The First Array

Just from reading this overview, Zhou Qing had come to appreciate the vastness and profundity of arrays.

To achieve mastery in arrays required years upon years of painstaking effort.

Zhou Qing finally understood Chen Qingxuan's concerns, as well as those of the Azure Cloud Sect's elders.

Arrays were so profound and mysterious—were alchemy, artifact forging, talisman drawing, and even more dazzling spells any less so?

Those who had only just entered the path of cultivation, upon seeing these dazzling arts, could easily become immersed in them if they were not careful and neglect their cultivation.

An afternoon of silent meditation had completely purged the restlessness from Zhou Qing's heart. Its effects now showed themselves. He patiently began reading Array Symbol Basics, going over it word by word, sentence by sentence. With few distracting thoughts, he remembered every character clearly and understood each one thoroughly.

Before he knew it, dawn had broken.

Zhou Qing stretched contentedly, narrowed his eyes for a quarter of an hour, then felt brimming with energy again.

He walked to his desk, picked up his brush, and planned to design a daily cultivation schedule for himself.

In the end, he divided his cultivation into several parts. Mornings were for training his magnetic-field ability, including practicing the accuracy of the Iron Pellet Technique and his magnetic-field vibration ability. Afternoons were for silent meditation to clear his mind, while also restoring the magnetic-field energy expended in the morning. Nights were for three hours of qi refinement, followed by reading and studying arrays.

Zhou Qing calculated that under this schedule, he would have only two hours of rest each day.

That was truly packed.

Only Cultivators could withstand such intense ascetic training.

Having made his plan, Zhou Qing was just about to begin his morning training when he suddenly remembered something.

Although he had used a backdoor method to steal one of Fang Yuhe's missions, he could not use such a method often.

Once or twice, he could say Fang Yuhe had made an operational mistake himself. If it happened too many times, others would certainly grow suspicious.

He still needed to think of another way.

With that in mind, Zhou Qing entered the Spirit Realm Network to see whether there was another solution.

The moment he entered the Spirit Realm Network, he saw several note papers posted on the bulletin board. He walked over to inspect them and found that they were several missions.

Zhou Qing was immediately somewhat surprised. What was so strange about today? Why hadn't Fang Yuhe intercepted the missions beforehand?

Could it be that he had actually found his conscience and decided to stop using those despicable methods from the past?

Zhou Qing did not care what Fang Yuhe was thinking. Since there were missions available, he naturally would not stand on ceremony.

He counted the required personnel and found that the missions collectively needed five people. He then returned to reality and selected four people by drawing lots.

Together with Yuan Hongying, whom he had already promised beforehand, there were five people in all. He wrote the five names on the note papers. Once their Aura merged with them, the note papers vanished, signifying that the missions had been submitted.

Wang Xiaohu did not come visiting today, so Zhou Qing had no choice but to go door to door and relay the missions to everyone.

By the time he had made a full round and returned, it was already noon.

The entire morning had been wasted just like that.

Zhou Qing felt immense regret, and could not help wondering whether there was a way to eliminate such wasteful activity.

He could hand the task of notifying others to someone else, but that was not a long-term solution either.

Zhou Qing paced around the room for a while. Then his gaze fell upon Array Symbol Basics, and an idea suddenly stirred in his heart. Could I try setting up an array to accomplish this?

This could also count as practical application and help solidify the theoretical knowledge he had learned.

Those arrays with tremendous power were exceedingly complex, often requiring thousands or even tens of thousands of runes. They were not something a beginner like him could handle, and the materials they required were exceptionally rare and expensive, far beyond his reach.

But simple arrays were not so difficult.

He recalled the runes he had read about yesterday, and an outline had already formed in his mind. He simply could not yet be certain of it, so he planned to spend more time carefully considering it during his evening reading.

That afternoon, Zhou Qing followed his schedule and meditated to clear his mind. At night, he cultivated by circulating qi.

After three hours of qi circulation, Zhou Qing opened Array Symbol Basics.

He began recalling the inspiration that had struck him during the day.

At the time, he had thought of several runes he had seen. Once formed, those runes could vibrate spiritual qi at a specific frequency, creating spiritual qi waves.

That made Zhou Qing think of ultrasound. Some animals, such as bats, could use ultrasound in place of vision.

When ultrasound encountered an obstacle during transmission, it would return, conveying information back to the user's ears.

Zhou Qing wondered whether he could make use of spiritual qi waves—waves that reacted only to a specific individual—so that he would have a way to locate that person.

Of course, this was only a fleeting inspiration. It was still a long way from producing any results.

But at least he now had a direction.

Over the following days, Zhou Qing's life proceeded strictly according to his schedule.

He trained his magnetic field in the mornings, meditated in the afternoons, and circulated qi and read at night.

With a goal in his heart, Zhou Qing naturally began incorporating thought into his reading.

After three days like this, he finally formed his own design concept.

From Array Symbol Basics, he selected one rune that could vibrate spiritual qi to form spiritual qi waves, along with one rune that could preserve another person's Aura.

He combined the two runes, making the spiritual qi waves created through vibration react only to a specific person's Aura. When the ripples touched that person's Aura, they would return, giving him the ability to locate a specific individual.

He then selected another rune that could briefly gather fire-attributed spiritual qi to heat the air and create rising currents.

Finally, he combined these runes and inscribed them onto tough cowhide paper using cinnabar ink.

Since he had never studied Array Structure Studies, Zhou Qing naturally had no method whatsoever for arranging these runes.

Fortunately, magnetic-field perception aided him, allowing him to clearly sense the effects different runes had on spiritual qi.

To combine different runes into a single array, one needed to consider the ways the runes affected one another.

The more runes there were, the more complex these mutual effects became, and the harder they were to control.

Naturally, that was what the book recorded, but Zhou Qing used magnetic-field perception to discover the underlying principle.

He discovered that spiritual qi fluctuations at certain frequencies could remain parallel without interfering with one another. Two fluctuations could overlap within the same space, yet neither affected the other, and each could perform its own function.

Those two types of runes could be perfectly combined.

Yet fluctuations at some frequencies repelled one another. Overlapping such spiritual qi fluctuations within the same space would only cause them to cancel each other out, producing no effect whatsoever.

Those two types of runes could not coexist at all.

Of course, between these two extremes were many intermediate states, where two fluctuations affected each other without canceling each other out. Thus, all kinds of peculiar effects could be produced.

Through his own observations, Zhou Qing continually swapped out runes with similar functions. After working at it for seven days, he finally inscribed his first array.

Though simple, it was of great significance.

Zhou Qing could not help feeling somewhat excited. He immediately wanted to test its effects.