Chapter 84: Plans, so many plans…
“…and that’s what happened gr-Patriarch.”
“Huh… you’re just full of surprises today,” Patriarch Zhen Shi muttered as he observed the crystal red orb that Zhen Liu had brought to him.
A little after Zhen Liu had deposited the iced man, who he learned was named Gregory, to his uncles for “an exchange of information”, he made his way back to his grandfather’s office chamber in order to give him the orb thing that started this chain of events, as well as update him about the Moka situation.
“You’ll have a report from the uncles either by tonight or by tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent…,” Zhen Shi muttered in a mildly distracted tone, “Xiao Liu, you said you got this from that mechanical beast’s head?”
“Yeess? Why? Should I not have?”
“Well for starters this orb is actually an aether beast core. Belonging to a sixth rank Ignati beast no less, a Steel-Fanged Salamander.”
“A Steel-F-wait, sixth?!,” Zhen Liu exclaimed in shock as his eyes went wide. From what he called, sixth ranked aether beasts could match Aether Emperors when it came to raw might and aether power. If it wasn’t obvious by this point, materials harvested from sixth rank aether beasts tended to be incredibly valuable and useful.
‘Waitaminute…a sixth rank aether beast core should be valuable enough to set off my hand, why did-‘
‘Oh joy, more foreshadowing…,’ Zhen Liu mentally griped, a light grimace on his face. Unaware of his grandson’s plight, Zhen Shi ran his hands over the aether beast core and continued examining it.
“It’s a pity it’s not an Aquarii beast core, this would’ve greatly helped Zhen Hai…these markings…”
Zhen Shi placed the core onto his desk, and pulled out a blank roll of parchment and a piece of charcoal. He then wrapped the bright red core in the parchment until it was tight, then proceeded to rub the charcoal all over the parchment. Zhen Liu squinted at the markings that were slowly appearing on the parchment.
“Is that…”
*Clack*
Zhen Shi stopped rubbing charcoal once the parchment looked completely black and unfurled the core from it. A distinctive pattern was left behind, one that Zhen Liu had some vague understanding about.
“An aether array? Wait no…two aether arrays on top of each other?”
“Yes,” Zhen Shi nodded, “I’m sure your more familiar with this first array than myself, but I believe it’s what gave that strange puppet you faced the ability to move and act the way you saw it act. I’ll be sure to make another copy for you to make use of.”
“Thank you patriarch,” Zhen Liu said as he palmed a fist in gratitude, “but what of the second?”
“The second is a bit more interesting…If I’m deciphering it correctly, it’s a natural cultivation array! One meant to convert sources of heat into the user’s aether. Excellent!”
Zhen Liu looked mildly shock for a brief moment before screwing his face back to normal. If this meant what he thought this meant…
‘Voice in my head? Did you inscribe an array into my formula? Which is basically my soul?!’
‘Why? I could’ve exploded! Literally!’
‘Can also you please stop implying I’m weak?’
‘Bitch!’
The reason for Zhen Liu’s freak out wasn’t necessarily because of an array being applied to him, he had heard of some crazy warriors that regularly carved arrays into their bodies in order to fight, the issue was that the voice in his head applied one to his formula.
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Natural cultivation arrays were, as the name implies, arrays that helped one cultivate aether using one’s natural surroundings. Cold, heat, being buried alive, eyes of the storm, artic wastelands with howling blizzards, wherever natural phenomena occured, the appropriate natural cultivation array could make use of it. While this sounds like an aether warrior’s dream treasure, there were a few issues in both acquiring and using one.
For starters, natural cultivation arrays could only be found, in a one in a thousand chance, carved into the cores of fifth rank and above aether beasts. Meaning not only would a warrior would have to risk taking down something about as strong as an Aether King, but also hope to the heavens that they lucked out.
The second issue was the nature of how these arrays worked, namely that they couldn’t be applied directly to a warrior without massive consequences. Thanks to a lot of trial and error, the people of Valresta learned that the natural influx of aether gathered by these arrays was too much for a body to bear all at once, regardless of their cultivation level. Whenever this was attempted, it either ended with nothing happening or the attempter exploded.
However, it was through this trial and error, that it was discovered that it was actually possible to carve these arrays into the environment like normal arrays. The only issue was that they only worked in environments that matched the elemental affinity of the beasts they came from. Evidently, it was for this reason that a lot of groups and sects that had multiple natural cultivation arrays had to set up shop in some whacky ass locations ranging from active volcanoes to literal wastelands made of corpses. Apparently the trade-off of having to live in weird places in order to enhance one’s cultivation was worth it.
Granted, some sects just set up singular rooms that were much bigger on the inside for this kind of thing…
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“Xiao Liu? Did you hear what I just said,” Zhen Shi asked with a concerned eyebrow raised. He didn’t recall his fourth grandson being this inattentive before. Perhaps there were some unexpected side effects to his formula?
“Huh? Sorry, I was struck by an inspirational thought by these arrays. Thought of something I could apply to my puppets,” Zhen Liu lied, “What did you say?”
Zhen Shi rolled his eyes in that way elders do when they wrote off the antics of the younger generation before repeating his request.
“I want you to take these instructions to your father,” Zhen Shi said while holding up a note for Zhen Liu to take, “I want you two to go to the Golden Clover Auction House and see if we can exchange this core for something more useful to the clan.”
“Oh. Okay,” Zhen Liu agreed as he took the letter.
Evidently he had forgotten about who owned the Golden Clover Auction House, but let’s leave that until later…
