Applied Immortality

Wang Qi had a deranged laughter. Xiang Qi grabbed Li Ziye’s arm, “Senior Brother, did he snap?”

Li Ziye glanced at the raving Wang Qi and sighed, “I’m no Radiant Divinity Pavilion disciple and can’t discern whether there’s a mind affliction.”

“He’s been saying weird stuff all the time.” Zhen Chanzi interjected casually, “He says meditation and cultivating is mind-numbingly boring. The only reason he put up with it is for immortality. Whenever he finds something piquing his interest, he’d relish the process of finding its inner workings. He must think modern cultivation is far more exciting than the old one.” 

Zhen Chanzi was quite the socialite, but to keep his existence a secret, he had to be silent for so long to avoid other cultivators killing Wang Qi, taking the ring. It mattered not if it landed in the hands of a good guy, but if they were evil, he would be doomed. As for these two, they knew of him from the start, making hiding moot.

Xiang Qi snarked, “Did cultivating messed up his head?”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha, old man told me of that rubbish immortal path, but it’s complete and utter shit. It might look nice, roaming around the place, but it’s just a watered-down routine.” Wang Qi said with elation, to put it mildly, “Nothing but a bunch of frogs and shrimps fighting over scraps in a dried up puddle, passing the days looking to be victims of fortunate circumstances. Who has the time to cherish or care about such a life?” 

Zhen Chanzi snapped, “Well excuse me for sharing so much with you. And how do you know cultivators aren’t looking for fate and fortune today as well?”

Wang Qi pointed at the ball of light in the horizon, at the fight between the Great Ascension cultivators, “I have no clue what Immortal Alliance is about, but its name had me guessing all sects are cooperating. And to make four Great Ascension cultivators…”

“Tch, what Great Ascension?” Xiang Qi butted in, “An Unfettered Stage Heavenly Lord is beyond any ancient Great Ascension cultivator.”  

Wang Qi gasped, “Unfettered? The cultivation stages must differ now than back then. Not that it matters. The real issue is that using four Unfettered cultivators to kill another proves the Immortal Alliance either has no real threats, or Unfettered cultivators are a dime a dozen. But Unfettered and Great Ascension stages ought to be the highest stage in either case, right?”

Li Ziye nodded, “It is indeed so. You’ve got quite the insight, Junior Brother.”

Wang Qi expounded his theory, “Since there are no threats yet they band together still, it means united results outweighs personal gain in today’s system. Those Unfettered cultivators mentioned Old Hai, ahem, Daoist Proscribe, has been hiding here since he broke the rules of the Immortal Alliance. This implies there’s a harsh system enforced in the Immortal Alliance, or at least on the surface. It shows that today’s cultivators cooperate long-term, and not just for a quick buck.” 

Li Ziye nodded, “Right again.”

“Since the modern sects aren’t pressed for resources, then with me mooching off, it might just be possible to safely reach immortality.” 

Zhen Chanzi sneered, “Mooch off? Please, you couldn’t even be the laughingstock of the village if you wanted to.”

Xiang Qi mocked, “You’re telling me all cultivators today are so dumb they’ll take on a parasite like you?” 

Li Ziye shook his head, “The sects today aren’t biased for toading eith-, look out!”

Li Ziye winced as his right slapped the box on his back, “Heavenly Sword, rise!”

A sword light then shot from the box and floated above Li Ziye.

The ball of light trapping Daoist Proscribe, Heisenberg, popped like a bubble, with few lights flowing off from the center and one of them just so happened to target Wang Qi.

“Go!” Li Ziye pointed and the Heavenly Sword dazzled like the sun before shooting forth.

————————————————————————

Zhen Chanzi had been observing the Unfettered fight all this time.

Heisenberg had to be better than him since he couldn’t even notice there was such a great expert living in the same village as him for five years now. He had used his spiritual sense these years many times and even taught Wang Qi cultivation, something he was sure the Daoist had to have discovered. 

When he unleashed his spiritual sense to discover the four Unfettered outside the village, they must’ve found him out as well.

