Chapter 788 End of the list (1)
With excitement and anticipation from both sides, Zhu Qing got to work laying his formation. His formation was a complex all-purpose formation that had combined multiple functions into one. It had a defensive aspect to it, an illusory aspect, an isolation aspect, and gathered spiritual qi which had a regulatory aspect to it.
The regulatory aspect, the idea was borrowed from the design the Summerfield Kingdom had in the arrays laid out in its farms which other than drawing in spiritual qi, had a regulatory array that controlled how much spiritual qi it gathered which was a factor of the needs of the spiritual herbs. This was to avoid the saturation of spiritual qi on the plants.
It took months to lay down the framework which came along nicely from his relentless efforts. The individual parts of the array worked perfectly now all that was left was the final part which was to combine all of them to work as one system. That final step was when a problem occurred.
An array could only reach a blue-grade array if it could borrow the force of the world around it and blend seamlessly with it. It needed to be more in line with nature and the functioning rules of the world. That was only for the blue grade array, however, when it came to the gold grade and the purple grade array, the concept was slightly different.
Both grades of arrays worked in the opposite, they did not blend or work in line with their surroundings but instead, they subverted and transformed it to suit their image. Every mysterious realm had at least a gold array built within it to support its environment which was why they had unique environments. Its concept was borrowed from the grottos that operated like mini worlds.
Zhu Qing got greedy as he was working on his array. The longer he worked on it, the stronger he felt that his design was just at the cusp of reaching the gold tier. Creating the blueprint for a gold-grade array and laying one down, though both were difficult, the latter was even more so and required the presence of a domain expert to do it safely.
Because of the nature of gold-grade and purple-grade arrays, it needed the support of a domain sense to sense the changes down to the minutest of changes caused by the array to its surroundings. This was to prevent any mishap. If a domain expert was not present then anchoring ascendant-grade treasure would work just the same, more so if it was a naturally formed treasure. Zhu Qing lacked both.
In his haste and fervor, he ignored those requirements. All he could think about was he was already close to success. He could feel it, the longer he worked the array, he could feel the resonance power contained within it with every part he completed. Its flow, power, and the ecstasy of knowing the array he thought was a top-tier blue grade might in fact be a gold grade made him ignore the risks.
He was this close, he couldn't stop, he didn't want to stop, he wanted to see it through to the end.?Even the seat of the pavilion master no longer mattered to him, all he cared about was he was about to finish a gold-grade array and he was about to leap into the ranks of legends.
But all good things come to an end, the array when it was at the finish went haywire because of the conditions surrounding it. Without a domain sense, Zhu Qing could not have noticed it despite the subtle warning signs being there continuously building up the closer he got to the finish and when he did, putting the final touch to the array which involved placing an anchoring treasure to connect the whole thing, mayhem broke.
Instead of using an ascendant-grade treasure that would have repaired those problems by providing the necessary fuel and environment to support the array's requirement, Zhu Qing used four monarch-grade treasures that were complementary. He had thought that would be enough, but alas he had underestimated the might of a gold grade array.
The entire array became unstable like a slumbering beast that had been woken up unceremoniously. The four monarch-grade treasures that had been used as the anchor were unable to contain the instability. It wasn't long before they got overwhelmed and were swept up in the instability, becoming unstable themselves.
Realizing the danger, Zhu Qing tried to work fast and ordered an evacuation, but ultimately it proved futile when the whole thing exploded. The destructive explosion went beyond the farm, spreading to the town that neighbored it. The farm was ground to dust, and the town was decimated in its entirety. Though Zhu Qing tried to evacuate those he could, ultimately over 50,000 people were lost to the explosion.
The young kingdom was livid, especially after realizing they had been kept dark about the whole thing. Realizing they would not be a match for the Guardian River Star Pavilion, they forwarded the matter to the Order.
For his recklessness and the lives lost as a result, Zhu Qing was sentenced to 125,000 years which was no different than a death sentence for him. Unlike the spirit of the crescent moon saber, Zhu Qing did not have an inexhaustible lifespan. He would need to reach the peak of the domain realm for him to have enough lifespan to serve the entirety of his sentence.
As for the young kingdom, the Guardian Blue River Star Pavillion paid for damages and offered to lay six blue-grade formations at their cost which was personally handled by the senior figures of the pavilion including the master of the pavilion.
"If Zhu Qing had told them that he was laying an untested gold-grade array, would the Caldera Springs Kingdom have refused him, or would they have taken the risk?" muttered Yang Qing.
Zhu Qing could have had a much lighter sentence if the Caldera Springs Kingdom had known about the array beforehand. There were slim chances that they would have refused him even if he told them the risks involved. In all likelihood, they would have taken the gamble. A gold-grade array was a gold-grade array. Having one would guarantee the continuation of their kingdom for thousands and thousands of years. It was something one would struggle to pass up and as for the risks, the potential destruction of the farm was an acceptable loss, and when it came to the town, had Zhu Qing discussed with them on the potential risks involved, they would have likely evacuated in.
All the misfortune could have been avoided had Zhu Qing been upfront about it, and as for the Caldera Springs Kingdom, Yang Qing couldn't help but feel they were the winners in all this. They got six blue-grade arrays in exchange for a single town.
When it came to big organizations, the interest of the whole came before that of the few. Trading one town for six blue-
grade arrays, they probably felt it was a steal, after all, no key figure from the kingdom was caught up in the attack. They had all evacuated in time. The majority of those who died were in the qi refinement and foundation establishment stages and less than a dozen core formation experts.
The cultivator world had always been callous about the lives of 'weaklings'. To them, their loss was like culling the weak livestock from the herd. They could always rear others to take their place with six blue-grade arrays.
With just two left, Yang Qing eagerly moved on to the next name. The next one was a cultivator by the name of Sun Tao, the crown prince of the Wood Stone Kingdom. He had been imprisoned for causing the death of countless mortals in his kingdom during his desperate attempt to save his kingdom. The Wood Stone Kingdom was a rank 3 kingdom that had grown due to the presence of elemental stone mines within their kingdom. They were especially known for having wood element stones.
Elemental stones were different yet similar to spirit stones. The difference was in their composition while the similarity was in how they were formed. Spirit stones were formed in veins and lodes that amassed dense spiritual qi that congealed together to create a mine filled with spirit stones, and within those spirit stones is spiritual qi.
Elemental stones formed the same way, except they tended to form in a place that had dense elements, for example, wood elemental stones would be formed in areas that had condensed wood energy. It could be due to a natural treasure, or naturally formed lode or vein. The stones formed would contain refined wood energy.
Elemental stones just like spirit stones could be used in cultivation, however, because of their nature, they were restrictive in their use. Those with elemental-based physiques or elemental-oriented cultivation arts could make the most out of them in cultivation, unlike their spirit stones counterparts that could be used by all.
However, if one wasn't intending to use it for cultivation they made for great catalysts and ingredients in refining potions and the creation of artifacts. Wood stones, earth stones, and water stones were great for alchemy while fire stones and metal stones were usually preferred for artifact refinement.
Woodstone kingdom was famous for having a lot of woodstone mines which it used to develop its alchemy while selling off the surplus. They also had earth, water, fire, and metal stones and the mines were of considerable size if compared to other places but they were not as large as its wood stone reserves.
Using those mines, the kingdom continuously supported itself sustaining its rank as a rank three kingdom. Though elemental stones were valuable, they were not precious to the point of inciting greed in the eyes of others. At least not mostly except for one particular stone. It's a rarity, and even Woodstone kingdom with all its mines, had never sighted one.
Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnovel(.)com