Applied Immortality

Chapter 32: May’s Cicada Cries

On the famous northern peak in Divine Province lay the Immortal Alliance center.

Perusing Mystical Star Temple’s map of the Divine Province, Wang Qi found it larger than the entire Eurasia continent. The farthest south point passed the equator, while the northernmost point left the North Pole in the dust. This made the inland dry, but not barren. 

Drifting Cloud Sect and Landscape Metropolis’ climate adjustments helped improve the weather, making the northern-placed Argent Apex enjoy the south’s warmth.

Drifting Cloud Sect’s array controlled the atmosphere, removing any variation in temperature due to height. It was the end of May, midsummer, and Immortal Institute seated halfway on the mountain was enveloped in warmth already. At the dorms, the heat roused the cicadas to sing. They shed their shells, broke out of the earth, and chirped on the trees. 

Such clamor early in the morning was impossible to bear, so much so that the few freshmen slammed the windows open to fling magical arts at the trees.

As freshmen, they hardly knew effective magical arts, and the damage was minimal. However, they did catch the attention of the disciplinary officers from the Behavioral Office. The deduction of credits threw a bucket of cold water over the bleary-eyed freshmen. 

[A disciplinary committee exists regardless of the world.]

Wang Qi sat in his bed, cross-legged, and cycling his method.

Due to rising bright and early, the cicada didn’t disturb him. A modern cultivator would pick up on the spiritual energy’s movement in the room, converging on the youth.

The phenomenon proved Wang Qi had the early concept of field, something possible only at the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Modern cultivation was all about integrating with the breath of the world, and Wang Qi managed to blend in with it.

He was cycling Harmony Coalition’s mental art, The Celestial Hymn Odyssey, also known as Divine Verses. A trace of spiritual power passed through his Dantian and all his acupoints. The spiritual power did not flow like other cultivation methods, acting more like a medium, moving between his acupoints through the spiritual power born from his Dantian. 

Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory stated that all electric and magnetic interactions between discrete charged objects or currents were transmitted through the intermediate region between them, be it vacuum or solid matter.

Dantian’s activity pushed spiritual power into flowing, and some even spilled out to form a field around Wang Qi. This was like a weakening effect to the average Celestial Hymn Odyssey cultivator, but Wang Qi got the knack of the art in no time flat. His Dantian released a force of attraction, allowing the spilled part of the spiritual power to form a ‘magnetic field’ around him and draw even more of the breath of the world. 

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Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory stated that electric or magnetic energy not only existed in charged objects, magnetized materials, or objects with electric currents but the majority of it was distributed in the surroundings as electromagnetic fields. 

Wang Qi’s ‘magnetism’ surpassed another cultivator’s at the same level.

Feeling the spiritual power growing by the second, Wang Qi felt sour still.

“The field is now no more than an electrostatic field. Once the loop is closed with my body by forming a vortex field, the cultivation speed will jump even higher.” 

Over the past month, Wang Qi noticed issues with his cultivation the more he cultivated.

He lacked the links between theories and cultivation methods. A small part of Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory was at the high school level while most of it was taught in college. The bookworm Wang Qi from Earth could make the vortex field with eyes closed, the problem was he didn’t know how to relate it to cultivating.

For the technobabble impaired, all his knowledge of E=mc^2 was meaningless when his applied skills were at the level of swinging a hammer, a far cry from being able to build an atomic bomb. 

As for the second issue…

Wang Qi felt his spiritual power stir and the spiritual energy within his body grew erratic like a rolling sea.

Wang Qi sighed, cutting off his cultivation with Celestial Hymn Odyssey and switching to Celestial Entropy.

Celestial Entropy generated spiritual power through thermodynamics—controlling heat through entropy. While ancient fire cultivation arts had severe limitations on the true fire’s power a cultivator could use, Celestial Entropy’s use came from heating and cooling. Even a Qi Refining cultivator could burn their fire as strong as an Unfettered. Enough spiritual power also prevented the user from being baked to a crisp or becoming a popsicle. Celestial Entropy had no limits in regard to temperature. It could go as low or as high as one wanted.

Celestial Entropy made Wang Qi gather all the heat in his surroundings. Through ‘entropy reduction’, the stirred spiritual power settled.

When Wang Qi absorbed the spiritual power, the Celestial Entropy’s power in his Dantian flared and engulfed his body.

Wang Qi gnashed his teeth and went through a series of palm strikes.

The matching moves of the Grand Ripple Enigma’s Ripple Fist Sword.

Grand Ripple Enigma’s basics lay in the mutual wave theory. Mutual wave coresponded to the matter wave or de Broglie waves on Earth, representing the wave nature of all matter. Grand Ripple Enigma turned spiritual power into intangible waves to construct any matter or object. Hence it was based on the ‘intangible grand form of old’.(Tamon: from The Book of the Way by Laozi, meaning a highly developed item/concept/society/world has no fixed pattern.) 

After making the redundant power within into a metallic wave through the Ripple Fist Sword, Wang Qi shouted and pointed to his right. A sword wave shot through his finger. One extremity touched his bed, splitting his pillow in two and sending the cotton filling into the air. 