That was why he forwent stealth completely, having no qualms in splitting his attention to observe the Unfettered battle.

Just like he predicted, their reactions were to ignore the crippled soul of an ancient Great Ascension cultivator since he couldn’t interfere in the first place.

Now though, he noticed the inscrutable magic treasure of Heisenberg releasing a translucent rectangle to cut the ball of light. His instinct screamed at him and warned Li Ziye, having the highest cultivation here.

Heisenberg’s magical art sent splinters of light in every direction, one coming for Wang Qi.

“Go!”

Heavenly Sword’s glow was blinding, almost burning Wang Qi’s eyes, yet the powerful sword and the incoming light collided in an anticlimactic way. 

Li Ziye’s Heavenly Sword slowly let its dim light cover the skies. Then a crack speared the sky. To Wang Qi’s amazement, the golden sky shattered with a bang, revealing the blue sky once more. 

“W-what was that? How come you struck a barrier?”

Wang Qi knew then that it wasn’t the sky breaking, but a thin screen that had covered his vision. 

Xiang Qi glanced at Li Ziye, curious about this skill.

“Grand Heavenly Chart is the vital magic treasure of Daoist Proscribe.” Li Ziye looked shaken, “Many years back, a Myriad Arts Sect senior created a scrying art to summarize and integrate all the complicated arts, called Way of Alignment, forming a matrix with them. Daoist Proscribe had used the Way of Alignment to unravel a part of the Heavenly Dao. By combining that part with a third level matrix of thousands of arts, running one’s spiritual power through it resulted in incredible power. That must’ve been what ended the battle.”

Wang Qi was dumbstruck, [Shit, the script is totally wacky. This world’s Heisenberg even used the power of matrices?]

“Daoist Proscribe used the Grand Heavenly Chart to break the trap and escape. The four are after him, but he has such odd movements that the four can’t corner him again.

Li Ziye nodded, “Daoist Proscribe is known to have the strangest movements in this world. Even gods couldn’t hope to catch him.”

Zhen Chanzi sounded deflated, “I must be really getting old, for a Golden Core kid like you to be as strong as a Spirit Severing cultivator…” 

“Golden Core!?” Wang Qi gasped, thinking this nice and secretive guy was only a Foundation Establishment cultivator like Xiang Qi.

From Zhen Chanzi’s words, a Golden Core cultivator was like another being, compared to the revered emperors among mortals. Wang Qi once indulged in fantasizing walking among plebs as a Golden Core cultivator just for the delight of stomping faces, yet here he was meeting such a nice Golden Core cultivator instead. 

Li Ziye wiped his brow, “Don’t patronize me, sir. Braving battle, I can take down an ancient Nascent Soul cultivator, but I am nowhere near an ancient Spirit Severing cultivator’s explosive might. That power was all due to the Heavenly Sword.” 

Wang Qi gasped. He thought taking on a Nascent Soul in the Golden Core Stage was a pipe dream, but Li Ziye said it was easy. [Just how developed is the current immortal cultivation world?]

“Those Gre-, Unfettered cultivators were wielding Heavenly Swords as well. Is it a staple magic treasure?”

Zhen Chanzi asked, knowing from experience that common magic treasures were below average.

Li Ziye shook his head, “Heavenly Sword is a flying sword, but special in its own way. I would be happy to tell you everything if you don’t mind the boredom.” 

Zhen Chanzi said, “It’s not like we’re busy.”

Wang Qi was getting pumped thinking of this strange new world and agreed on the spot.

“In the days of the war between modern cultivating sects and ancient ones, some ancient cultivators defected. Among them were those with shallow cultivation and frail Dao Heart. We tried our best to transition them into our current system, but some individuals were deeply rooted in the ancient system. We couldn’t let them grow and neither could we kill them. So we sealed them among mortals, where they ruled as emperors. Their descendants that cultivated became an accepted ethnic group among our modern sects.”

“Seven centuries ago there had been a dynasty, the Great De. Its then emperor, Emperor Xi, was very ambitious. He not only simplified the royal cultivation method to spread among his soldiers but also brought high cultivators under his command. Other nations followed suit and, as a result, the cultivation world lost control over the mortal world, for a time.” 

