Chapter 507: Chapter 507: Immersion

Drawing up a sect-protecting array was far more complicated as opposed to the enchanted barrier which Zen had drawn on the stage last time.

Before anything else, a sect-protecting array needed the existence of an enchanted barrier that would keep the entire sect safe. By comparison, even the residence of a small sect was still significantly larger than a battle arena.

One could look at the Cloud Sect as an example. Its full location was close to being just as big as the Burning Sky Empire.

That being said, Cloud Hall was a bit of an irregularity.

Beyond everything else, it was hovering up in the clouds.

In spite of the fact that it had a giant floating stone as its foundation, as a fourth-grade sect, Cloud Hall wasn't actually that big.

Apart from the protective enchanted barrier, one more thing it truly needed was attacking capability. There was no way a sect-protecting array could be put up just to defend and without being able to retaliate at all.

Upon exiting the Ice Palace, Felix delivered Cloud Hall's exact dimensions. Immediately following that, Zen floated to the point where Cloud Hall was just beneath him and got a bird's-eye view of his surroundings before carefully going back down.

“Do you have any idea just how many divine textures this sect-protecting array would necessitate?” he asked the cyan dragon.

“If you're planning to use a nine-star divine texture, just a single one would be adequate,” the cyan dragon answered right away.

Zen rolled his eyes at his response. One of those nine-star divine textures would be more than enough to lay waste to the entire Central Region.

The fact was that the cyan dragon was currently incapable of drawing a nine-star divine texture. Let's just say that he could, Zen still wouldn't be able to provide the materials in such a short span of time.

“But the Cloud Hall isn't such a huge place. From the way I see it, it would take roughly around 4, 900 three-star and four-star divine textures in all, as well as three five-star divine textures on top of that. But above all, you would need to find sufficient materials,” the cyan dragon answered straight up.

Nodding his head along, Zen said, “The necessary materials should be the first problem to get worked out.”

After receiving an approximation, Zen wanted to make a list of all the materials they would be needing. He found a table and began to jot it all down. With that, he listed everything the cyan dragon recommended one by one.

“Twenty rhinoceros horns.”

“Four rosewood logs.”

“One kilogram of eaglewood.”

“Elm...”

Felix was surprised at how long the list was turning out to be. It just kept going on and on.

Letitia had made it quite clear that Felix was simply lending Zen a hand in constructing the sect-protecting array.

However, each of those essential materials was actually going to be a bit too costly, and would also prove to be hard to procure.

If he was really planning to secure those items as soon as he possibly could, he might end up having to cough up more than two or possibly even three times their original price.

When he noticed that Felix was holding the list of materials and seemed to be completely astounded, Zen walked over toward him and asked out of concern, “Is there a problem?”

“These... These items…” Felix stumbled over his words as he pointed at the components written on the list.

“Would you be able to gather them?” Zen straightforwardly asked, wanting to confirm it. It was due to the fact that he was just a bit concerned that a few of those materials could be much too hard to obtain.

“I can find them, you don't have to worry about that. But the thing is... they are going to be ridiculously expensive.” Based on Felix's rough estimate, the items on the list would cost them a great deal of supreme life vitality crystals. “These materials would probably use up about half of Cloud Hall's savings, probably even more than that!”

Zen simply smiled at him and gave him two scenarios. “Tell me, between shelling out half of the life vitality crystals and having your sect razed to the ground, which would you prefer?” ℝἈ₦ỐᛒËṡ

“That's a foolish question! You're well aware which I would choose.” Felix blurted out.

“Then just go ahead and gather these materials as soon as you can, whatever it may cost. If push comes to shove, you'll have to steal them as a last resort,” Zen stated with a stern look on his face.

Given that Zen had already made himself clear, Felix promptly dispatched the numerous stewards of Cloud Hall to procure the materials.

One could go on and say that the productivity and orderliness of Cloud Hall were still considerably high.

Close to a third of the materials could be found directly inside Cloud Hall, and another third was spread throughout Cloudy City and the five great sects directly attached to Cloud Hall. As soon as Felix had given the order, the five great sects started delivering the materials into Cloud Hall.

But as for the last third of the essential materials, Felix had no choice but to purchase the components from World Commercial Alliance themselves.

Every single time a material arrived, Zen would check an item on the list using his thick ink brush. And slowly but surely, more and more materials were getting ticked off.

By the third day, from the moment they started, all the items written on the list had already gotten checked, meaning they were able to procure everything they needed.

As soon as all of the materials had been collected, Zen would have to make use of Felix's space for a while.

Much like Nate, who owned Runic Tower, runic experts needed certain conditions to be met for the area they would be working on. Felix's place was located on the side of Cloud Hall. If one were to glance outside from the empty hall, they could look at the rolling sea clouds, making it the best place in the hall to draw up the runes.

