As they neared the Yin Marrow Spirit Fire, everyone felt a burning sensation all over their bodies, just as Cyan Treasure had.

Looking down, they saw faint blue flames erupting from the skin on their arms. A heart-piercing, burning pain surged through them, nearly shattering their willpower.

Gu Ming endured it.

He had already condensed his Sword of Spiritual Sense from an Ultimate Thought. Even though he had consumed most of his Spiritual Power this morning to form a contract with Ah Kun, the Sword of Spiritual Sense itself still had power left in reserve for emergencies.

Because of this, the searing pain didn’t defeat him. Instead, it caused the Spiritual Sword in his Sea of Consciousness to erupt at this critical moment.

ZING!

The sentient sword vibrated, unleashing countless streams of Sword Qi. They circled through Gu Ming’s veins and muscles, severing the soul-deep, burning agony.

Immediately after, his Divine Sense Sword Qi shot out from his body toward his two companions, drilling into their bodies.

After the Sword Qi circulated through them and severed the connection to the burning pain, both of them snapped back to their senses. Sweat immediately beaded on their skin, and they scrambled backward.

"Quick, Ah Kun, follow my instructions and lay out the ritual materials. We can’t delay," Gu Ming said.

Gu Ming combined his own knowledge of Array Art with the positions provided by the system to direct Ah Kun in setting up the Array.

Why not Cyan Treasure? Because this ritual was based on a Water Element Array. Only a Water Element Pet could easily control such an Array; Cyan Treasure could only provide support and nothing more.

Listening to its master’s commands, Ah Kun became the vessel for the ritual. It swam through the Array, acting as a living conduit to connect the lines.

It carried the recently gathered Array Materials on its back, semi-digesting them in its stomach and melting them into an array-painting paste. It then moved the paste to its mouth, spitting it out to form the Array as it swam.

Slowly, mystical patterns began to appear, circle by circle, on the wet, black mud.

The Thousand-eyed Wind Bird, hovering low in the sky, witnessed this scene and transmitted it back to the observers.

The proctoring teachers grew more and more astonished as they watched. They couldn’t help but pull up a map of the area, checking the terrain and the core nodes of the reed bed’s Concealment Array, then comparing it to the live feed from the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird.

As Ah Kun drew the array lines, it would occasionally pause for five seconds to paint a thick, heavy dot.

Those very spots were the Array Points.

"Gu Ming’s ritual Array nodes are identical to the core nodes of our Concealment Array!"

A minute later, the Array’s lines formed a complete circle. The Array flared to life, shimmering with an eerie blue firelight.

Everyone saw the flames from the nearby reeds transform into threads of fire, which spiraled into the air before plunging down and pouring into the six Array Points, becoming the Array’s power source.

"Brilliant! He’s using the local Yin Fire, repurposing it into an Energy Core. This completely bypasses the step of needing a large amount of Mana to activate the Array."

"As expected of a genius candidate aiming for the international competition."

"But this Array alone can’t be enough to directly sever the connection between the Yin Fire and the two Pet Beasts, can it?"

Watching the feed, Teacher Ruan Zhishen shook his head. He had already analyzed the ritual Array Gu Ming had drawn. It used the principle of borrowing power—borrowing the local fire to create an energy-gathering array. It also incorporated control principles to suppress the Yin Fire and prevent it from spreading further.

To put it bluntly, it only controlled the fire; it didn’t sever the connection.

"No, wait. He’s making an outer circle! This is an Inner and Outer Circle Merging Array!"

Array Art is an incredibly profound specialty. An Array doesn’t just have an energy module; it also has control, function, and auxiliary modules.

Together, these can form a simple Basic Array.

For something more complex, one would merge two sets of arrays, allowing them to perform their own duties and work in tandem to produce an effect where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

At that moment, Gu Ming had Ah Kun continue to circle the inner ritual array, painting with the Array Materials on the outside.

A brand-new outer circle for the Array slowly took shape.

The teachers could all see it now. The merging array used a concentric circle structure. This design was stable and easy to combine, a common technique for many Array Beastmasters when setting up complex Arrays.

