Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion

Her first priority was to melt the ice.

Qian Shanyi placed all the treasures from the four fire nodes on top of the frozen water nodes. The fire treasures heated up as the abundant water-type spiritual energy in the air surged into them, and sank into the ice, releasing clouds of steam. As the water-type spiritual energy in the air was turned into fire-type, the temperature in the world fragment slowly started to go up.

Of course, this process massively worsened the local feng shui, but this was a temporary sacrifice.

While she waited for all the ice to melt, she started to dig out new trenches. The chiclotron would only require a small modification to deal with the icing problem: by moving the fire and water nodes close together, they should balance out each other’s temperatures.

The physical labor kept her warm, though the hungry void in her stomach reminded her that at this point, she was burning her own body to move.

She dug the new holes in pairs, with only a foot and a half in between them, and connected them to the corresponding earth, metal and wood nodes. To make sure the spiritual energy wouldn’t flow directly through the shared wall, she cut off large sections from the spool of Silvered Devil Moth Silk, and used them to line the walls of the new nodes.

By the time she finished digging, the ice had already melted, and the treasures were submerged in a pool of tepid, muddy water. Qian Shanyi stripped down, and took the opportunity to wash herself off encrusted blood as she waded through the water to get the treasures out. She didn’t think her overall cleanliness improved as a result, but at least her hair wasn’t encrusted into a single solid block of dried blood.

Once the fire and water treasures were moved into their new holes, and new covers were installed over the entire system, the new chiclotron was finally complete. She rested down on the grass, her shovel sword stabbed into the ground on one side, and drank spirit wine. Her robe laid on the grass nearby: she figured she would wait for herself to dry off before putting it back on.

Wine was a terrible source of calories. It barely contained any nutrition, and on top of that, drinking on an empty stomach would harm your body. Unfortunately, it was either the wine, starving, or trying her chances by eating the monster egg. Given how her luck was as of late, she wanted to put that off for as long as possible.

As she finished the bottle, she realized she forgot to take her medicine after she woke up. She closed her eyes, and rubbed her forehead. She really should finish that clock.

“Well, nothing to it,” she mumbled, “I am a cultivator. If I can’t even practice while drunk, how could I expect to reach the heavens?”

She got up off the ground, and stumbled over to where her makeshift clock was, popping another Big Mo’s tablet on the way. Her head buzzed: she hadn’t eaten anything in a couple days, and the spirit wine was quite strong. At least it kept the pain in her body at bay.

She set the clock up again, put a ladle under it, and started practicing to time how long it took to fill it. As spiritual energy circulated through her body, her head cleared up a bit, and she felt much better.

It took just shy of seven rounds of practice to fill the ladle up. This meant it took about twelve and a half minutes: a nice fifth of an hour per ladle. Qian Shanyi stopped, and picked up the bottle. She poured the water out of the ladle, then carefully re-filled it from the bottle, and marked the new level of water with her sword. A neat row of sixty marks soon appeared on the bottle’s side: if her math was right, it should fully drain in about twelve and a half hours.

Qian Shanyi put the bottle back in its stand, went over to her makeshift bed and flopped down on it. As her eyes slowly closed, she smiled. Despite the universe’s best attempts to kill her, she wasn’t going to die today.

She fell asleep and slept for twelve hours straight.

When Qian Shanyi woke up, she felt a lot better. Good feng shui of the world fragment, rich spiritual energy in the air, and medicine in her belly all combined to accelerate her healing beyond what was normally possible. Her entire body was still bruised and sore, but the skin had already started to heal up, and the swelling almost completely went away.

Before getting up, she carefully channeled spiritual energy into her leg. Her shin had also started to heal, bone fragments joining together in a couple spots. She knew that the fracture planes would instantly shear again if she pushed on them with even a single finger, but the progress was encouraging. She pushed more spiritual energy into the bone, pulled all the loose fragments into place, and quickly changed her splint.

She finally got up from her bed, stretched, and headed towards her clock. When she got there, she saw that the bottle was a bit more than halfway empty: by the marks, this meant she slept for about seven and a half hours.

She frowned. It definitely felt longer.

As she stared at the clock in thought, she noticed that it was dripping slower.

It only took her a moment to realize her mistake. The lower the level of water in the bottle, the lower the dripping speed: this meant that her clever idea of graduating the entire bottle by using a cup was completely wrong.

She sighed. Well, it’s not like she had something better to do.

