It wasn't that the formation failed. Despite this being Fang Yuan's first attempt, he had succeeded in making something that worked. He did not suffer any backlash from it.
The issue was that its output was pitiful compared to what he had been expecting. In terms of numbers, it was only about ten percent of what Fang Yuan had intended to accomplish.
There was clearly an issue with this formation.
Fang Yuan contemplated what was going on.
First of all, it was quite basic in nature. Just three columns arranged together with not more thought put into them than that.
Secondly, building upon his analogy of a formation being like an organization or an army made him think - did an army truly work on just soldiers?
No.
Any human society require more than its basic components to function. Building on the idea of this army, it would need cooks, suppliers, and other ancillary staff to function.
As a quote from Earth went, 'Novices to war speak of tactics, while experts speak of logistics.'
So, Fang Yuan assembled a group of Cook Gu and Chef Gu behind the formation. Additionally there were Doctor Gu, Messenger Gu, Tailor Gu, Seamstress Gu, and Scout Gu.
With this, Fang Yuan had assembled an army camp behind the body of the main army.
He used the formation again, only for it to fizzle out as well.
Frowning, he rearranged the ancillary part of the formation and tried again.
A better result this time. But still far from what he would have expected.
The inheritance he had gotten had little in the way of explaining what was going wrong as this was a new field that Fang Yuan was delving into.
What was wrong?
Dwelling upon the problem once more, the deeper he thought about it, he realized than a group of ancillary staff was not enough.
Where did the army get the food to fill its bellies?
It needed workers out in the field, people to supervise these workers, and a political apparatus to arrange for its feeding.
Fang Yuan began adding more and more of these profession-like gu worms to the formation until it dawned on him that he had practically managed to construct a tiny nation out of these gu worms. Where he was deficient in some of these professions, he substitute with other gu worms - for example, adding Earth Path gu worms to enhance their effect where possible.
Once this was done, he activated the formation again.
Sixty percent of projected effect!
With this, Fang Yuan's thoughts deepened. He had already built upon his idea multiple times, why was this still failing?
Trying to rearrange the gu worms inside did little other than bring it up to 62%.
If it had been closer to eighty or ninety percent, he could pass this off as him making an error during his assumption of the formation's abilities. But a sixty-two percent effect could not be considered simple statistical error.
There was more to it.
And it was only when Fang Yuan turned his attention to the rest of his aperture that he stumbled upon the answer by accident.
Since he had formed this Immortal Aperture after obtaining the Righteous Virtue Physique, gu worms of all the virtues naturally formed in large numbers within his aperture - Justice Gu, Charity Gu, Hope Gu in large clumps on the continents below as well as the skies above, Faith Gu, Moderation Gu, Prudence Gu, and Diligence Gu.
The issue did not rely in any of his thinking about the formation itself.
The problem presented itself in Fang Yuan's own philosophy.
The closer that this formation was to an actual human organization, the harder it was for Fang Yuan's philosophy to apply to it. 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,' was the entire reasoning behind the formation.
And yet, Fang Yuan knew that this was a world where the strength of a single man could outweigh that of millions. Because of this, his own thought process had shifted during his time in this world. He considered joining organizations to be a waste, and would only rely on his own strength. Any time that he had joined one it was simply to leech off of it.
Somewhere, this thought process of his had influenced his design of the formation.
Was this what Genesis Lotus had meant to say when he said that the understanding of the Human Path could only come through cooperation?
Fang Yuan's thought process was centered around the self - while making a construct of many people working together, his own cynicism leaked through sabotaging the process without him realizing.
Of course, this wasn't to say that Fang Yuan couldn't change this mindset of his - if only temporarily so that he could finish this formation.
During his life before he had adopted the demonic path, he had been a person who believed in the importance of structure and organization.
He simply needed to tap back into that idea while constructing this formation and glance at it with new eyes.
While restructuring it, he began adding the various virtue gu as well, like Justice Gu and Hope Gu.
Although these profession-like gu worms were supposed to represent the human professions, they were ultimately just gu worms. Where was the human heart supposed to go?
And for that, Fang Yuan added in those gu worms before the formation was finished.
Ninety-five percent efficiency!
This was either as close as he was going to get with this formation, or a sign that it would need further tweaking after hours of effort in order to improve.
The purpose of the formation was to gather Human Qi within his aperture and stimulate the formation of Relic Gu.
Despite being as efficient as he imagined it, this was only an indirect way of taking advantage of the resources within his aperture to create Relic Gu. He had not come up with a refinement recipe as of yet.
The next thing for Fang Yuan to do was to continue working upon this formation.
The biggest thing, he felt, that could make it stronger was that if instead of having profession-type gu worms, he had actual humans within the formation. However, getting them to line up and obey was going to be an issue.
He could try circumventing the problem by using human Wills instead.
Either that, or figure out how to use actual people. But that would have to wait until the Integration Formation had managed to work its way a bit more.
As for the other resources in his aperture, like the Moon Orchids, Fang Yuan did not have the time to be dealing with them. The Moon Orchids would take a massive investment in order to yield any kind of results. The Moon Path had never had good prospects anyway.
It was while considering this that Fang Yuan received a message through Yellow Treasure Heaven from Lu Wei Yin.
He had prepared a method to repair Fang Yuan's soul.