Cultivation Nerd (xianxia)

Chapter 410 - A New Level

I smiled at the floating bookshelves.The shelves floated mostly because it looked cool. But this way, every part of the space inside the tower could be used.

Also, it looked very cool.

I was currently working on a search system. Something like Google, but for the knowledge stored inside the library. But too many books were filled with useless fluff, and the array required to organize and search all that information still had far too many bugs.

For now, there was only a rough search function at the front desk, so people didn't have to rummage through every shelf to find what they wanted.

It could only locate books by title, assuming the person already knew the title they wanted. And book titles often had very little to do with the actual knowledge hidden inside.

Besides, now that I had my own organization and no longer needed to play along with the Blazing Sun Sect, I had far more important experiments and inventions demanding my attention. This was merely one of the many side projects that had caught my interest.

I walked past the floating bookshelves toward a giant stone serpent's head tucked away in one corner. Its emerald-green eyes were the size of fists, glowing faintly as the sunlight from the tall windows mixed with the shadows surrounding the statue, creating an eerie atmosphere.

“Talk to me, green-eyed monster,” I said.

The incantation was necessary... for looking cool.

The stone serpent's head, roughly the size of a carriage, rumbled to life. Dust drifted down as its mouth slowly opened, revealing a staircase hidden at the back of its throat.

This was one of the many secret entrances leading to my underground laboratory.

Speaking of secret laboratories, this one was actually secret. The workers I hired had only excavated the underground chamber. Afterward, they took the generous payment I gave them and moved to a far more prosperous region. I customized everything else myself.

The chances of anyone discovering this place were therefore quite low.

Feeling rather pleased with myself, I descended the staircase.

As I walked, lights illuminated one after another behind me.

It served no practical purpose whatsoever and was purely for dramatic effect and vibes. It made me feel like some villainous mastermind.

There were other entrances to the laboratory, too. None of them were nearly as cool as this one. I hadn't had the time to work on them.

At the bottom of the stairs stretched a long stone corridor, which eventually branched into passageways leading even deeper underground.

Strange inscriptions covered the walls, hidden within the shadows. Those weren't decorations. They were the array formulas that regulated the laboratory's shifting structure.

This laboratory was never quite the same twice. Its layout periodically shifted. One day a particular door might lead to the main laboratory. The next day, that same door might open into a bathroom.

I even planned to make the entire city above change every night like a massive puzzle. That way, people would never become too comfortable with routines. One day their house might stand beside the city center. The next morning, it would be on the eastern edge of the settlement.

However, that idea was still far too expensive. Even with the Song Clan's fortune behind me.

Perhaps leaving behind the restraints of the Blazing Sun Sect had filled my head with a few ridiculous ideas.

But...

I absolutely loved this place!

Walking down the hallway, I stopped at the last door on the left. Behind it was a rather small laboratory, about the size of a kitchen. In the center of the room stood a glass cylinder filled with strange liquid, inside which the corpse of the golden monkey remained suspended.

The body hadn't deteriorated much. Only the gaping dark holes where the monkey's eyes had once been hinted at the damage it had suffered.

Suddenly, the door behind me creaked open and a wave of cold washed over me. My eyes stung, and thin layers of ice formed along the edges of my robes.

“I thought I sensed you here,” Ye An said.

The girl's hair had become completely white, along with her eyelashes and eyebrows. Oddly enough, the combination only enhanced her already striking beauty.

It was always interesting to see someone so beautiful who never cared about her appearance or tried to make use of it.

Well, this Ye An was merely an ice clone. The real one had been sealed away to preserve her life, and at best she could project her consciousness through this clone.

Still, they looked the same.

“Yes. Many things are finally coming together. Once you break through to Nascent Soul, we can begin the next phase of the plan,” I said in a businesslike tone.

Unlike with Song Song, whom I could joke around with, I didn't have such a casual relationship with Ye An. Even while trying to save her, we had always remained cordial.

Yet, we had gained a great deal since leaving the Blazing Sun Sect.

Speaking of the Blazing Sun Sect, they were in quite the pickle and had declined considerably over the past three years. Now they were merely another high-level sect, not one of the Great Sects. Two more peak Core Formation elders had attempted to break through to Nascent Soul.

Both had died. The sect had lost even more of its core strength.

It was becoming obvious that the Blazing Sun Sect had run out of peak Core Formation elders willing or able to burn themselves out attempting the breakthrough. Sooner or later, one of their stronger subordinate sects would probably swallow them whole.

