Chapter 275: Chapter 267: Sourcing Materials for the Array? An Evolution Opportunity

Due to the nature of the Alchemy Array problem, teams of up to twelve people were allowed on site.

However, the larger the team, the harder it was to score points.

For those hoping to make it to the international competition, basically only the one or two most outstanding members of a team could earn high scores. The rest were just there to make them look good.

Besides, all the students participating in the national competition were geniuses. No one wanted to be a stepping stone for someone else.

No one on site formed a twelve-person alchemy super-team. Teacher Zhong took a stroll through the crowd and saw that the largest groups had only six people, and they were all from the same school.

He pulled out his phone and looked up the profiles of those six students, quickly learning that five of them had signed a "genius clause" to act as support for the successor of a prominent family.

Aside from these well-prepared individuals who had used their connections to learn the competition’s questions in advance and form large teams, the majority of uninformed students were in groups of two or three.

A moment later, he found an old friend who worked in Zhou Capital and began asking about the Night Demon Duck.

He had never been to Zhou Capital’s Eight-star Dao Field before and had no idea what kind of background the training Pet Beasts here had.

If he underestimated it and treated it like an ordinary Three-star Pet Beast, he would surely suffer for it.

...

The exam had already been going on for an hour.

Gu Ming was wandering around the venue, with Cyan Treasure and Ah Kun following behind, their eyes darting left and right to help their master observe other people’s Array designs.

Lu You had gone to organize their materials, which would take some time. Under the pretext of humbly wanting to learn, Gu Ming left the team and wandered around the examination hall, watching others work with their Pill Furnaces and quietly discussing Array designs. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Whenever this happened, Gu Ming would flash a knowing smile and gently strum the Divine Sense Sword Body in his mind, sending out his Divine Sense to eavesdrop on others’ conversations.

He didn’t need to fully understand what they were saying; just being able to hear them was enough.

As Gu Ming strolled around, he glanced at the system’s plot commentary.

"At fifty years old, you rack your brain over the exam question, your eyes vacant, completely clueless."

"To avoid letting your terrible performance affect your teammate, you take a walk to clear your head and ’learn’ from others’ Arrays."

"The examinees, thirty-two years your junior, see you and don’t even recognize you as a fellow student, assuming you’re one of the on-site proctors."

"You scurry back and forth across the exam hall. Seeing that no one is wary of you, you grow bold and walk right into other teams’ areas to look at their Array designs."

Gu Ming was speechless.

’System, oh system, you’re getting more and more ridiculous.’

In reality, Gu Ming was the same age as the other students.

The moment he got close, others would become wary and stop talking.

It was only because Gu Ming had awakened his Divine Sense ahead of time that he could eavesdrop from a distance without fear of being detected. Otherwise, things wouldn’t be going so smoothly.

Seeing this, Gu Ming tactfully kept his distance and didn’t get too close to any single team.

To achieve the effect described by the system—that of a "fifty-year-old proctor" making his rounds—Gu Ming visited every single team, using his Divine Sense to listen in from afar.

Gu Ming wasn’t afraid of the officials catching him for plagiarism.

He knew the examiners were all Array masters and would definitely check the overlap rate for the on-the-spot Array design problem.

If he didn’t know how to adapt and just foolishly copied a student’s design, he would be identified as a plagiarist by the examiners and thrown out of the competition.

Without the system, Gu Ming’s actions would indeed have been flagged for plagiarism.

But after making one round, the Array designs he’d seen and heard were processed in his mind and transformed into something new. This happened with every team’s design, resulting in very little overlap.

This way, Gu Ming no longer had to worry about an Array examiner checking for plagiarism.

Even if they did check, he had nothing to fear.

After all, the designs he was using were based on a completely different era of design philosophy than that of the current students.

At the venue, Jiang Jinling of Forest Valley High School also saw Gu Ming walk past.

Her expression was puzzled, surprised that Gu Ming wasn’t thinking about a Cultivation Technique at a time like this, but was wandering around instead.

