The Programmer Cultivator

Hearing this, the other four all paused, becoming much more cautious.

They walked a little further, and pinpricks of light suddenly appeared ahead.

The group paused for a second before quickening their pace.

A moment later, the five of them reached the end of the passage, but their path was blocked by an opaque wall of air shimmering with white light.

Everyone looked at Xue Su. After their experience in the great hall, they all knew he was an Array Cultivator, and a very accomplished one at that.

Xue Su stepped forward and poked the Light Curtain with his Rating Token, but there was no reaction.

Runes swirled in his eyes as he examined it for a long while. Finally, he said, "It’s a Defense Array. I imagine we’re required to break it to pass."

Zhang Deming chimed in, "Before, it was a test of individual strength. Is this a group effort? Can we break it?"

Xue Su said uncertainly, "You guys test its strength first. I’ll observe."

At his words, the other four all looked at one another.

Li Shifan paused, then said, "I’ll do it. I am a Sword Cultivator, after all."

The others nodded and took a small step back. Li Shifan drew the Sword from his robes. With a surge of Spiritual Power, he made a few tentative slashes.

After attacking for some time with no effect, he took a deep breath, and his Spiritual Power erupted.

"Swordsmanship: When the Flowers Bloomed!"

A silvery-white flower of sword light rapidly took shape at his blade’s tip before drifting onto the Array’s wall of air.

The wall rippled like water and then vanished completely.

But behind the white, glowing wall of air was, impossibly, another wall of air.

"It seems to be working," Sha Xingping said.

But Xue Su shook his head gravely, his expression turning grim. "We might be in trouble."

Sha Xingping asked in confusion, "Why? Didn’t we just break through a layer...?"

As he spoke, the wall of air that had disappeared slowly began to re-form.

Seeing this, the faces of all four fell.

"What’s going on?" Sha Xingping asked.

Xue Su frowned slightly. "Hold on."

Then, his Spiritual Power surged as he rapidly formed a Spell seal, appearing to cast some sort of Technique.

Following the fluctuation of Spiritual Power, a Light Screen appeared before Xue Su.

Watching the Light Screen, Zhang Deming felt the corner of his mouth twitch almost imperceptibly. Li Shifan’s expression flickered as he saw the screen, and he shot a glance at Zhang Deming.

They reacted this way because Xue Su appeared to have conjured some kind of Light Screen through Casting.

’But I know damn well that’s just the display being projected by the computer watch in his pocket...’

Li Shifan knew as well, since he’d seen Zhang Deming mess around with a similar Light Screen before.

But then, when Xue Su began Casting again, Zhang Deming was a little stunned.

Xue Su’s hands became a blur as he chanted a few lines of an unusually-styled Spell, his voice too low for the others to hear.

This time, it wasn’t just for show. As Zhang Deming stared in mild surprise, a peculiar thread of Spiritual Power connected Xue Su to the wall of air.

To be precise, it connected the watch computer in his breast pocket to the wall of air.

The thread of Spiritual Power acted like an ethernet cable, linking the Light Screen to the computer and creating a network connection between them.

Immediately, a waterfall of various Runes appeared on the display screen.

’Is this?’

’Code?’

’Ha, so this Array Cultivator isn’t just some kind of spy, he’s a damn programmer masquerading as a Cultivator?’

Seeing the familiar format, Zhang Deming had to fight to keep the corner of his mouth from twitching again.

"What kind of Technique is that? It feels so strange," Sha Xingping said.

Xue Su looked up, glanced at Zhang Deming, and replied, "Oh, this is an obscure Technique from the Array Dao. It’s normal for you to find it strange.

"Never mind a layman like you; even many Array Cultivators wouldn’t know about it if their knowledge isn’t deep enough."

Zhang Deming: "..."

’You’re spouting such serious-faced nonsense, I almost believed your crap!’

As Zhang Deming watched Xue Su fiddle with the Light Screen while talking, he felt a strange urge to roast him.

’So right now, your ’breaking the Array’ is actually just you trying to crack a firewall and hack your way in?’

...

The others stared at the countless, varied Runes on the display screen, their heads starting to ache. Only Zhang Deming watched with genuine concentration.

Xue Su would glance at Zhang Deming from time to time. When their eyes met, there was a tacit understanding between them.

After a long time, Xue Su’s brow was tightly furrowed. "This is trouble. While the Array is only at the Non-Star Apprentice level for the sake of this trial..."

"...it uses an advanced technique that’s beyond that level: Stacking."

The others were completely baffled and stared at him blankly.

Xue Su paused, thinking about how to explain it in simple terms.

After a moment, he said, "The Array before us is made of several Defense Arrays stacked on top of each other, layer after layer.

"At the same time, it has a built-in countermeasure to prevent brute-force destruction.

"A normal Defense Array would just break when hit by a powerful force.

"But with this Array, when you try to break it with brute force, the first layer of defense will automatically cut off its Spiritual Power supply just before it reaches its breaking point.

"Just like what happened a moment ago. It looked like it was broken, revealing the second layer.

"But in reality, it just temporarily stopped operating as it neared its critical point.

"The defense vanishes either way, but this is fundamentally different from being broken by an overload, because this way, it can recover in a moment.

"In other words, unless you can break through all the layers in one go, even if there’s only one layer left, you will never be able to cut through it.

"And this Array has at least five or six layers. Stacked like this, even a Tai Chi Cultivator would find it difficult to break through with brute force. So, brute force won’t work on this Array."