Calculating Cultivation

It was finally done after a lot of hard work. The counter cube as I had taken to calling it was finally done. Several plates had to be redone to make sure everything aligned properly in three dimensions, but that had only slowed me down.

The newly built reinforced nexus chamber held the cube. Thankfully the energy in the area hadn’t dispersed even with the destruction of the chamber. The nexus crystal was still there, countering the effects of the Great World. The various Elders were ready to attempt to breakthrough, but there were still some final touches being done on the top and outside of the building.

I planned to harness this tribulation lightning for my own benefit. After I left I clearly wouldn’t be taking a structure with me, so the Flame Sect was more than happy to accommodate my requests. Thick metal poles were being constructed in order to ground the lightning, while directing it into a pool of water under the nexus chamber.

The energy from the lightning strikes was at the front of the bolt, to punch through any defenses while the rest of the bolt followed up. A minor but important detail. The metal pillars that were being built into the Sect Building build channel the lightning and the energy separately. The large metal pillars would direct the electricity into the ground, but the energy into the pool of water.

I was still working on the arrays and formations needed, but shunting energy in a specific direction and a physical effect in another direction was one of the basic premises of arrays. Directing and converting energy and force.

That additional bit of understanding for having gone with the Dao of Force during my initial stages of cultivation came in handy for times like this, making me slightly more talented, or being able to more intuitively grasp the force aspects of the various arrays and symbols I worked with.

Too bad there wasn’t a Dao of Energy, but there were very few things of pure uncontaminated energy that leaked up from Chaos. And pure energy would be too dangerous. I did not feel like tangling with monsters above my weight class. I rather be a big fish in a small pond like the Great World, than a small fish in a big pond like the Forever City. It gave me more agency to decide what I wanted to do, even if the opportunities were much more limited.

The Elders and the Sect Leader were all looking at the giant metal counter cube, the size of a car, while I slid all the metal plates into place in the holding array, checking to make sure everything was aligned. Plate after metal plate was slid into place. I was really glad I had my spatial device, since moving around such large plates otherwise would have been a massive hassle.

“And done,” I said while carefully staring at the counter cube.

“Is it working?” Sect Leader Flame asked.

“The ambient energy is moving through the counter cube how it is supposed to. Now just need to wait and see if the ambient levels of energy increase even slightly,” I replied.

“And we can’t cover the Flame Sect with these?” Vice Leader Tan asked.

“It’s a volume issue and the suppression of the Great World is much stronger. It is like using a sword to push through armor or using a battering ram. The sword can pierce where the battering ram can’t. If we go wide, we are pushing against a lot more against the Great World. The real trick would be to isolate each area and make them small. Also to downsize the counter cube and make it portable in some way,” I answered while intently staring at the giant metal block, looking for even the slightest change.

We continued to wait as time went by. But I was in no rush. I kept looking around to check the ambient energy levels. “It working. I will wait a day, then switch out several plates to start testing various possibilities.” Too bad the frame didn’t make it easier to switch the metal plates out. It just kept everything aligned. I would need to take it all apart to switch out various sections.

“That is good, very good. The construction work for the next tribulation is taking some time,” Sect Leader Flame said.

“The massive amounts of metal that need to be forged togeather?” I asked.

“Indeed. We are also testing out various metals to see which one would work best like you suggested,” Sect Leader Flame answered.

“That is good. Very good. By the time they are installed, I will be able to start carving arrays onto the outside,” I said.

“Excuse my rudeness senior, but isn’t eight metal pillars excessive?” one of the Elders asked. They were probably crying inside about how long it would take and the cost.

“The tribulation is quite powerful. Better to build something with redundancy just in case. We have no other tribulations to compare that one to. The other ones may be stronger, weaker, or the same. We have time to prepare for the worst. I know you all want to breakthrough, but the various buildings in the Flame Sect need to be reinforced along with the foundations,” I said.

“Indeed. We are preparing for a new era within the Flame Sect and breakthroughs will happen. But if everything crumbles around us each time, it will be impossible to exist in this location as a Sect. Progress is being made,” Sect Leader Flame said. There were some minor sighs at that statement, but he was correct.

If the Flame Sect was reduced to rubble each and every time someone broke through it would be a disaster. Rebuilding everything to be stronger and handle an earthquake was taking time. Vast quantities of rubberized sap was being imported on a daily basis, to surround each foundation that was built, to help absorb tremors.

