Now that Jing has no reason to hold herself back, there are quite a few things she can try out now. The mastery of array making is one of those things. Jing is genuinely interested in the art of spells. There were some spells that Jing couldn’t practice except in the privacy of her own home or far away from anyone’s eyes. Those spells usually lied within the harming category. The harming spells were spells meant for only one thing, harming. Jing’s fake personality did not fit with this type in the slightest.
That was why she didn’t use a talisman or array from the harming spell section even once under that personality. Not even when she was training with Elder Lang. Jing actively refused to learn about harming spells even though Lang believed it would be safer for her to at least gain some knowledge about it rather than completely refusing to learn anything about it. It was actually smart of him to suggest that. Inwardly, Jing completely agreed with him.
If you are going to master a particular field, then you should at least know about most things of that field. Choosing to be willfully ignorant about something that can only help you is stupidity in its finest in Jing’s opinion. More knowledge is better. Having less knowledge is dangerous and a risk.
That was why Jing’s tasks for her followers mostly focused on gaining information about someone or something. She rarely gave them tasks similar to the ones she gave them before the start of the Treasured Plains. Before the Plains, Hu Tao was the only one who ever Jing gave out assassination tasks to. Killing, fighting, and causing general mayhem was his forte. It would be a waste using him for matters that required thinking, intellect, or other qualities that Hu Tao had no talent in. Spotting the strengths and weaknesses of her followers is something that Jing has to master if she wants to become a great leader.
So far, she’s only mostly understood Hu Tao and that isn’t much of an achievement considering who he is as a person. Through these tasks, she hopes to find out more about her followers’ strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. It’ll be easier to choose what tasks are suited for who if she does this. It will also help her understand their limits if they can or cannot deal with the task given.
‘Mom.’ Li Li spoke out, suddenly taking her attention back to the first floor of the Great Tower.
Li Li grabbed an arrow by the shaft with his talons and glared at the one who dared to shoot it at his mom.
“Ah, thank you Li Li. My mind was elsewhere for the moment.” Jing said, turning her head to the one who tried to kill her.
Jing threw a talisman towards the cultivator that shot that arrow at her. The cultivator didn’t even have the chance to dodge as it seemed like Jing threw the slip as quick as lightning! The small slip of paper struck his chest and it must be said that he was all the way on the left side of the wall staring down on her. The size of the wall shouldn’t be underestimated! If a cultivator were to fall from that height, they would still die even if they used qi to protect themselves. Jing only survived because her qi was massive compared to most. It takes more force to break and wear down her qi barrier but it also rapidly consumes her qi at the same time.
The cultivator who tried to kill her from the left side of the wall disappeared and reappeared in front of her completely confused. Once he noticed who he was in front of, he tried striking her with his wooden bow. Only to have it get ripped apart by Li Li’s foot. Li Li wanted to rip him into pieces, but he had a feeling that his mother wanted to handle it herself.
And his feeling was right. Jing did plan to deal with this brave young man herself. To have the courage to aim at her personally and almost succeed in hitting her when her attention was taken? His skill with the bow wasn’t bad and his judgement in choosing her to shoot wasn’t wrong either. It was just that he picked the wrong opponent to try handle at his level. The archer was a 9th stage just like her.
“Don’t die too quickly. It’ll be more enjoyable for me if you try your hardest to survive.” Jing pulled out a weapon that she hasn’t used in quite some time and wrapped it around the throat of the bowman.
He gripped at his neck with both of his hands trying to pull the whip off. It was tightly wrapped around his windpipe and he could barely breathe! The archer had no way of resisting as Jing pulled him through the air straight towards her. The bow wielding cultivator tried using his qi to relieve the stress on his throat, but relief came in another way than the one he was expecting.
