Cultivation: I Have Studied Abroad in the Modern World
Chapter 248 - 141 Businessman

Chapter 248: Chapter 141 Businessman

Zheng Fa truly felt that Tang Lingwu’s description was vivid.

Beside him, Old Man Bai kept nodding, adding, "This Tianhe Venerable has some grand vision, what a pity you said the new Tianhe method has already been lost."

"If it weren’t lost, I’m afraid this new method would also have some issues," pondered Zheng Fa. "To my knowledge, the method itself was not perfected."

Tang Lingwu said, "What a shame, to be honest, facing a mountain of shitty code, the best course would be to delete and rewrite..."

Zheng Fa shook his head and sighed, "The problem is, I don’t think he managed to rewrite it..."

According to what Elder Han said, the new Tianhe method seemed to have reached a bottleneck in the end—Zheng Fa guessed inwardly, perhaps like Tang Lingwu, the Tianhe Venerable wished to break and establish anew.

But...

Perhaps it was broken.

Yet not established anew.

"As a matter of fact, this new Tianhe method is quite useful to us..." It was Old Man Bai who spoke from the side, "In the theory of Three Child Talismans, we have always been unable to find a commonality for the third type of sub-talismans."

"This is probably because the creators are different, and perhaps they even drew inspiration from each other."

"If we could erase the God Name Sub-characters, I’d be curious to see if that third type of sub-talisman still exists or not."

Upon hearing this, Zheng Fa thought back to the Spiritual Energy traces he had seen in the soil.

"There doesn’t seem to be any obvious pattern, I will draw it for you later to take a look."

His memory was phenomenal, and he could easily reproduce those traces—though he didn’t hold much hope.

Because those Spiritual Energy traces were far more disorderly than the talismanic diagrams, in Zheng Fa’s view, they likely contained the influence of the Execution of Immortals technique.

While they were discussing, Old Man Bai’s phone suddenly rang.

"Hello?"

"Mu Dao?"

"You want to visit me? Hmm, okay, I’ll ask."

After hanging up the phone, everyone turned their gaze towards Old Man Bai.

"Do you remember that Qigong fanatic I mentioned before?"

"Mu Dao?" Tang Lingwu curiously asked, "Is that his name?"

"He changed it." Old Man Bai said with a laugh, seemingly finding the matter amusing. "His surname is Tang, he went abroad early on and took an English name, Tom. Later, he simply changed his name to Mu Dao."

"That’s quite a coincidence."

"Indeed, he just said he wants to visit us." Old Man Bai looked at Zheng Fa, as if seeking his opinion.

After thinking for a while, Zheng Fa nodded and said, "Now that we have the means to protect ourselves, there’s no need to hide. Let him come if he wants to."

He was, after all, preparing to get the retirement home up and running.

Now that his abilities were complete, should a crisis arise, not to mention anything else, he was confident of at least safeguarding the people before him.

"Alright, then I’ll let him come over and see what he wants." Old Man Bai nodded, "I inquired about this person in the circles a few days ago. Although he is a bit eccentric, he has a good reputation, and there’s no problem with his academic ability—it seems he’s quite established abroad."

After a moment of thought, Old Man Bai added, "It seems he is also the chairman of some sort of international Daoist association..."

...

Zheng Fa didn’t pay much attention to this Tang Mudao.

What he was pondering more about was the issue of Spirit Tree Thunder.

"Now I have practiced a technique called Wind and Thunder Body, which has improved my ability to control magnetic fields—a bit of foundation to study Spirit Tree Thunder is now in place."

In contrast, Old Man Bai sighed softly, "Tian and I have discussed this Spirit Tree Thunder; we really have no clue."

"We all know it involves magnetic fields."

"How strong of a magnetic field?"

"In which direction?"

"For how long?"

"A constant magnetic field or a changing one?"

"You have to know, this time there are no papers to refer to."

What Old Man Bai mentioned was also the biggest issue with Spirit Tree Thunder.

Setting aside Zheng Fa’s control over Thunder Skill.

Their understanding of Spirit Tree Thunder was like blind men feeling an elephant, not even touching it yet.

"I do have an idea." Tang Lingwu spoke up at this time, "Can we start with those new Spirit Talismans that appeared before?"

"Hmm?"

Zheng Fa was taken aback, then he understood Tang Lingwu’s intention and realized, "You mean, since those Spirit Talismans have already turned the pea sprouts into Spirit Plants, we study which of these talismans caused magnetic field changes?"

Tang Lingwu timidly nodded, somewhat unconfidently, "It was just a wild thought while I was recording those Spirit Talismans, maybe they have nothing to do with electromagnetic fields?"

Zheng Fa nodded vigorously, "I think there’s a very strong possibility!"

As Tang Lingwu mentioned, he had a different idea.

In ancient legends, Fusang Wood had a close relationship with the sun—and sunlight is fundamentally an electromagnetic wave.

Although those Spirit Talismans could only transform pea sprouts into Spirit Plants.

But at least there was a direction now!

...

In the laboratory.

Hundreds of talismanic diagram patterns were laid out before Zheng Fa, who was closing his eyes, driving the Spiritual Power within his body according to the Spiritual Energy paths on the diagrams.

There were also several sensitive magnetic field sensors in the distance.

Tang Lingwu was sitting in front of the computer next door, focusing on the sensor signals on the screen.

Of the hundreds of talismanic diagrams, some were utterly useless, not even consuming much of his Spiritual Power.

