The Array Lord's Inheritance (12)

There were two main emotions that could be felt due to the drastic decrease in rivals; joy and anxiety. It was a good thing for there to be less rivals, but the fewer the rivals, the less time each of them had to prepare their next point. However, Shui, Emily and the young gentleman recommended by the royal family's emissary, didn't have this worry. In fact, the young gentleman made his move at the start of the second round.

After the first round, the participants of the final test were allowed to make it their turn at any time, though they wouldn't able to say anything else for the rest of the round. If no one chose to go next, then someone would be randomly chosen to speak with no concern for how prepared they were. The young gentleman chose to speak first because he wanted to present while in his best condition and to set the theme for this round.

"I believe we've adequately explored the general idea of growth, so next we should focus on growth as a natural law as well as how it functions in arrays. As should be obvious from its definition, growth can be traced back to the primordial laws of time..."

While the previous round could be cleared without much specialized knowledge, he wanted to make sure that this round wouldn't be the same. It would still be possible for others to change the theme, but if not done properly one could earn a low grade so it was a risky procedure.

After the young gentleman ended his turn with a score in the eighties, the young man from the Array Association went next. The complexity of the theme provided no problem to him, and he shared the motive of reducing the number of participants so he wove in several rarely used jargon into his points without comprising his eloquence. By the time he was done, majority of the participants had no confidence in being able to explain what he had said though they were also array grandmasters. Since they were placed at such a disadvantage, it was no surprise that the ones that followed received failing grades.

When four people in a row had failed, there was a moment of silence since no one chose to go next. The participants being eaten by anxiety, desperately wished for someone to sacrifice themselves, and in a sense, their wish was granted. Shui internally sighed as he went next.

"Picking up from what fifth place said, the Leinz theory can indeed be applied in this case, but there's no reason to make it unnecessarily complicated. Based on the structures relevant to the law of life..."

The first thing Shui did was simplify everything that the young man had hidden in overly technical talk. It wasn't a bad tactic to take advantage of your opponents' ignorance, but Shui didn't want to continue the trend. If he chose to be long-winded, then even the two who started the round would struggle to decipher his words, but he wouldn't allow such a means in a competition with Emily. Even if this was a competition, he intended to debate with her in a fair and proud manner, therefore, their little tricks were inconvenient.

Shui didn't move away from the topic of the connection between the law of growth and arrays, so the young gentleman didn't mind his actions, but it wasn't the same for the young man. He wasn't blatant with his dissatisfaction, but Shui did sense a sharpness in the gaze he aimed at him. Even so, Shui gave no response to him and finished his turn.

Thanks to Shui, someone from the first ten gained the confidence to go next and managed to pass. Two turns later, Emily made her point but she didn't do anything special and passed with a high score. At the end of the second round, eight of them were left. Two more were disqualified in the third round, and one more in the fourth round. With five of them left at the start of the fifth round, everyone was ready to reveal their trump cards.

The array master who was the ninth to enter the grand library, went first and brought up a question that he thought of.

"If growth is a natural process, then is manipulating the development of an object through arrays truly growth?"

He then made sure to complicate the matter as much as possible so that his rivals would struggle just to figure out whether they would be for or against the argument. This was the best move he could think of, but there was a big flaw in his plan. His great mistake was believing it would work against his current opponents. If this tactic was employed before this round then it would likely be effective against a couple participants, but his present rivals looked at him with disdain.

Even though his point was just a question, because of his phrasing and the supplementary details he used, he managed to get a passing score. Nonetheless, he definitely had the lowest average score among them so his only chance at victory was to disqualify the others. He bet everything on this move, and the person who chose to crush his hope was the young gentleman.

"You question whether a growth process aided by arrays can be considered natural growth, but what is natural? Based on your words, using arrays is an artificial means, but aren't there many theories stating that the world itself is supported by arrays? And in the sense that arrays are only a tool to achieve a result, then it's not much different from watering a pot of flowers. Are you saying that flowers grown this way aren't natural, but artificial flowers?"

Instead of choosing a side to defend or attack, the young gentleman went directly at the moot in order to demolish the proposed point. The array master had already passed so he couldn't be disqualified, but this was a sure way to ensure that the young gentleman would get a higher score.

The array master turned pale in the face of this course of events, but his rivals no longer paid any attention to him; he had lost. After destroying the point, the young gentleman went on to put forward his own challenge. He shifted the conversation to array techniques that could manipulate growth and asked the rest of them to propose techniques that array masters of their level could use that didn't include the natural laws of time.

Unlike the man before him, the young gentleman mixed his question in with his own ideas so his score didn't suffer very much. Considering his consistency, he was confident that he could attain victory as long as the other three failed to provide a solution to his challenge.

The young man from the Array Association went next, but not because he was ready. The method of simulating growth without using the natural laws of time, wasn't impossible for him to figure out, but he couldn't think of it quickly. He had hoped that either Shui or Emily would go next so that he could get enough time, but not only did neither make a move before time ran out, he was unfortunately selected.

All he had was a few developing ideas, but there was no choice but to hope he was on the right track.