Chapter 166

  Eternal Range (VIII)

  We left the inn right after a rather dull and dry breakfast,, which consisted of a lukewarm porridge with rice and a glass of water that I did not dare drink since it looked like something corpses lived in.

  We were escorted with no fanfare, and many, many—and I mean many—eyes distinctly following us from the shadow. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that we walked for about half an hour before the first group intersected us.

  "Halt! Give us your valuables--"

  "How dare you stop Master from walking?!" Xi Zhao sped over and killed six people within the span of three seconds.

  Not another fifteen minutes later, and a slightly larger group intercepted us.

  "Halt, you pervert! How dare you kidnap these children?! We are here to--"

  "How dare you call Master a pervert?! Die, you beast!" That was Dai Xiu, her voice a tiny little (terrifying) roar. She bolted over like a literal bullet and, I'm not exaggerating here, ripped the man's head off with her bare hands.

  No.

  That's actually what happened.

  She lunged at him, placed her hands at the sides of his neck, and just... pulled it out.

  Jesus... what the hell?!!

  It was mortifying! So, so, so damn terrifying!! What are these kids, man?!

  "Senior Sister! You scared Master!!"

  "A-ah! I'm so sorry, Master! I... I just got so angry with this too-ugly-to-live beast calling you names!"

  "..."

  I don't care.

  I just... I don't care.

  I took a deep breath, used one of the many calming aspects of my many arts, and found my heart slowly entering a zen state.

  It didn't last long, though; any time I opened my eyes, I'd see another person missing, usually with a yelp or a scream.

  Yeah.

  These are protagonists for you. If there's no abundant and brutal violence practically every step of the way, are they even on the path to conquering the world? Of course not.

  Anyway, there were two more groups that intercepted us, and both were dealt with by Light, actually.

  Whether it was because the word spread or because there was nobody else following us, it all ended with the fourth interception, and we continued on our merry way, walking until the evening fell.

  Deciding to camp a little off to the side of the road, I pitched the tent, made a barely edible dinner, and accidentally used my new art to cool my plate slightly.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ... which, you know, with the old monster just being here, wasn't exactly going to go unnoticed.

  "Master," he came right after dinner, a strange smile hanging off his lips. He'd been eyeing me for an hour now, and it truly felt like I'd planted my ass on a bed of needles and thorns.

  "... yes?"

  "What'd you use to cool your food quickly?"

  "Qi." I said. I mean, look--the jig is up. He knows, and if I'm gonna share it with him, I may as well share it with the rest. I'd probably have done it anyway just to see what kind of crazy things the kids would be able to come up with, but I... I just loathe that it's not even by my will.

  "Hm. I didn't know Master became so good at utilizing Qi, especially to such a fine detail."

  "Yes, well, I've been practicing."

  "For a few thousand years?"

  "..." you're telling me I'd need to fucking cultivate for a few thousand years just to mimic what this art does for like 100 points?

  No, no.

  No.

  I refuse to believe it. I refuse to believe that something so pointlessly useless would require so much effort. As though reading my mind, he quickly elaborated with that stupid-ass patented smile of his.

  "Everyone can cool things with Qi," he said, lifting up his hand as a surge of Qi seemed to flood his fingers, conjuring a small mist above his palm. "It's only a matter of adding a small property to Qi before releasing it. Cooling, heating," the mist disappeared, replaced instead by that classic distortion that high temperature caused. "Maintaining," the distortion was culled in half and the mist returned; the two seemed to dance, colliding and parting at a perfect frequency. "Inverting," okay, he's losing me a bit.

  In my mind, he just swapped the properties, but it's probably vastly more complex than that.

  "However," he added, closing his fist and dispersing all effects. "By doing so, we alter things at their fundamental level. Cooling food this way dries it, as would leaving it in cold snow for days."

  Oh.

  Oh no.

  Did... did I accidentally create something stupid yet again?

  "Same thing for heating it up," he said. "Ultimately, it extends to people, too. We suffer the elements unless absolutely necessary, as otherwise, we cause strain on our bodies."

  "Hm."

  "Your father found the strangest things, Master," he said, smiling still, as he sat down next to me.

  I don't quite get it, to be honest; doesn't heating and cooling food, even by 'my' principle of understanding it all, still work the same way? What is so fundamentally different about the way Qi with an attribute interacts with physical matter, and why does my created art somehow manage to circumvent the logistical laws of this world?

  Besides, in the few times the system actually responded to my inane ramblings, it mentioned that basically everyone with fundamental control of Qi could control the temperature of their bodies and that creating such an art is pointless.

  ... so why is it different now? I mean, I didn't really create 'Art of Surviving' to cool or heat up myself, but Long Tao, in the ever-vague way he always does, seems to be implying that the way my art approaches the entire process and the way Qi naturally does are completely different.

  Thus, I again ask... why?

  "Don't think too deeply about it," Long Tao shrugged. "Qi is... it's like any other energy. When you light the wood and start a fire and rotate a skinned rabbit over it, you are only applying the 'logic' of the fire itself as it impresses the laws upon the skinned rabbit; however, if you use Qi to warp it into a fire, there's a transition that is also applied. Even those with the finest control of the flames cannot replicate a natural fire.

  "Maybe the extreme heat and the appearance and the ability to burn things down, but the finite, minute details of how the flame interacts with the world... they are elusive."

  Okay.

  Let me see if I understand this in my own terms.

  When Long Tao and other cultivators use Qi to heat things up, it acts sort of like a microwave.

  Rather than 'heating' the food, microwaves bombard things with radiation, forcing the water molecules inside to vibrate violently. It gets the food hot, sure, but it's a brute-force, unnatural process. It alters the nature of whatever it's heating, which is why things like bread become rubbery and steak becomes tough.

  Cooling would be like flash-freezing, then; yes, it makes it cold, but it also causes freezer burn and ruins the texture.

  'Art of Surviving', then, isn't really 'heating' or 'cooling' things in that sense--it's more like having perfect control over the kinetic energy of the molecules themselves. Sort of like how conventional ovens use circulating air to cook food evenly and naturally... just at a much faster pace. I think. Probably.

  ... huh.

  What the hell?