Ruijard1
patreon
Chapter 27 (Vol-1)
🕑 Added 2024-11-23 10:02:18 +0000 UTCWith a burst of Primal Qi, my senses expanded beyond the scope of what is normally possible, allowing me to perceive the world around me on a fundamental level.
However, the sensory input is too much for me to handle, causing me to stop cultivating and fall to the ground in exhaustion.
‘just like always, your way of cultivating is abnormal, to say the least. I have never seen any Nascent Soul realm cultivator achieve such a deep connection to the world.’
‘Believe me, I didn’t think something like this would happen when I achieved the middle stages of the Nascent Soul realm either.’
‘Be that as it may, I think this connection would be very helpful when you reach the Soul Transformation realm to form your domain. With such a connection, the chances of your domain being rejected by the Heavens would be very low.’
‘True. But first, I need to get used to these heightened senses I have gained with my advancement.’
I stretched my body and got up from the hill where I had taken to cultivate. The same hill where my mother’s grave is located.
This past year has been extremely busy for me. From watching over the training of both my disciples, helping set up the Heaven and Earth defensive array and Eight Trigrams array, taking over Old Chen’s duties as the Chief of the village since he is becoming increasingly lazy despite my pills helping him and his wife become healthier by the day, striking trade deals with the nearby villages, watching over the training of the newly established school of Body Cultivation for all the villagers who can’t cultivate on the Orthodox path due to bad quality spirit roots, designing and testing my prototype of the Cargo Train that I wish to deploy on the new trade routes that we are in the process of clearing out.
Most importantly of all, testing and developing artifacts for defending my loved ones from the war that is to come or anything else that would wish to harm them.
Even with my lack of bodily needs which allowed me to work for weeks on end without any rest thanks to my cultivation realm, I am still so swarmed with work that I hardly find the time to relax or cultivate.
Thankfully, I always find some time to unwind and relax for the sake of my mental health, either by taking my disciples to explore the village and the Great Wilderness or by spending time talking with Yin Lingxi, learning the state of the empire as a whole to keep myself updated on latest events while also catching up with my friend.
Today was a relatively slow day since Old Li took the Body Cultivators to clear the surroundings of our planned path through the Great Wilderness. He wished to use this opportunity to clear out any potential dangers to the path while also providing practical experience to the Body Cultivators in fighting Demonic Beasts.
While the originally planned straight line through the Great Wilderness to connect the three villages would have been the most optimal path, my surveys of the area at a later date proved that I was starting to let my power get to my mind and becoming overconfident in my prowess.
The path that I proposed would have cut right through the territories of several powerful Demonic Beasts where even the weakest of them would be in the Core Formation Realm. Such beasts might not pose a threat to me or Da Ling since she had recently broken through to the peak of Core Formation. But that would not be the case for my Trains since they would be at Earth Grade in terms of ranking at most, making them easy prey for these beasts.
That was why I changed the path and had them skirt the territories of these beasts. While the paths are now less efficient and have increased the travel time by a few hours, they make up for this by being much safer than my originally planned path.
Of course, I could find a way to overcome the problem of travel time by trying to increase the speed of the train, I don’t want to make it even more complicated than it already is.
Originally, I wanted to make a train that was extremely similar to the trains from my old world. Specifically, I wanted to make internal combustion engine locomotives that would use synthetic fuel, which I was in the process of developing back then.
The idea was that the noise produced by ICE engines would scare off the local fauna around the path. ICE engines also produce more power, giving the train the ability to carry much more cargo than anything that can be done through a traditional carriage or caravan system of this world.
However, my lack of knowledge of constructing internal combustion engines forced me to fall back on alternative methods.
I could have simply used inscriptions to make a carriage move by itself by using spirit stones, but that would have gone against my plan of promoting self-reliance for my people so that they could build or repair these things by themselves after they learned the basics of inscriptions and my way of doing inscriptions using science.
So I decided to try using electric motors instead. But, that plan failed as well.
