Free Web NovelChapter 57: Chapter 56: Up the Mountain
As the sky began to brighten, Li Yuan opened his eyes, feeling exceptionally refreshed.
He spread out talisman paper, dipped his brush in cinnabar, and set it to the page.
When the final stroke was complete, a large pile of failed talismans and six finished ones lay beside him.
[Talisman Crafting Insight (White) Permanence Progress: 50/50]
[Permanence conditions for Talisman Crafting Insight (White) have been met]
[Make permanent?]
Yes.
[Permanence successful]
[Talisman Crafting Insight (White) has become a permanent trait]
[Equipment consumed]
Li Yuan set down his brush and rolled his wrist a couple of times. The dried cinnabar stains on his fingertips peeled off on their own, thanks to his Cleansed Body trait.
’That’s eight permanent traits now.’
With a thought, Li Yuan equipped the Iron Bull Skill.
He walked out the door and had just turned onto West Street when he saw Zhao Hu jogging toward him.
"Vice-Captain, Captain Wang wants you to gather at the station. He says we’re going into the mountains today." ƒrēewebnovel.com
"Got it."
A few people were already standing in the courtyard of the patrol team’s station.
Wang De was sitting on the steps of the main building’s entrance, with Wang Yuan standing beside him.
In the courtyard were two other Cultivators he didn’t recognize. Their auras indicated they were at the Late-stage of Qi Refining, about the same level as Wang De. They were dressed in plain clothes, with Magical Artifacts tucked into their belts.
Li Yuan glanced around but didn’t see He Shou.
Wang De looked up, saw Li Yuan, and waved him over.
"We’re heading into the mountains today to take the Array Master we hired to see those array ruins."
"What about He Shou?"
"One guide from each squad is enough, so He Shou doesn’t need to come." Wang De pulled out a document and handed it over. It briefly outlined the day’s route and personnel roster.
"The members from the other squads have arrived too. They’ve also found traces of arrays in different locations in the mountains. We’ll take the Array Master to see all of them at once."
Wang De paused, then looked at Wang Yuan.
"Wang Yuan is coming along too. He has an interest in arrays."
Wang Yuan nodded slightly, his tone flat.
"I’ve studied the basics of arrays. I mainly want to tag along to observe and hopefully learn something."
Li Yuan nodded, his gaze sweeping over the two unfamiliar Cultivators in the courtyard, but he didn’t ask any questions.
Wang De gave a few more instructions—the usual things, like not fighting head-on if they encountered danger and prioritizing the Array Master’s safety—then waved for everyone to set out.
After leaving the station, Fang He emerged from a side alley to join them, his pace unhurried.
"I was wondering what the big deal was, getting dragged out of bed this early to run an errand."
"They said we’re guiding an Array Master," Li Yuan said, walking beside him.
"Guiding is fine. It’s not like they’re asking us to fight." Fang He shrugged.
The group assembled outside the market’s West Gate. The two Late-stage Qi Refining Cultivators from the Wang family led the way, with Wang Yuan half a step behind them. The rest spread out in a loose military formation.
The team advanced along a mountain path toward the outer edge of the Yuanheng Mountain Range. Along the way, Li Yuan slowed his pace.
"Fang He, let me ask you something."
"Shoot."
"You mentioned before that you know how to make talisman paper from Demon Beast hides. How good is your skill?" freewebnovёl.ƈom
Fang He shot him a sideways glance without breaking stride.
"What, you want to learn?"
"I want to learn from you."
Fang He scratched the back of his head.
"I’ll be honest with you. I understand the theory—my master taught me back in the day—but my practical skills are mediocre. The grain of the Demon Beast hide, the soaking time for the medicinal solution, the heat for drying... it all comes down to feel. Out of ten sheets of talisman paper I make, only three or four are usable. I can’t even make back the cost."
Fang He spread his hands.
"If I had actually mastered this craft, I could make a good living just by selling talisman paper. Would I still need to be on the patrol team?"
Li Yuan didn’t respond, waiting for him to finish.
Fang He thought for a moment, then held up two fingers.
"Twenty Spirit Stones, and I’ll explain the principles and steps to you in detail. But that ’feel’ thing... you’ll have to develop that yourself through practice. I can’t teach that."
"Besides, my own skills aren’t great, so my teaching probably won’t be much better. Don’t hold it against me."
Li Yuan considered it for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
"Deal."
"We’ll talk about it when we get back. We’re on the move now." Fang He quickened his pace to catch up with the front of the group.
The mountain path grew steeper. The bushes thinned out, and more bare rock became visible.
After the team crossed a mountain ridge, the terrain suddenly opened up.
A valley enclosed by mountains on three sides appeared before them. A dry creek bed cut through its center, and faint, man-made carvings were visible on the rock walls on either side. Though blurred by weathering and moss, the precision of the lines was clearly not natural.
Two people were standing at the entrance to the valley.
One was a man in his fifties, thin and wiry, with salt-and-pepper hair held up casually by a wooden pin. A few stray strands fell across his forehead, which he ignored. His eyes weren’t large, but they darted about with extreme agility. He was crouching in front of a rock, his fingers slowly tracing the engravings on its surface.
The other man had a rugged face and wore the same plain clothes as the two Cultivators from the Wang family.
