Chapter 103: Chapter 103: Learning Arrays

Ban Xiaowei’s expression looked a bit unnatural. His usually stoic face twitched at the corners of his mouth. He wanted to speak, but stopped himself on second thought.

"I’ll ask Song Yunxi later."

Chen Mo was slightly puzzled. He hadn’t expected a Pentagonal Heavy Lizard to catch the attention of a Cultivator from Purple Cloud Peak. Could there be something special about this Demon Beast?

Right around the same time, an exhausted Song Yunxi walked out of the mansion. At this moment, his exhaustion formed a sharp contrast with Ban Xiaowei’s refreshed demeanor.

"You sure didn’t hold back on dual—"

"He’s keeping a Pentagonal Heavy Lizard!" Before Song Yunxi could finish his sentence, Ban Xiaowei cut him off.

"A Pentagonal Heavy Lizard?"

Chen Mo didn’t understand the fuss, but he still brought the little lizard out in his hands.

"Quick! Take it away quickly, this thing is not something you should keep as a pet!" Song Yunxi retreated repeatedly, terrified of getting too close to the Demon Beast, let alone having any interaction with it.

"Brother Song, this..."

"You didn’t tell him?" Ban Xiaowei shrugged. "He’s your brother, not mine."

Song Yunxi swallowed hard. "Pentagonal Heavy Lizards aren’t rare Demon Beasts. Almost every Ore Vein is swarming with them. They love to absorb the Spiritual Qi escaping from Spiritual Ores, and they grow incredibly fast. It only takes about a year for them to mature, and once mature, they possess the strength of the Qi Refining Fifth or Sixth Layer. A typical Pentagonal Heavy Lizard living near an Ore Vein can reach the Tier One Ninth Layer in just about ten years!"

"They’re that strong?" As Chen Mo listened, he surprisingly felt a bit of anticipation for this little lizard. However, everything the other party said seemed perfectly normal; there didn’t seem to be any problem, right?

"Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?" Song Yunxi asked in return. "The bad thing about this Demon Beast is precisely that it loves to consume Spiritual Qi! Because of this, whenever human Cultivators discover an Ore Vein, they carry out extermination-style massacres against them. Thus, they’re called beasts of good fortune, but also Calamity Demon Beasts. However, there is an almost universal consensus among human Cultivators: once a Pentagonal Heavy Lizard is spotted, it must be exterminated!"

After hearing this, Chen Mo understood. No wonder someone had been selling Demon Beast Eggs back in the small Ancient Dust Marketplace. The Demon Beast itself wasn’t rare, but its egg was still incredibly scarce.

"Can’t I keep it?" Chen Mo asked in disappointment.

"Keep it?" Song Yunxi was taken aback, failing to process the idea for a moment. "What would you keep it for?"

"Its skin can be made into clothes, and its meat can be eaten. The horn looks pretty sturdy too—couldn’t it be used for Refinement into a Magical Artifact?"

"You?!"

Song Yunxi took a moment to recover before answering. "Now that you mention it, I think some people really have done that. Before entering a mine, Cultivators will indeed drag the corpses of Pentagonal Heavy Lizards to the Marketplace to sell. But one of them only goes for about thirty to forty taels, so they aren’t worth much." At this point, he glanced at Ban Xiaowei beside him. "Have you ever eaten Pentagonal Heavy Lizard meat?"

"Who would eat the meat of a Calamity Demon Beast?"

"Exactly, no one eats their meat! How much could their hides and horns possibly be worth? Why bother raising them?"

Chen Mo didn’t argue and just gave a slight nod. However, he was puzzled. If the meat and eggs of Pentagonal Heavy Lizards were really that mediocre, why was Kang so obsessed with them? It had even forced a rooster to incubate the egg! Moreover, the so-called "Calamity Demon Beast" moniker came from the fact that they were slaughtered in large numbers, so raising one shouldn’t actually attract any real calamity.

Chen Mo considered raising it for half a year first. Once it grew large enough, he could kill it and taste it. If it tasted bad, he could always feed it to Kang!

