Calculating My Way To Immortality

[1%]? What the hell? Wasn't it 100% before? he wondered.

Wait, now that I think about it, I recognize that flower, he thought.

A flower that glows at night and looks just like the moon - that's right, it's the Starfall Blossom.

Although he was a servant, Yu Tian had quite a bit of knowledge about herbs since he worked in the herb garden. Even though their small sect didn't have such rare herbs, he had read plenty about them in the library.

The Starfall Blossom was a flower used by Foundation Establishment cultivators to help form their core when breaking through to the Core Formation realm. Now that he had eaten it, his body was flooded with massive amounts of energy.

Since his body was never trained in qi, he couldn't do anything with all this qi and would probably die of qi poisoning.

But why had the numbers shown one hundred percent? Were the numbers wrong?

It was then that he remembered something.

"It's a loophole," he thought.

He had asked about the chances that he survived after eating the flower. Technically, he had survived - but not for long. You could also argue that he was dying of qi poisoning and not from the flower itself, so the numbers were correct.

It seemed he needed to be more careful with what he asked from then on - if he could survive, that is.

He looked around him.

Because of the qi flowing through his body, his energy had been restored and he could move around. He got up, thinking to himself that he needed to quickly find a solution for his qi poisoning problem, and fast.

But for now, since he had a burst of energy, he needed to first find an isolated place to hide so he wouldn't get attacked by monsters.

He walked quickly, making sure to use his calculation ability to find the safest place from monsters. He also made sure to specify less than half a mile in distance, he didn't want it to guide him to the sect at the moment or to another far-away place he might not be able to reach with his limited time.

Within just five minutes, he noticed that his condition was getting worse.

Even his skin had turned blue.

Luckily, he had arrived at the safest area according to his calculation ability.

He stood before the entrance of a cave.

Slowly, he walked in. It was dark and he couldn't see anything, but he didn't care about that.

He quickly got into a meditative position and focused internally. He thought to himself that although he couldn't handle qi because of his weak body refining cultivation, he could still handle internal energy to some extent.

Internal energy was a weaker form of qi used by martial artists - or rather, body refining cultivators.

Real cultivators preferred not to be lumped together with martial artists.

Since qi was a superior form of internal energy, he might not be able to control it and expel it as well as he could with internal energy, especially considering the sheer amount of energy he had received.

Even so, he should be able to move it somewhat. He hoped this could slow down the qi poisoning process at least, before he could find a more permanent solution.

As he was thinking of this, he suddenly had an idea.

He didn't know if it would work, but he decided to try it anyway.

"What are the chances of qi poisoning if I circulate the qi like this?"

…

Yu Tian's face contorted in pain as he circulated the qi.

He thought to himself that since his qi pathways weren't used to qi, they were being damaged by the process, causing him tremendous pain. But he wasn't going to give up.

Using his calculation ability, he continuously looked for the best possible path to guide his qi through - one that would do the least amount of damage to himself and also avoid qi poisoning. He didn't know if this would work, but he hoped he could really solve the problem like this.

He continued on like this throughout the night, slowly guiding the excess energy through the paths with the highest chances of survival, then recalculating and repeating the process.

As time went on, the strain on his face slowly lessened.

This was partly because he was getting used to the pain of qi tearing through his pathways, and also because the initially violent energy seemed to be calming down as he guided it in circles through the paths with the greatest chances of success.

After another two hours or so, the qi that had initially been so violent - threatening to tear him apart - had become docile.

He opened his eyes. Although he couldn't see due to the darkness in the cave, he felt that his body's pain had lessened considerably.

He wondered if he had solved the qi poisoning problem.

[100%] the number appeared.

He smiled. He really hadn't expected this to work as well as it had.

As he thought of this, he realized something, his body didn't feel as sore as before, and even the ribs that were broken... they had healed.

He couldn't feel the pain from them anymore.

He wondered how that had happened. He hadn't heard of the Starfall Blossom having healing effects. He also thought that his body felt surprisingly lighter. It was then that he realized what had happened.

That's right, he had broken through in body refining. His expression brightened.

"Am I in the fourth layer of body refining?" he asked. The numbers shifted and settled on zero percent.

"I'm not?" He was confused. Then what... his expression suddenly changed. "No way, right?" he wondered. "Am I in the fifth layer of body refining?" he asked.

The numbers shifted once again and settled on one hundred percent.

No way. He had actually broken through two layers in a row? He had been stuck in the third layer of body refining for over three years now. To think that he'd actually breakthrough twice in a single night.

As he was preparing to celebrate, he suddenly felt the qi he had settled in his dantian start to move once again.

"What is it this time?" he wondered, closing his eyes and returning his attention to his dantian. There, he noticed the qi start spinning violently.

It was then that he remembered. How could he have forgotten? The main purpose of the Starfall Blossom wasn't just to provide qi, but also to help build a core.

He wasn't even in the Qi Gathering realm, how was he supposed to build a core that not even elders in the Foundation Establishment realm were confident in?

"What are my chances of surviving if I can't build the core right now?" he asked. Though he already knew the response - the overwhelming qi would probably destroy him from the inside out.

[0%] The response just confirmed his thoughts.