Buildings were built lower to the ground, with a maximum height of three stories now. The wall itself was being patched up. While structures were rebuilt quickly, they would be torn back down and rebuilt. The entire Flame Sect was being rebuilt to handle tribulations. The Flame Sect was fairly wealthy already, but it was paying through the nose for more construction material.

This kind of undertaking was an immense project involving everyone in the Flame Sect. Tests were being done on a shaking table of various building designs. There would be more curved designs, less square designs. More support for each floor and bracing.

In the main building where the nexus chamber was located underneath, there would also be tremor countering arrays I would be setting up all over the place. They would charge up and then remain dormant. Only leeching a small amount of energy over time.

Various plants and wood types were being looked at for their tremor absorbing properties. There was a type of vine that absorbed tremors from the ground, with its root structure and how its interior was structured. While it only absorbed a small amount of shaking, there was already plots all around the Sect and the interior of the wall to grow these vines along the wall and buildings.

When cultivators wanted something to happen, they were always motivated. Especially in a large group like this. There were no stupid cultivators, and everyone understood what needed to be done. Since it could be their breakthrough that needed to happen one day. That was why even the lowest members of the Flame Sect were motivated into doing as much as possible in case another tribulation showed up.

I kept looking at the counter cube. I could already see several areas where improvements could be made. The real challenge would be to shrink it down. With a two dimensional array and formations, I knew several tricks, the main one, expanding into three dimensions slightly. But that wouldn’t be possible here, which was why this was a complicated problem. I couldn’t go to four dimensions from three dimensions.

While some might say time was the fourth dimension, I was strictly thinking about spatial dimensions. It was how the spatial items I had operated. They would fold in a chunk a of space and use an array to create an aperture one could access the items inside that space. The space itself was very stable, since a new volume of space appearing could be very hazardous to one’s health.

I could figure out the basics of arrays and formations, but the spatial items were one of many things that was completely beyond my understanding. Cultivator technology had a tremendous amount of depth to it. What I was doing was the equivalent of running some wires and lighting up a lightbulb with a hand crank generator. I knew the basics.

But something like the spatial bags was the equivalent of a car in terms of its complexity. There were parts I could work out what they did. Other parts I had no clue as to their purpose. And then hidden portions that the crafters kept secret so people couldn’t copy what they had done.

For basic stuff and items that required maintenance like the hover craft, there was no need to disguise portions of the arrays. But something like a spatial item, had built in safeguards to protect it from other cultivators.

Even with the knowledge I had gained, I was just touching on the surface of what arrays and formations were capable of. The height of the craft was creating something like the Great World or a golem capable of performing a task. These types of creations were the pinnacle of what arrays and formations were capable of, as far as I knew. Also, the elevator that went between layers, from the Firmament where the Forever City was up to the Mechanical Layer.

No doubt the Heavenly Alliance had some super weapon that used formations. I had no doubt about that. It was the kind of thing they would definitely do. But I wasn’t back in the Forever City, I was stuck on the Great World. This meant I had to use what knowledge I had to make things work.

That meant I needed to test a lot of plates and there was a lot of carving in my future. Thankfully I would only need to carve out one pillar and then the Flame Sect could copy the design onto the remaining seven with me supervising. While it was a lot of work, it was progress, a lot of progress in a short period of time.

That was the most important thing in my mind. That I didn’t slow down in the slightest, but kept moving forward in some way. A few days later after the first iteration of the counter cube was finished, the new microscope building had also completed. There were highly skilled glass workers in the Flame Sect. It seemed that each cultivator that wasn’t an Elder had to have a regular job as well, like smelting metal or forming glass.

There was a small slide of blood underneath the massive microscope. The entire thing was the size of a car, just like my counter cube. “Come take a look, Senior Yuan Zhou, I would appreciate your thoughts,” Sect Leader Flame said. I went over and looked through the microscope at the blood in the glass slide beneath the giant structure.

“What is this, four thousand magnification?” I asked.

“Two thousand,” he replied.

“Getting everything in focus is a challenge, which you handled well, and you are zoomed in quite a ways. Working out the cell structures will be hard regardless.” It wasn’t a question of magnification, but a question of light and observation.

“The hard part is observing myself under the microscope. It is a bit larger, than I would have liked. Ideally, I would cultivate while observing what is happening. Something visual would greatly help,” he replied.

“You need to iterate on the design like I am doing. I am afraid I can’t help you with the technical aspects of something like this. While I understand the basic principles, the technical aspects are beyond me,” I said. “Also, it is a crutch that will eventually need to be let go.”

“What do you mean by that?” the Sect Leader asked me.