“How many times does that make it?” Wang Qi frowned.

He got fired up when he heard about Immortal Institute crossing out all his mistakes as he joined, and was in a mad dash to Arts Archive to get those top mental arts; all of them. 

Cultivation methods form a natural cycle inside the user’s body upon practicing it. For two cultivation methods to work in tandem, their cycles must not clash, to avoid deviation or madness. Wang Qi’s unhealthy exuberance led to practicing way too many of them and had them clashing in so many places, it was a miracle he didn’t deviate already. 

Divine Hexagram Computation and Book of Geometry had different points, their views were contradictory. Grand Discrete Unity Treatise and Celestial Hymn Odyssey, Celestial Hymn Odyssey and Celestial Entropy, Grand Discrete Unity Treatise and Grand Ripple Enigma, and theory of relativity’s Radiant Cosmos Stabilization and Celestial Hymn Odyssey with Grand Discrete Unity Treatise were nigh unmatchable. Practicing them at the same time was a recipe for disaster, and as Wang Qi’s cultivation grew, their clashes intensified, urging him to turn into a raving lunatic. 

Wang Qi gathered the cotton and took the ring from the table on his finger.

Zhen Chanzi’s glorious laughter broke his ears, “A-ha-ha-ha! I told you so! Train too many mental arts at the same time and you’ll be sorry.”

Wang Qi’s mouth twitched. His first try was based on his Earth knowledge being more advanced than Divine Province’s. With the superstring theory being a universal explanation coupled with Wang Qi’s adequate math, he could integrate the cultivation methods. A crying shame it was, that reality didn’t conform to his wishes. He came to see that his greatest weakness was putting theory into practice, despite all the incredible and advanced theories he knew.

[Guess a transmigrator ain’t got everything served to him on a silver platter like a heaven’s chosen.]

Wang Qi was plotting a solution as he walked to the mess hall.

There were two ways he could go about solving the issue.

One was finding a more advanced cultivation method to suppress all the other cultivation methods’ backlashes.

Grand Ripple Enigma, Celestial Hymn Odyssey, Celestial Entropy, and Radiant Cosmos Stabilization had a value of 4 as top cultivation methods— Divine Hexagram Computation and Book of Geometry had 3. Where was he supposed to find an even better one?  

[There’s Evolution Chart in the Arts Archive, sure. It has a value of 1 at the beginning and could grow into a 6, but…] 

[My shtick is physics maths, not damn biology!] Wang Qi raved in his mind. He wasn’t delusional to think his knowledge of the Theory of Evolution equaled Darwin’s, that he could deduce a higher cultivation method.

[The second is using Earth’s grand unified theory and superstring theory to infer a cultivation method that included the others.] 

Having looked over Daoist Proscribe’s works, he had to tearfully abandon this pursuit. Despite having Daoist Proscribe’s research and Earth’s Heisenberg’s theories, he still couldn’t deduce even one working magical art.

[What then, specialize in one instead?]

It was a pipe dream, since its practicality was worse than the first two options—no better than approximation to zero. Wang Qi was aware of the dangerous and fragile balance of all the cultivation methods’ cycles formed within him. Advancing just one of them would tip it to an unstoppable disaster, with 80% chance of dropping dead, and 20% of becoming a raving lunatic in the truest sense—not to forget gimp.  

“My heart bleeds having to keep digging my own grave all while having to go along for the deadly ride.” 

[Those protagonists unlocking some supper special ‘stuff’ or having some super expert steer them right to boost their art at a convenient moment, are nothing but damn hoaxes!] 

His mind drifted again, almost passing the mess hall.

Having spent his early morning training, Wang Qi arrived to find a long line. He just went to the end and waited his turn. 

With the thought of his pillow, his eyes roamed to a corner of the mess hall, where a familiar orange hair caught his attention. 

Mao Zimiao’s ears twitched thanks to her sharp senses, knowing someone was watching her. She spotted Wang Qi and gave him a cheerful wave. 

[What a friendly kitty, forgetting all about last time.] During the first few days of being here, Wang Qi and Mao Zimiao got closer since there were fewer people around.

Wang Qi carried a small bowl of noodles and a cup of soy milk, sitting next to Mao Zimiao, giving a customary glance to her cat ears.

Mao Zimiao picked up on his gesture, “You can’t touch them, nya!”

Wang Qi almost choke on his soy milk, “That was an accident!”

“That just means you don’t have an ounce of self-control, Xiao Qi, nya!”

“I have no reply…” Wang Qi was stumped, “Since I have no self-control, Zimiao, I need another favor.”

“I knew it.” Mao Zimiao had a knowing look, “I just knew Little Qi would only look for me when you need my help. What is it this time? The clothes or quilt?”

After Grand Ripple Enigma went berserk, he released a sword wave to remove the redundant power within. Over the course of two weeks, he went through five quilts, seven pillows, and one too many clothes. He discovered Mao Zimiao was quite deft with a needle and asked her to stitch the damage—over the following month, Wang Qi grounded his ‘beggar’ persona.

Mao Zimiao didn’t mind helping him, “Sure. I’ll help you in the afternoon, after the body art practice.”