Wasteland Beast Chessboard

The Wasteland Beast Chessboard is the first-prison environment reconstructed after Zuo Mo breaks Vast Water Clear Skies and names the resulting space. Although its name resembles a portable board, it is a shared illusion and cultivation space inside the yao world's Ten Finger Prison. It becomes the public stage for Xiao Mo Ge's teaching, challenges, prison battles, and Gongsun Cha's war-chess confrontation with Yu Heng. (Chapters 354–376 and 407–408)

History

Reconstructing the first prison

Zuo Mo enters Vast Water Clear Skies as a human soul thread and follows Pu Yao's method of deconstructing its little yao arts. Completing the prison-breaking battle does more than grant passage: the broken first prison is rebuilt around the pattern of an ancient wasteland beast, and Zuo Mo is required to name the result. When he says “Wasteland Beast Chessboard,” grey smoke rises from its tiles and forms the image of a vast beast. The name belongs to the new prison environment, not to a board Zuo Mo can carry outside the Ten Finger Prison. (Chapter 354)

News of the reconstruction spreads through the yao world because successful prison-breaking battles have become rare. Visitors find an apparently boundless plain of colored squares rather than the former water prison, and schools, alliances, and experts begin studying both its layout and its unidentified creator. Zuo Mo uses the space to teach Nan Yue and meet Cang Ze, while the Genius Alliance's attempt to break the new prison produces six little-yao-art problems that circulate publicly. The chessboard thereby becomes both a practical training ground and the source of Xiao Mo Ge's early reputation. (Chapters 355–364)

Challenges and the war-chess match

The environment permits real contests of consciousness rather than harmless spectacle. Zuo Mo uses its prison battlefield to accept challengers, set yao-art traps, and test deconstruction-based combat, but every participant risks genuine spiritual injury. When bounty hunters and public opponents enter, defeat throws them out as light; heavier damage can weaken consciousness even though the physical body remains outside. Zuo Mo himself later suffers severe pain and a gap in his recollection after being expelled, proving that his status as the prison's reconstructor does not make him immune to its costs. (Chapters 371–390)

Yu Heng's faction later builds a large war-chess field inside the Wasteland Beast Chessboard for a highly publicized contest. Gongsun Cha directs Xiao Mo Ge's side, turning the yao environment into the venue for a battle-general confrontation rather than a personal yao-art duel. The event links Zuo Mo's anonymous reputation to the strategic expertise of his human faction while keeping their real identities hidden. The chessboard remains available afterward for meetings, training, passage into higher prisons, and Nan Yue's cultivation; its last documented state is unchanged and active. (Chapters 407–408, 479, and 507)

Abilities and properties

• Shared prison environment: The chessboard is a large first-prison space within the Ten Finger Prison. Yao from different locations may enter in soul or consciousness form, observe one another, train, communicate, and travel onward after meeting the relevant qualifications. It is not documented as a physical object in the material world. (Chapters 354–356 and 392–394)
• Wasteland-beast layout: Colored tiles form an enormous beast pattern, with a conjured wasteland-beast image appearing when Zuo Mo names the reconstructed prison. The corpus does not state that the image is an independently controllable combat summon. (Chapters 354–355)
• Prison-breaking problems: The new environment generates a sequence of six little-yao-art problems during a prison-breaking challenge. Solving them requires analysis that initially seems trivial to established schools but exposes the value of Zuo Mo's deconstruction method. (Chapters 359–363)
• Battle stages and constructed matches: Users can fight on prison battlefields and can construct a large war-chess scenario inside the environment. Formations, traps, terrain, and yao arts operate on consciousness, supporting both individual challenges and commander-level simulations. The designed war-chess map is a later construction placed within the prison, not the whole chessboard itself. (Chapters 371–376 and 407–408)
• Risk to consciousness: Combat and even prison battlefields can wound the consciousness. Severe damage may reduce a participant's cultivation and expulsion can leave pain or missing recollection. Physical death is avoided in the documented contests, but the environment is not consequence-free. (Chapters 371, 376, 384, and 390)
• Access limits: Zuo Mo's reconstruction gives him qualifications and unusual familiarity, not unrestricted control over every visitor or outcome. Other users must pass battlefield tests to reach higher prisons, and Zuo Mo still expends consciousness, can be expelled, and requires recovery between demanding encounters. (Chapters 369–376 and 392)

Ownership and custody