Chapter 644: Right under its nose?

If it couldn't see it, it naturally had no way to strike. It stood to reason that this was the Palace of Heaven's intention. Hiding the array eye was the best way to protect it.

He Lingchuan pondered, "If you could see it, could you strike at it?"

"It only lit up twice. The first time was the longest, lasting about two incense sticks' time; the second time, it only flickered a few times."

He Lingchuan gave an 'oh' of surprise: "The first time was only two incense sticks' time? Are you sure?"

"Yes, but it was enough for me to determine its position at the time." After all, Zu Ju was the mountain spirit of Mount Xu; nothing that happened in the airspace of its territory could escape its observation. "At that time, it was east of the Tianji Peak, at an altitude of about one hundred and fifty zhang from the ground."

"The second time was the shortest, but I could see it was at the same altitude, with no change." Zu Ju gave a hoarse laugh. "It is very likely moving at this level the whole time."

"Only twice; that doesn't prove anything." He Lingchuan fell into deep thought after saying this.

Zu Ju's words were at odds with the actual situation.

The first strange flash of the Heavenly Luo Star occurred when the ruins of the Thousand Stars City were brushed with a hidden illusion.

The illusion of the Thousand Stars City under the moon lasted for two hours, only disappearing before dawn. Therefore, the Heavenly Luo Star had also shone brightly until the first light of dawn in the east; this was something he and Fu Shanyue had seen with their own eyes.

Yet Zu Ju claimed that the array eye of the Spirit Gathering Array corresponding to the Heavenly Luo Star only manifested for the time of two incense sticks, which was only two quarter-hours.

Why was it so short?

Of course, He Lingchuan would not bring this fact out to discuss with Zu Ju. In the whole world, probably only the Palace of Heaven and he knew the truth of that day.

"If this array eye is far from the ground, how does the Palace of Heaven maintain it itself?"

Use leads to wear, and wear requires maintenance, otherwise, it will break. From this point of view, no matter how miraculous an array or building, furniture, or any other durable good is, there is no difference.

Moreover, the Spirit Gathering Array was so important; would it be reasonable not to inspect and maintain it a few times a year?

Zu Ju fell silent again.

He Lingchuan understood that this meant it didn't know.

The Palace of Heaven guarded against everything, specifically guarding against this house thief. How could it let it know the core secrets of the Spirit Gathering Array? "After so many years, you haven't managed to pry any useful information from the Ke family either."

"The Ke family is just a dog raised by the Palace of Heaven; how much of the Heavenly God's secrets can they know?" Speaking of this, Zu Ju felt disgusted. The Heavenly God designated the Ke family to offer sacrifices to it, and only the Ke family could openly contact it, but the Ke family always remained outside the core secrets of the Palace of Heaven and the Imperial Palace.

This was, of course, an intentional arrangement by those above, making it expend all its efforts only to do useless work.

Thinking of this, Zu Ju's whole body erupted with rage.

However, He Lingchuan was not underground and did not know the terrifying scene of the magma surging; he only asked it: "In the past ten years, have you maintained contact with other outsiders?"

"Why ask this?"

"So that means you have, right?" This earth-fire monster had schemes and was unwilling to be controlled. Since it couldn't get information from the Ke family, perhaps it had set up a separate kitchen and found other informants.

Since He Lingchuan could connect with it, who was to say others couldn't? There were so many strange supernatural powers in the world that the Palace of Heaven had no way to guard against them all.

"I also need more information." He Lingchuan smiled. "Why don't you be this middleman?"

Zu Ju also gave a low laugh, noncommittal.

This kid had only hooked up with it for the first day, and he already wanted to carve up other people's information? How could there be such a good thing?

"I'll state a piece of information first to show my sincerity." He Lingchuan was always generous when he should be. "More than ten years ago, before the Spirit Gathering Array was about to be completed, the last step was to install the array eye. At that time, the Ke family offered a large amount of sacrifices, letting you eat your fill and fall into a deep sleep, right?"

This was Zu Ju's most unpleasant past; it gave a deep "hmm" in response.

"But you woke up early, flew into a rage, and the entire array nearly collapsed."

Zu Ju said stiffly: "Just one step away; it was truly a pity!"

If it had ruined the array at that time, would it still have to endure this dozen years of filth?

"But your outburst still seriously affected the final installation work; they didn't even have time to debug it." The whole Lingxu City had a deep feeling for how terrifying this rock-fire monster was when it lost its temper. "After the work was finished, the supervisor only discovered one problem."

He Lingchuan said word by word: "Every autumn and winter is the long-bright period of the Heavenly Luo Star. For safety's sake, the array eye should still be hidden in the void. With the Palace of Heaven's ability, they could have debugged it to that point. But due to your interference, this clause did not take effect."

"However, the Spirit Gathering Array was already running, so this became a low-level error that couldn't be fixed. Unless they rebuilt the array eye, they could only use other methods to remedy it."

Anyone who understood the Spirit Gathering Array knew that with Zu Ju there, the array had no chance to stop.

Could it watch the Palace of Heaven rebuild the array eye, restart the array, and suppress it again? Zu Ju immediately became interested: "What do you mean? Explain it clearly!"

"Simply put, the array eye should have continued to hide in the void during autumn and winter; but in reality, as long as the Heavenly Luo Star's long-bright period arrives, it is very likely floating above Mount Xu."

