Chapter 241
“Greetings everyone, thank you all so much for coming.” inside of a reservation-only spacious lab with a lot, Carl stood near a podium and announced to all members of the arrays and circles club with Jason by his side: “And today, we have a new member to our club, you may have already recognized him from the previous student duel - please welcome Mr. Jason Lin!”
“Woo!” “Jason! Welcome!” the members in the room cheered and welcomed Jason.
“Thank you everyone. And thank you Carl for introducing me. I’m just here to learn. So please continue.” Jason stood up and gently bowed to everyone.
“Alright.” when Jason went back to his seat, Carl clapped his hands, and a giant silver screen dropped down on the wall behind him. Then, someone from behind the sitting members of the club placed a projector and started projecting onto the screen: “Now, everyone, we’ve brought a recording of an old lecture from Mr. Patterson, on the basics and common areas of mistake in crafting and utilizing purifying arrays. We all know that Mr. Patterson is one of the best scholars on the art of purifying arrays in the world, and he’s arguably the best in the academy. So this might just be one of the best gifts a club could have to welcome a new member. Now, please sit tight and enjoy!”
The countdown started on the giant silver screen, which gave Jason a feeling as if he was watching a movie.
“Now, everyone, welcome to my lecture.” Pratt Patterson showed up on the screen, with a poof of smoke and some kind of fiery special effect around him, wearing a bright red suit with a shiny blue gem on his chest and a pair of sunglasses with a golden frame: “I hope you’re ready for a wonderful presentation! And in this presentation, I will be imparting about one percent of my knowledge and experience on the crafting and utilization of purifying arrays. I will be using simple terminology and simple analogies to make sure it will be as accessible as an instant noodle cooking manual. If you’re watching this, hope you’re not too stupid to have trouble with what I’m about to say.”
This attitude was rather arrogant yet somehow it worked for Pratt Patterson, maybe it was because of his flamboyant clothing, or maybe it was because of his bright smile and white teeth.
“... So before we dive into the details, let me ask you this - what is purification? Why do we need purification? To answer the first question, you would first need to understand the answer to the second one.” Pratt Patterson sat down by a chair made of a whole piece of red crystal and pointed at a celestial globe made of gold to his left: “I trust that you all know some kinds of method for purification, but I think some of you - yeah, you! You! And YOU! Some of you may have already realized that purification was all about two things: one is to extract the things we want from the impurities, the other is to filter the impurities away from the core material we want.
“And do note this - the more complex the composite, the harder it is to actually purify. And thus, the practice of purification had advanced way more on the front of simply extracting the material, and less about filtering the impurities. The reason being, it is way simpler to have the arrays to resonate with the few things we want than to have them resonate with the impurities.”
“But here’s my first lesson to you - don’t restrict yourself to one thing - make sure you understand the composite before you start the purification. You may have heard of unwanted but similar kinds of materials resonating with the array and being extracted with the material you want, which lead to the requirement of further purification. Now, think of this another way - if you know a thing or two about some of the impurities, and you make your array resonate with them to filter them out, you’d end up filtering more than what you may be planning for.
“And, here’s another thing you may find interesting ….”
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“Now, welcome to the first of three rounds of tests to determine your eligibility into Daryl’s Hunting Club.” at the entrance of a very wide training ground with bows, crossbows, targets and various melee weapons lying around on the ground, Marco said to all ten of the candidates applying for a membership of the hunting club: “And we will keep scores for everyone. Don’t worry we won’t be selecting only the top contenders. You will accumulate at maximum ten points at each test, and if you have twenty four or more points at the end of all three tests, you would be granted our membership.”
“Now first up, bow skills.” a girl in a grey blue hood with two daggers strapped to her left leg told the contenders: “You can choose any bow here you’d like. But you can’t use any of your powers, which includes magic and other gifts. You each have five shots, each shot is worth two points, and as long as your arrow touches the targets, you will get your points.” Then, she raised her right hand and ten round wooden targets with the diameter of coffee cups rose from the ground and were stabilized on the wall behind her. “Stay behind the yellow line on the ground, please take your time to choose your bow.”
Caroline thought for a short while, then she picked up a wooden longbow, then she picked up five arrows and started testing the bow’s pull strength and tried aiming it at her target.
“Ting!” when all ten contenders went behind the yellow line, one girl wearing a light blue sorceress robe already shot her first arrow, it landed on the wall just a few inches away from her target, and was bounced off the wall on which the targets were hanging.
“Fire your arrows carefully. ” the girl in a grey blue hood reminded all contenders.
Caroline took a deep breath, slowly pulled the string back, then gently released her string.
“Crack!” the metal arrow head scraped the edge of Caroline’s target, knocking the target a bit to the side and leaving a white mark on the target.
“Two points to Ms. Baker.” the girl in a grey blue hood smiled.