She quickly built another water clock out of the second wine crate and put the two side by side. Her idea was simple: first, she would use her practice to mark the second clock explicitly - In her current state, she could perhaps last for about an hour. Then, once she got too tired to cultivate, she could use the second clock to time the first clock, marking it all the way down the side by refilling the second clock when it ran out of markings.

Before beginning her practice, she took another medical pill, and drank a bottle of spirit wine. If she was going to regain the calories she lost digging ditches, she would need to drink more than one bottle per day, and at least practicing should keep her head clearer.

As she moved through the stances of the Seven Flowers Bloom, her sword cut through the air with a swish. Dense spiritual energy was attracted to her body, and sucked inside through the 40 000 spiritual pores on her skin. As the spiritual energy circulated through her body, she felt her constitution slowly improving.

It seemed that she had overestimated herself: after a mere forty minutes, her limbs gave in to exhaustion, and she only barely avoided collapsing. Shaking her head, she slowly sat down on the ground, and turned her senses inwards.

The bodies of cultivators in the refinement stage were not fundamentally different from the bodies of regular people. They still relied on their muscles and bones to move around, and their organs still functioned in much the same way. Of course, every aspect of their body was continually strengthened and improved by spiritual energy, but the basic structure remained the same.

Spiritual energy circulated around the cultivator’s body and soul through a complex network of channels called “meridians”. This meridian network was as complex as the network of blood vessels pumping blood around your body, and for many of the same reasons. Where blood vessels had arteries and veins that branched off into capillaries, the meridian network had primary meridians that branched off into secondary and minor meridians.

The body and soul contained separate meridian networks: for example, the body had twelve primary meridians, while the soul had only eight. These two networks connected to one another at various points, allowing the spiritual energy to freely flow between them.

The meridian network of regular people was filled with impurities, preventing the flow of spiritual energy, and all connection points between their body and soul were similarly blocked. Spiritual energy could clear these blockages, but until enough of them were gone, it could not circulate through the meridians in the first place. Only once some of them were dislodged by luck could a regular person step on the path of cultivation.

Cultivation techniques, when practiced by a cultivator, would forcibly circulate spiritual energy through their network of meridians at great speed, eroding and removing impurities, strengthening and expanding the meridians, refining their body and soul, building muscles and fortifying bones. This is why the first realm of cultivation was called the “refinement stage”. A cultivator in this stage was refining their body, soul and the meridian network in much the same way that a refiner refined weapons or armor.

As Qian Shanyi looked over her meridian network, she was very impressed. Spiritual energy in this world fragment was much denser than what she was used to, and its quality greatly improved after she resolved the feng shui problems. This one hour of cultivation cleansed her meridians better than a good week of practice back at the sect.

She wished she could push herself more and keep cleansing her meridians, but her current body just could not take it. If she tried, she might hurt herself.

For a moment, she wondered if she even wanted to get out of this world fragment, if the benefits of cultivating here were this good.

Well. She would starve to death if she didn’t, but aside from that…

She slowly opened her eyes. She had a full day of keeping watch on the clocks ahead of her, with nothing else to do.

She couldn’t wait for her body to fully heal up.

It took less than a minute for her to get thoroughly bored of watching the water drip. Instead, she brought over the books and scrolls from the treasure pile, and decided to review them. From the titles, she was guessing that they recorded cultivation techniques.

Techniques and cultivation laws were some of the most closely kept secrets in cultivation. Even a single good combat technique could massively increase the power or versatility of a cultivator, and conversely, knowing the details of the techniques of your enemies would grant you a significant edge in a confrontation. Of course, not all techniques were related to combat: many of them were dedicated towards growing spiritual plants or rearing demon beasts, refining artifacts, establishing defensive formations, or helping cultivators advance to a new realm. These were often known as “money-making techniques”, as even a single one could bring a sect from obscurity to the heights of wealth and power.

All together, there were four books and seven scrolls. She hoped that among them there would be a legendary sword technique, or an energy recirculation technique suited towards her cultivation. If not that, she could settle for a good money-maker technique, and hope to simply purchase combat techniques later on.

One of the books and three of the scrolls were in languages she didn’t understand, so she put them aside. The others were written in a somewhat archaic dialect, but were still understandable.

She decided to go through the books first.

First one she picked up was shaped like a brick - only the size of her palm, but very thick, written in tiny characters. Its cover was a brilliant red, with gold lettering pronouncing it as “Dao of the Clashing Wings of the Vermilion Bird”. As Qian Shanyi skimmed it, she quickly realized it was a full set of fire-type cultivation techniques that could take a cultivator all the way to the golden core realm. She did not have the skills needed to evaluate the quality of the work, but the spiritual energy circulation diagrams certainly seemed very impressive - much more complex than those of her own Seven Flowers Bloom.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if you could establish a minor sect on the power of this one cultivation law alone. Unfortunately, as she had Metal affinity, it was entirely useless to her, as it was all based on recirculating fire-type spiritual energy.

