Chương 113: Found an Exploit

Ch113 Found an Exploit After walking indoors, I disappear into my hidden realm. The vision of Lan Xin's embarrassed face turning away is fresh in my mind, followed by her yelling, "F-Fine! I'll get what you want," before flying away on her vessel from the peak as fast as she could. She is an even more shallow and troubled woman than I thought. At first, I believed maybe there was a greater scheme at hand.

Her indecision and anxiety every time we met, maybe it was because of many other issues in her life, or that she was planning something bigger to leverage our connection. However, it appears she does not have the resolve to pull this off. As a named disciple, with so much respect and power, it would be logical to assume Lan Xin has begun to create a life for herself and set up her future.

She is not much younger than I was in my past life; a 25-year-old in a position of power normally has made enough mistakes and lived through trial and error long enough to have a mildly broad perspective of the world and their own place in it. However, I've come to the conclusion that this cultivation world is different. Especially for those that have higher than average talent.

They do not plan their lives in terms of concise stages, sacrificing for a calculated future, and planning for an eventual point where they are weak and must rely on others in their elderly years. I recall overhearing conversations in the markets, quest hall, and gossiping stewards during my time in the forest expansion plans. Initial and mid-stage qi refiners can live to be 100 years old without much issue. Late- and perfected-stage qi refiners can reach closer to 120.

I do not know the exact limit, but initial stage foundational cultivators are said to be capable of living past 200. It is ingrained in this world's culture to believe that with enough talent and resources, they all have a chance to strive toward immortality as long as they just reach the next tier of strength. For the average cultivator, this is a very simple path to follow.

There is no need to prepare to die, there is no need to make an impact on others in their limited time alive, there is only the desire to continue growing stronger. Even time off, spent contemplating otherwise is considered wasteful. This concentration could have been spent on focused technique training, or challenging stubborn bottlenecks. Despite living longer lives than mortals, it is possible that many cultivators may never consolidate the same wisdom as someone living half as long.

Lan Xin is spoiled, self-conscious, and a directionless mess. Though, she is a mess with a whole lot of authority in this sect compared to me, as all the other lost souls grasping for immortality see her as a step toward their goals too. My former life behind a screen, watching billions of humans compressed down to nothing but numbers to exploit, broadened my perspective more than I thought it did.

It has made me take for granted that not many people see how much they are influenced by others, and the structured systems around them. It seems in this world, the average person's lack of unique purpose is even worse than my past. There is still a sour taste in my mouth after her attempted forced manipulation, but it is not irredeemable considering her mindset. The more I think about it, the more glad I am that something like this happened so early on in our working agreement.

It is another point of leverage, and a simple confirmation that she truly thinks this way, making her even more predictable. Her naivety masked by arrogant confidence makes me chuckle as I sit back down in the center of the five-element cultivation array and begin my practice again.

It takes a few minutes to focus and get back into the movements, but quickly the hot fiery qi flows out from my chest, down my arm, and into a small crimson wisp that flows out of my palm in a near-random collection of formless fiery qi. It dissipates into the atmosphere of this hidden realm, and a wave of minor qi deprivation washes over me next. I sit down again and cultivate for almost 2 hours before my dantian is filled again, ready to try once more.

From past attempts, I know I can perform this 3 or 4 more times before I need to stop altogether and heal with an elixir. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. However, I feel ready to try the next step. I pull out the perfect fire control booklet and flip past all of the initial stage sections, moving to the first and easiest spell here, Minor Fireball. It is an inferior-grade spell, meant to be an introduction to fire techniques.

That is why none of the talismans I managed to pick up from the seller reach the low-grade status. Out of curiosity, I pull one out of the stack and activate it. A small fireball, no larger than a marble, manifests from the talisman. The paper burns away, and the fireball travels forward about two meters in front of me before flickering out. It is not even strong enough to burn the hair off my arms at this close range.

The wisps of fire that I've managed to summon in my time trying feel much hotter and stronger than this, but at least I have a benchmark to aim for. I stow away the rest of the talismans and begin flipping through the small section on this spell in the booklet. For the next few hours, I'm completely engrossed.

