Sage of Humanity-Chapter 304 - 302: Hundred Arrays Pagoda

"It’s not entirely that," Gu Canyang said with his hands crossed on his lap, his eyes reflecting deep thought. "I wouldn’t have thought of it if he hadn’t mentioned it, but now, our sect really needs to be more cautious. I’ve already sent messages to several nearby Alliance Sects to be careful—it’s never wrong to be cautious. However, the chances of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge making a move against our sect headquarters are slim, not to mention whether they can breakthrough our defenses, and even if they could, so what? Couldn’t we still run away if we can’t beat them? Hence, it’s impossible for Ten Thousand Demons to try to deal with Brother Yiye by attacking our sect."

Wey Li couldn’t help but smile bitterly, "Then Brother Zhao also said that if there was a situation, they could send their people to help in time."

"If he hadn’t mentioned that, I wouldn’t have realized something was amiss. Tianyan Sect is far from here; what help could they possibly provide? He was able to come here quickly because he happened to be nearby for other matters. By the time his clan’s people could provide help, it would be too late."

"This Brother Zhao... If there’s something to say, why not say it clearly? What’s the need for all this beating around the bush?"

"That’s why he’s here to poach people. He isn’t sure whether Brother Yiye is affiliated with our sect, so it would be inappropriate to ask abruptly. If he can communicate well with Brother Yiye in private, then the situation would be different. I suspect Brother Yiye wouldn’t be able to refuse his invitation either."

"This guy," Wey Li said with a mix of laughter and helplessness, "I’ve long heard that Zhao Li of Tianyan Sect is full of schemes. Now it seems his reputation is well deserved. Brother, should we...?"

"No need," Gu Canyang waved his hand, "Brother Yiye never mentioned his intention to cultivate at our sect from the beginning. He’s more likely just passing through, and our sect already owes him a lot of favors. If Zhao Li really manages to recruit him, then that’s his capability. Setting that aside, we still have to stay on guard here. We should send more people out to monitor the movements in all directions. If Ten Thousand Demons Ridge truly launches a big attack, we’ll be able to respond promptly."

"Yes!"

...

Recently, Giant Armor found a good place to be—the training room of Surreptitious Palace.

In the past, when he followed Sima Yang, he barely even entered the grounds of other people’s sects, and never experienced the feeling of cultivating under such a high concentration of nature’s spiritual energy. Ever since Lu Ye took him there once, he became extremely obsessed with the place. Apart from returning to eat his fill every night, he was almost never seen during the day.

Giant Armor was a person capable of settling down and enduring, something that even Lu Ye couldn’t compare with.

It wasn’t surprising when you thought about it; if he wasn’t patient, he wouldn’t have followed Sima Yang for so long. The extent of Sima Yang’s exploitation was something no one could bear.

But remembering that Sima Yang led him on the path of cultivation, Giant Armor never complained about how Sima Yang treated him no matter what.

The cultivators from Fenghua Courtyard who killed Sima Yang had long since died in Xianyuan City. Even the grounds of Fenghua Courtyard had been taken over by Lu Ye’s tactics. With Sima Yang’s great vengeance avenged, he would surely rest in peace if he knew about it.

In the attic, Lu Ye and Zhao Li sat opposite each other, engrossed in conversation. They discussed matters related to the Array Path.

A few days ago, the two met "by chance" and gradually became acquainted. However, since Lu Ye spent much of his time in the training room, they hadn’t spoken much overall.

It wasn’t until today that Lu Ye learned Zhao Li was also cultivating the Array Path and his interest was piqued, so he pulled Zhao Li into a deep discussion.

What he learned from Madam Yun was primarily about the Path of Spirit Runes, and his contact with the Array Path mainly relied on the books he brought from Madam Yun’s, making him self-taught. Of course, it was mainly because the Array Path is a branch of the Path of Spirit Runes.

Although he now had some insights, Lu Ye wasn’t sure how proficient he was on the Array Path since he lacked a point of comparison.

The more Lu Ye and Zhao Li talked, the better they connected, completely unaware of the cold sweat gradually forming on Zhao Li’s forehead.

At this moment, Zhao Li was inwardly wailing. Lu Ye’s ability to sneak into or break through someone else’s protective arrays using special techniques showed his significant proficiency in the Array Path.

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But through this exchange and discussion, Zhao Li realized that Lu Ye’s talent for the Array Path was high, yet oddly skewed.

The Array Path has two directions: array setup and array destruction. Generally, these two aspects complement each other—those who understand array setup can surely break an array, and vice versa.

However, Zhao Li found that Lu Ye’s cultivation on the Array Path was somewhat lopsided...

Simply put, Lu Ye was flawless in array destruction, but when it came to array setup, he seemed somewhat raw.

During their exchange and discussion, it wasn’t just talk; they each set up arrays and challenged the other to break them.

Now, no matter what array Zhao Li set up, Lu Ye could break it within a few breaths. Although Zhao Li’s proficiency in the Array Path wasn’t particularly high, and his arrays weren’t extremely exquisite, they shouldn’t have been broken so quickly. This was a huge blow to Zhao Li, making him wonder if all the years he spent learning were in vain.

Luckily, the arrays set up by Lu Ye weren’t that impressive either, and with some effort, Zhao Li was still able to break them, which gave him some confidence back.