There was a crowd of people gathering in the hall. A handful of those were Felix's underlings who were responsible for taking care of the materials as well as producing ink. Not wanting to risk messing things up due to lack of manpower, Felix decided to call a couple of other stewards to come over and give them some assistance.

The minute the first batch of ink had been produced according to Zen's specifications, Zen simultaneously laid out a sheet of paper, firmly holding a brush in his hand.

The first container filled with ink was then given to Zen. Carefully dipping the brush into the ink, he proceeded to draw the first stroke.

As specified by the cyan dragon's plans, all in all, there were supposed to be 4, 901 divine textures in total within the bounds of the sect-protecting array. This three-star divine texture which Zen was drawing up was but one small part of the whole.

The second Zen's runic brush came into contact with the sheet of paper, his soul force immediately activated the characteristics of the components in the ink, emitting a blaze of red light. It should be quite apparent that this rune in particular was an offensive one with fire attribute!

The tip of the brush moved gracefully on the paper akin to a stream of fire, steadily painting the paper. The marking and figures on the paper looked just like blossoming flames.

Watching intently as Zen casually used his Perfect Brushwork with such ease, Felix couldn't help himself from feeling so enthralled.

Out of everyone present in Cloud Hall, if there was going to be just one person who was most pleased, it might very well be Felix. When it came to martial arts, he could easily be regarded as a heaven-level talent. In spite of that, though, all his life, he always had this obsession with runes. Thus, even up until now, he was still merely a martial artist in the Internal Elixir Realm. If he were to pick one between Cloud Hall and runes, there was no doubt that he'd go for the runes.

Regardless of the fact that Felix didn't have the ability to perform the Perfect Brushwork, the feeling he had through simply watching Zen draw those runes was something priceless.

Zen's grip was firm and his arms were stable, his motions seemed so tranquil and fluid. Having that level of finesse, even the most complex runes could probably be drawn smoothly. It didn't take too long before a three-star divine texture was finished.

Without standing up, he simply gestured over to someone next to him. The assistant immediately grabbed the divine texture from him and set it somewhere in the hall to let the air dry up the ink written on the paper.

After that, he began drawing a second divine texture, then a third…

For the next twelve hours, without stopping to take a breather, Zen just kept on drawing runes one after the other. The brush he was holding never stopped for even a minute.

Actually, just after the first two hours, Felix had asked Zen if he would like to take a break to get some rest, but Zen just shook his head and vehemently continued drawing.

Felix never could've imagined that he would go on twelve hours nonstop!

Drawing runes would eat up a considerable amount of soul force. Even though the soul of a runic expert was far stronger than an ordinary martial artist's, drawing for twelve hours straight was still a feat that was quite unheard of.

In Central Region, Felix was among the best runic experts. He had actually been a disciple once in the Runic Tower. At the time when he left the tower, he possessed enough soul force to be ranked in the tower's top ten. And yet even then, after merely constructing five runes, he would immediately feel nauseated, needing a couple of days to take some rest before he could draw again.

That was the main reason why Felix truly believed that constructing a sect-protecting array would need about a year, possibly even a number of years to be completed. Drawing runes was worlds apart from just drawing some random graffiti. But as Zen did it, he made it appear as though he was just drawing some graffiti artwork. He made the process look so easy, when it was in fact far from that, much too far from that.

Felix had no clue how strong Zen's soul was, whatsoever. But to be completely fair, who would have actually thought that a young warrior from the Illuminating Soul Realm possessed something like a soul of the Fighting Soul Realm?!

After drawing continuously for twelve hours straight, Zen eventually sensed a feeling of exhaustion. This was the consequence for pushing his soul force too hard. He abruptly stopped what he was doing. And by the end of that twelve-hour stint, on one side of the hall, more than two hundred three-star divine textures were tidily piled up together.

If he could somehow manage to put out this much divine textures, the process should be finished in about one month.

At that point, Felix was totally astounded. Apart from how difficult it was to draw up runes which he couldn't comprehend in any way, drawing one-star runes for twelve hours nonstop would have already driven him to his wit's end.

'This young man must have a soul made of iron!' he deeply pondered, still feeling so amazed.

Upon taking a much-needed good night's rest, Zen was able to replenish his stamina and began drawing divine textures once again. The helpers inside the hall also had their hands full with dissecting the materials, hanging them to dry, and then grinding them. All of these methods might sound easy, but they were also quite intricate.

Suddenly, the temperature around the hall seemed to have gone down a little. Letitia came flying in. The assistants and stewards who were much too busy moving around the hall all stopped in their tracks and bowed to her, but Letitia simply waved her hand over to them, gesturing not to cause Zen any distractions.

Her eyes, which seemed to be just as warm as the sun, were glistening intensely. Akin to a peaceful valley, she had her gaze fixated on Zen with a revitalizing and pure allure.

As all of that was happening, Zen had been completely oblivious to it. The only thing he wanted to do was to focus on his brush as he immersed himself into the world of divine textures.