Cultivation: I Have Studied Abroad in the Modern World
Chapter 162 - 62 Research

Chapter 162: Chapter 62 Research

For Zheng Fa, the ultimate purpose of cultivating the "Spirit Mountain Technique" was not for making money or achieving a high status, but for research.

It was not only about creating a spiritual energy environment through the cultivation of the "Spirit Mountain Technique".

Just considering the practice of the "Spirit Mountain Technique" itself, he also regarded it as a very important experiment.

Zheng Fa felt as if he had become one with Rainbow Mountain through two spirit talismans, forming a massive cycle.

The spiritual power in his dantian, following this mysterious connection, flowed into Rainbow Mountain, and from there through the veins of the mountain back into his dantian.

When departing, the spiritual power in his dantian had been condensed for a long time and was extremely dense, like mercury.

And when this spiritual power returned to his dantian, it had transformed into cloud mist, or rather, it had become spiritual energy.

Zheng Fa carefully observed this phenomenon.

For the people of the Xuanwei Realm, absorbing spiritual energy and converting it into spiritual power was a natural occurrence.

But Zheng Fa, who had received modern education, always asked one more question than the people of the Xuanwei Realm—why can spiritual energy transform into spiritual power?

What’s the difference between spiritual power and spiritual energy?

Actually, he already had a crude hypothesis, which could be expressed as:

Spiritual Power = Spiritual Energy + Divine Soul + motion trajectory determined by meridians

This wasn’t really a hypothesis, but rather a rough summary of his cultivation process—essentially, cultivation in the Xuanwei Realm involved absorbing spiritual energy, then leading it along certain meridians with the divine soul, and finally storing it inside the body.

This hypothesis wasn’t difficult itself, but Zheng Fa felt it was very important—if he could understand this, then he could essentially see through the nature of various cultivation techniques in the Xuanwei Realm.

Even to go a bit further, he could even say he was exploring the essence of cultivation.

And by further contemplating, Zheng Fa might even be able to create the most suitable cultivation technique for himself through this exploration of the essence—just like discovering that magnets generate electricity could lead to the attempt to build a generator.

Now, cultivating the Spirit Mountain Technique was a way to verify this hypothesis—by observing how his spiritual power transformed back into spiritual energy, he could understand whether his ideas were partially correct.

To Zheng Fa’s surprise, the spiritual energy formed in his dantian indeed was no longer controlled by his divine soul and lacked the effortless sense of command.

That is to say, compared to spiritual power, spiritual energy lacked his divine soul, which somewhat verified his idea.

Even through the Spirit Mountain Technique, Zheng Fa could derive another equation:

Spiritual Energy = Spiritual Power - Divine Soul + motion trajectory determined by spirit veins.

He opened his eyes, his gaze containing some joy.

Although it was just a small validation of a simple hypothesis, achieving such a result at the beginning of practicing the "Spirit Mountain Technique" made him quite pleased.

"What’s the matter? Did it work?"

Seeing him smile, Old Man Bai quickly asked.

Whether Zheng Fa could successfully cultivate the "Spirit Mountain Technique" was a significant matter for both of them.

Zheng Fa’s eyes gleamed with a silver light as he looked around.

By analogy, in the "Spirit Mountain Technique," Zheng Fa’s role was much like a power source, and the Rainbow Mountain range was like a large circuit board—responsible for converting spiritual power into spiritual energy.

He was currently at the seventh level of Qi Cultivation; the spiritual energy he could convert was extremely sparse, affecting only an area less than ten meters in radius.

This was also normal.

According to the records in the "Spirit Mountain Technique," the spiritual energy environment created at the seventh level of Qi Cultivation was only sufficient for a few people to cultivate, and at most, it could only cultivate up to the first level of Qi Cultivation...

But for now, for Old Man Bai and others at the beginner level, it was enough.

"Don’t you guys feel the change?"

Old Man Bai shook his head blankly, glancing around: "No change."

"There is a change." Tang Lingwu suddenly spoke: "My cellphone just lost its signal, and now it’s turned off."

Zheng Fa was startled, and he also took out his own phone.

His phone screen was also black, as if some unknown malfunction had occurred.

He looked at Old Man Bai.

Old Man Bai was holding his cell phone, also shaking his head at him.

"Does spiritual energy interfere with electronic devices?"

Zheng Fa frowned and said.

"Not just interference; if it were merely interference, it would generally manifest as signal anomalies." Old Man Bai shook his head and said, "This is a shutdown, like even the circuits inside due to the spiritual energy have encountered some problems."

At this point, Zheng Fa recalled his previous doubts.

If it’s said that the mathematics development in the Xuanwei Realm seems a bit preposterous, it’s because it’s not intuitive enough.

Then electromagnetic induction itself is quite intuitive—especially for cultivators proficient in Thunder Skills.

Their sensing abilities are extremely strong, and they can also control a sufficient amount of electrical energy.

Even by coincidence, as long as they practice Thunder Skills near metals, they could also notice the magnetization phenomenon of the metals.

Now, it seems it might still be the fault of the spiritual energy.

Thinking of this, Zheng Fa couldn’t help thinking of what Zhuang had said about spiritual energy being the poison of the world.

It unexpectedly fits somewhat uncannily.

Of course, even if the cultivators of the Xuanwei Realm noticed this phenomenon, whether they would start an energy revolution—Zheng Fa also felt they wouldn’t.

Spiritual energy is too convenient.

"This matter, is also not bad." Old Man Bai thought for a moment and said: "At least we don’t have to worry about someone using electronic devices to spy on us."

