Applied Immortality

“You still have the Worldly Detachment defense on you. By tapping five cultivation cards, I activate Elec-Mag Crossbow.” 

Wang Qi mulled hard and then struck at Su Junyu.

Worldly Detachment, a magical art derived from the Celestial Hymn Odyssey, relied on some abstruse electromagnetic field to interfere with melee magical arts and turn them into a mass of spiritual power, forming a defense. It had a rarity of five in Cultivation the Gathering.  

The Elec-Mag Crossbow was a Thunderous Pavilion magical art, a crossbow made of electricity and a string of magnetic field that released a metal object—the railgun on Earth. The card this time had a rarity of 3, however, it did physical damage, bypassing Worldly Detachment’s effect.

Su Junyu smiled, “I fell right in my trap. Arrow Catching Art!”

Arrow Catching Art’s concept was ancient, a cultivator’s answer to arrow martial arts. Due to Myriad Arts Sect’s mad scientists, they took it to the level of Dao. The arrow part no longer meant a literal arrow or a thrown weapon, but a vector! The card had a rarity of eight with a real value between 7 and 9, relying on the user’s calculation and abstracting skills. 

The first effect of Su Junyu activating Arrow Catching Art was reflecting damage. Wang Qi saw five of his flames burn out with a twitch of his mouth.

[There’s no way for a railgun to beat vector change, is there?]

“Hey, isn’t it a waste using an eighth rarity card against a third rarity…”

Wang Qi glanced at Su Junyu’s magical art zone, where the continuous art Worldly Detachment was active, as well as the special support card Cosmic Calculation. The rarity seven card had no particular effect but was a prerequisite to using other intricate Myriad Arts Sect magical arts. Su Junyu had just activated rarity seven Cosmic Pathweaving, rarity eight Arrow Catching Art, and rarity nine Eon Light… 

Wang Qi felt a vein pop on his forehead, throwing his cards on the table. “I’m done! It’s not fair playing against such a rarity-loaded deck!”

Su Junyu disdained, “You’re talking like you might win if switched decks.”

“As much as it pains me to admit it…” 

White Marsh Algorithm Su Junyu cultivated was tailor-made for playing the card game, ahem, at least Wang Qi never saw the storage building cooped-up card fanatic ever use the value 7 cultivation method for anything else. In any case, with just the White Marsh Algorithm, the guy could abuse the hell out of even a basic deck. 

Due to Teacher Xiong being out tribulating and about, the last class of the morning, Basic Flying Sword Theory, switched to Origin Force Introduction—i.e. basic mechanics. The senior high school to college mechanic subjects were more like a nice nap for Wang Qi. 

With the crawling noon finally arriving, Wang Qi rushed for the mess hall before looking for Su Junyu in the Immortal Institute storage building to play cards. It didn’t hurt to broaden his awareness of immortal cultivation with countless trivialities sprinkled among Su Junyu’s endless bragging either. 

Speaking off, Wang Qi didn’t come here just to get his ass handed to him. He cultivated Divine Hexagram Computation to the beginner level and had dozens of acupoints with yin-yang diagrams, multiplying his computational skills. Which, in turn, was needed to cultivate Divine Hexagram Computation. 

While theory said that Go and other similar games were the best to boost training in Divine Hexagram Computation, Wang Qi had yet to find a partner. As such, he and Su Junyu got closer. 

“Brother Su, is it a piece of cake for a modern cultivator to pass tribulation?” Wang Qi asked about today’s event.

Su Junyu gathered his cards, giving a casual reply, “Depends on the tribulation. How do you pass them with ancient methods?”

“There’s a tribulation for forming a Golden Core, when the Nascent Soul breaks out of the core, when the Spirit Severing comes to be, and Unity combines body and spiritual power.”

“Well, modern cultivation is different. There’s one before reaching Primordial Spirit from Golden Core, and another from Primordial Spirit to Emptiness. Using Thunder Cell against the two lightning tribulations is enough. However, the intensity, type, and amount of the Nirvana tribulation varies from person to person. You’ll find no help with it.” 

