Second Time

Chapter 63 - Teaching

Qi Lifen sat in Cai Fei's array study, as she usually did. With her initial nervousness gone, she'd returned to her scholarly, almost anti-social nature.

Cai Fei came in and set a bag of holding down on the table. "This contains materials for every grade one array. The world energy here is so strong that you shouldn't need spirit stones to power them. To become an official grade one array master, you need to be able to successfully create twenty different grade one arrays. There are a lot more than twenty kinds, so if you're stuck on one, you can skip it."

"Thank you." Qi Lifen looked into the bag. "I'll do my best, Master."

Cai Fei nodded. "That's all I ask. You don't have to succeed, you only have to try your best. I'll stay here. Ask me if you have any questions and I'll do my best to explain. There's no shame in failing or not understanding something. In fact, I hope there are many things you don't understand. Thinking about how to explain them will temper my own understanding."

"I'll keep your words in mind, Master."

Qi Lifen referred to Cai Fei as 'Fei' outside of the array study, but when being instructed, she still used 'Master.' Cai Fei didn't really care much either way so she didn't bother to change the behaviour.

Cai Fei sat down off to the side and took out a jade slip that she started reading through, keeping a portion of her attention on Qi Lifen.

It was Qi Lifen's first time putting her learnings into practice. She knelt down on the ground and slowly traced out the design of one of the arrays.

Oh, Cai Fei thought. That's going to explode.

Cai Fei did nothing to stop the disaster. A few seconds after she thought it, there was a soft bang that threw Qi Lifen a few meters back.

"Huh?" Qi Lifen didn't understand. She looked over at Cai Fei.

"What happened?" Cai Fei asked.

"The array... self-destructed."

Cai Fei nodded. "Why?"

"That's what I'm wondering." Qi Lifen sat cross-legged and thought intently about the process.

Cai Fei tossed out a handful of silk threads that instantly took the shape of an array as they fell to the ground. "That's what the array looked like at the moment it exploded."

She said nothing more, returning her focus to the jade slip. She had decided to emulate Shao Yue's teaching style, for the most part.

Qi Lifen stared at the partial array blankly, then picked up the reference book. She studied the pictures within, then reread the basics, her eyes repeatedly flicking over to the partial array.

She's a good apprentice, Cai Fei thought. Hopefully she keeps it up.

Some amount of time passed. At some point in her life as a cultivator, Cai Fei had stopped thinking about things in terms of hours or days, only paying enough attention to the passage of time to know when it was her birthday, or Shao Yue's. Maybe someday she'd make arrays to handle even that.

Qi Lifen looked up from her book and stared at Cai Fei. "I made a loop too early."

Cai Fei nodded, extending a hand and calling back the silk. "During the construction of an array, you need to let the energy escape until it's safe to connect it. If you do it too early, then as you saw, there will be a buildup that eventually explodes if the array isn't finished in time. Sometimes it will be worse than an explosion, depending on the array."

Qi Lifen tried again.

Throughout the peak, similar scenes played out with the other apprentices, though everyone had their own teaching styles. Cai Fei went to watch some of Peng Fuyi's lessons, interested in the array patterns that made armour more powerful.