Zhen Chanzi said, “Cultivation world has a history spanning eighty thousand years. The imperial families of Divine Province are the strongest groups, with many of their bloodlines’ cultivators. This is normal.” 

“But then, Emperor Xi waged a war that engulfed the world. For reasons unknown, he convinced Elusive Palace’s Daoist Proscribe, Heisenberg, Scorching Metal Valley’s  Void Flame Divinity, Otto Hahn, among others, to join him.” 

Zhen Chanzi sighed, “He must’ve been a glorious ruler of his time.”

Xiang Qi shook her head, “He then leaked the identity of demonic cultivators. It’s unknown where he got an ancient demonic cultivator scripture, but did not hesitate to cause chaos so he could fuel his cultivation with the brewing rancor.”

Li Ziye carried on, “He knew that alone, he could not face even one modern Unfettered, and by exposing demonic cultivators, Daoist Proscribe would be the first to make him answer for it. The emperor was very shrewd as well, instigating Daoist Proscribe and the others to forge a cataclysmic demonic weapon. The Brilliance Palace and Elusive Palace have different beliefs and yet their leaders meet. Despite the clashing foundations, they still communicated and exchanged insights. The core of the cataclysmic demonic weapon was a Brilliance Palace Unfettered, Supreme Lord Einstein’s work.

“In his younger years, the Supreme Lord derived to an extreme a small magical art from his cultivation method out of boredom. The Supreme Lord still felt the magical art was too rough, only at a theoretical level. It came as a shock when Nuclear Dharma Fermi cracked it. Dharma knew that this art would backlash and destroy the user. The sword controlling art from the Drifting Cloud Sect was the thing the magical art needed to be used. Star Grasper Von Braun’s innovative flying sword art unleashed the magical art’s full potential. The Supreme Lord sent an urgent letter to the Mei Empire’s Ruler Luo. To safeguard all creation, he gathered Elusive Palace, Star Grasper, Myriad Arts Sect and Drifting Cloud Sect’s remaining cultivators to form the Heavenly Sword Palace and stand against Emperor Xi of De. 

(Tamon: Mei Empire is a pun for United States)

“Heavenly Sword Palace borrowed Mei Empire’s power to gather all the resources in the world. After years of effort, they managed to surpass Emperor De and forged a weapon that unleashed the Supreme Lord’s apocalyptic art. The dawn of the Heavenly Sword shook the highest heavens and the deepest underworld. In just four battles, all were subdued and obeyed its command. Soon after, the real identity of Emperor De was revealed, leading to the defeat and downfall of Daoist Proscribe and the others, putting an end to the great war.

“It came as a great shock when Ruler Luo hada swift demise from cultivation deviation, followed by the treacherous Minister Du seizing power, wanting to monopolize the Heavenly Sword. Heavenly Sword Palace noticed the conspiracy and invited cultivators from far and wide to demand the Heavenly Sword. Du sent troops to besiege them, but a cultivator destroyed the five divisions of Mei Empire. He became known as Five Army Purger. It’s the same Vice Palace Lord Qian we just saw today.”

Zhen Chanzi sighed, “How moving. Kid, isn’t this what you’re interested in? Why haven’t you said a word this whole time?”

Wang Qi stared fixedly at Li Ziye’s Heavenly Sword. Recovering from his stupor, he asked, “Senior Li, your Heavenly Sword… might it be also called, Fat Man, Thin man, or Little Boy?” (Tamon: first and third were the nuclear bomb dropped in the Second World War. The second is a proposed gun for launching plutonium bomb scrapped due to contamination.)  

“Eh?”

Li Ziye’s sharp reaction as a Golden Core cultivator proved unable to tackle with this problem, staring dumbly. As for Wang Qi, he felt like he was struck by the biggest thunderstorm of both worlds. 

[This is fricking Manhattan Project, immortal world style! Have you any goddamn idea what you’re holding there, you nuclear sword immortals?]