However, the aforementioned "common technique" was one used by seasoned Array experts.

For a third-year high school student to be able to create a merging array was completely beyond the curriculum. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"For the outer circle, he’s not using a Sword Array that matches the form of his Divine Sense? He’s using a different type of array?"

Soon, someone else noticed that the pattern Gu Ming was drawing for the outer circle wasn’t a sharp Sword Array meant to sever the Yin Fire’s connection. Instead, he was drawing a monstrous creature that was fish-like, yet not quite a fish.

As Ah Kun continued to swim and refine the pattern, Gu Ming’s glances at the system slowed down, and he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

The bullet comments from the system were just text descriptions, supplemented by faint, displaced memories in his mind. The patterns it left were not a complete set of instructions for laying out the Array.

Ah Kun didn’t need to think; it just had to listen to its master’s commands and draw. Gu Ming, on the other hand, had much to consider.

He had to rack his brains, applying every bit of his knowledge of Array Art to this real-world situation.

He had to restore the system’s prompts as accurately as possible to draw the outer circle array with the Kun Attribute, which cost him quite a few brain cells.

Ah Kun was dazed, but it was also being influenced by the system.

Following the atmosphere and its own intuition, it actually managed to sketch out a two- or three-tenths complete prototype of the Kunpeng pattern it imagined in its head.

But one shouldn’t underestimate this mere twenty-to-thirty-percent resemblance.

This alone was enough for the Array to barely perform its most basic function.

This Array was the Juvenile Kunpeng Devouring Array. The pattern being drawn was precisely the Juvenile Kunpeng as seen by the system.

Because a Juvenile Kunpeng had not yet evolved its "Peng" form, it was still in its "Kun" form.

Therefore, the pattern Gu Ming saw looked more like a fish.

But because Ah Kun was rather dim-witted, it added a bit of its own interpretation while drawing. It failed to capture the "form" of the Kun, but by a happy accident, it managed to capture a bit of its "spirit."

After the inner and outer circle ritual Array took shape, Gu Ming had Ah Kun preside over it and chant the Spell of the Kunpeng Devouring Secret Technique.

SHWOOSH.

The Array sensed the Kunpeng’s aura, drew energy from the inner circle, and flashed with light.

From within the Array, a sound like a whale’s call suddenly echoed. The phantom image of a "Giant Kun" seemed to leap from the black mud, swallowing the threads of eerie blue flame above the Array in one gulp.

The flames on Cyan Treasure and the Glowing Deer vanished.

At the same time, an invisible bond snapped, and the lingering burning sensation on the three of them disappeared along with it.

The Glowing Deer’s stomachache was gone, and it was now jumping around energetically.

Cyan Treasure was back to normal, moving freely.

Back with the observers, the proctoring teachers were completely engrossed, their voices rising and falling in a chorus of praise.

This caused a delay in the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird’s scoring. Only after Gu Ming had cleaned up the materials on site did it finally assign a score for the treatment plan, along with a hidden bonus.

Hearing the sound of the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird awarding bonus points, Gu Ming breathed a silent sigh of relief.

He checked the system again and saw that the plot’s bullet comments were still updating.

Your Juvenile Kunpeng presided over the prayer ritual, removing the local Yin Fire’s effect on the Pet Beasts.

The Glowing Deer used its Space Talent and found a Space-Time Passage back to the exam area for you.

Gu Ming had been about to lead the team away, but he suddenly realized, ’This is a perfect opportunity to trigger a system bug,’ and decided to stay and observe.

"Why aren’t we leaving yet?" Wang Teng asked.

"The ritual just finished. Let’s wait and see if there were any mistakes," Gu Ming said, feigning caution. In reality, he was waiting for the so-called Space-Time Passage mentioned by the system.

’If it doesn’t appear, then I’ve triggered a bug.’

’If a Space-Time Passage does appear, then something unexpected has happened. It’s very likely part of the examiners’ layered setup. It might seem like we’re on the fourth layer, but there’s actually a fifth.’

Overhead, the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird was thoroughly confused.

’The treatment is complete. What are they still waiting for?’

Then, something happened that took all the examiners by surprise.