Wang Qi quirked an eyebrow, “Why?”

Su Junyu placed the cards in a holder, “Do you know the theory behind lightning tribulation?”

At Wang Qi’s shake of the head, he continued, “A cultivator is a spiritual power field. I don’t need to explain field as well, do I? The termination effect appears when a strong spiritual power field interferes with the natural circulation of spiritual energy and elements between heaven and earth. The system is in constant balance, making it so it compensates whenever a disturbance appears to cancel it out. The intricacies of Nirvana tribulation are complex, a subject only higher cultivators would encounter. I can’t tell you about it.”

[Does it look like you don’t know?] Wang Qi quipped in his mind.

Finishing with the last of his cards, Su Junyu focused on Wang Qi, “Do you know which teacher underwent tribulation?”

“Xiong Mo.”

Senior Aunt gasped, “Him? Senior Uncle Xiong of Spirit Beast Mountain?”

“Yeah, don’t you find it odd for a Spirit Beast Mountain cultivator to hold a Drifting Cloud Sect’s theory class… Hey, Brother Su, what’s with that face?”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Senior Uncle Xiong has broad knowledge in many areas, even understanding a bit of Radiant Divinity Pavilion and Scorching Metal Valley’s employed forces, ha-ha-ha.”

[Fishy.] Su Junyu’s reaction cemented Wang Qi’s guess, “So the wretched uncle loves boys, eh?”

Su Junyu blinked, “What on earth gave you that idea?”

“From your weird face.” Wang Qi patted Su Junyu’s shoulder, “Running into such an unwritten rule, ahem, it’s fine, it’s not your fault.”

Su Junyu felt like crying, “Shove it! Now I’m worried about my mental health value dropping.”

Mental health value, akin to Lu Renjia Quantization, was a concept Lord White Marsh came up with. Its main use was to examine a person’s mental state. But due to the sheer complexity of the human psyche, it was not a common concept like Lu Renjia Quantization, to say nothing of having a game after it.

Wang Qi rubbed his chin, “You clearly don’t have that hobby, so why the reaction?”

Su Junyu shook his head, “It’s revolting. Just knock yourself out by checking the All-immortal Realm. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

[That bad?]

Wang Qi left the storage building with increased curiosity about the fresh Emptiness cultivator from Spirit Beast Mountain.

Immortal Institute’s yearly groups of disciples were around a thousand. Due to Wang Qi having arrived before June when the disciples were yet to join a sect, the afternoon classes were packed with two thousand people. The two thousand disciples were divided into 24 groups, each guided by three Foundation Establishment cultivators. 

Wang Qi was part of a group made up of the very best freshmen. Aside from him, there were only nine other Qi Refining cultivators, with six of them relying on modern cultivation to get to Qi Refining through Reaching Heaven while the other three picked up ancient legacies.

The eighty or so people were under a blue-robbed cultivator’s supervision as they practiced Basic Swordplay III.

Just mentioning the sword arts and fist arts he learned the past days was enough to drain Wang Qi of even the mood to diss. Basic Swordplay I, Basic Swordplay II, Basic Swordplay III, Basic Swordplay IV, and on and on. Basic Fist Art classes weren’t much different either. One could actually feel the obvious disinterest in the creator when naming these things.

Zhen Chanzi was alone in his amazement of them, something about the young surpassing the old. “What do you know? Can a fancy name put food on the table? The sword arts here contain every single way a sword could be wielded while also training all your muscles, bones, and meridians. The same goes for the fist arts. They are great for learning more advanced sword arts in the future.” 

Zhen Chanzi’s cultivation experience aside, one should give credit to his wisdom… well mostly. As such, Wang Qi put some effort into practicing these lame-named arts. 

However, another huge problem plagued Wang Qi in particular when he engaged in sword practice. The cultivation methods within him were still at odds, and the practice worked to drive his spiritual power, a trigger to a catastrophic deviation. He was left with no choice but to divide his focus on diffusing the disaster within while practicing.

The odd situation was plain to see in the eyes of their Foundation Establishment instructor. “Wang Qi, come over.”