Chapter 40: Wang Qi Saw Through It All

Wang Qi’s revolting words and forcing Du Bin to scram, weren’t just out of consideration for Mao Zimiao. It relied on his previous life’s judgment.“Today’s cultivation and Immortal Alliance are completely different from ancient time methods and sect alliances.”

Most would find this view redundantly obvious.

Modern cultivation abolished stealing from the world and adopted borrowing, forming the present-day system of solving the age-long dilemma of dwindling resources and spiritual energy. Cultivators thrived alongside their world. The greater their numbers and the stronger they were, the more powerful the world became. The limitation on disciples switched from lacking resources to lacking teachers. Not to mention that disciples no longer needed to follow the ancient way of killing each other over resources.

The modern system’s path of seeking Dao through exploring the world’s laws determined that humanity was the most precious resource. Once the notion that people came first appeared, the idea that harmony was precious became the norm. To ancient cultivators, the state and harmony of the Immortal Alliance were jarring. Modern sparring rarely escalated to lead to casualties, and the Immortal Alliance banned deathmatches. The role of peacekeepers, dedicated to upholding peace in their jurisdiction, felt like a misguided concept to ancient cultivators. Furthermore, a rogue cultivator rising to become Vice Sect Leader of the Myriad Arts Sect was an even greater discrepancy. 

In the eighty thousand years of cultivation history, few large sects practiced seclusion, but there were also instances where mortals and cultivators coexisted. Moreover, there had been eras when immortal dynasties ruled the continent, leading to cultivators and mortals combining cultivation with politics. These dynasties gathered and allocated all resources for the royal family and officials, intertwining cultivation with their official careers. For these dynasties, maintaining an undefined social order was paramount. That was why many people saw the Immortal Alliance as just another case of an immortal dynasty.

Wang Qi saw through it all.

“This is no shitty regime-style cultivation! It’s clearly a scientific community!”

The concept came from Earth, having no equivalent notion in the Nine Provinces. To put it simply, a scientific community was a group of scientists. The community formed a consensus discourse and evaluation system, a paradigm, over a long period of scientific activity. Those who accepted the paradigm and used it to describe the fruit of their research became members of the scientific community. 

Due to two thousand years of modern legacies and lectures, basic theories like the theory of evolution and the celestial sequence table were approved by all cultivators of the Divine Province. Not understanding these concepts meant inability to progress in modern mental arts. The ‘folk scientists’ that refused the modern paradigm and got excluded from this community were the ancient cultivators. 

Immortal Alliance was an organization managing Divine Province. Before it entered this role, it was more like a research organization. 

There were no feeble scientists here like back on Earth. The research cultivators of the Heavenly Dao had fearsome powers. This research into Heavenly Dao stood at the foundation of the long-living Unfettered. It pushed research to become the mainstream pursuit in the Immortal Alliance. 

In the ancient world, money and power worked to gain what one wanted, be it status or resources. In the modern system, these types were a rare minority. The saying went that Heavenly Dao was constant, favoring neither saints nor devils. The Dao that all modern cultivation sought was universal. A seeker of Dao wouldn’t let personal friendship deny another man’s results. 

Wang Qi saw it as an ivory tower that continued his past life’s ideals. Du Bin’s face reminded him of those people on Earth who mixed up with scientific organizations, not because they conducted research—having done none—but because they were good at sucking up—a drag, so to speak. Wang Qi loathed these specimens with passion.

[The farther they are, the better.]

After handling Doberman, Wang Qi resumed reading Xiong Mo’s projects.

Zhen Chanzi said, “Hey, you’re still not done?”

Wang Qi smirked. “Who do you think I am?”

“Your eyes keep lingering on the last diagram.”

Wang Qi rubbed his chin. “I’m thinking about something.”

Zhen Chanzi mocked, “Don’t give me excuses.”

Wang Qi ignored Zhen Chanzi and said his piece, “Tell me, why do you think a Sword Mountain cultivator is holding a Drifting Cloud Sect class like Basic Flying Sword Theory?” 

Zhen Chanzi gave an honest response: “Are you serious? What did you find?”

“Inspiration.” Wang Qi perused the experimental reports with seriousness. “A hint at solving my cultivation method problem.”

—

A huge copper mirror lay underground in the Immortal Alliance’s branch, Leyan. 

The immortal item All-immortal True Mirror was one of the several projects Immortal Alliance invested in. This mirror was the original prototype of Contraption Elder Turing’s vital magic item, Copper Elegance. Later on, Myriad Arts Sect’s Unfettered People’s Champion Neumann refined a magic item to help with arithmetic using the Copper Elegance’s design and advanced algorithms. The Immortal Alliance then invested vast resources and recruited many cultivators from the Myriad Arts Sect and Contraption Pavilion to create a mirror to assist all cultivators in solving mathematical problems.

The All-immortal Realm also employed the Myriad Arts Sect’s principle of one art extrapolating into countless others to the extreme. All-immortal True Mirror had the Myriad Arts Sect’s arithmetics method engraved on it that ran at full power. The amount of computation was enough to simulate another world. Building a world based on math was a piece of cake. 