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Jing kicked him across the face as he came towards her and launched him inside one of the formations, she set up for the beast tide. The force of her kick broke his nose on impact but he found comfort when he realized at least he could breathe now, somewhat. He violently coughed as he found himself in some sort of pink formation. It was a box-shaped formation, there was nowhere for him to escape as all his exits were blocked by incredibly tough qi barriers.
She was definitely in a different league from him even though they were at the same stage. That black girl must be in between the 1st stage of the Qi Consolidation realm and the 9th stage of the Qi Gathering realm to overpower him this badly. What an unlucky circumstance... Choosing this unknown talented disciple to try and kill for points.
“You should pay attention behind you.” Jing softly smiled.
His qi sensed an identical feeling qi behind him and his sense for danger immediately spiked. The archer cultivator rolled over to the side and looked at what was just fired at him with shock. It was a barbed arrow just like his own! Who the hell would use the same type of specialized arrows as himself?! He looked at the figure who fired the familiar arrow and gasped in shock.
“Let’s see if you can overcome yourself and break past your limits.” Jing chuckled as his copy used a special bow technique and rapidly fired arrows to kill the real one.
This was normally a simple earth-ranked illusion formation but the one Jing was using was quasi sky-ranked. It’s called the Mirror Formation. Most used the basic version as defense against thieves, burglars, and other sorts trying to steal important belongings from them. They hired a licensed spellmaster to set up the formation and if any thieves entered inside the array, they would be forced to fight in a life or death battle with an exact copy of themselves. 9 times of out 10, the thief would be found dead killed by their doppelganger.
A small percentage of cultivators used this as a way of training themselves to break through to the next stage. Not many cultivators did this as the risk of death was far too high. It would be like paying to have someone equal in strength to you, fight you in a life or death battle, instead of something resembling training. The thing with this formation was, once you were trapped inside, you could not leave until you or your duplicate was dead. Even Jing was a little bit frightened to test this thing out for herself. She didn’t know everything she was capable of yet and didn’t want to find out by being completely dominated by a shadow that couldn’t even think. Eventually she’ll give a try but for now, it was too early.
The shadow completely mirrored the one who fell inside the array. All the martial arts they learned, special techniques, weapons, magical treasures, and there was even a higher version of it that replicated bloodlines as well. Jing was using that specific version just to be careful. Her knowledge on bloodlines are insufficient, to be honest. There could be dozens of cultivators with special bloodlines that could easily deal with her as far as she knows. None of her followers even have a special bloodline.
But now that that issue was dealt with, Jing got back to setting up even more formations for the incoming beast swarm. This time with a bit more focus on her surroundings rather than her thoughts. Setting up multiple arrays like this was quite a bit of work. Jing was glad that nearly anything could be used as a base to create formations and not a specific resource like spirit stones or something on that level. A simple rock, a piece of paper, anything that’s solid was a viable choice for the formation’s base. Most, if not all, spellmasters used sturdy materials as their base so that it would be harder to destroy. The bad part about these sturdy materials was that they usually cost an arm and a leg to purchase or gain.
Jing had an advantage with her materials. All she had to do was refine them with SCP-914 and normally they were better than any other base available on the market. There were some cases where they were still able to be destroyed with sufficient force even when she refined them intentionally to be unbreakable or undestroyable. Before, she thought it was just a mistake that she made herself. But now, she realizes that it’s because the very fine dial on SCP-914 isn’t almighty and can’t do everything. Which also means that Bing, Ying, Hu Tao, Lei Zhi, and Wan Qing’s weapons weren’t indestructible like she planned them to be.
“I guess that means my whip isn’t either huh?” Jing muttered as she consciously dodged a thrown rusty sword aimed at her eye.
Li Li waved his right wing and multiple high-speed feathers were sent straight towards the cultivator that tried to hurt his mother. The feathers hit their target and stabbed deeply into the cultivator's face. Causing him to panic and scream from the pain before stumbling off the top of the wall and falling to his death.
“Thanks son.” Jing peacefully smiled.
‘Hmph! He got off lucky.’ Li Li scoffed.