594 The Meaning Behind the Array

"Done!" After a few minutes of tweaking, Alex finally created a temporary key to open the gate. Even though it was a key, it wasn't like he made a physical one. It was just a temporary symbol that could unlock the gate for a minute.

As soon as he finished the key, Alex quickly backed away and took out his sword and spear. He, Sherry, and Kyle summoned their firebirds, ready to bombard everything behind the door. 

*Clack!*

The gate slowly opened, creating a tension in the air. Alex and the others narrowed their eyes to see what kind of being behind the door, albeit their expectations were betrayed.

Alex was the first to notice because of his Spirit Eyes. He found not a single being inside from the small gap between the doors. They waited for a little more until the gate fully opened before noticing there was only a staircase in front of them. 

The staircase had the same color as the gate. Alex observed the staircase for a few seconds to see if there was any array behind or beneath the staircase. Only after half a minute, he finally nodded. "Let's go. The gate will be closed in ten seconds." 

Anna and the others nodded while passing the gate and looking up. Unfortunately, they couldn't see a single thing other than a white ceiling with some pillars supporting it. 

The firebirds disappeared with Alex's signal as he sent a thought transmission to everyone. "We are going upstairs. Although there is no monster, we shouldn't lower our guard."

Upon his order, they started climbing the stairs with caution. They looked left and right to see if there was a clue to this place, albeit when they climbed onto the second floor, they found something more amazing than a monster.

They found a huge hall underground. More importantly, they saw the water flowing like a river without a sound, seeing how slow and smooth their flow was. In the two corners were a kind of pool. There was no speck of dust around because this place was fully enclosed and the water was crystal clear.

"What is this place, Master? It's a pretty place, but…" Sherry looked at Alex with an unsure tone. She furrowed her eyebrows, wondering if this beautiful place was an illusion or not.

"Let me check first. No one moves." Alex nodded and scanned the area with his Spirit Eyes before finding something amazing. "This…"

They misunderstood his action and quickly raised their weapons, but Alex stopped them. "Don't worry. There is no monster nearby and only a few arrays in this room. I can clarify that none of them are dangerous. This place seemed to be safe." Alex nodded. 

"Fu." They let out a breath of relief before lowering their weapons. 

Alex began walking forward to show it wasn't dangerous. The others followed him with caution before arriving into a huge platform in the middle of the room.

"What is this place, Alex?" Anna asked. 

"Hmm?" Sherry tilted her head, couldn't understand Alex's point. "Master?"

Alex glanced at her confused expression and smiled. He pointed at the four pillars in the corner of the platforms that connected to the ceiling. "Can you see these four pillars? I mean, the function of these four pillars."

"To hold the ceiling?" Sherry answered while tilting her head. 

"No. These four pillars are connected to the surface… specifically to the Cultivation Place." Alex smirked, thinking about something evil.

"But isn't Cultivation Place still locked?" Sherry asked.

"Yes. It's still locked for another few days. Do you think how a giant Array like this could survive for a few thousand years?" Alex smiled before pointing his finger to the top. "The cultivation place is the key to sustain this place. The cultivation place will direct half of the energy from the monster core for cultivation while the rest will go to this place.

"The energy will then be stored inside this place to keep this place running. As for the lizards outside, they are acting as a guard of this place, just like the ants in Zwaka's place. This array will search for monsters nearby and kidnap them continuously. Don't you find it's strange that this place is right in front of the forest? But that forest doesn't have any monsters?"

"So, Master is saying that those one hundred thousand monsters actually came from the forest?" Sherry came to a realization.

"Yeah. Migration, normal moving, and so on will eventually fill the forest. It's not a rare occurrence. However, this array is searching from the monsters over there… Judging from the scale, it's not that forest alone. The surrounding should also be the supplier of this array." Alex pondered for a moment.

"Now that you said it, I remember that Nelson said this place is peaceful because there is no monster in its surrounding. Maybe all the monsters are transferred into this place?" Anna said with a surprised tone.

"Yeah. This array will pull the monster continuously to make the area peaceful. After that, this place will be opened to have cultivators cleared this place. It even gave the cultivation benefit to grab their interest. Then, the cultivators will use the cores to power up the array for another one hundred years and the cycle will repeat." Alex smiled.

"The person who built this place must love this place to that extent," Anna commented in amazement. She somehow had a respect for this person because even when he wasn't here anymore, this array could still protect the people living in this place.

"Yeah. You are right. This array only abducts the Emperor Stage monsters so the economy could still run with the scarce Martial Monarch monsters and Martial King or below monsters." Alex nodded.

