Chapter 187: Array Master - 187
Zhou Fan hoped that a hundred thousand planets worth of materials would be enough, but he wouldn't be that surprised if it wasn't.
He was confident that it would take more than a hundred thousand years just to discover the first god realm formation, but he wasn't sure how long it would take to comprehend all of the god realm formations.
If it was like the previous ranks, he believed that it would be another hundred thousand years, but there was no way to be sure.
After thinking a bit more and taking a deep breath, Zhou Fan was ready to continue his study of formations. He proceeded to sit down, cross his legs, and bring out the first ore.
150,000 years later, Zhou Fan invented the first god realm formation. It merely created a water shield, but it would now set the tone for the rest of the god realm formations. He was about halfway through his reserves, so he hoped that the remaining materials would be enough to become a 10th rank formation master.
Regardless of whether or not it was enough to become a master, he could be considered a tenth rank formation amatuer from the moment he created his first god realm formation.
After 260,000 more years and another round of collecting materials, Zhou Fan finally comprehended the last god realm formation. It was definitely a great struggle considering his cultivation level, but he was now a full fledged 10th rank formation master. Although it wasn't worth throwing a party over, he was definitely proud of himself for reaching such an achievement.
While it wasn't really that important considering no one else could compete with him, he was also the first person in the universe to become a 10th rank formation master.
Although he was done growing in rank, he was not done with formations quite yet. He had skipped many formations earlier on and needed to go back and fully understand them as well.
He still had some materials left over from his last collection, and he assumed that it would be enough to master the other ranks.
After a total of a week passed, Zhou Fan had mastered every single rank of formation from Qi gathering to the god realm.
After 200,000 years and another round of collecting materials, he had practiced his speed until he could carve god realm formations in half a second. Compared to the strength of his old formations before he started to study them again, the tenth rank formations were three times stronger.
Although he was finished with formations, he wasn't done with the arts. He still had alchemy, runes, forging, arrays, and talismans to study. He hadn't even made a single talisman before, so that was sure to be a fun experience.
As for the other arts, they should be relatively fun to do as well since, besides arrays, he hadn't really paid that much attention to them.
After some considerations, Zhou Fan decided to start with arrays since they were somewhat similar to formations and he already had a fairly good background in them.
One good thing about them is that they didn't have material requirements like formations. However, they were also often much more complicated and taxing.
Until he got to god realm arrays, he wouldn't even notice the loss in Qi, but at least he would expect it.
For the first time in a while, Zhou Fan jumped off of the tree and began to look around the world. He didn't plan on staying in a single place since the arrays would be written wherever he could write them.
He felt that, by the time he reached the tenth rank in arrays, the entire planet may be covered in them.
After flying for a while, Zhou Fan found a good place to start. It was in the middle of some plains with no animals or obstructions whatsoever.
Zhou Fan landed on the ground and began to think of arrays. Unlike the formations, he planned to start from the Qi gathering realm, or first rank, and work his way up from there.
There was a very limited number of arrays at the first rank and Zhou Fan had to think long and hard before he could think of even one.
It was an extremely small array that covered an area of about a foot. Within the area, wind Qi would be gathered slightly denser. As a result, wind attacks would cost slightly less Qi and be slightly stronger.
Even slightly was actually a fairly large overstatement. It was somewhere around a 1.01x increase. As he had said, there was barely any use to arrays at the Qi gathering realm.
It would actually be impressive if someone at the Qi gathering realm could even make an array. The Qi gathering realm was simply a basic introduction stage. At the very least, Zhou Fan hadn't even understood enough to think of arrays or formations. Perhaps it would happen when such knowledge is common, but it hadn't happened to Zhou Fan.
Zhou Fan spent three days inventing every 1st rank array, which wasn't many, before he was finished.
Next was a foundation establishment array. It had slightly more use than a Qi gathering array, but it was still pretty useless overall. If the 1st rank arrays gave a 1.01x increase, then the foundation establishment arrays gave a 1.35x increase. Regardless, these measurements were not set in stone and could be changed fairly easily by a more powerful person like Zhou Fan.
However, he was simply creating the arrays at the most basic level without using his superior realm. Therefore, they had the same effects as if they were created by a Qi gathering or a foundation establishment cultivator.
After 2 weeks of work, which was much longer compared to the formations since he didn't have the same amount of mastery, he invented the last foundation establishment array.
He had also made sure that his speed was fairly quick. Since arrays were harder, he was satisfied with a speed of one array a second.