“Energy is incredibly small. What you see through the microscope is the microscopic level, then there is the molecular level, then the atomic level, and then finally the quantum level. The ability to observe with light begins to fail at the molecular level. My guess is that you need to be able to control energy at the quantum level to break through to immortality,” I said.

“Then this will only help get me started,” the Sect Leader said with a frown.

“Everything is made up of building blocks, but it all breaks down at the quantum level. My knowledge on this subject is quite limited. The Heavenly Alliance, while very advanced in terms of understanding of their cultivation, look down on technology. Your best bet is refining your control to greater heights. That will be the real challenge of your cultivation system,” I explained.

“Just knowing all of that is quite helpful. Each time I think there can’t be anything else, you surprise me,” Sect Leader Flame said.

“Your Flame Sect has been quite accommodating. I can’t solve all your problems, just like you can’t solve mine, but we can pool our strengths and knowledge,” I replied.

“I also invited you here for another reason. I owe you a great debt for saving my life when I broke through. While there isn’t anything I can think of to offer, make your request known, and I will see it done,” he replied.

“Being able to harness the energy from the tribulation for myself will be more than enough. The amount of energy I need for my cultivation is immense, and if the lightning and tremors can be dealt with safely, then it would be helpful for me,” I explained. The real question would be how much energy would I get, and how useful that energy would be after being part of the tribulation.

I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I suspected I would be able to use a chunk and just boost my energy reserves. I didn’t hold out hope for advancing my cultivation. Just having a large amount of energy would be quite useful.

Maintaining my energy was mentally like keeping hold of a sieve. There was just a natural tightness to how I held my energy that had developed, first by entering the Mechanical Layer, then some advice from Yang Heng, and then from being stuck here in the Great World. What was letting through pebbles before was only letting through specks of dust comparatively. It was hard to say exactly how much my ability to retain my energy had improved.

I remembered Yang Heng’s words about staying away from quantifying everything. There were risks with such a methodology, long term. A perfect example was energy retention. Let’s say I defined energy as a unit of 1, however much that bit of energy was. It would be mentally harder to deal with smaller amounts.

Also using techniques would be defined by numbers. Even if I readjusted the scale, one’s mindset would determine reality. I would be more focused on the numbers rather than on improvement. It was frustrating at times, but Yang Heng’s advice had not steered me wrong.

I was also slowly making improvements while stuck in the Great World. The problem was the pressure. The looser the sieve on my energy in my body as the pressure increased, it was harder to hold in energy. I had spent a lot during the last tribulation, but I wanted to push my ability to hold energy up even higher.

The improvements I had learned from the Flame Sect would be helpful and had been helpful. If Sect Leader Flame made progress, I could look at copying what he was doing to a certain extent, leeching off the knowledge of this other system of cultivation to help me.

It made me wonder if there could be a third system of cultivation out there? While the Heavenly Alliance System liked to talk about a body, mind, and soul path, they didn’t vary nearly as much as one would think. Unlike the system of the Great World where they exclusively devoted themselves to cultivating the body due to lack of energy.

The Heavenly Alliance System involved the soul at each step. This made me wonder if someone could think their way into cultivation. Could there be a third system that just used the mind? Where someone had such a good understanding they were able to advance their cultivation?

I took some time to seriously consider this question. To understand energy so well, that one’s cultivation advanced. But what would it look like? Perhaps an easier time controlling energy or using techniques? If someone found a source of energy, they were highly compatible with, I could see them making progress in the use of energy as their control would be very good.

While a neat idea, if it was possible, I was clearly missing some key information, or a key experience. Using energy on the body like the cultivators of the Great World were doing was something that might have come up, but had never been something that was worth investing the time into researching or working on.

The focused changes that the cultivators of the Great World did and I copied were advancements that took a very long time to develop. To know what was safe and the best practices. Coming up with everything from scratch would be much harder. They had refined their cultivation system, at least the first part to an extreme.

This knowledge was incredibly useful for me to make changes to my body, that I otherwise wouldn’t have risked. While it had a limited impact on me, it still had an impact. Now the Sect Leader would chart the way forward along with his elders.

After looking at the microscope, I made my way back to my workshop to keep working on metal plates. “I saw your counter cube in the nexus chamber,” Fu Shirong said after entering my workspace.

“Impressive, isn’t it. Now I am working on improvements,” I replied.

“I would like to go with you, when you leave,” Fu Shirong said. I wasn’t surprised.

“Even if I can’t make something portable?” I asked.