"I see." Sherry let out a relieved breath because there was no problem in this place. It was only after a minute of momentary silence, Sherry suddenly noticed something wrong in Alex's explanation. "Master, did you say it's connected to the Cultivation Place on the surface?"

"Haha, Sherry finally notices this important matter," Alex smirked while Anna and the others purposely waited for her to realize. He continued, "That's right. The energy will fill this place as soon as the cultivation place opens. The Gathering Array allows us to absorb the energy at speed far greater than before. It's even possible for you to reach peak Martial Emperor and enter your deep sleep."

"But Alex… if we absorb more than we are supposed to, wouldn't this break the whole array?" Anna furrowed her eyebrows.

"I am just taking advantage of this system… I'm not going to destroy it or something. We can replace the necessary energy with Spirit Gems… Maybe around one hundred thousand Spirit Gems might be enough. It's worth it to exchange those with two stars advancement in a week." Alex smiled. He also didn't want to destroy this place because it already protected the people for a few thousand years.

If he destroyed this place because of his greed, it would leave a bad taste in his mouth. He might not be a good person, but he knew the difference between taking advantage and plundering.

"Well, It's your choice. One hundred or two hundred thousand Spirit Gems are a small number for us. We can spare that much and get more after destroying the Black Devil Sect later." Anna shrugged.

"Yeah. You are right." Alex nodded. "The only problem would be how long it will take me to go back to the teleportation array and reconstruct the array again without anyone noticing…"

He fell into silence for a few minutes before muttering, "I should be able to do it within a day. In other words, if I cultivate right now, I have a week and a day before going back to the surface."

"There is another problem that needs to be answered." Anna cut in.

"And that is?" Alex narrowed his eyes.

"You basically won't appear in the Cultivation Place and Narman said those people from the other influences believed that the ones who destroyed the Black Devil Sect were us. If we didn't come to that Cultivation Place, they might think anything." Anna sighed, thinking about what kind of conspiracy theories that would appear later.

"I can put on a long robe, smear them with blood and make myself look injured. I can ask Sherry and one of you to have the same setup and act like we are heavily injured. It should be enough to fool them for some time until we have gathered enough information to attack the reinforcement from Black Devil Sect." Alex smiled.

"I see. So that's your plan. Not the best, but not bad either. We won't stay too long in this place anyway." Anna nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, we can cultivate first before the Cultivation Place opens since we have our own monster cores. We have more than ten thousand monster cores, including the lizards'... Thanks to Anya." Alex decided to change the topic so as to not waste time.

Anya proudly smiled while puffing her chest. Since she was just a support that could only stay behind, she decided to use that advantage to grab all the monsters for Alex, so they didn't need to come back after killing the lizards. "I can't fight like you guys, but I can provide the support that will leave you speechless." 

Alex and the others simply smiled and let her brag. 

"Where to pour the cores? And we still need to come out of this place before the time limit." Anna asked while presenting another problem.

"Hmm, we indeed need to go back to the surface and leave the barrier… Maybe one of you can wake me up later since I believe Sherry and Kyle will enter their deep sleep before one week is up." Alex said. "This is rank 8 Gathering Array after all."

"Well, we have seven of us here, so you don't need to worry about that. Maybe, we can also ask Nelson and the others to summon six of us outside to kill more monsters." Anna said.

"Hmm… You can discuss it with the spirits." Alex nodded before turning around and pointing at the two pools. You can just toss them there, because usually the monster cores will be destroyed on the surface. We can use the pool to hold the Spirit Gems and I will make an array to destroy the Spirit Gems when they run out of energy and turn into a normal rock."

"Oh. So, the Gathering Array is covering this entire room." Anna nodded before splitting the monster cores with Anya, so they could fill the two pools together. Anya gladly helped her and took the space ring before walking toward the pool. They poured the monster cores at the same time, making the water in the pool overflow.

As soon as the monster cores filled the pool, the array beneath the platform reacted strongly. Alex watched this with his Spirit Eyes. He found that the energy from the monster cores flowed toward the platform. Alex smiled before sitting on the ground.

Sherry turned back into half-human half-beast form and followed Alex. Kyle also sat down, feeling the insane amount of Spiritual Energy.

In just a second, all the Spiritual Energy went inside his body from every pore at speed beyond his imagination. He became confident in advancing within a week.

Alex's absorption speed was even higher than them because he had refined his body three times, according to the Undying Fire Body. This was the first time he experienced a rank 8 Gathering Array and never expected to be this fast.

He was overwhelmed for a few seconds before growing accustomed to the current speed. This wasn't a big deal to him, who always had a need to get accustomed to his absorption speed.

Without the trio noticing, Anna and the others had begun discussing with Anya planning the whole thing. Meanwhile, Alex, Sherry, and Kyle started cultivating in this place.