"Why are you so happy?"
Along the way, Chu Feng asked Three-Nine-Nine.
He had noticed that ever since Three-Nine-Nine had been chosen as his attendant, his joy had been practically spilling over.
"My lord, for someone like me to follow a lord such as you — that is already a tremendous honor."
"And usually, when male lords select attendants, they choose young women."
"A lord as upright as you is truly rare," Three-Nine-Nine said.
Chu Feng finally understood why Three-Nine-Nine was so happy — apparently, this kind of opportunity was extremely rare.
At the same time, he also came to understand that while these people were manifestations of a formation, they still possessed human desires.
Like how men could be attracted to women, for instance.
"I'm curious — can you… no wait, can we have children on our own?" Chu Feng asked.
"We can't. We're unable to bear children ourselves, but if we want children, we can apply for adoption," Three-Nine-Nine explained.
"I see."
Chu Feng marveled at the fact that these formation-born people had truly developed their own unique and well-established way of life.
Soon, Chu Feng arrived at the residential area for intermediate formation masters.
The houses here stood one right next to another, and none of them were particularly large.
The living conditions could only be described as quite modest.
However, to Three-Nine-Nine's eyes, this living environment was enough to fill him with excitement and thrill.
After some inquiry, Chu Feng learned that where Three-Nine-Nine and the others had lived before, a hundred people were crammed into a single room with no private housing whatsoever.
In truth, given the barrier arts they commanded, they were fully capable of constructing grand palaces — but that wasn't allowed here.
Food, clothing, housing, and travel — everything had to follow the prescribed rules.
This was what made their living conditions so harsh.
Hearing all this, Chu Feng actually felt a strange sense of familiarity. After all, he had experienced that kind of restricted life himself.
Each house here had a plaque above its door. A blank plaque meant the house was unoccupied. Inside each house were exactly two rooms — one large, one small — just enough for two people.
Afterward, Chu Feng asked Three-Nine-Nine a few more questions.
His main aim was to gather information about Little Fishy. After all, the reason he had come here was not to serve as some intermediate formation master, much less to labor away.
His primary objective was to find Little Fishy.
But Three-Nine-Nine's status was too low — all he knew was that Little Fishy had a dedicated reception area, and that they would never be able to see her.
Since there was nothing better to do, Chu Feng had Three-Nine-Nine lead the way to the Formation Hall where he would be stationed, hoping to see if he could pick up any news about Little Fishy there.
When Chu Feng arrived at the Formation Hall, he received an extremely warm welcome.
Quite a few people even presented him with gifts.
In particular, a man with white eyebrows gave Chu Feng a gift of considerable value.
Most of the intermediate formation masters here were already elderly, with middle-aged ones being quite rare — and this white-browed man was one of the few, like Chu Feng, who was still a young man.
That made the white-browed man a promising candidate on the verge of being promoted to senior formation master.
As a result, he held a rather special standing among the intermediate formation masters of this Formation Hall.
With his keen hearing, Chu Feng picked up enough to piece together the truth behind their warmth.
They weren't naturally generous people — it was simply that the upper elder Chu Feng had met at the start had already sent word ahead, informing them that Chu Feng's talent was extraordinary and that they must treat him well.
The weakest intermediate formation masters here were at the sixth stage of Dragon Transformation, while the strongest — like the white-browed man — had barrier arts that had reached the eighth stage of Dragon Transformation.
It was said that once one reached the ninth stage of Dragon Transformation, they would qualify for promotion to senior formation master.
Chu Feng had been made an intermediate formation master as an exception to the rules.
So even with the upper elder's instructions, he still had to start with the simplest tasks.
The job Chu Feng had now was pill refinement.
The great formation used for pill refinement was enormous — it had one thousand formation nodes, each occupied by a Spirit World Master.
Standing at their respective nodes, these Spirit World Masters could harness the power of the great pill-refinement formation to refine medicinal pills.
Every Spirit World Master here was at the sixth stage of Dragon Transformation, though their pill-refinement speeds varied.
But at this moment, Chu Feng found himself far more captivated by the great pill-refinement formation itself.