truly felt like a frog in a well.

He thought the buildings in Torus City were tall. The buildings in Soaring Heights City… some of them probably reached five hundred stories! From the ground, the natural sunlight was almost completely blocked by the towering buildings, requiring street lights along a mana-powered grid.

There were formations everywhere. In fact, underneath the entire city could be seen an enormous formation, making up the very foundation of the city! Every mile or so would be another node of the formation, an enormous nearly hundred meter long intricate series of lit-up layered disks with incredibly intricate and strange symbols. Throughout the city, there were over five hundred of these layered disks, resulting in an enormous city-wide formation! This formation was used to not only power the city, but provide defense were the city to undergo attack. The formation could hold over a thousand controllers stationed on each of the layered disks spots and activate the defense mechanism, creating an impossibly powerful shield, blocking any attacks from the outside. It also allowed the defenders to attack with tremendously powerful array effects, more than capable of wiping out entire armies with one go.

Apart from that, there were thousands of floating mini-islands hovering above the cityscape, populated by various buildings and people, as if the enormous real estate on the ground wasn’t enough. Each of these islands was powered by a formation, allowing it to float in midair seemingly effortlessly.

This could really be considered the city of formations. One would have to be out of their mind to mess with such a city, really...

Witnessing Emmet’s overwhelmed reaction, Torhah broke down laughing. He had been looking forward to seeing how a simple farm boy like Emmet would react to something like this, and he wasn’t disappointed. For a whole day, Emmet was in a constant daze, like he had just woken up from a year-long coma.

Reaching the city, the three said goodbye to the caravan they had accompanied and took a formations powered speed-rail to their destination, the famous Gemini Academy. In fact, Torhah had been planning to send his son Tauruk to the academy this very year, so it wasn’t a special trip for Emmet. That would have been crazy. Tauruk had already been accepted a few months prior to them meeting Emmet. For all Torhah criticized Tauruk, in reality, he was actually pretty talented.

On the way there, Torhah turned toward Emmet and smiled.

“In reality, you may have realized already, the Gemini Academy is more than just a formations school. It is the most prestigious formations school in the world, situated directly in the middle of the famous Soaring Heights Metropolis. Because of this, one needs to apply a year in advance, pay an enormous fee, qualify through extensive tests, and a third requirement: be a noble. You don’t meet any of these requirements.”

“Oh…” Emmet’s eyes widened in worry. So he wouldn’t be able to go?

“But the thing is, this useless boy of mine here,” he planted his hand on Tauruk’s shoulder. “A year ago now, actually managed to squeak in to the academy! I was amazed… average talent, and was able to get into the Gemini Academy! But I’m proud, my boy made me a proud father! Although, my wallet has suffered incredibly...”

Tauruk groaned.

“But Emmet, that’s your ticket in. Students are permitted a squire to assist them in their studies at the academy. That’s you,” Torhah smiled at Emmet.

“Squire…?”

“Yep, but don’t worry, you don’t actually have to act as Tauruk’s squire. I’ll make sure to give Tauruk a stern talking to so that he understands.” He gave a stern look to Tauruk. “Squires are actually permitted most of the permissions of ordinary students, since much the time, squires are sent in place of the students, and need access to the resources the student needs. This means that the libraries, the archives, study rooms, and dining halls, and most of everything else will be available to you.”

Emmet’s eyes brightened. Those resources… what sort of amazing stuff would be there? At such an amazing school, in such an amazing city!

“Thank you so much, sir!”

Torhah chuckled. “Hehe, no problem. I’m looking forward to seeing what you can accomplish!”