Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex failed to understand the meaning of that which he was looking at.

The world below him looked not much different from the other worlds he had seen from outer space, with them mostly appearing as a giant piece of floating rock where one side of it was flat, allowing for an atmosphere to gather atop it and for life to settle within it.

The Land of the Blessed Sun was larger than all of them, but it still looked the same.

Except, the surface of this world was not flat like all the other ones. This one had enough of a curvature to it that it was easily noticeable from outer space.

That meant, the surface of this world wasn't uniform like all the other ones. This meant that the day wasn't the same either. If the sun were to still shine on the western end of this world, the eastern end would most likely have been swallowed by shadows long ago.

The curvature made sure it did.

"What… what is going on?" Pearl asked from the side as he too looked down at the world too. "Why is it not completely flat?"

"Why indeed," Bai Jingshen asked, walking closer to the two. He looked down beside them as well, seeing the side profile of the world, with the curved surface easily visible.

He turned to Alex who still hadn't said anything yet. "What do you think?" he asked.

Alex finally turned his head away from the sight. "What?" he asked, taking a moment to gather himself, the words registering a moment later. "What do I think?"

Bai Jingshen nodded.

"I… I don't know," Alex said.

But he did know. Or at least there was something that his mind hinted at that his thoughts refused to go to. The thought itself seemed absurd to Alex.

"You have something right before you," Bai Jingshen said. "What do you think would happen if you were to keep expanding it in the same way?"

"Expand?" Alex asked.

"What if this world were even larger? How do you think it would look?" he asked.

Alex turned back with a frown. If the Land of the Blessed Sun were to be larger, then it would just be the same world with a larger size, wouldn't it?

At least, that was his first thought.

As soon as he thought that, his other thoughts surfaced immediately, added on with a knowledge that his mind still hadn't fully gone to.

"Do you… do you mean to say that the curvature would be steeper?" Alex asked. "At that point, the surface couldn't even be remotely considered flat."

Bai Jingshen nodded slightly. "Increase that further to a point where it can't be increased further. What will you get?"

The thoughts that Alex hadn't let surface finally did.

"A planet," he said slowly with a frown. "You spoke of a world my people came from, one where the entire thing was a sphere, didn't you? There are other worlds out there, weaker worlds, that have long since become the same. Are you saying that the Land of the Blessed Sun is starting to do the same? Is it starting to curve because it too is starting to become a planet?"

Alex's face was the most sincere it could have been in that moment when he asked that question, so much so that Bai Jingshen couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"You're thinking of the correct thing, but you're moving in the wrong direction," he said. "I asked you to consider the Land of the Blessed Sun being larger so that you truly do imagine it larger."

Alex frowned. "Hmm? I don't understand," he said. "I already said how it would look if it were larger. Like a planet, right?"

"Not like. It would be a planet," Bai Jingshen said. "A spherical world where everyone lives on the surface all throughout the world, and not just one side."

"So?" Alex asked, still unable to make sense of Bai Jingshen's words.

"If I were to ask you to make that giant planet you envision a reality, how would you make that happen?" Bai Jingshen asked.

"I don't understand," Alex said in a frustrated tone. "How would I make anything happen?"

He turned back toward the world. "Are you asking me how to turn this into a planet? Or are you asking me to make it larger? In either case, I don't think anything can be done."

"That's not fun," Bai Jingshen said. "Come on. It's just a hypothetical. If you could do anything you wanted to, how would you turn this world into a planet I asked you to imagine?"

"The planet?" Alex asked. "I don't know. You don't have enough land to make it real. You would have to somehow create more land to add to the edges, and the amount of Qi that would need is—"

"No Qi," Bai Jingshen said.

"No Qi? But you said anything was possible," Alex said.

"Sadly, there's not enough Qi to make such a thing happen, so try and come up with an answer that doesn't involve a lot of Qi," Bai Jingshen said.

Alex frowned. "Then… there's no way, is it?" he said. "The only way to add more land is with Qi. That or… you add actual land to it. But where would you even get more land?"

Bai Jingshen waited.

Alex paused for a second, hearing his own words. "If… if we were to add land on either side, piece by piece…"

"Go on," Bai Jingshen prodded.

"There are some floating rocks in space, but it won't be large enough," Alex said. "Most giant lands instead are with the other worlds, and I don't know how you could add those here."

Bai Jingshen smiled further. "You know how. You just don't want to believe it."

Alex narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying we should steal land from the other worlds to add here?"

"You're thinking too small," Bai Jingshen said.

Alex frowned for a moment before his eyes widened slightly. "No, that can't be possible. Surely you don't mean to put the many worlds themselves side by side to this world to amass enough land in order to form a planet, do you?"