While making the motor is relatively easy since magnets stronger than the Neodymium magnets of my old world exist in this world thanks to an ancient cultivator’s invention of these things during his cultivation and Copper is a relatively easy material to find, the problem is that it is extremely hard to generate enough electricity to power these motors.
My knowledge of photovoltaics is non-existent just like my knowledge of any other way to generate electricity.
While wind power is a possible source it is not a viable option in this place thanks to the presence of various flying Demonic Beasts that would mistake the windmills for some kind of a threat to their life and would no doubt destroy those things.
I could also try a Nuclear power station since I understand the underlying principles of such a thing, I rather not take such a risk with my loved ones living so close to it.
In the end, I decided to make a train based on the Mag-Lev trains from my old world.
In this mechanism, the bulk of the propulsion is provided by the guiding path upon which the train would hover.
I designed a simple inscription that even a Beginner formation master would be able to replicate. The inscription can be carved directly on the artificial spiritual stone blocks which will provide the opposing magnetic field to the one produced by the train’s underside, keeping the train afloat. At the same time, the inscription will also exert a restriction on the train’s body, keeping it on the path and removing any possibility of derailment.
Since the path would also be powering the defensive array and drawing power from the Pure Qi of the world through the Eight Trigrams array, these inscriptions can be powered indefinitely without the need for any spirit stones from their operators.
However, we would still need to power the inscriptions on the train itself with a low-grade spirit stone since it does not have the space for me to inscribe an Eight Trigrams array on it as well.
So far, the testing of this design has shown great promise even when I mimicked heavy cargo loads on it by filling its cargo compartments to the brim with heavy boulders.
‘Will you really sell your trains to other people like you said to the princess?’
‘I will. Just like she said, I don’t want unsavory people to target our people for the sake of this thing. Besides, It's not like we can keep it to ourselves even if we tried. The Formations Guild might lack my knowledge of science but they don’t lack in resources and sheer greed for spirit stones. I have no doubt that they will find some way to brute force a system like my train into existence and claim that I stole their design while it was in ‘development’. Thanks to their reputation, I don’t doubt for a second that the common mortal and even cultivators who are unaware of their true nature would believe their words over ours, causing endless problems for us. Considering all of this, selling our creations for profit is the best course of action. If we can gain the Formation Guild’s cooperation for it? It would be even better since we would gain another avenue for us to safeguard our people.’
‘You have a point. By the way, do you plan to teach Soul Cultivation to the people of your village as well?’
‘I haven’t thought about it. Do you think it wise to reveal such things? Especially with how coveted Soul Cultivation techniques, even Mortal-grade ones, are in this empire?’
‘I think it is worth a try. With both Body Cultivation and Soul Cultivation at their disposal, I think these people would be much more capable of defending themselves if the worst-case scenario does come to pass.’
At his words, I stared at the sky and started to think about the option that Xiang put forth.
In this world, Cultivation is divided into three main paths.
Qi Cultivation is the most popular path which is also known as the Orthodox path. This path mainly focuses on absorbing the Pure Qi of the world and internalizing it into the elemental affinity of the spirit roots of the cultivator in question. The reason for its popularity is the abundance of techniques related to this path and the ease of the process along with the least amount of risk to the cultivator.
Any cultivation path that falls out of this standard is known as the Unorthodox path. Body Cultivation, which focuses on using their spirit roots as nothing more than a storage place of Qi and instead using the elemental Qi to refine the body, and Soul Cultivation, which uses Pure Qi to directly refine the soul of the cultivator and create spiritual channels within the soul for cultivation, are part of this path.
The final path and the one that is despised the most in this world, is the Demonic Path. As the name suggests, this path is made up of cultivation paths that utilize demonic ways of cultivation, such as using the blood, life essence, souls, or cultivation of people other than the cultivator to increase his or her own power. In short, any method that uses cruel methods that harm someone else for the sake of progressing the cultivation of a cultivator is considered part of the Demonic Path.
Each path has its own advantages and disadvantages, however, the Unorthodox paths are viewed with much disdain by the top forces of the continent since they are mostly used by people who could not follow the Orthodox path due to various situations.