Zheng Fa nodded, looking at Old Man Bai, who was brimming with anticipation, and knew the old man was getting impatient.

He went back to his own room and took out five books from his suitcase.

"Chi Xiao Technique," "Green Water Spell," "Chang Chun Skill," "Geng Metal Skill," and "Yellow Earth Skills."

These were all the beginner cultivation techniques available to disciples within the Jiushan Sect.

Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth—Zheng Fa had chosen one technique for each of the Five Elements.

The primary selection criterion was—safety!

To translate the most annotated, the most meticulous in cultivation techniques, it is difficult to go astray.

"This is?"

"Everyone, try one by one, and practice the one you can absorb the fastest."

The reason for using such a clumsy method is because he didn’t have the means to measure Spirit Roots for Old Man Bai’s duo—this is the hardship of being a pioneering master in modern times.

In some ways, modern times are like an enhanced version of the decline of the Spiritual Mechanism in Xuanwei Realm.

No Spirit Plants.

No Spirit Stones.

Not to mention all kinds of measures that have long been common in Xuanwei Realm.

On the other hand, starting from scratch and developing a small cultivation civilization allows Zheng Fa to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the Immortal Dao.

Up to now, Zheng Fa still doesn’t know what exactly Spirit Roots are.

He has some of his own thoughts—the decisive factors in the process of transforming Spiritual Energy into Spiritual Power are two, the first, of course, is the Divine Soul, and the second is the trajectory of Spiritual Energy determined by the meridians.

That thing, Spirit Root, is probably related to this trajectory.

As for what the relationship is, Zheng Fa needs some additional evidence.

Old Man Bai and his peer exchanged glances and each picked a script.

Old Man Bai chose "Yellow Earth Skills."

Tang Lingwu picked "Chang Chun Formulas."

Both frowned as they flipped through the books.

These are Cultivation Techniques from Xuanwei Realm, somewhat difficult to comprehend for modern people.

Some concepts in there are relatively foreign to most people.

"I’ll start teaching you, it’s always hard at the beginning."

Zheng Fa had foreseen these issues; he approached them, took the two books, and began guiding their cultivation.

Fortunately, compared to others, both had practiced "Spiritual Crane Body," providing them some foundation.

But some terminologies within this cultivation technique also needed slow explanations from Zheng Fa.

Zheng Fa, fearing their initial practice might encounter issues, explained both books very patiently.

To his surprise—Old Man Bai seemed quite adept.

Many terminologies—like meridians, meditation, and diaphragmatic breathing—were quite familiar to him.

"Am I being dumb?"

Tang Lingwu looked at Zheng Fa with a somewhat disheartened gaze.

Zheng Fa shook his head, also puzzled—Tang Lingwu certainly wasn’t dumb; his own initial learning didn’t outperform hers by much.

He looked at Old Man Bai, his eyes filled with deep thought.

"What have you been reading recently?"

"Cough." Old Man Bai scratched his head, slightly embarrassed about being discovered: "Just read a few Daoist scriptures."

Tang Lingwu’s look at Old Man Bai changed, slightly resembling how Wang Chen used to look at Zheng Fa—You’re surprisingly diligent!

...

When it came to actual cultivation, Zheng Fa became even more certain—this old man had practiced before!

His posture in meditative sitting was extremely standard.

He entered the cultivation state much faster than Tang Lingwu.

This inevitably made Tang Lingwu slightly anxious.

Old Man Bai was somewhat embarrassed and comforted Tang Lingwu: "When I’ve mastered it, I’ll share the tricks with you!"

Zheng Fa’s strategy was to have both try five different cultivation techniques.

Then use "Void Spirit Eye" to observe their speed of absorbing Spiritual Energy.

Thereby picking out the technique they cultivated the fastest.

To Zheng Fa’s relief, both could successfully absorb Spiritual Energy.

This indicated that both of them possessed what’s called Spirit Roots.

But to Zheng Fa, the issue of Spirit Roots wasn’t about having or not, but rather the quality.

After testing around, he found that Old Man Bai was most compatible with "Yellow Earth Skills," meaning he absorbed the most Spiritual Energy when practicing it.

And Tang Lingwu, she had a good initial pick, "Chang Chun Skill" was extremely suitable for her constitution.

Really extremely suitable...

Seeing Tang Lingwu’s speed in absorbing Spiritual Energy, Zheng Fa meaningfully glanced at Old Man Bai—He presumed Tang Lingwu’s speed was that of someone with a Single Spirit Root.

That is to say, she was a genius!

The two gradually immersed in cultivation, Zheng Fa watched closely, also afraid the two beginners might encounter any issues.

After a while, Old Man Bai slowly opened his eyes and excitedly said to Zheng Fa: "Zheng Fa, I cultivate ’Yellow Earth Skills’ indeed faster than the other four techniques! I feel like I’ve already cultivated a trace of Spiritual Energy."

Zheng Fa placed his finger on his lips, signaling him to look at Tang Lingwu.

Tang Lingwu currently had a small vortex of Spiritual Energy above her head, as if advancing.

Old Man Bai was stunned, looking at Tang Lingwu, his expression very similar to how Wang Chen now looked at Zheng Fa—Why the difference?

...

Xuanwei Realm.

Zheng Fa had just written his various thoughts on cultivating "Spirit Mountain Technique" on paper.

Suddenly, Senior Sister Yuan burst in.

"Junior Brother Zheng!" Her face was panicked: "Junior Master Huang sent a message, Chang Chun Sect has been annihilated, Senior Sister Zhang is missing, the other disciples ambushed!"