Array Master - 188

Although one second would be an extremely long amount of time in a battle for someone like him, Zhou Fan didn't plan on using such things in battle anytime soon.

Even if he really was going to use them in battle, he would pre make them so that he could activate them in a second. 

As he continued to think down that road, he began to have ideas about different ways of using formations and arrays in battle. After a while, he simply shook his head and focused. He was becoming a master in arrays now. Thoughts about the use of formations and arrays in battle could wait until later. Besides, talismans were already a way to use formations in battle, although there were some flaws.

Zhou Fan was now ready to start studying core formation arrays. It was at that level that arrays started showing their various uses.

Zhou Fan spent exactly a month studying core formation arrays. After that month, he had completely mastered them. As he had said before, arrays started showing their use at the core formation level.

Not only were they stronger, but there were more ways to use them. For example, there were now flying formations that assisted you in flying. If you weren't a celestial that could already fly as a child without core formation cultivation, then such an array was very useful. Not only could they help you fly faster, but they could help you get used to flying and learn at a faster rate. 

Despite their new uses, Zhou Fan knew that the arrays one could learn at nascent soul would be much stronger. Before that, however, he needed to increase his speed in making rank 3 formations.

It only took two days before he got them to the standard speed of one second.

Once again, this was not his speed at his current cultivation level, but his speed when only using the power of a core formation cultivator. Therefore, a one second creation speed was very useful.

Naturally he would be millions of times faster when using the power of his 2nd level god realm cultivation. 

As he was done with core formation arrays, Zhou Fan moved on to the nascent soul level arrays. He had quickly comprehended them when it came to formations, but it took two months to comprehend them now. 

He was a full fledged 4th rank array master. There were many new arrays that were not only stronger than the core formation arrays, but had different uses.

The best example was the talent testing array. Since the nascent soul realm was the first time one's true soul bloomed, it was only natural that core formation arrays couldn't fully detect talent.

That didn't mean that one had to be at the nascent soul level to have their talent tested. In the situation where there were only nascent soul arrays were available, one may have to be at the nascent soul realm, but even a soul formation array or a void traversing array could test the talent of anyone. Even a newborn child.

Therefore, the nascent soul talent array wasn't all that useful, but it was still able to do some things that core formation arrays and below couldn't do.

There were other uses of the nascent soul arrays, but Zhou Fan moved on to his speed training. The speed training was less about speed, and more about familiarity with the arrays. It was the same with formations. It's not like he would ever be back at the nascent soul realm. Why else would he upgrade his speed? 

Once he reached the one second mark, Zhou Fan moved on to soul formation arrays. Like he had previously mentioned, there were things that the soul formation arrays did better than nascent soul arrays.

The main example was the talent testing array. Before, it could only test a nascent soul realm cultivator's talent, but it could now test anyones. That included newborn children.

It had taken Zhou Fan around six months to become a master in the soul formation arrays. He was now a 5th rank array master. After a bit longer, he had also increased his 5th rank array creation speed to one second.

The qualitative changes from a 4th rank to 5th rank array master wasn't limited to talent testing arrays. There was also a great change in soul attack arrays.

Although there were some soul attack arrays at the 4th rank, they were extremely limited in what they could do. Even if a tenth level nascent soul cultivator who was also a 5th rank array master tried to make a soul attack array, an average 3rd level nascent soul formation cultivator would be relatively unharmed. 

It was only at the 5th rank and the soul formation realm that the soul attack arrays did true damage and were actually dangerous.

For example, even when limiting his cultivation to the 10th level of the soul formation realm and only using the knowledge of a 5th rank array master, Zhou Fan was able to produce a soul attack powerful enough to severely injure an 8th level soul formation cultivator in a single second.

If he spent a really long time on it, around three days, he would be able to create a soul attack array strong enough to kill even a ninth level soul formation cultivator and injure a tenth level soul formation cultivator.

Under the right circumstances, even killing a tenth level soul formation cultivator wasn't out of the picture. 

Even if you ignored the difference in talent testing arrays and soul attack arrays, there were still many other much better arrays. Even the basic ones like fire attack arrays were much stronger.

Arrays such as soul healing arrays and soul boosting arrays were only possible once one broke into the soul formation realm. That was because they required immense knowledge of the soul. While it was technically possible to create one as a nascent soul realm expert, it was extremely hard and nearly impossible.

After becoming a 5th rank array master, Zhou Fan was ready for another step up in his rank.