It turned out to be but a ‘side dish’ some Myriad Arts Sect and Harmony Coalition low disciples came up with. After many years of development, it became the ‘main dish’—even Unfettered used it for some problems.

Chen Jingyun took Deng Jiaxuan and Marie Curie on an alley through the fantastic realm, walking with exquisite care. 

The alley looked like an average trail through a bamboo forest, but reality painted a different picture. It existed due to math, so only mathematicians could set foot on it. Wandering on it would trigger a killing array, with the bamboos turning into sharp weapons that made pincushions on any trespasser.

Marie Curie and Deng Jiaxuan had some skill in math, but not at the level of Chen Jingyun, the Myriad Arts Sect half Unfettered. They could only follow his trail. 

Marie Curie was annoyed. “Why must we take this path anyway? One wrong step, and the Border Guard will see us as invaders and attack.”

Chen Jingyun was brief: “It’s faster.”

“Care to explain?”

“Breaking Primordial Unity Array’s seven bridges can only be done by inserting another array flag or order at a critical moment, turning the unsolvable seven bridges into a solvable seven or eight bridges. A senior from the sect gave me the great array. I am not versed in topology.” Chen Jingyun supplied with a flat tone.

Since souls entered this illusion world, Deng Jiaxuan was not hurting everywhere like in the real world. He sighed, “By my reckoning, as an illusion realm expert, using such a trail to cross the All-immortal Realm is a violation. I am the Heavenly Sword Palace Lord, entrusted with punishing unlawful cultivators. But to think…”

Chen Jingyun said, “If we can break the array, I’ll be more than willing to accept any punishment, Brother Jiaxuan.”

Marie Curie said, “Xiao Chen, don’t even think of playing the martyr card. You’re the one behind it all!”

Chen Jingyun was a bit odd, but his high math skills brought the three out of the bamboo forest in no time at all.

The bamboos and trail vanished as they stepped off it, replaced by countless stars.

This place in the realm had no ground, with stars flickering in the background.

Unlike the stars in the real world, the constellations here were based on the yin and yang hexagrams in the Book of Changes. In the vast expanse of space, faint intersecting lines crisscrossing. (Tamon: the Book of Changes is an ancient Chinese divination manual and a book of wisdom that interprets hexagrams.)

By replacing the yin and yang lines with Arabic numerals from Earth, and if Wang Qi was here to see it, he would gasp, “The dam style is off bloody script! What’s a cyberpunk theme doing in an immortal world?” 

This illusion realm slice went through generational strengthening from the Myriad Arts Sect to stabilize it. In Earth terms, establishing network protocols. Even the average human could use the illusion realm’s wondrous functions here. Marie Curie flew in a direction, with Chen Jingyun following. Deng Jiaxuan hesitated. “Brother Jingyun, forcing our way into the immortal Realm isn’t righ-. Hey, wait for me!”

The trio paused at some point and Chen Jingyun’s hands went through gestures, causing countless windows to pop up.

Marie Curie gave a curious look. “Is this the spiritual hub connecting all fellow cultivators to the All-immortal Realm?”

Chen Jingyun nodded. “Yes. Help me find a Myriad Arts Sect senior’s spiritual hub. After activating the spiritual hub with spiritual power, the All-immortal Realm terminal will call the owners using the terminals.”

The trio rummaged through when Marie Curie gasped, “There’s Langevin! Can I take a look? Oh, that rotten Schrödinger changed his profile image again. He’s chasing some new flosie for sure.”

Deng Jiaxuan complained, “Madam Curie, be serious…”

Chen Jingyun went to the next spiritual hub and said, “We can’t call Senior Gauss. Let’s try Senior Euler.”

“Excuse me, but who are you three looking for?”

The sudden voice made them jump.

Judging by his appearance, he had to be a graceful and elegant young man in his day. But the man’s face in his prime gave him an air of maturity. 

People’s Champion Neumann, one of the strongest people in Myriad Arts Sect, was the creator of All-immortal Realm and Celestial Chess Computation.

“Friends, you do know this is a violation, right?”

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Marie Curie and Dao Palace jumped in fright while Chen Jingyun gave a respectful greeting, “Elder, I am in need of an expert in topology. Also, I need to find Bohr, Pauli, and other Elusive Palace cultivators. There’s a matter we need to discuss.”

Chen Jingyun was the Myriad Arts Sect Leader, but that was because of all the hiding Unfettered in the world. Neumann was also excellent when it came to math in Myriad Arts Sect, earning Chen Jingyun’s respect. 

Marie Curie said, “Didn’t you mention leaving Xiang behind?” 

Deng Jiaxuan caught on to Chen Jingyun’s meaning, “For the kid?”

(Author note) PS: Regarding Myriad Arts Sect experts’ ranking, they were related to their level on Earth. I have a cousin who is a researcher in the mathematics department at Wuhan University. From what he told me, the international recognition is very high. It’s debatable who among Hilbert and Poincare is first, but according to People’s Champion’s parallel world analogy, John Von Neumann’s third rank is more certain.