Chapter 188: Array Master - 188
Although one second would be an extremely long amount of time in a battle for someone like him, Zhou Fan didn't plan on using such things in battle anytime soon.
Even if he really was going to use them in battle, he would pre make them so that he could activate them in a second.
As he continued to think down that road, he began to have ideas about different ways of using formations and arrays in battle. After a while, he simply shook his head and focused. He was becoming a master in arrays now. Thoughts about the use of formations and arrays in battle could wait until later. Besides, talismans were already a way to use formations in battle, although there were some flaws.
Zhou Fan was now ready to start studying core formation arrays. It was at that level that arrays started showing their various uses.
Zhou Fan spent exactly a month studying core formation arrays. After that month, he had completely mastered them. As he had said before, arrays started showing their use at the core formation level.
Not only were they stronger, but there were more ways to use them. For example, there were now flying formations that assisted you in flying. If you weren't a celestial that could already fly as a child without core formation cultivation, then such an array was very useful. Not only could they help you fly faster, but they could help you get used to flying and learn at a faster rate.
Despite their new uses, Zhou Fan knew that the arrays one could learn at nascent soul would be much stronger. Before that, however, he needed to increase his speed in making rank 3 formations.
It only took two days before he got them to the standard speed of one second.
Once again, this was not his speed at his current cultivation level, but his speed when only using the power of a core formation cultivator. Therefore, a one second creation speed was very useful.
Naturally he would be millions of times faster when using the power of his 2nd level god realm cultivation.
As he was done with core formation arrays, Zhou Fan moved on to the nascent soul level arrays. He had quickly comprehended them when it came to formations, but it took two months to comprehend them now.
He was a full fledged 4th rank array master. There were many new arrays that were not only stronger than the core formation arrays, but had different uses.
The best example was the talent testing array. Since the nascent soul realm was the first time one's true soul bloomed, it was only natural that core formation arrays couldn't fully detect talent.
That didn't mean that one had to be at the nascent soul level to have their talent tested. In the situation where there were only nascent soul arrays were available, one may have to be at the nascent soul realm, but even a soul formation array or a void traversing array could test the talent of anyone. Even a newborn child.
Therefore, the nascent soul talent array wasn't all that useful, but it was still able to do some things that core formation arrays and below couldn't do.
There were other uses of the nascent soul arrays, but Zhou Fan moved on to his speed training. The speed training was less about speed, and more about familiarity with the arrays. It was the same with formations. It's not like he would ever be back at the nascent soul realm. Why else would he upgrade his speed?
Once he reached the one second mark, Zhou Fan moved on to soul formation arrays. Like he had previously mentioned, there were things that the soul formation arrays did better than nascent soul arrays.
The main example was the talent testing array. Before, it could only test a nascent soul realm cultivator's talent, but it could now test anyones. That included newborn children.
It had taken Zhou Fan around six months to become a master in the soul formation arrays. He was now a 5th rank array master. After a bit longer, he had also increased his 5th rank array creation speed to one second.
The qualitative changes from a 4th rank to 5th rank array master wasn't limited to talent testing arrays. There was also a great change in soul attack arrays.
Although there were some soul attack arrays at the 4th rank, they were extremely limited in what they could do. Even if a tenth level nascent soul cultivator who was also a 5th rank array master tried to make a soul attack array, an average 3rd level nascent soul formation cultivator would be relatively unharmed.
It was only at the 5th rank and the soul formation realm that the soul attack arrays did true damage and were actually dangerous.
For example, even when limiting his cultivation to the 10th level of the soul formation realm and only using the knowledge of a 5th rank array master, Zhou Fan was able to produce a soul attack powerful enough to severely injure an 8th level soul formation cultivator in a single second.
If he spent a really long time on it, around three days, he would be able to create a soul attack array strong enough to kill even a ninth level soul formation cultivator and injure a tenth level soul formation cultivator.
Under the right circumstances, even killing a tenth level soul formation cultivator wasn't out of the picture.
Even if you ignored the difference in talent testing arrays and soul attack arrays, there were still many other much better arrays. Even the basic ones like fire attack arrays were much stronger.
Arrays such as soul healing arrays and soul boosting arrays were only possible once one broke into the soul formation realm. That was because they required immense knowledge of the soul. While it was technically possible to create one as a nascent soul realm expert, it was extremely hard and nearly impossible.
After becoming a 5th rank array master, Zhou Fan was ready for another step up in his rank.
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200+ Power
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