"Just pass through that door to get straight into the final challenge."
The voice guided Ken, and as soon as the latter passed through the door, he could sense the vague activity of the formations in the room with his Runic Qi.
He was learning the mechanisms of the formations ever since he entered. Although they were seventh-rank or even eighth-rank, his understanding of the specific formations increased as they were the same in all buildings, and he did his best to spread his Runic Qi whenever he could to probe them.
As Ken expected, his location was shifted, and he was taken to another room than the one naturally attached to the door he passed through.
"Welcome to the final challenge of the Library of Eternal Wisdom-"
"Did the elder order you to mention its name all the time?"
"Yes."
There was an awkward silence for a moment before Ken broke it.
"It's a good name, he has a good taste."
"Right. Anyway, welcome to the Challenge of Comprehension. Choose your craft."
"Formations and pills."
Ken answered without hesitation. He wanted to figure out the formations of the place and this would be a great chance, as he would be presented with even more examples for his research. As for pills, if he had a chance to learn, he wouldn't decline it. He assumed the prizes, in the end, will be correlative with his choices.
"Two professions picked, initiating special challenge – Challenge of Comprehension and Integration."
The voice spoke and revealed the hidden mechanism of the challenges. Galen practiced two crafts himself, and it made sense he wanted an inheritor that could replicate his achievements.
"You will be taught the self-created alchemy technique Automatic Manufacturing, created by Elder Galen himself. When the sect had to provide pills for many disciples with Elder Galen as the only alchemist, he created this technique to allow himself to concoct many pills simultaneously by integrating his knowledge from Formation Mastery and Alchemy."
The voice explained the glorious past of the technique. Ken found himself deeply impressed by the creativity of the idea; if he had this technique, he'd be able to save a lot of time back in the Phoenix Feather Sect when he concocted the contaminated pills for the top sects 9 hours every day.
It didn't mean that Ken couldn't create a similar solution by himself; he was only 8 years old and was learning many things simultaneously while dealing with plenty of difficult circumstances. He simply didn't live long enough yet and he always had too much on his plate.
"The technique relies on formations. You stand in the central formation while there are four smaller formations around you, arranged in cardinal directions – north, south, west, and east. You must be the one to create all the formations so they will use your Qi as common ground when you concoct medicine pills."
The voice explained to Ken. However, it didn't sound coherent as a teacher. Instead, it sounded like it was reading clumsily something it didn't understand. It was confident when it talked about the formations at first, but it became hesitant when Alchemy was involved.
'That's interesting. I was wondering whose voice it was the whole time. However, no elder should be able to understand formations except for Galen, but the latter should also be well-versed in Alchemy. It means this consciousness belongs to someone else.'
Ken pondered on the issue of who was the voice's owners as he listened to the explanation.
"Overall, there are five formations – the central one where you will be seated, and four more where you will place four additional cauldrons. While being connected to the formation, everything you do in the main cauldron will be duplicated by the others. Of course, there are limitations and pills of higher grades might fail."
"I see. How will you teach me the formations?"
"First, you have 30 minutes to review the formations by reading this book."
A thin book of 30-40 pages floated toward Ken from one of the shelves inside the room. He noticed that all rooms he visited so far had at least one bookcase filled with books as if the designer found it important for the library theme of the building.
"And then?"
"Then you will have 5 hours to complete the formations. During those five hours, you will be able to watch a phantom formation master arranging those formations for as long as you want. However, during the time you use to watch the master at work, the clock will keep ticking."
Ken nodded confidently; after all, he never needed to watch more than once. If he still was unsure of something, he could just review the relevant part in his mind, which was much faster than replaying it in reality.
"Don't feel down if you fail Galen's challenge. With two Inheritor Tokens, you are safe from getting killed in the challenges. You still might get killed by others, but not by the secret realm's mechanism anymore. Since the elders could never agree on one inheritor, the rule they set was that one would become the inheritor once they held four tokens."
The voice spoke with sympathy in its voice. It thought Ken took a challenge beyond his abilities, and it was natural to think this way. Although it didn't know the child's real age, it was sure he wasn't even twenty, and Galen's tests were meant for fifth-rank artisans.
The special challenge for dual artisans, although still within the realm of the fifth rank, was even harder than the others, and it didn't believe that Ken was talented enough to pass it.
"Don't worry about me. I will start reading then."
Ken started reading the book quickly. He first registered it in his mind by "snapshotting" it with a glance, then read it in meditation. He preferred doing it this way because reading from memory was much faster than doing it from a book.
'I'm ready, but there are still 20 minutes left. Let's save some of those books in my memory.'
Ken stared at the bookshelves greedily.
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