Chapter 367

Ghosts of the Mine (XIII)

Lao Shun was mildly interested in the new thing that weirdo pulled out of nowhere; even though it was 'merely' a comprehension-boosting array, he had a distinct feeling it really would not be that simple.

As such, with a slight expectation in his heart, he sat down and waited for the pulses of ordinary energy to assail him before they grew twisted and grand.

He found his soul pulled to another realm, one of breathtaking colors and twisted tree lines accenting the canopy of heavens. It was a garden in which seemingly every herb under the heavens grew, and before he could even relish in the sensation, the herbs ripped themselves out of the ground and began to fly up into the sky, with trees soon following.

Within a moment, they then began to rearrange themselves, first in a chaotic swirl of lines but soon enough into recognizable characters. Within just a minute, they weren't just characters--but letters and words and sentences, and he began to read them.

"Yin and Yang are two yet one; of each the other undoes and yet does; to repel Yin is to embrace Yang, yet of Yang it cannot be done. To undo Yin and to repel it, a heart must become less, and it must..."

**

Weird.

I really thought the array would be like speed for my synapses, and I would suddenly see in nine dimensions. Like that guy from that one movie about surpassing limits or something. What was the name...?

Ah, whatever.

But... it was kind of depressing, in actuality.

What happened had nothing to do with me or my brain.

Rather, after about a minute of absolute nothing, a prompt appeared in front of me.

[--Your mastery of Heartless Yin-Repelling Art evolves]

[Minor --> Intermediate]

Nothing else happened, but when I then thought about the art, I knew things about it that I definitely did not know before.

Dammit.

I couldn't even feel 'my' knowledge expanding! Where's the headache? Where are the words being shoved into my brain!? I was just magically made aware of things I was unaware of before!

Despondent, I continued sitting there for the next hour, wondering whether the same thing was happening to the kids.

Just before the hour was up, however, a new prompt appeared.

[--Your mastery of Heartless Yin-Repelling Art evolves]

[Intermediate --> Perfected]

... yup.

I have now perfected an art through no effort of my own.

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Closing my eyes and imagining it, it was sort of like the difference between reading the book once for a book report that you have to squeeze out in the very last minute and it becoming your favorite book that you re-read all the time.

The core knowledge didn't really change as much as the contextual understanding and some underpinning concepts did.

Sort of like punching someone, I suppose. A punch is a punch regardless, but there's a reason some punches hurt more than the others.

Ah. Woe is me and all.

Strangely, only two left their corners--Long Tao and Lao Shun. Unlike me, who was a bit surprised, the two seemed to have expected it, beelining toward me and sitting down.

It looks like it was a miracle, just the one they had to experience first.

"You two look like you made a lot of progress," I said, wiping the now-charred circles from the floor.

"How... how many times can you do that?" Lao Shun asked. "Set up the array, I mean."

"Once more," I lied. Of course I lied. From the looks of it, if I said nine, they'd have made me spend all nine of them tonight. Maybe that would be a good idea, maybe not, but the issue is it wouldn't have been my idea.

And I can't have that.

Apparently.

"Ah. Of course," the old alchemist sighed.

"For people who didn't seem all that excited at first, you seem rather eager to experience it again."

"Of course! Do you know just how insane this thing is?!! If it got out into the world, it would--literally, without any exaggeration--cause every single Holy Land to wage a war of extermination on each other just to be the sole possessor of the array!" Hm? Really? That good?

"Those materials," Long Tao said. "Though relatively rare, they are still available. There isn't something else required?"

"No. Just those materials and some Spirit Stones."

"Really?" Lao Shun asked, his mask slipping.

"Yes, really. Why?"

"I have about two million mid-grade Spirit Stones," Lao Shun spat out. "I'd have to go back to the Tower first to retrieve them, and if I got those old geezers to pay me back, I could probably get it up to about three million. Per standard price, that would net us about four more sets of materials. Four hours! Just for two or three million stones!"

... alright, first off, he's actually kind of poorer than I expected. As a big shot alchemist that's literally centuries old, I expected him to have a few tens of millions saved and stashed away. What do you mean you just have two-three mil? That's embarrassing!

More to the point...

How is this possible? I'm sure that the array itself was the reason, and it's entirely possible that in the time it was made, it would not have been so incredible, but still. Long Tao himself was an ancient monster yet seemed even more bewildered by everything than Lao Shun.

"Right, Master."

"Hm?"

"I never did ask why we have to learn the Yin-Repelling Art. Do you expect us to go someplace with inordinate amounts of yin?"

"Yes," I nodded. "But it's more of a precaution. It never hurts to know a few excess arts, even if they lie largely unused."

"Is that so...?"

"You... you don't have any other arrays, do you?" I actually paused here for a moment.

There were two, actually--one that I could kind of, sort of make heads and tails out of, the Meridian-Tempering Array. I considered using it on Wan Lan, but chances are that it would be the victim of diminishing returns. As such, I kept it in the bank for now, waiting.

Then there was the other one, Paradox-Cycle Reversal Array.

This one... I kind of get. It causes wounds inflicted on me to reflect back to the attackers. But the description, still, leaned far more into the flavor text aspect of it than any other item the system gave me.

"Just the one," I said, deciding to procure it. Even as it is, I'm not confident enough in deploying it unless it's literally the last resort. My hope is that the system--I mean, that I will just randomly stumble upon some formation genius that will be able to decipher the ins and outs of it. "Here," I provided them both the stubs with the information on the array, carefully inspecting their reactions.

Lao Shun's was one of total confusion--I may as well have laid out some of those quantum mechanics equations, like the wavefunction for N particles in 3D. That wasn't really an equation so much as it was a freakin' novel.

Long Tao, on the other hand... was angry.

... wait, what? Why was he angry? Oh my God, the array wasn't something that took his loved ones, and now he'll think I'm part of whatever anti-Long Tao fandom that chased him and kill me?

Surely not... right?

Come on, Long Tao! Think of my extensive family that has been producing things for you for over a year now!