Having made up his mind, Chen Mo stopped worrying about it. On the other hand, Song Yunxi, having advised him, assumed Chen Mo would take his words to heart and didn’t press the matter further. The three of them agreed to head into the Master’s Mansion.

Sometime later, Ban Xiaowei and Chen Mo arrived at the courtyard. The Cultivator from Purple Cloud Peak began explaining the functions and the Array Formation methods of the Curved Water Shadow Array.

"The Curved Water Shadow Array is considered a type of Illusion Array. However, unlike Arrays that manipulate people’s minds, this Array focuses heavily on the word ’Shadow’! Once the Array Formation is successfully set up, the scenes within the Array will be incredibly lifelike. It can even restore sounds and smells to a certain degree..."

As he spoke, Ban Xiaowei retrieved a pale green piece of ore from his Storage Space.

"This is a Green Concealing Stone. It’s a type of Companion Ore found in Ore Veins. Its rarity is average—neither too high nor too low—and its price is around one Low Grade Spirit Stone."

Chen Mo listened intently, terrified of missing any crucial information.

"The Green Concealing Stone is also an indispensable material for setting up a Tier One Illusion Array. In the Curved Water Shadow Array, it specifically serves as the Array Hub." With that said, Ban Xiaowei stood up and began pacing. "Watch closely. This is called Seeking Dragon!"

After Stepping on the Seven Stars and Stepping on the Eight Trigrams, he finally found a spot in the courtyard. He drew his Long Sword and thrust it into the dirt, smoothly burying the piece of ore into the ground.

"Watch closely. Walking Snake!"

Then, he sometimes took long, eager strides, sometimes walked briskly with quick steps, and sometimes paused to think. He moved as he spoke, explaining to Chen Mo the meaning behind every single movement and detail.

Although Chen Mo’s Talent wasn’t high, having experienced the baptism of modern thinking, his comprehension skills were still quite strong. By the time the other man performed it for the first time, Chen Mo had memorized a good seventy or eighty percent of it. Even though he wasn’t sure if he could replicate it perfectly, he at least grasped the underlying concepts!

An hour later.

Ban Xiaowei withdrew his energy. With a mere thought, the entire courtyard transformed into a completely different scene! The old tree, which had just been sprouting buds, was now covered in a thick layer of white snow. On the stone bench beneath the tree, Song Yunxi was flirting with Yun Rou, his restless hands wandering and caressing her continuously.

Chen Mo’s mouth twitched slightly, but he kept a straight face. Was this something he could watch for free? He truly hadn’t expected Ban Xiaowei to have such vulgar tastes, actually showing him a scene like this!

Just as things were getting to the main event, Ban Xiaowei waved his hand, and the Illusion Realm dissipated.

Chen Mo sighed. As expected, did he still have to pay a fee...?

"How was it? How much did you memorize?"

"Around seventy or eighty percent."

"Heh," Ban Xiaowei sneered.

Every Cultivator practicing Spirit Arrays for the first time would have a misconception: it seemed that Spirit Arrays were nothing more than this. As long as they copied the actions once, it would work. Even Ban Xiaowei himself had felt the same way back then. Therefore, his next step was to let the other party know just how difficult Spirit Arrays were, and where exactly the difficulty lay.

"Wait here."

He walked over to the stone table, gave it a gentle nudge, and effortlessly shifted its position. Then, he chopped off a few branches from the tree and casually tossed them onto the ground. After doing all this, he finally spoke. "Come on. Do exactly what I just did and perform it once more."

Chen Mo frowned slightly, realizing that something was amiss.

He took the Green Concealing Stone, used Qi Mechanism Attraction, and began Seeking Dragon and Walking Snake in the courtyard. When Ban Xiaowei saw that Chen Mo didn’t bury the Array Hub in the pit that hadn’t yet been filled, the usually stern man couldn’t help but nod subconsciously.

"Although you found the wrong spot, there’s still a difference between you and those other arrogant fools!"

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