Applied Immortality

Wang Qi gawked at the open box.

Inside were four dishes and one bowl of rice. Made of vegetables and meat, the dishes didn’t look that much better than simple farmer meals. The difference came with the spiritual energy they contained. Not because of some special ingredients, but rather a cultivator cook adding it in the process.

Wang Qi’s amazement was directed at the seals on the box.

“Damn, for even the food box to be engraved with seals. With something like this keeping the food hot and fresh sold around, you’d get a Manchu Han imperial feast… Um, or is it a human demon feast over here?” 

Zhen Chanzi said, “This just proves how involved is the Immortal Alliance in teaching its disciples.”

With hunger plaguing him for over a day, Wang Qi made quick work of his meal. He returned the meal box and wiped his mouth before leaving the mess hall. 

“All in all, delicious.” Wang Qi belched, assessing, “It didn’t look like much, though, yet that meal left me comfortable and relaxed like I’ve taken a long hot bath.”

“The spiritual energy in the food enters your body through your digestive system, shaping your physique.” Zhen Chanzi said, “As for tasty, he-he, you’d be hard-pressed to find any food bad after being infused with spiritual power. Does modern cultivation have cultivators specialized in cooking?”

“Did ancient cultivation have bored sects like that?” Wang Qi asked. 

“It’s not so much about sects, per se. Then again, I do have with me one legacy that focuses on turning spiritual beasts and spiritual herbs into food that improves cultivation. It’s no different than alchemy, if you look at it, just that they believe the tastier the dish, the better its effects.”

Wang Qi was in a good mood, despite the chilly evening wind. Walking around the Immortal Institute, he happened to arrive before the Arts Archive. 

Wang Qi lit up, “It wasn’t my plan to learn a mental art now, but might as well browse since I’m here.”

He entered a wide hall, filled with floating spheres of light, making it bright. Facing the large double doors of the hall was a wall with a hundred or so praying mats in between. The mats were engraved, making sure nothing would disturb the disciples. While the wall had words carved in it, the basic mental arts of each great sect.

Wang Qi picked a seat and observed the wall’s mental arts.

Landscape Metropolis’ Flaming Terra Levitation was to the far left. The cultivation method had deep spiritual power and was strong in battles. Finishing the first chapter, a cultivator would absorb a flicker of earth fire to nurture in their Dantian, making the broad and deep essence more alert. 

Wang Qi nodded, “The continental drift theory. Landscape Metropolis’ foundation is related to geology, geography, and other earth sciences. Maybe Divine Province sciences is more apt?” 

Though earth science didn’t strike his fancy on Earth.

“Drifting Cloud Sect’s Nimbus Eclipse includes fluid mechanics as well as meteorology, something about lighter body and nimbler flying.” Wang Qi could already see Drifting Cloud Sect cultivators, wearing white and floating as elegant as a swallow, totally flying kites in battle, bah, more like engaging in dalliances. Not that bad, actually!” 

A cryin’ shame he merely dabbed in fluid mechanics in his first life. Thrashing some middle-schoolers was a given, though once he got to the bread and butter of things in the sect, he’d be left in the dust.

Wang Qi skipped Contraption Pavilion and Heavenly Spirit Range’s cultivation methods on automatic, settling on Harmony Coalition’s branches and Myriad Arts Sect’s basic mental arts. 

“Going by Searing Heaven Manor’s name, it must be related to thermodynamics.” Wang Qi looked on, “Flamestride Agility, a movement art? Seriously? Weren’t only mental arts here?”

Calming down, Wang Qi read Searing Heaven Manor’s basic cultivation methods with more focus. He slapped his leg, “Hot damn!”

Flamestride Agility wasn’t made for battle, nor some kind of long travel art. It used movement as a way of meditating. The core of this art was to turn all the body’s movements into heat that the mental art drew into oneself. 

Besides being a novel way of body cultivating, there was nothing special about it. In gaming terms, it was like adding a bit of burning damage. However, this was basic for Searing Heaven Manor’s every magical art. Changing it for one of those ultimate cultivation methods the Searing Heaven Manor had would pave the way for a glorious future. 

“Myriad Arts Sect’s Swift Computation looks interesting by comparison. Improves counting? Doesn’t sound too great, though. ‘The patterns for numbers come from the circle and the square.  The circle comes from the square, the square comes from the trysquare, and the trysquare comes from (the fact that) nine nines are eighty-one… To view heights, lay trysquare straight; to measure depths, lay it reverse; to ascertain distances, lay it flat. Surround the trysquare to create a circle; combine trysquares to form squares. The square pertains to Earth, and the circle pertains to Heaven. Heaven is a circle, and Earth is a square. The numbers of the square are basic, and the circle is produced from the square… One may represent Heaven by a rain-hat. Heaven is blue and black; Earth is yellow and red. As for the numbers of Heaven making a rain-hat, the blue and black make the outside, and the cinnabar and yellow make the inside, so as to represent the positions of Heaven and Earth….'”(Tamon: from ‘Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China’ by Christopher Cullen, the translation of a 100 BC Chinese math manual)

Reading Myriad Arts Sect’s mental art, realization struck Wang Qi.