Song Song might have been crazy, and she definitely wasn't Sect Leader material. But strength mattered above all else, and she absolutely possessed the potential to reach that level.

Not to mention the Beast Sect. With Bai acting as my eyes within their ranks, I had received several worrying reports. The beasts had already developed crude methods to bypass human defensive arrays. They were also creating strategies specifically meant to counter large-scale human techniques.

They were genuinely learning how to wage war. Even Ni Shi, my new toad friend, looked down on the direction beast civilization was taking. Still, their methods were effective.

“What are you working on?” Ye An asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

Although our relationship wasn't particularly close, we had long since moved past our earlier awkwardness.

And I had significantly accelerated the research into curing her condition.

“I'm trying to figure out a way to edit and improve some of the books in the library so they aren't filled with so many unnecessary words,” I explained. “Far too many authors spend every other page writing flowery descriptions and autobiographies before they finally get to the actual point. But there are too many books and too few knowledgeable people available to fix them all.”

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The thousand-yard stare Ye An gave me was something to behold.

“Just joking,” I replied dryly. “I'm actually working on a serum that should allow you to break through to the Nascent Soul realm. But it'll be rough.”

“Fu Yating was right. Liu Ma truly takes after you,” Ye An said before closing the door and leaving, since she couldn't maintain the clone for much longer.

“Of course he takes after me. I'm the kid's father,” I grumbled under my breath, fully aware she could still hear me.

After that whole ordeal with Ye An, I walked through the laboratory, each experiment occupying its own room.

As always, the final room was dedicated to array research.

Unlike the rest of the laboratory, this room was coated in a paint so dark it seemed to consume all light, as though the human eye wasn't meant to process such darkness. Tiny white lights blinked along the walls, each one a spatial array compressed from several cubic feet to barely an inch.

They resembled unstable storage-ring formations that hadn't been anchored to an object yet.

I stood in the center of the room with my eyes closed and my hands tucked into my sleeves.

Occasionally, I opened my eyes just long enough to reorient myself before closing them again, making sure I didn't become too absorbed in the arrays.

As for what this entire project was about. It was my attempt to theoretically reach the level of a Level 7 Array Conjurer. Even though I could barely utilize Level 6 arrays, let alone the level beyond.

Still, even reaching that stage in theory would be a mountain of difference compared to where I was now.

Within minutes, the blinking lights surrounding the room became unstable. Sharp cracks echoed through the darkness like firecrackers.

This was simply space restoring itself to its proper state, occasionally fracturing before settling back into place.

Maybe it was just me, but I found the sound pleasant. Sure, it resembled fireworks, but beneath the sharp cracks was an almost imperceptible whistle that most cultivators could clearly hear.

I could sense it. The beauty of the world repairing itself.

A brief pause always came before space healed. The length of that pause depended on the size of the fracture. Larger tears always lingered a little longer, perhaps because the world first had to determine their extent.

Once that process finished, however, the repair itself was instantaneous unless influenced by some spatial technique.

Was this what Newton and Einstein had felt when making their greatest discoveries?

The world was beautiful in mysterious ways. It was like a lover. Someone whose little habits I wanted to understand. What made her happy. What made her angry. How every tiny part of her worked.

“Can you stop looking at the wall like that? It's creepy for some reason,” Ni Shi commented from behind me.

“I need some Qi,” I replied, offering no further explanation.

He sighed and placed a hand on my shoulder. Immediately, the Essence Qi he had left inside my body began rotating at a blinding speed, producing an absurd amount of Qi.

Absurd for someone at my level, at least. For a Nascent Soul beast like him, it was probably insignificant.

The space around us twisted.

Then, faster than the blink of an eye, we stood atop the Misty Mountains, which were no longer all that misty. Except for the surrounding fog ring that still encircled them.

“Teleportation through arrays? This is a new trick,” Ni Shi said, his hand still resting on my shoulder as he helped offset the cost of using such a high-level array. “I still don't understand why you go through all this, ruining your body and shaving off your lifespan just to use techniques that aren't even a full level higher.”

The body damage was true. Despite his excellent control, foreign Qi was still flowing through my body. As for the lifespan... That wasn't such a big deal. On average, Foundation Establishment cultivators lived around one hundred and twenty years, with some reaching one hundred and fifty.

I will never live that long. Not after more than one occasion of overusing my body to compensate for my lack of cultivation.

Still, it wasn't a major issue. I would probably live to around a hundred and two.

It wasn't as though I was burning my lifespan like demonic cultivators for explosive bursts of power. I was using the Blood Step Immortal's techniques to consume lifespan to heal the permanent damage left behind by powerful foreign Qi.

