This group of people came from a wide range of backgrounds.
From eminent experts in human medicine, to geniuses in mathematics and computer science, to professional Daoist priests skilled in divination and Taoist arts, and martial artists from various schools who had studied traditional martial arts since childhood...
They came from all kinds of fields, yet now Great Xia had gathered them together.
“Fellow cultivator, are you here for this mission too? Your outfit is rather distinctive. I wonder which school you studied under and which tradition you follow?”
“What tradition are you talking about...? You mean, what was I researching before? My main research areas are human cell cloning technology and the subsequent rejection reactions.”
“Huh? You’re a researcher? You’re asking me...? I suppose I study the applications of precognition in everyday life, and how to mitigate risks when predictions fail?”
“That’s strange. Isn’t that Wei Dongyi, the math prodigy? What exactly is this mission about? Why did they bring him here too?”
Amid the crowd’s discussions,
Academician Jiang, dressed in a white lab coat, walked into the hall. A dozen or so soldiers came in with him, each carrying a thick stack of confidentiality agreements.
After everyone had signed the confidentiality agreements,
Academician Jiang projected the mission details onto the screen. When everyone saw the several research topics displayed there, they felt their brains short-circuiting.
What did “《How can the cultivation method be improved to absorb spiritual energy faster》” even mean?
And what the heck was “《How can the spiritual energy consumption of the Fireball Technique be reduced》”???
Faced with everyone’s puzzled looks,
Academician Jiang cleared his throat twice and began:
“Comrades, now that everyone has signed the confidentiality agreement, it’s time to tell you about certain things.”
“Recently, Great Xia confirmed that cultivation techniques are real. That’s right—the kind of cultivation techniques that let you cultivate to immortality!”
“Our main research topic is to improve this cultivation technique, called the 《Mortal Breathing Art》. We’ll try to accelerate how quickly it absorbs spiritual energy by changing the routes spiritual energy follows through the human meridians.”
“I’ve put the cultivation technique on the screen. Beside it are the corresponding breathing method and the routes spiritual energy follows through the human meridians.”
“If anyone has an idea for improving the cultivation technique, and can support it with sufficient evidence, the country won’t let any meritorious contributor go unrewarded!”
“Besides, if you need anything during your research, the country will do everything it can to provide it. I’m counting on all of you!”
Looking at the cultivation technique on the screen, everyone felt their heads buzzing.
Wait, was this for real?
Cultivation techniques really existed in this world, and the country had summoned them to help improve one?!
If anyone else had said that, they wouldn’t have believed a single word.
But the person saying it was an academician they often saw on screen, which left them feeling that the whole thing was utterly absurd.
I’ve believed in science all these years, and now you’re turning around and telling me that I can cultivate to immortality?
In any case, amid everyone’s bewilderment, a vigorous research project got underway.
However, even veteran scientists with over a decade of research experience had no idea where to start with these topics, which were almost too novel.
When asked to tackle professional problems in their own fields, no matter how difficult those problems were, they could at least find some way forward.
But they’d never even encountered cultivation, and now they were supposed to improve a cultivation technique. It was no easier than asking someone who’d never watched Ultraman to recite the complete genealogy of the eighteenth generation of Ultraman!
............
Night deepened.
Wei Dongyi sat before his computer, staring blankly at the routes spiritual energy followed through the human meridians on the screen.
Compared with simple mathematics, researching cultivation techniques was way beyond his level.
He stared at the diagram for a long time, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Not a single thought came to him.
Academician Jiang had ordered them to improve the 《Mortal Breathing Art》 within a week.
By any measure, this was an extremely difficult undertaking...
“Young man, still looking at it?”
Hu Tianming stretched and looked at Wei Dongyi’s vacant eyes before sighing.
“Why would the higher-ups assign us a task like this? I’m just an old Daoist priest. I can tell fortunes, sure, but if you ask me to improve a cultivation technique, then if I really had that ability, wouldn’t I have already attained the Dao and ascended?”
“I heard you study mathematics. You can’t make heads or tails of this stuff either, right?”
“Take my advice and go get some rest. This isn’t like solving math problems. You’re a mathematician—even if you stare at the screen all night, you won’t figure anything out.”
He was right. Improving a cultivation technique wasn’t like solving a math problem. Just staring at it wouldn’t help...
Wei Dongyi first nodded in agreement. Then, as if a light had suddenly gone on, his eyes blazed with brilliance.
No!
Who said improving a cultivation technique couldn’t be treated like solving a math problem?!
Once he switched to mathematical thinking, the routes spiritual energy followed on the screen transformed before his eyes into paths and mathematical symbols...
“Improve efficiency, find the optimum...”
“I understand! I get it!!!”
Wei Dongyi shouted excitedly, then grabbed a pen and began furiously working through calculations on paper as if possessed.
Watching Wei Dongyi,
Hu Tianming leaned over curiously. But after seeing the mass of symbols the other man had written on the paper, he scratched his head and backed away.
Hilarious.
At least he could understand what the cultivation technique on the screen meant. But he couldn’t make sense of a single one of the symbols covering Wei Dongyi’s pages!
After an hour of complex calculations,
Wei Dongyi snatched up the scratch paper from the desk and shouted to the soldiers standing guard outside the research institute:
“Quick! I need the meridian routes for other cultivation techniques! Right now!”
The person in charge had noticed Wei Dongyi’s unusual behavior for some time, but had been worried about interrupting his train of thought and hadn’t approached him.
Now, hearing his request, the person in charge issued an order almost instantly.
Great Xia had only one cultivation technique for cultivating immortality at present, but they did have quite a few cultivation methods passed down from ancient times.
Within just ten minutes,
the meridian routes for more than a dozen cultivation techniques—including the 《Greater Heavenly Cycle》, the 《Lesser Heavenly Cycle》, and the 《Muscle-Tendon Transformation Classic》—were delivered to the research institute.
While they waited, Wei Dongyi explained his discovery to the other mathematicians.
After hearing him out, the other mathematicians’ eyes lit up. One by one, they grabbed their pens and began calculating furiously.
That night, the research institute was brightly lit.
The people asleep in their beds had no idea what was happening at the Great Xia Academy of Sciences.
Only a handful of staff members were woken in the middle of a sound sleep and rushed to their workstations in the dead of night to start up the Shenwei Supercomputer for the mathematicians at the Great Xia Academy of Sciences.
............
The following morning.
Lu Yang had just arrived at the Command Center when he heard an emotionally charged report from a staff member wearing a headset:
“We did it! We succeeded!”
“Good news from the Great Xia Academy of Sciences! The project to improve the 《Mortal Breathing Art》 made a breakthrough last night!”
“Using the movement routes of several Great Xia cultivation techniques as a reference, the project team improved the 《Mortal Breathing Art》, shortening three of its main routes and optimizing some unnecessary ones...”
“In theory, the improved 《Circulatory Breathing Art》 is expected to absorb spiritual energy at four to six times its previous rate!”
Since there was no spiritual energy on Blue Star, they had no way to verify whether the improved cultivation technique worked.
But when Lu Yang received the improved technique and saw the marked routes for spiritual energy,
his two and a half years of experience living in the Cultivation World let him recognize at a glance that this was the real thing!