Lord Zaifu Kua discussed the supervision process of that year in the dream, full of technical terms and parameters. It took He Lingchuan a great deal of effort to sort out this key point.

Zu Ju couldn't help but raise its volume: "What? You're saying the array eye is not in the void?"

"It's still in the void for now." He Lingchuan corrected it.

"I know, I know. You mean that once the Heavenly Luo Star starts its long-bright period, it will run out of the void and float in the sky of Mount Xu, right?" Right under its nose, for ten years, yet it had never discovered it?! "Yes, so your resistance back then still had an effect." It left behind an unfixable bug; otherwise, He Lingchuan probably wouldn't have had a way to strike this time. "It's just that I don't know what method the Palace of Heaven used to make it invisible, so that even birds can't hit it."

"That's not a problem; the Palace of Heaven has plenty of means." Zu Ju quickly calmed down, but its voice still carried excitement. "Heh, hehe, I thought that since the Spirit Gathering Array could run for a long time, there were no problems."

Simply put, it trusted the Heavenly God's means too much and never thought that the Spirit Gathering Array itself would have any problems.

"The fault tolerance of this kind of large-scale basic array is very high; usually, it won't stop running because of a few flaws." He Lingchuan gave an example. "Just like what those supervisors said, which large-scale construction project isn't full of flaws? Patch it up if you can, and basically, the problems can all be solved. In the end, they are all accepted, completed, and put into use."

Just take a random example: when a building is under construction, you can find a handful of problems just by grabbing it; it's shocking and unbearable to look at. But after it's built, especially after it passes inspection, how many buildings do you see collapsing after two years?

"Like this error, wasn't it also covered up by finding a way? Even you didn't discover it. Let's try to see if we can make an issue out of this." Even though Zu Ju was a knowledgeable ancient great demon, it had never engaged in large-scale construction projects that humans were best at, so it was very unfamiliar with the tricks of the trade.

He Lingchuan stood up and poured himself a cup of warm water: "What is the reason the array eye can float?"

That thing could float around above Mount Xu and maintain a certain altitude; there must be a power source.

"What other reason could there be? Of course, it's the Suspension Bucket Stone."

"Ah?" He Lingchuan thought for a long while before remembering what a Suspension Bucket Stone was. "You mean, the reason it floats is the same as the seven floating islands?"

The floating islands could hover in mid-air, motionless, all because their bases used Suspension Bucket Stones. When he first arrived in Lingxu City, Bai Ziqi had said that the Suspension Bucket Stone was not an object of this realm and had other ways of recharging.

"Of course." Zu Ju said in a muffled voice. "You want to make it fall? Don't dream about it. As long as Lingxu City continuously replenishes it with floating stones, it can float steadily. As long as the Grass Sea opens regularly, the source of floating stones won't be a problem."

He Lingchuan stroked his chin: "As the most important array eye of the Spirit Gathering Array, the Palace of Heaven must have very thorough protection for it."

"In the information you obtained, isn't there any of its defensive works?"

"It's useless even if I got it." He Lingchuan shook his head. "The supervisor contacted it more than ten years ago; who knows if the Palace of Heaven has reinforced it later—I blindly guess they have."

"I can't make a move; it's impossible for you to knock it down just by yourself." Zu Ju sighed for once. "Not to mention how many defensive supernatural powers are set up on it, the array eye must also have primordial power protection."

The array eye was the most critical priority of the entire Spirit Gathering Array, and the Palace of Heaven's care for it must also be the most thorough.

How strong was the primordial power of Beijia? Even if Zu Ju struck with all its might, the effect of its supernatural powers would be greatly weakened.

After all, the existence of primordial power was meant to counter powerful monsters like it.

"There will always be a way." Having obtained some more information, He Lingchuan's mood relaxed quite a bit. "First, we must confirm the position of the array eye. By the way, when the Heavenly Luo Star flashed strangely the first two times, did you make a move?"

"When we met this afternoon, you saw it, right... I have restrictions on me; I cannot attack buildings and arrays built by Lingxu City within the range of Mount Xu."

He Lingchuan remembered the conspicuous rune hoop on its body. It was just as he had originally expected: as long as the Spirit Gathering Array was running normally, Zu Ju had no way to aim its spearhead at the array eye.

"But I still threw a few clones at it." Not trying even once and admitting defeat was not its style.

"Useful?" Although the array eye was more than a hundred zhang (over five hundred meters) off the ground, a volcanic eruption could easily exceed this height; Zu Ju throwing lava at it was effortless.

"Uh, useless; they were bounced away." Zu Ju said sullenly. "I used very little force; otherwise, it would be judged as an attack on the array, and that would be bad."

As He Lingchuan understood it, violating the restrictions would lead to suffering.

"However, the clones I threw up there still saw the array eye clearly." The array eye was more than a hundred zhang off the ground; if Zu Ju wanted to observe it at close range, it had to throw clones up there to observe from multiple angles.

This fellow really had schemes. He Lingchuan's spirits lifted: "Any harvest?"

The information about the array eye was all obtained from Lord Zaifu Kua; to be honest, it was a bit old. First-hand information was the freshest and most precious.

The operation to attack Mount Xu was too dangerous; he had to collect as much information as possible.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 645 =====