*GRRRR*

The title on which Sam's hand fell moved. It slid out and then only he realized that it is not

exactly a tile. It is a large stone pillar and it is sliding out. Sam removed his hand and stepped back as he looked around.

Several other pillars also rose at the same time.

And all of them are glowing.

"Formation?

"

Sam muttered as he noticed that the glow of the pillars is exactly the same. They are raising very slowly and they are not yet connected to finish the energy structure. However, he strongly believed that they are all the nodes of the formation.

He doesn't exactly know what kind of formation it is going to be. Based on the node location there are dozens of possibilities.

So, he just focused on the pillar in front of him.

He noticed that the surface of the pillar is not like a usual pillar. Instead, there are several slidable pieces almost resembling a sliding puzzle. However, the puzzle area is not just limited to a square. The objects themselves are also not just tiles that are usually showing in the sliding puzzle.

The whole surface is covered by various grooves among with there are some stone pins, some grooves with square stone tiles, some holes in which the stone pins are placed and some other empty holes. There is no fixed pattern to these grooves and the stone pins.

They are all randomly placed all over the surface. It is almost like some hyperactive kid got a hold of some machine tools and took it out on the stone.

There are four faces since it came out of a square time and the surface of the four faces is just as random. There are randomly created holes, grooves and pins. The only redeeming quality is that on all four surfaces, at the center of each face, there is a small fixed formation that held a lot of energy.

Even though it is a formation, Sam understood its purpose immediately.

It is the energy core. The energy source for that particular face of the pillar. And that energy source has only one purpose. To facilitate the needs of whatever formation he makes on that surface.

While he is examining that, around twenty eight pillars erected from the floor and they all glowed with the golden glow.

Then the top of the pillar opened up. An intricate flower, consisting of several sophisticated mechanical elements came out of it. It is like a big lotus, big enough to cover the entire top surface of the pillar.

In that flower, there is a core at the center, an energy core. The petals however spread out like the lotus is on full bloom. Each petal is a node. However, the flower itself is not a formation made of those nodes.

Instead, it is just a mechanical place holder.

At least that is what it looked like. As for what these nodes are there for, Sam didn't know. At least until the next moment.

One of the petals started glowing. It is the outermost petal that was pointing straight ahead. It glowed and two energy threads spread out from it like lasers in two different directions.

Sam followed the threads and noticed that they are connected to the lotus petals of two other pillars. Even on those pillars only, each one only had one petal activated with that excessive golden luster.

Threads came out of those flowers as well as they connected to the petals of the other flowers. Sam soon realized what is happening.

A formation is being made. But not with the pillars, not with the cores of the lotuses and not even the lotuses themselves are the formations.

The petals which are nodes are interacting with their counterparts on the other lotuses and created a formation.

Just at a glance, Sam guessed how this might work. The lotus has thirty six petals. So, if they are going with a simplistic single purpose node approach, they can create thirty six formations at least. And if they can multipurpose each node for multiple formations and even use a combination of multiple already used nodes as a single complex node... even for Sam it will take some time to do the math to figure out how many formations that will be.

Then, each formation has at least twenty eight nodes. Twenty eight nodes is not exactly a very high number.

In fact, Sam laid formations in the bird puppets with hundreds of nodes.

However, twenty eight is not exactly a small number either, when it comes to formation structures. There are infinite number of formations they could do with those nodes and all of them could be lethal.

His brain is overheating trying to figure out what might it be.

As the energy threads connected, he even though of trying to break the pattern by interrupting the process, but the moment he gathered energy and tried to move it in the path of the threads, it evaporated.

It is almost like a ball of camphor sublimated into thin air.

As for moving around in the room? He didn't want to do that. Who knows what each tile will trigger. He has to at least wait and see what this first pillar will do and what it can trigger before trying to make a move.

Soon the much awaited revelation happened. The formation is complete. He could see the energy threads, they didn't get concealed like with most formations. However, he realized what kind of formation it is immediately.

Because a beam of light came out of it and hit a spot on the wall. After a hit, a huge square pattern glowed there.

The pattern is just a plain square. However, it revealed something about the wall.

It is not as plain as it was initially seen. Instead, it is a large grid and at the moment one of the squares in the grid is being highlighted.

*SWOOSH*

The square extended forward and split into two. It slid to the either side and opened up. From within, a humanoid metallic object jumped out.

It looked like a mecha robot. Whether the mechanical components or the design they are highly advanced compared of the usual puppets that are seen in the academy realm or even any other cultivation realm.

This is the most advanced puppet Sam has encountered apart from the ones he created.

*BAM*

The puppet is glowing with golden light as it landed on the ground. It turned towards Sam

and its eyes glowed red.

Sam immediately knew what is going to happen.

*SWOOSH*

The puppet aimed its hand at him and shot a lightning bolt.

Sam dodged the bolt and landed on the tile next to him.

*GRRR*

With a rumbling sound, the tile started moving. A pillar started emerging from it while Sam

still stood on it.

On top of that, this pillar didn't glow gold, instead it is red. Sam looked around to see if there are other pillars going red. However, there are none.

Only this pillar came out of the tile he stood on, while the rest of the tiles remained unmoved.

*BOOM*

While he is thinking, the puppet shot another bolt. Sam slid down the pillar and stood behind it. The bolt hit the pillar, but nothing happened. Not even a scratch. It is a perfect shield.

*BAM**BAM*

The puppet started running towards him, while Sam thought hurriedly. Right now, he is hanging on to the surface of this red pillar. Unlike the golden ones, the surface of this pillar is

completely clean and neat.

*BAM* *BAM*

The puppet is already close to him. Just a couple of feet and it will be beside him.

Sam grit his teeth and jumped from that pillar by kicking it.

He was shot out like a cannon ball and landed on a tile far away.

*GRRR*

Another rumbling noise and another pillar erected from under his feet. This one is also

smooth and this one is red.

*BOOM*

The puppet shot a lightning bolt, which once again was easily dodged.

Sam then noticed it, an energy beam shot out from the top of the first red pillar and connected

with the second red pillar.

A light bulb lit up in his head.

He has a really good hunch on how to use these pillars. The red pillars or the tiles are for him

to use as nodes to create a formation.

However, as soon as that realization stuck, he saw something that made him feel a bit tense.

On the first golden pillar the second petal it up. He could also see that on two other pillars, the second petal is slightly glowing. As if its radiance has increased a bit.

He doesn't know exactly what would happen with that, but he has a pretty good hunch about

that too.

*BOOM*

Sam came back to reality as the puppet made its way to him and shot him at the close range.