Sure, the arrays Lu Ye set up weren’t great, but the process of setting up those arrays shocked Zhao Li. Lu Ye directly mobilized spirit force to construct a Formation in an extremely short amount of time, without the use of any array setup tools whatsoever.

A thought is born, the grand array is completed; this kind of technique he had only witnessed on the Great Elder of his sect. But what is the cultivation of the Great Elder, and what is the cultivation of Lu Yiye?

For cultivators of the Spirit Stream Realm like them who want to set up arrays, it is necessary to use some tools, the most common being small array banners or array bases. Each array banner and array base has different characteristics, and only by utilizing these banners and bases, after spending some time and energy, can they successfully set up a formation.

So now Zhao Li wanted to understand one thing.

"Brother Yiye, who did you learn the stuff about arrays from?"

Lu Ye thought of Madam Yun. Although Madam Yun had only taught him things about the Path of Spirit Runes, since array cultivation is a branch of the Path of Spirit Runes, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that he learned from Madam Yun.

But Madam Yun had expressly cautioned him before, he must never mention her to anyone.

"There are some ancient tomes about arrays in the Righteous Blood Sect, Brother Zhao should have also heard that I once received the legacy of a spirit runes master, and a spirit runes master has some connection with the Path of Arrays, so when I have nothing else to do, I would take out some tomes and read them."

"Brother Yiye, did you teach yourself?" Zhao Li’s eyes twitched.

Without anyone teaching, yet to achieve such accomplishments through self-study, what if he had had a good teacher? He began to feel afraid to imagine.

Old people in his sect always said that there will always be peerless geniuses in the world that ordinary people can’t match, but he never took it seriously. In his opinion, even if those so-called peerless geniuses were stronger than him, they couldn’t be that much stronger; after all, Zhao Li was also a genius.

But now it seemed that he was the one being arrogant and ignorant.

However, he finally understood why the performance of Lu Ye in the Array Path was so unusual, being able to easily destroy arrays, yet the arrays he set up seemed clumsy, and yet the method of array setup was somewhat shocking.

What shock Zhao Li even more was that Lu Yiye, who had taught himself, actually used some special array destruction techniques to break the protective array of others.

"Brother Yiye, have you ever heard of the Hundred Arrays Pagoda?"

"What is that?" Lu Ye’s eyebrows raised, although he had never heard of it, just by the name he could tell it was related to formations.

"You could say it’s a treasure passed down from the previous era."

The so-called previous era was a time before the Spirit Stream battlefield came into existence.

Lu Ye knew a bit about the Nine Provinces, so naturally, he was aware of the concept of eras.

He had originally thought that a world like the Nine Provinces, with its many cultivation sects and countless strong cultivators, must have a very ancient history.

But in reality, it’s not so simple; the situation was a bit more complicated than he thought.

To put it simply, no records exist about what the Nine Provinces were like before the Spirit Stream battlefield appeared. All historical records only describe the events after the appearance of the Spirit Stream battlefield, which seems to be about two to three thousand years ago. Since then, the Nine Provinces have been divided into two major factions: the Haotian Alliance and the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

But it can be certain that before the Spirit Stream battlefield appeared, the Nine Provinces were also a thriving cultivation world, because within the Nine Provinces there are many things that clearly do not belong to this era, such as ruins and ancient legacies that frequently emerge in the Spirit Stream battlefield.

It’s a pity that no records about this aspect have been found, so the era before the Spirit Stream battlefield is generally referred to as the previous era.

The existing records and materials only go back about two to three thousand years, which makes no sense at all. For the turnover rate of cultivators, two to three thousand years is not long; cultivators of the Divine Sea Realm, if they encounter no accidents, typically have lifespans of around a thousand years, those of the True Lake Realm about five hundred years, the Cloud River Realm about two hundred years, and as for the Spirit Stream Realm... cultivators of this level are like leeks, cropping up one after another, endless.

Of course, these numbers are only theoretical; cultivators often fight fiercely and suffer grievous injuries, which certainly affects their lifespan.

So now, the cultivation world of the Nine Provinces generally believes that something earth-shattering must have happened in the cultivation world of the previous era, and this event was powerful enough to sweep across the entire Nine Provinces; otherwise, it makes no sense that the history of the Nine Provinces is only documented up to two to three thousand years ago.

What Zhao Li was talking about, the Hundred Arrays Pagoda, must be a relic of the previous era.

"The Hundred Arrays Pagoda has a total of one hundred levels, each level has different formations, and each level is more difficult than the last. Each time you break through a level when you enter, you will receive a reward from Heaven’s Augury, and those rewards are all about array cultivation. There is a saying among array cultivators, that those who have not broken through the Hundred Arrays Pagoda are not considered true array cultivators. According to our current classification of array cultivators’ accomplishments, those who can break through the first ten levels are basically considered to have entered the threshold of the Array Path and can barely be counted as a qualified array cultivator. Those who can break through twenty levels are considered to have mastered the Array Path, and if you can break through thirty-three levels, you can claim the title of master. If you can break through sixty-six levels, then you are a grandmaster of the Array Path..."

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"So, what if someone breaks through a hundred levels?"

"No one has tried it yet." Zhao Li said this with a hint of regret in his eyes, "Because right now, the Hundred Arrays Pagoda is incomplete, there are only sixty-six levels."