The mental art contained geometric principles Wang Qi learned as a child in his past life. As his eyes stared fixly at the art, he cycled it by instinct. 

“Hold on now!” Wang Qi snapped out of it, “I can’t be rash when I haven’t seen the rest of the cultivation methods.”

Zhen Chanzi interrupted, “Boy, don’t you realize you were on the cusp of enlightenment?”

Zhen Chanzi sounded utterly disappointed. The body cycled the art without the mind telling it to. This proved the heart was impressed to a high degree which led the cultivator’s insight into the art to soar. Ancient cultivators called it enlightenment. These fragile and priceless states of being could never be triggered, only experienced. But this monumental moron right here made a conscious decision to cut it short then and there!

Wang Qi ignored the butting old man, rubbing his chin, [Based on its geometry and supported arithmetics, it lacks any conceptual depth. The algorithms it demonstrates are crude, pointing out its base nature. Next.] 

In the center were the cultivation methods of three great sects from Harmony Coalition.

“Transcending Sect’s Heaven Origin Revelation, looks, oh! It contains the three laws of mechanics. Nothing fancy about this art, though it does cover all bases.  It also offers flexibility, borrowing strength to fight strength.

“Of Thunderous Pavilion’s Primordial Magnetism and Thunder Art, the first doesn’t stand out in terms of attack and defense, though it offers precise magic item control, excelling in hounding the enemy. The latter offers a larger array of truly strong magical arts.” 

Lightning was all the rage among heroes, protagonists, and the like, aggressive and quite snazzy. Based on style alone, Thunder Art won hands down. In Wang Qi’s case, however, it felt lacking.

“It’s unclear as of yet whether a Faraday cage works in this world as well. From electromagnetism’s standpoint, this principle has a high probability of being true.”

A Faraday cage was a common feature on Earth. Its purpose was to separate the different electromagnetic charges from inside and outside. In layman’s terms, not even a million-volt lightning could harm a hair on a human inside a Faraday cage.

Furthermore, its making couldn’t be simpler—just put on some conductive covering, and boom! Even with Wang Qi’s abysmal manufacturing knowledge, it would be a cinch to come up with several ways of integrating a Faraday cage into his robes. On the off chance the cages were widespread enough, he’d be signing his death sentence going down this path, passing off only as a hair-raising tool, tops.

Wang Qi shook his head, driving the harrowing thought from his mind.

“Brilliance Palace… as in optics? Solar Flare and Heavenly Light Transmutation, one based on wave motion and the other on particle optics.”

Solar Flare had a blazing power like the sun. A cultivator could unleash it all with a casual wave. 

Heavenly Light Transmutation referred to making something out of nothing, as in making light physical, like weapons, or harming enemies without a trace. 

Wang Qi shook his head. Wave motion and particles were too specialized, blocking his path to the top.

He looked around, having done checking Brilliance Palace’s cultivation methods, frowning, “What of Elusive Palace? These other cultivation methods don’t look like much either.” He asked Zhen Chanzi, “Old man, what’s your take on these cultivation methods?” 

Zhen Chanzi answered, “I’m unclear as to the essence of which these are based, but from my experience, they all are exemplary.”

Wang Qi noticed a door on each side of the wall, where the engraved cultivation methods started and began, and recalled Su Junyu mentioning it. Art Archive’s first cultivation methods were easy to start and wouldn’t hinder switching to another later on. Whereas the back of the Art Archive held the truly supreme mental arts.

Wang Qi went through a door and found it led to a rather small hall, like a parlor. The far wall had some doors on each side, each leading to a stone room. Facing it, he noticed the cultivation methods engraved, as well as the mats laid about.

Wang Qi took a seat, reading the wall. A mere glance at the cultivation methods left him feeling an ancient and vast vitality.

The text was short and mostly made up of abstruse images. Above the images was the Evolution Chart written gravely. 

Evolution Chart, the cultivation method of Heavenly Spirit Range. Starting it couldn’t be easier, even simpler than the average cultivation method. The downside was its initial period lacked attacking strength or a notable boost.

Despite the glaring flaw, Evolution Chart was the sole mental art earning the value of 6 in Lu Renjia Quantization. 

A mental art had next to no worth in the thick of battle, making the five best sects’ mental arts have a value of less than 3, while ancient cultivation methods dipped into negative.

What made this mental art stand out among the rest was its ability to evolve.

The evolution Chart was unconstrained, with anyone having their interpretation of it.  Different cultivators led to different results while having no limit to their evolution. With enough perseverance and wisdom, one could be unstoppable on this earth without even the need for magical arts or items. As for why it only had a value of 6, it was due to the Evolutionary Divine Lord having only interpreted it to this extent. 

Since a cultivation method could be changed at will, the Evolution Chart could be cultivated with another mental art at the same time.

“The mental art derived from Darwin’s theory of evolution can evolve, as expected.” Wang Qi was full of wild glee. The cultivation method had both style and value, fulfilling all his needs.

[This could be the one, barring any better one.]

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