Once I reached Core Formation, most of those problems would disappear. Even then, I should still live to around two hundred and eighty.

None of that mattered right now.

Because I could feel it...

My left hand twitched. The scar Song San had left across my back three years ago tingled. It felt like someone had rubbed spices into a fresh wound.

I was hyperaware of everything around me.

I raised my right hand and a dark cube, roughly the size of a tennis ball, condensed above my palm.

Then it began spinning like a motor. The surrounding space twisted together with its rotation, warping like a sheet of cloth.

I released the cube, and it continued spinning on its own while my hands formed one seal after another.

“Theoretical Level 7 Array... Deep Space Twist,” I muttered beneath my breath, using my own voice to drown out everything else.

A Level 6 Array Conjurer was recognized by their ability to manipulate space through arrays. That was the basic requirement. Usually, such cultivators worked together with artificers, and Level 6 arrays were how most storage rings came into existence.

“Beautiful,” I whispered, staring at the dazzling phenomenon before me.

Even with Ni Shi supplying the Qi, I could barely sustain this array.

It had no practical use, offensive power, or defensive value. Nothing beyond proving that I could, in fact, reach into the realm of a theoretical Level 7 Array.

Something warm trickled from my nose. It ran across my lips before dripping from my chin.

Blood.

Even if I burned every remaining year of my lifespan... This array still wouldn't progress any further into a true Level 7 Array.

These were merely experiments. I loved my life far too much to let curiosity consume me and attempt something truly reckless.

“I can't believe my eyes!” Ni Shi cackled, his tongue swinging around like a whip. “You became a Level 7 Array Conjurer as though it were nothing! You can barely use Level 6 arrays even with enormous preparation, and now you've reached this?”

Despite his mocking tone, I couldn't help smiling.

“You crazy bastard! Never in all my years have I met someone whose talent for arrays surpassed his talent for cultivation this much!” Ni Shi continued laughing like a madman while feeding more Qi into the array.

I lowered my hands. The tiny cube of twisted space dissolved into nothing, and in the very next instant, the world returned to normal.

My lungs were burning, but I was too excited to even breathe deeply.

Because fuck physical functions!

What I had just seen made me feel like an absolute monkey.

It was all connected!

But how do I write these observations down in a book? Things like this were difficult to put into words. How would someone even describe space now?

Like a self-repairing cloth? No. It was more like a stagnant, endless wind that was always flowing.

Ugh. I had to think of better words or perhaps develop entirely new ones!

“You okay?” Ni Shi asked as he stopped supplying me with Qi. “I can sense that your body is fine, but your mental energy is going crazy. You didn't go insane, did you? Because that would suck.”

“No, I have never felt better.”

“That is also what most insane people say.”

“Anyway, none of that matters,” I said, letting out a calming breath. Then I turned toward Ni Shi and raised a questioning brow. “Also, what did you mean by saying you've never seen a cultivator whose array talent so far outstripped their cultivation? You don't seem like the kind of guy who hung around human Array Conjurers anyway, so what would you really know?”

Usually, I was interested in anyone willing to talk about their life. But right now, my mind had too much happening inside it.

“Damn, no need to get so offended. I was making a joke,” Ni Shi grumbled.

“That was not me being offended,” I clarified.

“Killjoy,” Ni Shi murmured, fully aware I could hear him.

I didn't mind the small complaint. Ni Shi and I worked on this for three years until I finally reached the peak of Level 6 Array Conjurer with his help.

Part of that involved borrowing Ni Shi's Qi to cast arrays. It wasn't easy on him, since it wasn't my own Qi. An obscene amount of waste occurred whenever I tried to guide it.

But Ni Shi didn't mind. Despite his gossiping nature, he was a good dude. I had learned that in my previous life no friend was ever perfect. But that was okay.

“Okay, now let's move on to experimenting with the concept of water control and how it actually compares to spatial and mental manipulation techniques,” I said.

Despite Ni Shi merely wielding the concept of water, it was surprisingly powerful. Even his illusion techniques were based on the concept of a water's reflection. Ni Shi was an all-around powerhouse.

“Actually, why are you even here?” I asked, recalling how he barged into my lab. “Weren't you supposed to keep an eye on the kids?”

“Liu Ma and Song Gu behaved themselves. They probably thought you were secretly watching to see if they were up to no good. So I got bored and came to find you,” he said without a care in the world.

Huh, thankfully I didn't grow up with scheming brats like that. I got the feeling that I would have been bullied.