After checking the body of Vidyut, Sam got out of the room and immediately went out to take a look at the mountain. Leaving the path alone, he went to take a look at the rest of the mountain. But before he did that, he sent the Bat puppets which he used in taking down the maze formation all over the mountain, to find energy spots that might act as formations.
Generally, formations are made on a flat area whether it is horizontal or vertical.
Even if it is in uneven large land, the nodes would always be on the same plane when they are joined.
This is the most basic and easiest way to creating formations and they don't have to worry about the energy instability due to the irregularity of the terrain and it will also free the formation creator to be free from extra worries and calculations.
These kinds of people will rely on inscribing the formations if there is any particular flaw with the terrain which they cannot rule away.
But there is another way of creating a formation even if there is no planar coincidence between the nodes and even when all the nodes are not exactly present on the same level.
Sam had done some of those formations when killing the Nascent stage General Spark a long time ago and there are a bunch of formations like that within Sam's city and many other places in the desolate.
But Sam never had any necessity to use that in a larger and more complicated scale like this.
The person who imprisoned Vidyut actually used a similar technique and none of the nodes are in the same plane.
If all the nodes are joined by a straight line, then they would surely create a three-dimensional figure.
While constructing them is already difficult enough, deconstructing them is way more difficult and in fact downright irritating, and sometimes, it almost makes the people wonder if they are as intelligent as they believed they are.
Currently, the whole mountain is used a single entity and there are many nodes created in different places. When the bats managed to find out where the nodes are present on the mountain, Sam immediately became sure that they are not all. And since the number was quite limited, which could only mean one thing, the rest of the nodes are within the mountain.
But before he explored more, he decided to check the nodes outside and see what he used as nodes.
In normal cases, he wouldn't have wondered about something like this, but now, he should be otherwise, the thing that is making Vidyut stay, the one thing in his chest is made of some different method that Sam never saw and it is something among the lines of research he is currently doing.
If the nodes are also made of the same thing, then he would be able to find some broader spectrum of materials to reverse engineer and grasp the method that he wants to make what he wants.
He went to the nearest node and used the observation ability on it.
With that, he sent his consciousness into the second floor of the divine dimension and created a model of the node there.
He did the same with the rest of the nodes and finally, after dealing with that, he started thinking about the nodes that are buried within the mountain.
As much as his cultivation improved, it is still not big enough to cover the whole mountain with observation ability.
The best he could do would be around one-twentieth of the mountain. Which means he would have to do the same thing twenty times. And even then, he has to be careful and find a way to use the observation ability on the inner side of the mountain.
First, he went on using the observation ability on the outer parts, and finally, there are two inner parts left.
He couldn't directly dig through because if one mistake led to instability even at one node, the whole formation might create a collapse that would explode the whole mountain.
He went back into the mansion and asked Vidyut.
"Before you were imprisoned here, what was this mountain exactly?"
"It is the property of one of the families. It is just some training ground for low-level cultivators who just awakened.
They will bring a bunch of initiation stage beasts and let the kids practice fighting here."
"Is that so, then where did all this energy come from?"
"I don't really know."
"So, you don't know the source of the energy and you just stayed here getting imprisoned by it?"
"Well… I didn't really think much about it."
"Okay then, ask the family head of the previous owners of this mountain to come. We need to know where the energy source is and I also need a way to access the core of the mountain."
With that Vidyut contacted the family head. There is a way for Vidyut to communicate with them no matter where they are on the mountain. It is through the screens in the mansion.
The principle is similar to that of the crystal table Sam has.
After some discussion and threatening the family head, they finally got the news.
Underneath the mountain, there is a mine. The lightning elemental spirit stone mine. And they kept it a secret from the rest of the organizations in the city so that they could avoid unnecessary rivalry with the other organizations. That is what the family head said. But in reality, he just wanted to make sure that he doesn't have to share the profits with other organizations. After all, the mountain is too close to the city and it will be hard to not create a conflict.
After that, the guy was asked to send the map. A bird similar to a silver pigeon was used to transport the spatial rings and he sent the map like that.
Sam took a look at the map to find out the whereabouts of the mining tunnels and see if he would be able to find a way to get in touch with the core.
And luckily there is a way. Now that he also knew that there is a mine underneath, that must be the energy source too. He doesn't have to search anymore.
He went to the bottom of the mountain through the mountain path again and with Vidyut's help, he managed to preserve a lot more energy as he can control the lightning curtain on the top of the mountain which takes most of his energy.
After reaching the bottom of the mountain, he circled around it to identify the mining tunnels.
Even though they are currently blocked, they were not completely blocked, only on the surface. So, as soon as he removed the blockage which is around a meter thick, he managed to find the tunnel and started moving through it.
The tunnels are diverse and confusing as they are split too much.
Sam had to use the bug puppets to not waste time and find the correct path.
After a three-hour-long search, he finally managed to reach the core of the mountain where the mine is also built.
When he saw the center, there are two thoughts that came to his mind. The first one is that he felt glad that he didn't drill through to find the core, otherwise, the mountain might have really collapsed.
The second thought is, whoever the person that made this formation, he is way too many levels above Sam in terms of his expertise in formations and for the first time ever Sam felt extremely inferior to another person in terms of ability.
Even if he was inferior, he was never disheartened as he always believed he would catch up soon enough, but for the first time in life, he almost felt that disheartenment. Almost.
He shook those useless feelings out of his head and a look of excitement came back to his face as he looked at the object in the middle of the large cave.
The whole cave is scattered with the blocks of empty spirit stone.
They are all exhausted as the object in the middle has sucked the energy out of it all.
In the middle of it, there is a six feet pole standing straight. The pole is transparent and a bunch of inscriptions is covering it from top to bottom.
Inside the transparent pole, there is an indigo-colored liquid full of lightning elemental energy.
Just with the energy vision and even without touching, Sam could confirm what it is, it is the liquid form of lightning elemental energy.
The liquid form of spiritual energy is actually one of the purest forms. But it is hard to find it anywhere as it would only be available in the spirit stone mines, but by the time the mines are detectable, the liquid would have already turned into spirit stones.
The liquid form of spiritual energy only exists for a small period of time. Between the spiritual energy turning from its particle form to solid stage, but this guy managed to reverse to preserve the liquid state in that transparent pole and use that pure energy for the formation and the liquid energy isn't being consumed as the pole and inscriptions which are responsible for conversion process are drawing energy from the vein of the mine.
Sam excitedly walked towards the pole and touched it before using observation ability.