“You can have a ship specifically designed to carry it. Weren’t you planning to travel by ship anyways?” he asked me.

“Who knows what obstacles are in the future? I doubt there are oceans and canals all the way to the Great Desert. That is where having energy will most likely be the most useful. Also working out how the nexus crystal works, will give me great insight into the working of the Great World,” I replied.

“We are still leaving in a year or so?” Fu Shirong asked me.

“Perhaps. I wish to see another tribulation, iterate the design of the counter cube, and see what direction Sect Leader Flame takes his cultivation. You should keep work on yours,” I replied.

“Don’t you ever consider it boring, sitting around, meditating, focusing?” Fu Shirong asked me and I let out a sigh, stopping my work on a metal plate.

“That is cultivation. You cultivate to get more life, to cultivate some more, to eventually reach immortality, everyone who know is dead, and then you need to keep cultivating to get more power,” I replied. Fu Shirong just stared at me for a bit, and I shrugged.

“You have been cultivating for a long time?” he asked.

“You are just realizing that now? If you can’t focus, then you have no future cultivating. It requires constant dedication and persistence, even if it can be unimaginably boring at times. You need to keep working to improve,” I said.

“There isn’t some kind of treasure or quest I could go on?” he asked.

“I don’t believe so. If you want to live to reach the Great Desert you need to cultivate. That is the best place to find something that is useful. But it comes down to energy, this entire place is very low energy. The real trick, I have personally discovered, is you need to cultivate enough to extend your life and get strong enough you can seize the opportunities that come by,” I explained. Being weak was a sin as a cultivator. While one would naturally get stronger, one needed to be able to defend themselves and seek out benefits.

If one wanted the ability to seize a benefit, they needed to be strong enough to do so. While I didn’t like fighting, I still kept my weapons on me just in case. One could never be too careful or predict what might happen.

“I just hate being stuck in one place, that was why I left to travel,” Fu Shirong said.

“I am not stopping you,” I replied, and he looked at me in surprise. “The opportunity I have given you is immense. But it might not be for you. Not everyone enjoys cultivation. Some might enjoy living their life instead, or mercenary work. I am in no place to judge. But if you stay, then focus on cultivation with every fiber of your being.”

There was silence at my declaration. Fu Shirong had been whining for quite a while. While I had never taken him seriously up to this point, his attitude had begun to annoy me. If you didn’t like cultivating go do something else. No one ever forces a person to be a cultivator. That was why the Cloudy Moon Sect wanted individuals who showed they were dedicated by having a specific level of cultivation by a specific age and I am sure the Flame Sect did something similar as well.

Fu Shirong started at a slightly older age and his temperament was not something to be desired. I had only let him come along since he had been insistent and had helped make travel arrangements. But I could not stand to listen to him complain about how boring cultivation was one more time.

“I will go cultivate,” he said and left. I nodded at that. If he had complaints, I didn’t care to hear them in the slightest. He was far luckier than other people in the Great World by having my support and he knew that. But it all meant nothing if he didn’t cultivate. If he wanted to go do exciting stuff and fight, there were countless jobs out there he could take.

One didn’t need to be a cultivator for such things. In fact, being a cultivator was quite boring the vast majority of the time. Unless one was a demonic cultivator, then you had to hunt down strong cultivators to assist your own cultivation. Now that would be an interesting lifestyle, but I had more than enough of demonic cultivators, I didn’t need to run into anymore.

The Great World cultivators had demonic cultivators of their own surprisingly. They were an unholy abomination of chef and cannibal, with the dish of choice, other cultivators. No need for complicated procedures, they would eat and absorb the energy from the flesh of cultivators they killed. It was one of those legends, but one I did not want to get caught up in.

Demonic cultivation always seemed like a method for cultivating for people who were too bored to do it the regular way, which was slower but with less chance of being killed. I had no doubt there would be at least one demonic cultivator attempting to kill me on the way to the Great Desert, but that would be their end.

That was why Demonic cultivation was so risky. Unlike business, trade, and teamwork, one mistake in a fight and you were finished. That was why I didn’t like fighting. The blood, viscera, while stomach churning, weren’t enough to really make me dislike fighting. It was the randomness, just like gambling. That was why I only gambled on myself, a sure bet if there ever was one.

At least, that was what I liked to think. I had made it this far, somehow. The biggest threat and roadblock, but also the biggest source of assistance was from cultivators more powerful than me. At least I was top dog of the Great World. A small fish in an even smaller pond. Still, it was a lot less stressful, knowing that I could solve problems, instead of having to beg my seniors for their help.