Yet some had effects that were too obvious!

"There’s a fire!"

Old Man Bai shouted and scurried out, not even glancing back at Zheng Fa.

Zheng Fa quickly released a Frost Blade Talisman, extinguishing the flames in front of him, fortunately, the equipment in the laboratory wasn’t too damaged.

"This isn’t great... This is the third accident to happen."

Tang Lingwu came over from next door, her face full of disappointment.

Zheng Fa nodded along.

This was his first time testing these talismanic diagrams with unknown effects—and he found such actions to be extremely dangerous.

These three times were okay, nobody was hurt.

If it were some wide-ranging powerful talisman—the retirement home might have taken off into the sky.

"Besides the safety concerns, there’s another fatal problem," Tang Lingwu began, "the changes in electromagnetic force—they’re too frequent."

"You mean?"

"Almost every talismanic diagram generates a certain magnetic field,"

Tang Lingwu explained.

Zheng Fa was stunned and immediately understood—practically all energy changes produce a magnetic field...

If it were like the Heavenly Tribulation Thunder and Cloud Rain Thunder, they could certainly ignore some minor magnetic field fluctuations.

But Spirit Tree Thunder is different...

The electromagnetic changes associated with it might be very subtle.

Then the experiments involving these few hundred Spirit Talismans may not be able to rule out any at all...

No wonder Tang Lingwu was so disheartened.

...

As the group slowly exited the laboratory, they all seemed to have no clue what to do next.

"How about we record every single one?"

Old Man Bai suggested.

"That’s not impossible..." Zheng Fa said, frowning slightly, "but... it’s not very safe."

He wasn’t worried about himself.

It was Tang Lingwu and Old Man Bai, the couple in front of him, that he was concerned about.

Of course, there’s also the retirement home that had gradually improved.

"Yes, if the disturbance is too great, it might be noticed down the mountain," Old Man Bai added, also frowning, "No one knows what might happen."

Just as they were at a loss for what to do.

Several trucks suddenly arrived at the entrance of the retirement home.

"Did you buy something again?"

Zheng Fa turned to ask Tang Lingwu.

"No?"

Beside him, Old Man Bai stroked his chin, then suddenly asked Zheng Fa, "Do you know any other wealthy ladies?"

Tang Lingwu’s eyes narrowed instantly.

Zheng Fa felt a bit guilty—for he did know some...

But that’s not right, they’re not in this world!

"Professor Bai!" the driver of the leading truck called from outside, seemingly noticing the large and empty space of the retirement home, he took out his phone to make a call.

"...Seems like the wealthy lady you know."

Zheng Fa fell silent for a moment, then turned to Old Man Bai.

Mrs. Tian, by their side, gripped the shovel in her hand, as if itching to use it.

"It must be a mistake!" Old Man Bai rejected the call on his phone.

"I heard quite clearly, he seems to be calling for you, oh, your phone is ringing again."

Old Man Bai scratched his head, not daring to look at Mrs. Tian, and hurried off to the entrance of the retirement home to talk to the driver. After a brief exchange, he came back.

When he returned, his face was full of confusion.

"What’s going on? Who sent it?"

"That person I told you about before, Tang Mudao."

"Him?" Zheng Fa was a bit surprised, "What did he send?"

"He... sent over some medical equipment."

"Huh?"

Zheng Fa was stunned.

Old Man Bai seemed equally perplexed, taking out his phone to start making a call: "Hello? Mu Dao?"

"Yes, yes, yes, we received it!"

"How can this be, it’s too kind of you to spend so much!"

"It didn’t cost money?"

"Oh, oh, let me ask."

Old Man Bai hung up the phone, a curious expression on his face.

"What’s going on?"

"He says the medical equipment doesn’t cost anything and is just given to our retirement home for our use."

Zheng Fa was taken aback, then asked, "How did he know we didn’t buy that?"

Truthfully, the retirement home didn’t rely on medical equipment, and Zheng Fa really hadn’t acquired much of it.

"He didn’t know," Old Man Bai shook his head, "he just sent it."

"..."

Zheng Fa looked towards the trucks.

The equipment on these trucks seemed to be managed by specialists, apparently here to assist with the installation.

"What should we do?"

Zheng Fa pondered for a moment before shaking his head.

For one thing, this equipment wasn’t really useful; they were just for show.

On the other hand, he wasn’t familiar with Tang Mudao. Regardless of whether the equipment was paid for, it was definitely valuable.

There was no need for it.

Old Man Bai understood Zheng Fa’s intention and nodded, ready to call back.

An SUV rushed to the entrance of the retirement home as if on fire, and a somewhat chubby man got out. After talking to the drivers for a few moments, he waved towards the inside of the retirement home.

"No need to talk over the phone, the man has arrived."

Only then did Zheng Fa realize that this chubby man was Tang Mudao.

He had previously imagined what this Qigong enthusiast might look like, assuming an eccentric individual or perhaps even someone dressed as a Taoist priest.

Unexpectedly, this man had a round face and a smile, looking rather—slick.

Upon entering, he first nodded to Old Man Bai, greeted Mrs. Tian warmly, and carefully shook hands with Zheng Fa, naturally not overlooking Tang Lingwu.

His smile was cordial and enthusiastic, yet without the slightest hint of offense.

Zheng Fa became even more certain—this man was neither a scholar nor a Taoist priest, but rather a businessperson who was slick and savvy.