When the questions and answers session finished, Carl and the three students behind him announced that the arrays and circles club had booked some of the labs in the same hallway, and the members could experiment with what they had just learned from the recorded lecture from Pratt Patterson and the following questions and answers session.
Jason was not that familiar with purification arrays, nor was he too interested in it. But he was still able to learn quite a lot from the lecture and the answers provided by Carl and his friends. Jianmen did teach him and Caroline before during his defense array sessions, that the fundamentals of defense arrays can be applied to almost any other kinds of arrays - because they were about the most basic technique of manipulating energy inside of arrays and circles: energy flow, texture and structure of energy constructs and their resonance with the materials used in the array. And if one tested these principles on purification arrays, they would still apply and make sense.
Jason found a spot that was not taken by any other members from the club. Then he sat down and used the metal rods and nails to build the foundation for a simple defense array.
"Hmm, you're not trying to test what you learned on an actual purification array?" the voice of Laura Jensen came from behind.
"Oh, hey, didn't see you there." Jason turned around and noticed that Laura Jensen and the chubby Chinese man were standing behind him looking at his array foundation: "I … I hope you wouldn't mind. I'm mostly interested in defense arrays, and I was sorta inspired by the lecture, so I wanted to try..."
"Ha, no matter. Good understanding of the fundamentals can serve all." the Chinese man smiled and nodded: "Why don't you just go right ahead with what you were planning to do? Don't let the epiphany elude you."
"Yeah, I agree with Mr. Wang. Go ahead and let's see what you've got." Laura Jensen giggled and said.
"Okay. " Jason did not intend to waste any more time, as he started infusing the foundation with his Xuanli right away.
A small silver dome appeared right above the foundation of Jason's array. When Laura Jensen and this Mr. Wang looked closer, they could see that the dome had three translucent layers, the outer layer was one that was formed by a lot of overlapping hexagon scales partially overlapping with each other; the middle layer was a thin but elastic and sturdy membrane; and the inner layer, was a skeleton like an upside down metal colander with hexagon holes.
The dome was still flickering when Jason first molded it into shape. But as Jason hovered his hands over it and infused more of his Xuanli and balanced the flow and structure of energy inside of the array, the shape of the dome started stabilizing and solidifying.
Jason felt that never had he been more focused on an array than he was right now. Because this time, he had a feeling that he was on the verge of something that could be a game changer for him.
Under Jason's control, the dome finally came into shape. The scales on the outer layer also formed some kind of spiralling pattern, when looking from top down, it was like the scales are scattered and put in place by a spinning center.
This dome was in many ways similar to the product from many of Jason's previous attempts before. But this time it was the first time for Jason to feel a sense of completeness and pride when he was done - he felt that he could still improve its quality, but he was able to do almost exactly what he was set out to do with this array, with nothing missing and nothing short of his expectations.
"Nice." Mr. Wang nodded in approval: "Looks like it can take at least a few very powerful hits."
"Too soon to say." Jason chuckled, then he constructed a silver hammer on his right hand and swung it at the dome.
"Bang!" the collision between the hammer and the dome made a sound of metal objects crashing into each other, the dome's shape changed slightly due to the impact, but it was still standing where it was.
"Wonderful blunt force resistance!" Laura Jensen sounded genuinely impressed: "Now I know how and why you could make those powerful constructs that gave my brother and his friend a good beating - looks like not only is your power well suited for constructs and defense arrays, but also you seemed to have grasp the core of power resonance quite well - your array absorbed and the shock in full and distributed it evenly among its parts. This is something even a graduate of the academy can have trouble doing."
"Thanks. Now for the harder test." Jason patted on his silver hammer, causing a long pointy spike to grow from one side of the hammer. Then he swung the hammer at the small dome again, with the spike aiming at the top of the dome.
"Ting! Crash!" though Jason was confident he aimed the point of the spike almost perfectly at the top of the dome, the spike still slid to the side upon impact and ended up leaving a hole on the ground on the side of the dome. The dome, on the other hand, seemed to still suffered some amount of damage from the spike, with quite a few silver scales peeled off from its surface.
"Good, good." Jason smiled and turned around, just in time to see Mr. Wang already leaving while nodding his head, while Laura Jensen already came forward and sat beside him.
"So, tell me a little bit about your array." Laura Jensen took out a small notebook: "I don't think I've seen this kind of defense array before, what is it? How did you know about it?"
"Well, it's just something I have been experimenting." Jason thought for a while: "I was taking inspiration from chain mails and scale mails, with some introductory knowledge of building structures about rebars..."
"Hmm. This is interesting - so you were aiming for the shock absorbing internal structure of modern civilian building, and the impact dispersing properties of chain mails and scale mails." Laura Jensen smiled, then knelt beside the silver dome: "But looks like there's still a little bit of change that you could do to make it more resilient to - may I?"
"Yeah, sure."
When Laura Jensen ran her fingers across the silver dome, some sort of electric energy went into the dome: "Now, try your spikey hammer again."
This time, when the pointy spike came into contact with the dome, some sort of electric sparks burst from between the scales, which were not enough to completely derail the momentum of the spike, but just enough to redirect the direction of the spike. And this time, the spike did not even damage one bit of the scales as it slid onto the ground.
"Nice. Reactive armor?" Jason laughed out loud: "Nice, nice!"