And just like everything else, there also exists an exception to such feelings. In the case of the Unorthodox path, it is the Soul Cultivation that falls under such an exception.
Soul Cultivation is something that is highly sought after by every cultivator on the continent despite being a part of the Unorthodox path. This is due to its ability to cultivate the very soul of the cultivator, giving mysterious powers and abilities beyond anything that a cultivator of the Orthodox path can dream of.
However, the problem is that Soul Cultivation methods are extremely rare. So much so that even a mortal-grade technique, the lowest grade possible, would still attract the attention of the top forces on the continent.
Needless to say, teaching something of this magnitude to the people of my village would be nothing short of a disaster, especially since the technique I have is not a Mortal-Grade technique but a Heaven-Grade technique.
‘….i will refrain from teaching Soul Cultivation for now. If the village gains enough power one day to stand on its own without any fear of facing those top forces, then I will teach them that technique. Besides, I don’t think I have the confidence to teach them a technique that even I don’t understand yet.’
‘Hmm, that is a fair reason. Also, I’ve wanted to ask this for a long time but why are you so bad at understanding the concepts of esoteric cultivation techniques like Soul Cultivation and Beast Taming arts when you are so adept at understanding Elemental or Natural arts?’
‘I don’t know, but I have a theory. I think it has to do with the way I’ve lived my life in my old world. The way things work in that world might have hard-wired my brain and thinking process in such a way that I am finding the conceptual and philosophical nature of the esoteric cultivation techniques hard to understand.’
‘I see. Then, we will have to work on that from now on. I can’t have you die a dog’s death after those lofty ideals you spouted out to Jin Tianrui because you were weak.’
‘Hey! I thought we agreed that those words were the result of a brief bout of arrogance originating from my intoxication with my power?’
‘I warned you that your thinking process would be influenced by your power once you reach the Nascent Soul realm, it is your fault for not keeping a firm grip on your mind and spouting such stupid nonsense in the first place.’
‘Fine. Can we talk about something else? How is your cultivation going?’
‘Relatively well. My Soul Cultivation has already reached the equivalent of the Foundation Establishment realm. At this rate, I think it will take about two centuries for me to get back to my peak.’
‘Good. If you can at least reach Nascent Soul realm’s equivalent in Soul Cultivation in the next few years, I can rely on you as the last line of defense for my village in case of a disaster.’
‘….Do you truly trust me with such a responsibility?’
I hesitated for a bit before speaking the truth to Xiang.
‘Honestly? No. I don’t trust you to do something like that, especially with your past as evidence of your nature. However, I believe that everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves and make up for their past mistakes. This responsibility I am giving you? That is your chance to prove me wrong with your actions should the need ever arise. To prove to yourself that you can change from the demon that you used to be and become someone decent enough to be called human.’
Xiang fell silent at my words as I stood up from my spot and headed towards the village.
What I told him is the truth. Even after everything that happened, I still can’t bring myself to trust Xiang fully. I sympathize with the torment he faced in his timeline and I understand the reasons why he did what he did. However, just because I understood his reasons and sympathized with them does not mean I can accept the cruel and monstrous acts he committed in his time.
That is why, I am putting such a responsibility on him now. I am not dense enough to miss the changes that he has been going through in the few years we have been together. I know for a fact that he has grown fond of the village and its people and I know that he will do anything to protect them.
However, I still need to see if the choice is between his own advancement, and his own benefit, against the lives of those in the village, which one he would choose. That is the purpose of putting this responsibility on him.
The only lie I have told him till now is that he will be the last line of defense for the village should something bad happen and I end up dying, in which case he can take control of my body to protect them.
In reality, he is not the last line of defense because I have a few contingencies that I set up during the time when he is usually immersed in cultivation specifically to deal with him should he prove to be unchanging and still look out for his own gain over the lives of my people.
Truthfully, I truly hope that those contingencies never come into play and Xiang proves with his actions that he has truly changed, allowing me to fully place my trust in him. However, it is better to be safe than sorry.
With those thoughts, I walked towards the village where I would once again be bogged down in my work to secure the future of these people that I see as my own.