This Minor Fireball technique is far less large sweeping movements and far more intricate mental visualizations and qi flow valve-like limiters within my meridians that I have to memorize and perfect the timing on. In order to create the structure of a fireball, I have to make sure certain wisps of qi are moving at the perfect velocity compared to others that curve and combine at the same exact point.

There is no actual physical training that needs to be done; I must rely on the progress I've already made in awakening my fire root and strengthening my meridians. All I have to do is perfect the technical aspect of this spell. After about ten hours of focused memorization, I give it an attempt, resulting in an explosion less than half a meter away from my palm. The wisps do not properly merge together, and the shape of a ball is nowhere near forming.

Still, raw qi is used up, and I must meditate in the center of the array for over two hours before trying again. During this meditation, I picture the technical movements in my head over and over, and the imagery of creating the perfect fireball seems so simple. Yet, when I finally gather enough qi to try it again, there are minute fluctuations in qi flow speed, the release accuracy, and even my hand's nerves twitching from the strain that all compounds to mess it up.

A jumbled wisp of flaming qi explodes in front of my face, forcing me to grit my teeth and go through the slow process of refilling my dantian. Hours and hours pass, leading to three more attempts before my check-in notification chimes, and my fire root, meridians, and right wrist ache with pain, throbbing until I eat a healing elixir and recover in the bath. I take a nap while the sun fully rises afterward and return to my hidden realm to try again.

"At this rate… it'll take months, no, years to master…" I murmur. Almost no progress on the technical front has been made. It is not lack of strength or volume of fire qi, it's a lack of repetitions. If I could just repeat the release movements over and over, without having to gather qi in between each time, this could move along a lot faster. The cooldown timer for using an enlightenment talisman is almost up, there are only a few days left.

Soon, I can certainly use one to fill in my knowledge gaps and understand this technique much deeper. However, as I contemplate this fact while activating my Jade Purity Soul Scripture and prepare to start my training all over again today, my gaze shifts the other floating stairway leading up to the rematch simulator island. I stand up and walk toward the platform, pulling out a thousand spirit stones to challenge the weakest opponent in the scroll wheel, a level 1 cultivator from the Blood Sword Sect.

It is one I killed with a single low-grade arrow back when I was a steward taking over a stronghold in the ravine with Xu Hong. A flash of light teleports me away into this simulation. I'm brought to the familiar sandy arena and run forward at the man with lifeless eyes. I break his legs and punch him in the chest just hard enough to create a soul fracture, but leave him on the verge of life and death.

My opponent struggles to breathe on one side of the sandy arena while I begin circulating the qi in my body through my fire root. In a matter of minutes, the flow of energy feels exactly as it did outside, and I'm able to release a burst of jumbled flames. It explodes in a chaotic burst as it always does, and a wave of fatigue washes through me. I kill the suffering simulated man on the spot with a single hit, and a flash of light brings me back to the hidden realm.

A wide smile forms on my face, as not a single drop of true qi has left my dantian. All of the energy used up in this rematch simulator has been reset as though it never happened, yet the mind-muscle connection memories are still present. I spend another thousand spirit stones on the spot and disappear back into the simulator to try again. — Another 2 full days pass by. I spend hundreds of thousands of spirit stones, entering the rematch simulator almost 300 times.

I only leave 62, 000 stones in my storage to recharge my lightning talisman, perception expanding jade, and sword slaughter formation a second time in case of emergency. This means re-entering once every ten minutes, not bothering to sleep or use any more healing elixirs. There is no fatigue buildup at all. For the first few dozen simulations, the tangled wisps of qi explode in seemingly random patterns.

However, trying over and over with the last attempts still fresh in my mind from minutes ago quickly improves my technique. Picturing the diagrams in the booklet to their exact patterns is far different than tweaking the energy flows to fit my exact meridians, flesh, and bone structure. By the hundredth attempt, the semblance of a fireball begins to form.

By the two hundred fiftieth, a near-identical small orb of flames to the inferior talismans is created, making it over two meters away from me before exploding into a small chaotic burst of flames. During the last few dozen attempts, I begin directing the bursts and even kill the level 1 qi refiner in this simulation with me. However, he has to be immobilized beforehand. The whole process to circulate qi from my dantian and form it into a perfect ball of flames still takes me about 5 to 6 minutes on a fast attempt.