Rivers of the Night - Chapter 687

Capítulo 687: Three Stripe

Theron leaned back, tapping a finger on his armrest as his thoughts swirled.

How interested was he in this formation mastery? Honestly, he wasn’t sure if it was worth his money even if he was able to get his hands on the real thing.

The problem with this approach was that formation mastery couldn’t be easily used in battle—not without a great amount of preparation and resources.

Preparation wasn’t really the problem. Theron didn’t mind preparing; it was what he did best.

But the idea of relying on something that would need him to constantly pour money into it wasn’t the best.

In addition, the greatest issue was that he was no Soul Mancer. If he was, this path would be somewhat viable, as there were things like portable formation flags. As far as he knew, there was a path of Soul Mancy that involved using formations to do direct battle, and these Mancers could grow to be quite powerful.

They could deploy formations in real time, and their ability to control a battlefield was very close to second to none.

The downsides were obvious, then. But the upsides…

If the path of this formation mastery was taken to the logical extent it could be, there was no telling how far you could go with it. Theron wasn’t speaking about just growing powerful, but instead applying it toward protecting his life.

A Formation Doctrine designed to be capable of being used by any Mancer following any Path could likewise be dissected and applied to every other Formation Doctrine out there.

That was all to say that if Theron spent his time studying this path, then he would be able to innately understand all other Doctrines as well.

In that case, the odds he would ever be taken off guard by a formation master would be near zero. They would have to be far superior to him, and by that point, they would be a danger to him regardless, just based on their cultivation alone.

There were many downsides, but this one upside…

Theron’s gaze flickered.

If he was going to take down a Clan like the Umbra—something that was looking like it would be necessary in order to fulfill Goddess Sacharro’s demands of him—then understanding formations would be a bare minimum requirement.

There was simply no way anyone could take down a Clan without understanding formations, because there was no such thing as a Clan or Sect or Guild—or any power, for that matter—that didn’t have such protections.

Theron wanted to take down the Clan with his own strength, but that didn’t mean he had to be stupid about it.

“What member benefits do you have?” Theron suddenly asked.

The attendant who had been following Theron around was sitting in the corner of the room like a child put in time-out. He could tell that Theron was just ignoring him, but he also knew that it was his fault for ignoring Theron’s potential as a high-end client.

The moment he got a chance to prove himself, though, he jumped at the opportunity without the slightest hesitation.

“Yes, yes, yes.” The attendant shook his head, realizing that wasn’t the question Theron asked, before orienting himself properly. “We have three levels of member benefits, sir—”

“Is there a level that allows you to peruse an item before buying it?” Theron asked, cutting him off.

The attendant blinked before hesitating. However, learning from his previous mistakes, he chose to be very straightforward.

“All levels from the One Stripe to Three Stripe allow this privilege, but each one comes with limitations. To see the highest category of items, you need to be Three Stripe, and that requires having spent over 100,000 Heaven Grade Mana Crystals. One Stripe is 1,000; Two Stripe is 10,000.”

Theron nodded.

As expected, there was a way. That actually made Theron tilt toward believing that this was real.

The cost of the Three Stripe was just shy of half a percent of Theron’s current wealth. Yet, to buy all the items he needed, he would need half that net worth. That was in the tens of millions of Heaven Mana Crystals.

That said… being allowed to peruse something wasn’t the same as being allowed to sit down and study it in earnest. Maybe this person was banking on the fact that if this option was used, there wouldn’t be enough time to see whether it was real or not.

However, Theron still chose to cover his bases, even though he knew quite well he was probably running on a ticking timer right now.

Whoever had set this up likely already knew that he had bought the items. And if they didn’t, they would know soon.

After already being screwed over once by establishments not keeping their word, Theron also didn’t have any faith that the pavilion would protect his identity either. So, he was going to have to rely on himself like he usually did.

It seemed that he was going to have to spend 100,000 Heaven Grade Crystals first, but that wasn’t going to be difficult.

After all, hadn’t he come here for Spells in the first place? It was time to upgrade.

The fact that his only good Spell was [Death Walk] was criminal. This world had so much more to offer.

Theron waved a hand and changed the settings on the listings once again. This time, he arranged by Dark and Water Mancer Spells, and the sheer list of them was overwhelming.

Even after he got rid of all the Bronze and Silver Resonance ones, the list was still shocking.

In fact, what was more shocking than all of that was the fact that the selection of Heaven Resonance Spells was also shocking.

And these were Spells. Theron had already filtered out all of the techniques, having grown tired of them.

Still, the costs were quite something.

Even Gold Resonance Spells were bought in Cloud Mana Crystals. By the time you got to Heaven Resonance Spells, you would be looking at spending millions of Heaven Mana Crystals on just a single one.

Yet the catalogue was hundreds deep, even at this higher end.

‘Good.’

Theron was confident he’d find what he needed here.