’Is he that confident?’

Jiang Jinling looked at the two Pet Beasts behind him. Their breathing was full of Divine Charm, and their Breathing Technique was more than a level above her own Grass Spirit’s.

Borrowing her Elf’s Perception, Jiang Jinling sensed a huge amount of the surrounding Spiritual Qi surging into the two Pet Beasts’ nostrils, entering their bellies, and being explosively refined.

’Holy cow.’

’While everyone else is working on the problem, his Pet Beasts are busy with their Cultivation.’

’It makes sense, though. This is an Eight-star Dao Field. One day of Cultivation here is as effective as several months outside.’

’That’s no exaggeration. The gap between one-star and eight-star is like the difference between heaven and earth.’

’The hyper-concentrated Spiritual Qi is enough to temper a Pet Beast’s Inner Core and strengthen its entire body, not to mention the ambient Daoist Skill auras in the air. You can achieve Enlightenment anywhere here.’

’She recalled from its file that the Little Cyan Snake’s physical data already met the qualifications for Evolution, and it had even been bathed in the Holy Light of the Hall of the Great Dao.’

’Once it entered an Eight-star Dao Field, even a difficult evolutionary bottleneck would become easy to break through.’

"That makes sense. I should use this opportunity to have my Grass Spirit evolve to Two-star first. Otherwise, the later matches will be tough," she murmured.

As she spoke, she changed her team’s strategy. She had her two teammates focus on the Array problem while her Grass Spirit would enter seclusion and push for a breakthrough to Two-star.

When her two teammates learned of Jiang Jinling’s idea, they wanted to talk her out of it, but knowing her personality, they knew that once she made a decision, it couldn’t be changed. They had no choice but to drop it and let her do as she pleased.

...

"The student from Forest Valley saw you approaching and showed off an Array design, hoping for your guidance and a few hints."

"You passed it off with a slight smile and said nothing, but she understood."

’Oh, news about Forest Valley?’ Gu Ming’s interest was piqued when he saw this commentary, and he looked over in Jiang Jinling’s direction.

The two of them made eye contact. Then, Jiang Jinling’s Pet Beast closed its eyes, swallowed a glittering Elixir, and sat cross-legged to perform its Breathing Technique.

Gu Ming blinked. If he wasn’t mistaken, Jiang Jinling had just taken out a Breakthrough Elixir, which could assist a Pet Beast’s Evolution.

An Elixir like that was extremely valuable, worth over ten million on the market.

’Wait, Evolution?’

Gu Ming turned his head to look at Cyan Treasure, who was following along with him.

Cyan Treasure’s Breathing Technique had reached the Great Success Skill Level, allowing it to cultivate anytime, anywhere, just by breathing.

The Spiritual Qi in the air was incredibly dense. It only had to take a light breath to feel full, and then it needed to spend ten times the effort on Refinement.

As a result, its breathing rhythm had automatically adjusted, slowing down considerably. Otherwise, inhaling too much would lead to indigestion and hinder the operation of its Cultivation Technique.

In just this short amount of time, a new cloud pattern had actually formed on Cyan Treasure’s Magic Power Inner Core.

This was a pattern formed by the compression of extremely high-density Mana. It was incredibly difficult to create in the outside world, requiring the Frozen Pill Method and violent hammering by Spiritual Qi.

Who would have thought that here, with the help of the Foundation Establishment Tripod, Cyan Treasure had easily forged a cloud pattern.

"Hold on, Cyan Treasure. Refine that Seed of Rootless Wood first. There’s no rush to cultivate your Magic Power Inner Core," Gu Ming said.

The Seed of Rootless Wood Grass required a massive amount of nutrients and energy, more than Gu Ming’s family could provide in a short time. This was why Cyan Treasure’s Super Evolution plan had yet to be implemented.

Now that they were in this uniquely blessed treasure land, the Eight-star Dao Field, he finally had a chance to fully nurture it.