The first floor was nothing fancy, just rows upon rows of bookshelves, at the size of a local library.
Wang Qi wasn’t fooled, realizing that each book or record was as valuable as a kingdom.
Most arts of Immortal Alliance’s main sects were present.
“What do you want?” Geng Peng asked with a flat stare.
Wang Qi sucked in a breath. “Senior Divine Expander Fourier’s Thunder Resonance Blade Art.”
“From Myriad Arts Sect, like me.” Geng Peng walked to a bookshelf and looked it over. “Here, part I.”
Wang Qi accepted the manual. Of average thickness, it looked like any other book. Geng Peng said, “The blade art has seven stages. Everything’s in there.’
Wang Qi bobbed his head. The Thunder Resonance Blade Art was one of the rare complete arts on the Arts Archive’s first floor. It was one of the reasons Wang Qi picked it.
As Geng Peng walked him out, Wang Qi gazed with longing at the many bookshelves. Per rules, getting White Marsh True Array Divider required him to win another challenge a month later, but this time against a mid Qi Refining limited teaching assistant.
With his art in hand, Wang Qi skimmed through it, only to frown after a couple pages. “Wha…”
Geng Peng asked, “What, wrong book?”
Wang Qi pulled a face. “This blade art has seven stages, correct?”
“Why then is the first stage taking up half the contents and the second a quarter…” Wang Qi flipped with confusion. “They two make the most of the book, so what about the rest?”
Geng Peng said, “Oh, that. The sixth and seventh stages make up for a single page. The further you go, the shorter they are.
Wang Qi gawked. “So it’s still stronger the further in you go?”
“Yeah. The start has many diagrams as the basis of the blade art. The last two stages are formulas.”
Geng Peng wasn’t phazed. “All Myriad Arts Sect great arts are like that. No matter how many diagrams there are, they can’t convey the full insight of a single formula.” Ṟάℕօ฿ʧ
And there it was, the Fourier Expansion and its variations.
Geng Peng noticed. “Calculations stands at the heart of Myriad Arts Sect, using numbers in arts. You’ll do fine if you’re good with numbers. If not, you’ll never get it.”
Walking out, Geng Peng called out to him. “Do yourself a favor and borrow some average sword arts from the library in your spare time. Go through their formulas and reflect on how to break them. It will be of great help to learning Thunder Resonance Blade Art’s first two stages.”
Wang Qi was shocked. “Why the hell are you being so nice?”
Geng Peng shrugged. “Senior Brother Su would’ve told you anyway.”
Myriad Arts Sect disciples’ attitude made Wang Qi’s skin crawl. He was still out of it even as he walked out. “He’s not an M, is he? How is he so friendly after the beating he took?”
The news of Wang Qi defeating a teaching assistant, at the mid Qi Refining level at that, had spread like wildfire.
The Immortal Institute exploded. Geng Peng spent the next days having to answer dozens of challenges from freshmen. His humiliating fight let them believe he was an easy mark.
Geng Peng was pissed. The challengers thinking he’d be a breeze to overcome couldn’t even make him sweat. It was no wonder none got through him these days.
It took this long for the freshmen to realize Geng Peng was no softy, but a a tough nut to crack. The sudden insight came with another discovery, that Wang Qi was a cut above them.
In Wang Qi’s case, he found himself the target of baffling stares. The most update n0vels are published on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵·𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮·𝓷𝓮𝓽
One time he was at the mess hall…
“Look, look, he’s the genius that beat the teaching assistant!”
“What’s he eating today?”
“Stir-fried pork with yuxiang and rice to go with it! Is it to boost his learning?” (Tamon: yuxiang is a type of Chinese seasoning.)
“Normal cultivation isn’t this savage. Remember his every move.”
“The blending of dishes is sublime. Senior Brother is an expert for sure.”
“What is he reading?”
“A story, The Great De Emperor’s Anecdotes. What’s the moral?”
“The book has to be helping resolve. I has to!”
“Look, he’s flipping through a sword art now.”
“Chicken Butchering Sword Art? Could this shady sword art hold the secret to beating a Myriad Arts Sect cultivator?”
No matter the place or time, the bookworm always had onlookers oohing and ahhing his every move.
This had to be how endangered species felt like under all those ogling. [Awesome!]
Under the scrutiny of all the eyes around, Wang Qi began his next step in cultivation.
The freshmen which earned their great art were exempt from afternoon training classes, free to pick a place and train. Ironically, Wang Qi looked more busy now, with an empty afternoon, then before.
Thunder Resonance Blade Art’s first stage took half the book. It pictured a miniature person as it showcased every move of the blade art. But unlike your average blade art, the Thunder Resonance Blade Art’s diagrams had red curves all over them. Next to the image was the explanation how these curves related with the person’s movements, their intricacies, and how were represented with math.
The second stage built on the first’s foundation, explaining how to link math with the first stage’s blade skills.
From that point on, the pictures were slowly replaced with increasing numbers and symbols, until the final two stages were made of nothing but formulas.
Geng Peng was right, Myriad Arts Sect was based on calculations, using numbers to run their arts. It was fine for a person good with math, while impossible for the rest. Average people would never got beyond the first stage. Math was paramount do advance in this art.
In Wang Qi’s case, the formulas at the back were easy.
Fourier Expansion was one of the most commonly used mathematical instruments on Earth in the fields of physics, as well as the basis for advanced math. Wang Qi had been so immerse in them that the formulas were more his language.
The hard part about this art, to Wang Qi that is, was practicing and remembering the first stage’s moves.
Every single field’s foundation could be summed up into practice makes perfect.
Wang Qi spent his next three months training hard in thi blade art.