Among the many different types of cultivation techniques, the single most important one for every cultivator was a spiritual energy recirculation technique.

Spiritual energy was fundamental to cultivation - without it, even the smallest demon beast moth would struggle to lift its wings. In order to utilize spiritual energy, cultivators had to collect it within their bodies, circulate it through their meridians, and then expel it through the 40 000 pores on their skin in special patterns. Human souls could do this instinctively, but only in a crude way, and so special techniques were developed to make the process more efficient.

The quality of the spiritual energy recirculation technique would determine how much spiritual energy a cultivator could absorb, store, and use, and how quickly they could bring it to bear - in other words, it would indirectly influence pretty much every aspect of their power. On top of that, the primary spiritual energy recirculation technique practiced by a cultivator would also determine what other techniques they could learn, as regular techniques tended to require different, often mutually incompatible, parts of the meridian network to be strengthened.

Of course, raw quality was not everything, as the spiritual energy recirculation technique also had to be suited for the constitution of the cultivator, and the type of spiritual energy within their body. Qian Shanyi had a Yin and Metal constitution - this meant that any spiritual energy entering her body would quickly become converted into metal- and yin- type spiritual energy, and the recirculation technique best suited for her would have the exact same type.

Second best would be a modified earth- or water-type technique. Spiritual energy produced as part of the operation of these techniques could not be recirculated by her body directly, but there were ways to modify them by relying on the productive cycle of feng shui, and allow her to partly utilize these techniques without permanent harm to her body. Of course, this would come at a severe cost in efficiency and energy usage.

Third best would be a “pure Yin” technique like Seven Flowers Bloom. It operated with pure spiritual energy, and so could be safely practiced by any female cultivator, but the drop in efficiency would be greater still. Unfortunately, it was also the only Yin-type technique possessed by her sect, and so Qian Shanyi couldn’t practice anything else.

The single worst type of technique for her to practice would be a fire-type one, as the destructive feng shui interaction between the fire-type spiritual energy and her own constitution would slowly boil her from the inside out.

Qian Shanyi put the useless fire book aside and picked up the next one. It was titled “Seventeen Classifications of Essential Medical Herbs”, and seemed to be an advanced treaty on the alchemical properties of plants. Since her alchemical knowledge remained firmly in the realm of administering medicine and first aid, it was well beyond her station.

The last book was yet another cultivation law - Jade Diamond Muscle Refining Law, suited for body fundamentalist cultivators. Even if she wanted to practice it, the introduction in the book was adamant that a careful regime of drugs and training had to be followed from the age of ten in order to properly prepare the body for the practice: without it, she would have very high chances of dying.

Qian Shanyi rubbed her forehead, and went to get another bottle of spirit wine. She was really hoping that she could find a good cultivation law, or at least a spiritual energy circulation technique of the metal element, but it seemed that luck was still firmly against her.

Having read over the books, she moved onto the scrolls.

The first one was an unnamed fire-type movement technique which condensed swarms of fiery dragonflies under the feet of a cultivator, allowing them to walk on air before the building foundation realm. She decided to call it the Scarlet Dragonfly technique. Being able to fly, even with limitations, was an incredible boon in combat, and her heart ached because she could never practice it.

Second scroll contained a blueprint for a powerful wood-type protective talisman. Her heart ached again: even if she knew how to inscribe talismans, her metal constitution would prevent her from infusing it with spiritual energy.

Third scroll was a sword technique called Honk of the Solar Goose. It was a rare Yang-type technique, and required a soul-bound flying sword on top of that. Both of which made it impossible to practice for Qian Shanyi.

Final scroll was titled Crushing Glance of the Neverworld Eyes. It was merely a minor, untyped technique that could create various colored powders out of the air and apply them to your body, as well as produce some impressive background lights and sounds on command. The scroll gave an example of creating a flash of lightning and a roar of thunder any time you laughed.

Despite an oppressive name, it was essentially just magical makeup. It even said “Perfect for ice cold jade beauties!” right under the title.

Qian Shanyi flopped down on the ground, smashing her fist into the earth in frustration. The force of the impact sent the grass flying away, leaving a small pit behind.

“Damn it! I just want a terrifying sword technique that could split the heavens apart,” she groaned. “Is this truly too much to ask?”