This was no ordinary assessment.
The hub devices of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array were exceedingly rare. It was impossible to send all thousand-plus hub devices to Tianyu Province for a single test.
Therefore, this practical array construction assessment would not be conducted simultaneously for all trainees. Instead, they were divided into groups of fifty, and would be tested in sequence.
The order of participation was based on their comprehensive test scores.
Li Fan ranked in the upper-middle tier, so he wouldn't have to wait too long.
Constructing a Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array was a massive undertaking. Even the most prodigious talent would take several years at a minimum to complete one.
This was, after all, just a test to gauge everyone's array construction proficiency. They couldn't possibly waste that much time.
Thus, the following rule was implemented: within a seven-day limit, construct as much of the central core structure of the array as possible. Final rankings would be determined by the actual state of the constructed array.
Li Fan was in the sixth group, which meant it would be over forty days before his turn by a conservative estimate.
During the assessment period, trainees were strictly prohibited from leaving the premises. Only students who had completed their assessment were permitted to leave the Cosmos Branch Academy and relax within Tianyu City.
However, learning from past incidents, they were still not allowed to leave Tianyu City itself.
While waiting, Li Fan began studying the small black box Zhang Zhiliang had given him.
He had tried to unlock it before. Back then, however, Zhang Zhiliang had still been alive. The small black box seemed bound by an unknown restriction beyond the sealing array.
Li Fan had made several attempts to unlock it, failed, and temporarily set it aside.
Now that Zhang Zhiliang had fallen, Li Fan sensed that the layer of restriction had spontaneously vanished. It was time to open Zhang Zhiliang's legacy.
It took little effort. A thin silver line gleamed across the surface of the small black box as Li Fan dismantled the sealing array.
The contents within were revealed, not much different from what he'd seen in his twelfth lifetime: an encrypted jade slip recording the Unlimited Art, Mind Ape incense, a Knowledge Appraisal Sphere, a Posthumous Bequest, and an ordinary jade slip containing Zhang Zhiliang's final words.
Li Fan first read Zhang Zhiliang's final message. After a moment, his expression grew pensive, and he set the jade slip down.
In his final words, Zhang Zhiliang briefly explained how, several years prior, he had fortuitously learned of Crimson Flame's impending descent upon the Congyun Sea.
To advance to the Dao Unity realm, he had gambled on a desperate, all-or-nothing scheme.
If Li Fan was reading these final words from the jade slip, it meant Zhang Zhiliang had failed in his Dao Unity attempt, perishing with his Dao extinguished.
Zhang Zhiliang's tone was full of reluctance, yet he also stated he had absolutely no regrets.
During the great battle in Tianling Province, cultivators of the Myriad Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council had slaughtered one another, falling like ants.
Zhang Zhiliang had personally witnessed several friends from his daily life die horribly before his eyes.
The entire sky had been occupied by death phenomena. Often, the spectacle of one death hadn’t even had time to fade before it was overwritten by the phenomena of the next cultivator to fall.
In that war, Zhang Zhiliang's pride as a Nascent Soul array master had been utterly crushed to dust.
Never mind Nascent Soul cultivators; even Spirit Transformation cultivators could only go with the flow in that great conflict, their life and death left to fate.
"Below Dao Unity, all are ants."
Upon this realization, an unbounded, wild ambition for Dao Unity inevitably took root in Zhang Zhiliang's heart.
By a stroke of luck, he survived and returned to the Congyun Sea. Furthermore, through his narrow escape from death, he experienced a sudden epiphany and advanced to the Spirit Transformation realm.
Now that this heaven-sent opportunity had appeared, how could he possibly give it up? Failure meant death, and he had long been prepared for that. He only feared that his life's work, the Unlimited Art, would vanish, so he left his legacy behind in advance.
Because most of his savings had been used to forge the Array Crowns, fewer contribution points were stored in this Posthumous Bequest than before, only a little over two hundred thousand.
For the current Li Fan, this was basically better than nothing.
What Li Fan valued more was how Zhang Zhiliang’s Unlimited Art at the Spirit Transformation level differed from the version from his Nascent Soul days.
Lighting the Mind Ape incense, Li Fan picked up the encrypted jade slip with gold inlaid on all four corners and began to read carefully.
After reaching the Golden Core realm, his divine sense had surged in strength, thus he felt no dizziness this time.
Li Fan quickly skimmed through the contents of the jade slip.
He was already intimately familiar with the original Unlimited Art. Comparing it now with this new version, he quickly detected the differences, or rather, the improvements.
The core concept of the Unlimited Art was that an array could achieve continuous self-evolution, remaining in a state of perpetual growth.
The most critical part was the lack of a central core capable of providing the computational power to support the array's infinite evolution.
In his twelfth life, limited by the perspective of the Nascent Soul realm, Zhang Zhiliang had not explicitly stated the possible objects for this core.
This time, however, Zhang Zhiliang was blunt: the most suitable object to serve as the central core for the Unlimited Art was the Myriad Immortals Alliance's supreme treasure, the Tianxuan Mirror.
Even when countless cultivators of the Myriad Immortals Alliance used the Tianxuan Mirror simultaneously, they never experienced any lag whatsoever. Not to mention that the Tianxuan Mirror also simultaneously handled tasks like regulating prices and controlling information flow.
This demonstrated its unimaginably terrifying data processing capabilities. Furthermore, the Tianxuan Mirror possessed its own sentience, making it a perfect fit for the Unlimited Art.
Previously, due to its unique status within the Myriad Immortals Alliance, Zhang Zhiliang had never dared to consider it. However, the emergence of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array after the great battle in Tianling Province had inspired him.
The Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array is a grand experiment combining the Tianxuan Mirror's own capabilities with arrays.
They all believe what they’re attempting to create is earth-shatteringly novel, but in my view, it remains somewhat conservative.
However, the Tianxuan Mirror is simply too important. Should anything go wrong, the Myriad Immortals Alliance would inevitably be plunged into severe turmoil. Caution is only natural.
Even so, the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array, which uses a newborn mirror surface of the Tianxuan Mirror as its hub control device, has undergone a qualitative change compared to all other arrays in the world.
You underwent closed training in Tianyu Province, so you may already have some understanding of how to construct it. But you likely do not fully grasp the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array's true power.
When it made its debut in Jiushan Province, I went to observe it for myself.
When I saw those pillars of light piercing heaven and earth, when the sensation of being watched and threatened flickered across my entire being, when the fluctuations of the Tianxuan Mirror swept over me... a tremor rose from the depths of my soul.
Ji Hongdao and his team are true geniuses. They have created a true monster.
Think about it. When one Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array after another is completed, covering the entire territory of the Myriad Immortals Alliance... what would happen?
Once the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Arrays are activated, there will be nowhere to hide. Every single event in this world, every whisper of movement, every rustle of grass, will be captured with perfect, unerring clarity by the Tianxuan Mirror.
Under the gaze of the Tianxuan Mirror, no cultivator in all the world will have any secrets left.
Reading this, Li Fan could not help but shudder with a sudden, cold dread.