Calculating My Way To Immortality

Yu Tian held a manual in his hand, inspecting it carefully.

This was the manual Xueling practiced - a sword technique.

The technique was quite complicated and Yu Tian struggled to understand it.

He thought to himself that it was probably a high-grade manual.

The levels of techniques and scriptures, according to her, were divided into basic, low, mid, high, superior, sacred, and finally, divine. One needed enlightenment of equal grade or sometimes maybe just a grade lower to be able to study a scripture or a technique of a certain grade.

Yu Tian's own enlightenment was just basic, meaning he could only study basic methods.

But this wasn't a problem for him. Although he couldn't completely understand the method as it was, he still had his own abilities. As long as he made proper calculations, he could easily decrypt the sword technique and understand it.

He didn't waste time and instantly began the process of decoding the manual.

This was quite harder to decrypt than the earlier low-grade concealment manual, but Yu Tian didn't give up. About two hours later, he was finally able to completely decode the manual into another set of papers that he bound together.

This manual was much smaller than the original but had just the same power - he had merely simplified it while maintaining the core aspects.

Yu Tian sighed. He really needed to improve his mind. If he did, he would be able to decrypt such methods much more easily.

He looked at the decrypted method. Now came the hard part - he wanted to improve the method so it would become even more potent. He began carefully studying how the method worked and how its qi reacted to the body and the sword.

After a few minutes, he understood everything.

He thought to himself that this knowledge could be useful later on, so he should also decrypt other manuals too. This might allow him to easily notice an ability someone was using or have an idea of how it worked and come up with ways to counter.

For improving the technique, Yu Tian didn't want to spend all day on this, so he would simply do a small improvement. Before, when he had helped Xueling cultivate, he had scanned all her body and understood completely how it worked and how her qi circulation functioned.

This method, though powerful, had some vague declarations that were supposed to account for all sorts of people. But he didn't care about that - to him, it was just her who was going to practice it, so he edited it to be more definitive and not vague.

He made it so that all the variables accounted for Xueling's qi pathway composition, energy circulation, as well as her body structure, with a slight margin for error of course.

After this, he already knew there wasn't much he needed to add. Just this alone - eliminating the vagueness in the technique - had boosted the strength by at least three times.

Even so, he decided to add a few elements to it. He remembered the concealment technique from before. Xueling was a berserker type and didn't seem to work well with the concealment technique, but he felt he might have come up with a solution for this.

…

After integrating some aspects he liked from the concealment technique, he was able to make something nice. About four hours had passed since he had begun, and thus he decided to wrap this up. The main sword technique was already complete, but he wanted to make something else too.

This time, it was a method for circulating energy. He decided to make a personalized qi refining scripture for her. Although he'd be helping her with cultivation, if she used this method to refine energy when he wasn't around, it would help her progress much faster than her previous method.

The scripture only took thirty minutes.

He took the manuals he had made, observing them for some time before he finally put them aside. It was time for practice. He hadn't noticed how fast time went by when he was so focused on making the methods.

Even so, he felt it wasn't a loss - he felt he'd learned so much by doing this. He thought to himself that he should do this often.

With that, he closed his eyes and began cultivating his mind.

Inside his mind realm, he saw the tiny speck of light from before. It seemed to have gotten a little brighter. He smiled and began his practice, using the Path to Heaven method.

As he practiced, he felt the light become a little brighter and warmer with each rotation. He was lost in this cycle of constant rotation until he suddenly heard someone's voice, yanking him out of his state.

He slowly opened his eyes. Xueling knelt before him, looking directly at him.

"You're back," he said.

"I came back a while ago... but you seemed too focused, so I decided not to wake you. After taking a shower, you were still like this, so I panicked and tried to wake you," she explained.

Yu Tian looked around. It seemed the sun had already set.

"It's fine. Next time you return and I'm still like this, you should wake me," he said.

She nodded.

At that time, Yu Tian's nose twitched and he turned in a certain direction.

"You noticed?" she asked, getting up and stretching out her hand. "I cooked dinner for us," she said.

Yu Tian took her hand and she pulled him up. "Really? You did? Didn't the servants handle the cooking?" he asked.

"Usually..." she began, "but I wanted to cook for you." She paused for a moment before quickly adding, "As thanks for helping me with cultivation."

"Oh. Then I won't be polite," he said.

The two of them walked to the dining table and ate together while making small talk. After eating, Yu Tian smiled. "Thanks for the meal. It's really good. I don't mind eating like this every day," he said, showing a thumbs up.

She blushed. "Don't mind?" she spoke quietly. "In that case... do you want me to cook for you every day?" she asked.

"Huh?" Yu Tian asked. He then waved his hands. "It might be too much work..." he began.

"I... I don't mind!" she shouted, standing and slamming her hands on the table, surprising him with her enthusiasm. "I mean..." she then became bashful again, "it's not that much work."

"Alright then," he said.

…

Author's Corner

"I don't mind eating like this every day" and "do you want me to cook for you every day?" could be considered a marriage proposal but I doubt that's what they mean.