Both of their Cultivations were around the Late-stage of Qi Refining, and their auras felt faintly stronger than those of the other two Wang family Cultivators.
Hearing footsteps, the old man patted his clothes and looked toward the group.
"You’re here?"
His voice was quiet, with a hint of hoarseness.
Wang Yuan stepped forward and cupped his hands.
"Senior Zhou, Uncle Qu, sorry to have kept you waiting. These are the guides from the squads. They’re the ones who discovered the array traces."
The Array Master, addressed as Senior Zhou, nodded. His gaze swept over the group without any pleasantries.
"Let’s start with the first spot you found. Come on, take me to see it."
Li Yuan took a step forward.
"This way, Senior."
After walking along the dry creek bed into the depths of the valley for about fifteen minutes, Li Yuan stopped in front of a rock wall.
"This is it. The traces we found back then were mainly concentrated on the rock walls on either side of the creek bed, extending for about twenty zhang."
The Array Master with the surname Zhou walked to the rock wall, placed his hand on its surface, and slowly slid his fingertips along the path of the engravings.
His brow furrowed slightly, and he occasionally muttered a few words, too quiet to be understood.
A moment later, he withdrew his hand, walked a dozen or so paces upstream along the creek bed, and crouched down to feel the ground for a while. Then he stood up, walked to the opposite rock wall, and repeated the same actions.
"The traces weren’t concealed,"
he said, without turning his head.
"What does that mean?" Wang Yuan’s voice came from behind—he had followed them at some point without Li Yuan noticing.
"Exactly what it sounds like." The Array Master straightened up, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "The person who set up the array left right after they were done. They didn’t deliberately erase the traces, nor did they set up any means to interfere with their identification."
He pointed to the engravings on the rock wall.
"But I can’t tell what specific array it is just by looking at this one spot. The direction of the patterns and the distribution of the nodes seem familiar, but it’s incomplete."
The Array Master turned to the other guides.
"Where are the other locations you found? Take me to see all of them."
For the next hour or so, the group moved between four or five different locations within the valley.
At each spot, the Array Master would crouch down to carefully examine the engravings, trace their paths with his finger, and occasionally pull a piece of charcoal from his sleeve to take notes on a cloth scroll he carried with him.
After inspecting the last location, the Array Master stood in the middle of the creek bed and spread the cloth out on a flat rock.
The cloth was densely covered with lines and markings, with several circles connected by dotted lines.
"A grand array."
He tapped a few spots on the cloth with his charcoal stick.
"It’s a structure of a grand array encompassing several smaller ones. These traces you found correspond to the nodes of different smaller arrays, but they all serve the same grand array."
Wang Yuan stepped forward to look at the markings on the cloth.
"What level of Array Master would be needed to set up an array of this scale?"
The Array Master pondered for a moment.
"At the very least, a Foundation Establishment Stage Array Master who has specialized in this path for many years. And it couldn’t be done by one person; it would require the coordination of several people."
He paused and glanced at Wang Yuan.
"It’s unlikely the Li family has the ability to set this up themselves. Either they hired outsiders, or... this array wasn’t set up recently at all."
The Array Master walked over to a rock beside the creek bed.
The rock was half-buried in rubble and dirt. The exposed part wasn’t large, about the size of a human head, with a smooth surface. Its color was much whiter than the surrounding common rocks, and it faintly emanated a gentle, warm luster.
"See this rock?"
The Array Master patted the rock’s surface and turned to Wang Yuan, his tone naturally shifting into an instructional one.
"This is called a Jade Sun Stone. It’s a natural ore with a dense texture, capable of bearing Spiritual Power patterns. It’s considered a good material for setting up arrays."
He scratched the surface with his fingernail.
"This one’s useless now, though. It was used as the Array Hub for a small array, and its internal spirituality has been completely disrupted. Besides being hard, it’s pretty much worthless."
"It can’t be used for Artifact Refining, and it’s pointless to use in an array."
The Array Master withdrew his hand and pointed to a few faint patterns visible on the rock’s surface.
"Besides, when analyzing an array, you can’t start with the Array Hub, especially a discarded one like this. The Array Hub is the convergence point for Spiritual Power when the array is operational; it doesn’t hold the structural information of the array itself. The true structure has to be deduced from the patterns of the outer nodes."
He glanced at Wang Yuan.
"If you want to learn about arrays, you have to remember this point."
Wang Yuan nodded earnestly.
Li Yuan stood off to the side, his eyes fixed on the Jade Sun Stone.
The Array Master and Wang Yuan were still talking. The others were either standing or crouching, some resting, some looking around.
Li Yuan walked over, crouched down, and reached out to touch the stone’s surface.
The panel appeared silently.
[Equippable Item Detected: Spirit-Nurturing Jade Sun Stone]
[Item Trait Grade: Green...]
Li Yuan’s fingers froze on the stone’s surface.
’Spirit-Nurturing Jade Sun Stone. The name is different from the Jade Sun Stone the Array Master mentioned.’
Li Yuan’s gaze shifted downward.
The exposed part was small, but the base of the stone was deeply embedded in rubble and dirt, its full form hidden. The main body of the rock was mostly buried underground.
Li Yuan withdrew his hand, stood up, dusted off his palms, and returned to the group with a normal expression.
