Applied Immortality

Wang Qi sat cross-legged outside the Immortal Institute’s storeroom, hands on his legs, and holding a reddish copper item in deep concentration.

Mao Zimiao nearby was biting on a brush, stealing glances at Wang Qi.

Next to them, Su Junyu never once raised his eyes from his novel. His hand lifted and flicked, leaving a red bruise on Mao Zimiao’s forehead.

“Focus on your problem. Don’t look at him.”

Mao Zimiao blushed, getting defensive. “I wasn’t peeking, nya!”

Su Junyu raised an eyebrow and asked, “How many problems did you solve?”

Mao Zimiao deflated, stammering, “I’ve yet to solve any.”

Su Junyu shook his head in exasperation. “Math is the heart of all arts, and while it is true that modern cultivation arts can’t do without it, you, girl, are aiming for Spirit Beast Mountain. You should be getting a Heavenly Spirit Range teaching assistant to help you!”

Mao Zimiao looked disheartened. “I was just…”

“Spring is long gone…” Su Junyu muttered, his eyes never leaving the book.

It was night, with Immortal Institute’s classes being over for the day. Under a hovering colored glass lamp, Wang Qi and Mao Zimiao received  Su Junyu’s tutoring.

It had been a month since the earthquake. Wang Qi’s exemplary conduct in helping Thunder Clap Stag King defeat the Accretion Stage Ghost Ape awarded him 56 merits. Thirty plus of which he used to borrow Gottingen Collection Vol. 1. The past month had been used to consolidate his foundation. Thanks to Xiang Qi and Su Junyu, he also learned Spiritual Energy’s Nature Theory, which Hilbert mentioned.

Su Junyu kept his word, always guiding the four whenever they came for advice.

Wang Qi and Mao Zimiao took advantage of the evening to have him teach them math.

Wang Qi was feeling the red copper item because that was his task.

Red copper was a common material in refining items. It was one of the main ingredients to make Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment effective items. It was so common that not even a refining grandmaster could innovate with it. Wang Qi had been focused on it for a while now.

He jumped to his feet and rushed to the paper to write down numbers on it, using them in a formula.

The calculations he was using were what the Divine Province called the Spiritual Energy Essence Equation. More precisely, the varying spiritual energy essence equation for the red copper.

Divine Province’s cultivation world’s ideas of material, mass, energy, and spiritual energy all pointed to its essence. To a modern cultivator, spiritual energy was not some unnamed abstract concept or thing that one needed to feel or gain inspiration to grasp. It was something that could be proven and solved.

As Wang Qi went through the books Li Ziye gave him back in Albion Village, he noticed Divine Province and Earth’s laws of physics were similar to a frightening degree. It didn’t just stop at mechanics or thermodynamics laws; it covered every aspect. Both worlds had molecules, atoms, and discrete energy transfers. At a certain small scale, there existed the uncertainty principle. According to the Celestial Element Series and Grand Ripple Enigma, this world also exhibited wave-particle duality, with the speed of light being the upper limit for speed. What was more, in fundamental areas, the four basic forces still existed. Gravity was still the curvature of spacetime caused by mass, and mass and energy could still be converted into each other. 

Which begged the question: what triggered cultivation in the Divine Province in the first place—immortality, demons, and everything in between? 

The answer was spiritual energy, a physical quantity nonexistent on Earth.

Similar to Earth’s scientific community, the Divine Province’s immortal community saw matter as the foundation of everything. Mass was matter’s attribute, representing quantity. Energy was another property, representing the potential degree of motion in matter. Space could be seen as the existence of matter and time as its movement. 

In this system, spiritual energy was seen as energy’s exponent. 

Using Earth’s math language to describe Divine Province’s essence equation, it would translate into Eqi=mc².

Earth’s scientists would take it as a practical joke. Even Wang Qi, who felt it on his own skin and saw the mystical ingenuity of spiritual energy, had a “Are you screwing with me?” reaction when he first saw the equation. 

All because everywhere in Earth’s universe, the exponent of energy was a constant. While on Divine Province, however, spiritual energy varied, it had slight fluctuations around the value of 1 under certain conditions.

The ingenuity of it all came from spiritual energy and ordered complex systems being in tight correlation. The more ordered and complex a system, the more spiritual energy it could contain and circulate. The highest-known ordered complex system was known as consciousness. This was the answer to humanity’s ability to cultivate and a demon’s awakening. 

It led spiritual energy to flow between celestial bodies; ecosystems could gather spiritual energy, giving birth to demons and spiritual plants; and the planet Divine Province was on exchanged spiritual energy with outer space, creating the breath of the world.

The so-called attributes or properties of spiritual energy were nothing more than the external manifestation of intrinsic formulas. The neutralization of two types of spiritual energy meant the sum of their essence equations was 1, canceling each other’s effects. Spiritual energy conflict occurs when one spiritual energy’s formula ‘eliminates’ the other’s.

All mystical and magical phenomena had a defined explanation through Spiritual Energy’s Nature Theory. 

Unaccustomed to Divine Province’s math language, Wang Qi was slow in his calculations. Su Junyu shook his head.

Since the calculations were relatively simple, Wang Qi derived a function. He handed the simplified formula and the red copper to Su Junyu.

Su Junyu closed his eyes and sensed the spiritual energy within the material before nodding at Wang Qi’s formula, “Not bad at all. You’ve derived the perturbation formula based on the typical metal understanding formula.”

It was only Mao Zimiao who beamed with joy.

“However, it can be taken a step further.” Su Junyu continued, “It’s time to move on to the next step.”

Wang Qi nodded. He knew the formula could be simplified further, but it was best to leave the parts Su Junyu thought he hadn’t learned yet hidden.

Su Junyu started Wang Qi’s next lesson.