This thought flashed by.

The green wooden door ahead was slowly opening, but the room behind it was obscured by a massive vortex, seemingly concealing everything.

Fang Hong hesitated for a moment at the sight. But the voice of the Tower Guard came once again: "Don't be afraid." The latter took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped forward.

And upon entering through the door, the scenery changed dramatically.

First, the buzzing noise from the earlier activation of the array disappeared, and the room seemed isolated from the outside world, enveloped in silence. There appeared to be light inside, and when he opened his eyes, he was slightly startled—a small study appeared, with a desk, an open scroll spread on it, bookshelves lined on both sides, and a narrow room floor scattered with books of various sizes, leading to a floor-to-ceiling window at the end.

Light streamed softly from outside the window, like the gentle sunshine of spring.

In front of the desk was an open giant book, displayed on a wooden and brass pedestal, standing half as tall as he was. The room was brightly lit, and on the open pages were some peculiar symbols, and on the side, a large diagrammatic sigil was drawn.

To an ordinary person, these mysterious symbols and patterns might seem completely baffling. But to Fang Hong, these were quite simple, to be precise, they were the basics of the Alchemist's craft.

Runic letters, and single arrays.

Single arrays, which were alchemical arrays with only one function.

They are composed of runic letters, directing the flow of Ether in one direction, the most basic unit of Alchemy.

Single arrays were ancient creations from the birth era of Alchemy, and nowadays almost all alchemical arrays are composite arrays. In Eteliria, single arrays are things of history books. Nevertheless, to this day, they remain a compulsory course for every Alchemist's Apprentice.

Looking at this giant book, Fang Hong couldn't help but reminisce about his learning journey in Kapuka, which wasn't too distant, as if it were just yesterday.

However, he was somewhat puzzled about the purpose of this book's appearance here, and as he surveyed the room, it seemed cramped with no other exit. Only when he looked up did he notice the ceiling was unusually high.

And in that place, there was a small green door.

That was the exit.

How was he to get up there?

Use the Blink ability of the Energy Angel? But Fang Hong tried and found that he couldn't summon his Construct in this mysterious space, and even when he pulled out the Clockwork Fairy hanging from his belt, there was no connection with its Core Crystal.

This space seemed to have the ability to isolate Ether.

Fang Hong thought for a moment, realizing that this trial might not be that simple—if the Energy Angel could Blink him up there, wouldn't it be easier to enter with the Boots of Flight? He began to carefully examine the surroundings and then discovered some details.

Scattered on the floor were some red gold plates.

And red gold is an excellent conductor of Ether.

This cheap material was all too familiar to him because it was something every Alchemist would encounter during their apprenticeship when they first practiced engraving arrays.

Looking at the giant book, then at these red gold plates, Fang Hong suddenly realized the purpose of this place—it was to have him engrave arrays.

But what was so difficult about that?

After all, he was no longer an apprentice. Back then, to engrave a single array, he even needed to use a chisel and hammer to strike on the gold plate, carefully carving out the array—an Alchemy Array being a highly precise thing, with any slight mistake rendering the array useless.

But now, he merely needed to pick up the gold plate, with a fleeting thought linking every necessary structural point, and the array in his hand would naturally form. Even a single array held no challenge for him anymore.

Once the engraving on the gold plate formed, it would immediately fly out of his hand, forming a stairway in the room.

At this precise moment, the giant book also flipped a page, but there was still a single array depicted. Fang Hong seeing this scene completely understood that this room was meant to test an Alchemist's Apprentice's foundation in engraving Alchemy Arrays.

He glanced at the ceiling's height, estimating it would take seventy to eighty steps to reach, approximately the total number of single arrays invented by Alchemists since the Numelin Era.

Having understood the principle, Fang Hong wasted no time and began laying the staircase step by step.

With the giant book continuously flipping pages, by the seventeenth page, Fang Hong encountered his first failure. Probably a minor distraction, his array's precision was about ninety percent this time.

Of course, this precision was high enough, as generally, forming an array required a precision of just over seventy percent. Nevertheless, even so, at the moment the array was formed, his gold plate didn't respond in any way.

Fang Hong was slightly surprised, instinctively trying a few times, each time incrementally improving precision—only at ninety-seven percent did the red gold plate fly out, forming the next step. Witnessing this, Fang Hong drew a sharp breath, realizing the difficulty of this place.

It required an array precision of at least ninety-seven percent to pass.

After getting supplemental foundational knowledge from Dulun, Fang Hong was no longer the novice he once was, lacking a basic sense of precision required for Alchemists. He clearly understood that a precision of ninety-seven percent was significant.

It meant eliminating at least over two-thirds of the craftsmen's qualifications, as reaching this level was nearly impossible for them.

This was only the first door.

Fang Hong couldn't help but look up, deeply eying the door in the ceiling, realizing for the first time the extraordinariness of this Hall of Thousand Doors.

...

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