Chapter 21: Kicked Out

Back in the underground room

Teo was sitting on the floor, with a bunch of paper scattered across the room.

With a book on his left hand and an inked quill on his right hand, he was intently trying to design an array with the specific symbols.

Since old man Cien only "helped" by indicating which symbols and shapes to be use, he didn't know the placement of each pieces went. The pattern or rather design of the array was still unknown to Teo.

He briefly looked at several basic patterns within the book. These basic patterns were not complete arrays, and was just a diagram with a few words indicating the usage of the pattern.

"This pattern is an example of promoting the mixture of 3 different primary symbols"

"In this example, the pattern purifies energy of supporting symbols while the shape distributes the facilitates the fluctuations of the primary symbols"

Without much understanding of the patterns he could not understand what each descriptions meant, but he was trying to find a pattern diagram with a similar set of shapes and symbols that old man Cien listed

Although Teo knew the usage and compatibility of each symbol and shape, he had no knowledge on how to build one. All the arrays he had seen were mostly diagrams within the book, and the only other array he did not see from the book was the tattoo on his chest.

'Why are they designed like that? How does this pattern do what it says? Ah this is the symbol for restricting the flow of energy'

He searched page after page to a pattern with the symbols needed.

After turning another page, Teo became shocked at what he saw.

Around half way through the book, the pages were blank!

He couldn't find the pattern with the specific symbols that he was looking for and suddenly the pages half way through was blank. 'this book was actually an unfinished?'

He took the book and headed back up

...

Old man Cien was sitting by his pond with a fishing rod in his hand with a peaceful look on his face.

When he heard the sound of Teo approaching he glanced and said "Done already?"

Teo shook his head "Mr Cien, I have briefly read the pages of the book, but this book is actually unfinished"

'Unfinished? this brat..'

Teo continued "And the person who wrote this even left out any instructions on how to actually make an array. What kind of author writes a book about arrays without even writing the part of how to build one"

Teo was clearly dissatisfied. The book built up knowledge on the fundamental building blocks of an array, but didn't have any instructions on how to build it.

"This book I wrote isn't finished? Fool! This book is already finished! You are just too unqualified to see the rest"

Teo finally learned that old man Cien was one who wrote the book. He became panicked. He had criticized old man Cien in front of his face.

"Hmph! 'not writing about how to build an array'? with just the first half of the book, anyone who studied it enough would easily know how to write any array they want. One would be able to easily glance at an array and tell what its functions are. You think skimming my book would be enough for you build one?"

Cien continued to lecture Teo endlessly

After a while, old man Cien was almost finally done with his lecture until Teo decided to open his mouth again

"Mr Cien, I am sorry that I said those things earlier. Can you please instruct me on how to build that array?"

Old man Cien's eyebrow lifted. He was clearly annoyed by the kid. First he was forced to give in to Teo by using a trick and now this? How audacious, a mere human child to criticize his work? Hmph!

"If I showed you everything step by step, how will you learn? Why don't you figure it out yourself!"

He waved his hand and Teo was thrown into the pond -SPLASH-

Teo was forcefully ejected out of the inner world.

Old man Cien's voice rang out in Teo's mind "Try and figure it out on your own for a while, if you really can't I will give you a hint but it will cost you again. And don't bother me in 2 days!"

Teo was scared. He had never seen old man Cien this angry.

"Mr Cien? Mr Cien?" he tried to call old man Cien, but no reply was heard.

After a while of calling, Teo was sure that Cien completely blocked him out.

-SIGH- 'me and my big mouth' he regretted talking too much

"I guess I have to find a way some other way" Teo softly said to himself

....

Next morning

It was his first time sleeping since a long while.

He used to be always in the inner world "sleeping" but now that he has been kicked out. He had to sleep normally.

Teo got up really early. There was still a lot of time before he had to meet up with Lia and Windle.

He got dressed and went out to head to the cafeteria. He decided that even though it has been a little under a week, he should be relatively safe to not wear his bandages anymore. People would probably think he took some sort of medicine so that his bruises had heal pretty fast. They also knew that Teo attended class even after being beaten up, so Teo didn't have any broken bones.

Teo arrived at the cafeteria, thinking hard about this problem. As he ate breakfast, he saw a familiar figure sitting in a distant table. It was Grifford, the generalist from the elementalist class.

Grifford was eating breakfast while reading a book on one hand.

Teo could tell that this book was not a blank book from the different cover that it had. It was brown in color and looked worn out. Teo was curious what kind of book it was merely because it was not a blank book.

He suddenly recalled that the Emerald Pavilion sold miscellaneous items.

'perhaps they also sell books there?'

Teo figured that if they did sell books it wouldn't be books easily available in the library. Then he thought of an idea!

'Maybe the library has books on arrays, if not maybe the marketplace had them'

Although Teo considered going to the marketplace as an option, he had very little funds right now. He truly hoped that the library had an array book that could help him

After eating, he went to the place where Lia, Windle and him would usually meet up

"Good morning" Windle first to arrive greeted Teo

"Windle, I want to ask for a favor"

[Author's Note: I have changed the title to the original title that I had in mind which was "The Arrayist", I will update the cover image later though]