Chapter 167

  Eternal Range (IX)

  It could also be that I'm thinking out my ass and that it's just 'system magic'. No, really. My understanding of kinetic energies and whatnot is not good. I might even be misremembering how microwaves work, though I don't think I am. Why am I so sure? Because I developed a bit of a cancer paranoia in my teenage years about microwaves and learned them inside and out.

  For the ovens and other crap? Yeah, I could totally be misremembering.

  Regardless, whatever the reason, my art did approach the entire principle of interacting with laws in a different way than the cultivators of this world do. At least in regard to Qi.

  "Here," I whipped out the tome and handed it over. I could see it in his eyes that he would not drop it; something in him awoke, as he'd never so outright shared what were probably not the most obvious principles of cultivation.

  **

  Long Tao gingerly took the forcibly worn-out tome, hiding his excitement the best he could.

  This strange Master of his... has done it again.

  As soon as he saw the man casually cool the food without using Qi by itself, Long Tao recognized one simple truth: the man had created, once more, something outrageous.

  And peeling back the pages of the aptly named 'Art of Surviving' revealed that, yes, he did indeed create something outrageous--perhaps not in the most obvious way, though. Long Tao imagined that if any of the kids read through this, they'd at best be slightly impressed. To them, there'd probably be no difference between using the art or just using Qi to do any of these things.

  But there were differences.

  The fundamental one stood out the most, sure--Master's art somehow managed to interact with the world directly, essentially becoming somewhat of a chameleon. It didn't merely mimic the properties of the element so much as it mimicked the element itself.

  The more Long Tao studied, the more haggard his breathing became.

  Not because of the art, no--for all its miraculous ideas, its effects were still very much in line with the low-tier art it was.

  However... it was those ideas.

  Ideas that lifted a haze in Long Tao's mind--something that he couldn't unravel in the thousands of years that he'd lived had just slightly moved. The path wasn't open still, not really, but he could see the glimpse of it... and what mattered was that it existed.

  As he finished it, he closed the book and glanced over at the man's shuffling expression. It was clear that Lu Qi didn't really know what he created--no, perhaps, to him, this form of thinking wasn't anything unusual.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  It could be seen in other aspects, too, but this more so than anything else proved that the way his Master saw the world was radically different than the way most everyone else saw it.

  Perhaps it was most evident in the way he handled the principle of vibrations.

  For most martial artists, Long Tao himself included, the concept of vibrations was... difficult. Nobody quite understood why certain things vibrate more or less or why they do so at different frequencies. Yes, everyone understood that the mass and circumference played a large part, but the essence was... elusive.

  As such, the concept of 'vibrations' was hardly ever actually applied to much of anything. Most martial arts that used it did so more as a gimmick or a show of talent rather than an actual, central part.

  However, his Master so 'elegantly', almost, created a method to stimulate tiny motes of Qi at the fingertips to cause miniscule, repetitive vibrations to occur. Could the methodology be replicated on a larger scale?

  No, of course--rather, this was practically the limit. If one tried to stimulate larger motes of Qi in such a way, meridians would simply implode under the excess energy. But nobody had even thought to apply it in this way--the idea of transference would work since Long Tao could just apply it to a sharp needle and give it a hundred times more penetrative strength.

  "... why are you staring at me?" the man asked, and Long Tao sighed and smiled.

  As far as both his lifetimes go, adjoining himself to this strange Master of his wouldn't really be considered a monumental thing.

  For one, it would have to compete with the time he saved a young boy from drowning as an afterthought, and that boy eventually became the Emperor of Dreams. Without him, Long Tao would have probably died a decade into his escape rather than almost five hundred years.

  There was also the time he was camping in the forest, hiding from some sect or another, when a small, haggard wolf approached him cautiously. He casually tossed the beast a piece of meat, never giving it a second thought. Not a century later, that tiny little thing became the Wolf King and helped Long Tao eventually conquer the Godless Plateau, where he manifested his Dao for the first time.

  So, yes, against those encounters, and many more like them, meeting strange Elder Lu Qi didn't really stack up... but that was for now.

  If these were just the beginnings, what of the endings? If he exposed the man to the higher Laws of Nature, and if he gave him the coffers he'd stashed away across the realms... would he eventually become his foremost encounter? A tiny little nobody, in the corner of the world that 99% of the maps do not even jot down, bogged by the body so accursed even the crippled would feel bad for him...

  "No reason," Long Tao said with a chuckle. He didn't want to break the unspoken rule. He rather enjoyed their vague conversations. "I think this art will be quite helpful to the kids."

  "H-huh? How so?"

  "Xi Zhao and Dai Xiu still act on the principle of advancing," Long Tao said. "By now, though, it is practically their creed, their mini Dao. Wan Lan is a mix; she advances, but she also retreats. She's cautious, yet easily stirred emotionally into a berserk outcry. And Light... well, Light is yet to fully find herself. While the art itself may not help them, principles within it might assist them in recognizing their faults and even how to fix them."

  "Really?"

  "Not anytime soon, of course," he said, passing back the book. He learned all he could from it--now it would be up to him to fully digest all those ideas and convert them into something he could use. "But they're young; they don't need to understand themselves just yet."

  "You're young."

  "My father always did say I'm wise beyond my years."

  "Maybe you misheard him," the Master said. "And he instead said that you're a wiseass."

  "Oh, that too. But what's a sharp mind to do when the opportunity presents itself?"

  "Stay silent?"

  "Oh, if only I could," Long Tao lamented briefly. "Life would have been so much simpler... I mean, life would be so much simpler."

  "..."

  "You should rest; we'll reach the base of the mountain sometime tomorrow. Who knows what awaits us there?"