Chapter 138, Psychology

Translator: Tamon

The more he learned, the more Wang Qi realized Divine Province’s sciences were on a different path than Earth’s.

Even if Dao bro forced the two worlds’ physics development, divergences such as this would still appear.

Mathematics for instance, ever since Spiritual Energy’s Nature Theory’s proposal a thousand years ago, Divine Province cultivators discovered the ingenuity the system theory and number theory had on mental arts. The former offered a comprehensive understanding of the nature of cultivation, analyzing mental arts. While the latter, assisted cultivators in developing a personalized spiritual power essence equation. Divine Province had made more headway in these two mathematical branches than Earth did. Even Wang Qi found studying this part was straining.

On the other side of the spectrum, Divine Province’s progress in probability was painfully slow, an entire century behind. Flipping through Divine Province’s immortal cultivation history, Wang Qi found Sommerfeld’s death to be the turning point of the two worlds’ divergence, to the extent Kolmogorov wasn’t even born, the founder of modern probability theory. Myriad Arts Sect’s Unfettered Chebyshev’s research differed from his Earth’s counterpart—who delved in probability theory and mathematical analysis. The Unfettered hadn’t even touched probabilities, only looking into systems.

Zi Xiaopeng made Wang Qi aware of one other shortcoming in Divine Province’s sciences.

At the foundation of the Heavenly Spirit Range stood the theory of evolution and spiritual theory. Evolution Chart was what earned Heavenly Spirit Range’s right to be among the five best. Yet the Heavenly Spirit Range didn’t exclude humans, conducting anthropological research. Regarding the human evolution aspect of anthropology, many topics were discussed, while the social and cultural aspect hadn’t been broached.

The reason for this was the Divine Province’s lack of social sciences.

The main branches of social sciences were in their infancy, except for microeconomics—Celestial Chess Computation’s derivative—and linguistics—part of cryptography.

Xiang Qi patted the silent Wang Qi’s arm. “What are you thinking?”

Wang Qi flinched awake and gave a self-deprecating shake of the head. Back home, he specialized in math and physics. He discovered Divine Province’s deficiencies, yet he didn’t have the plagiarized knowledge to exploit them. “I find Senior Brother Zi’s point interesting and wondered whether I could extend his analysis to humanity, and how could these theories benefit resolve.”

Each of the three Foundation Establishment cultivators’ expression shifted. Xiang Qi glared at Zi Xiaopeng, who put on an innocent look on reflex. Su Junyu coughed, “It’s best you don’t concern yourself with such a broad and advanced topic. Your best action right now is to train for the admission trial.”

Zi Xiaopeng agreed. “Brother Moneybags is most right. Leave this be and hit the books hard. Though hitting books won’t do you much good if you aim for the true disciple spot.”

Immortal Alliance had minimal use for fighters. The core of modern cultivation wasn’t something warring cultivators could shore up. In regards to Immortal Alliance’s main sects, researchers were the most important. In a world where ‘knowledge is power’ like this, researchers have an easier time progressing than innate warriors, not to mention they contributed to  Immortal Alliance’s development. Hence the written test comprised of 65% of the final score.

To a bookworm’s misfortune, knowledge wasn’t enough to bridge the remaining gap.

This determined Wang Qi to train his blade arts and prompted Zi Xiaopeng to tone down on hitting the books.

The topic returned to cultivation. Su Junyu pointed out the problems in every one of Wang Qi’s formulas.

Zi Xiaopeng called Wang Qi before he left. “Junior Brother, sit back down. You mentioned resolve. As such I feel it’s my duty to explain it to you so you won’t have a restless sleep.”

Wang Qi was more than happy to. Zi Xiaopeng preached, “Let us begin with the mind’s core notion, desire. It’s buried deep in the mind and never surfaces, and yet has a profound impact. Every single thought is based on desire. This is the root of all thoughts. This core notion might be inborn, or perhaps inherited, hence the name primal. Illuminating one’s true self and returning to one’s deepest notions refers to primal cultivation…

“Primal is basted on intent, with minor difference, if any, between humans and other species. Beyond primal lies morality. It has a similar meaning to the ancient notion of order, seen as self-restraints. In terms of resolve, it refers to the regulation and consolidation of the mind…

“Combining primal with virtue results in the self that we recognize and are aware of, the ‘spiritual jewel.’ The ancient Spiritual Jewel Sutra  states: ‘… mixed with the sky above, there is no separation, as the qi of the fore-sky returns to the whole body.’ Let’s not speak of ancient cultivation’s original meaning. If we integrate these notions into the modern system’s theories…”(Tamon: excerpt from Three Grottoes, ancient Chinese scriptures.)

All scholars were the same when talking about their studies and domain of research. Zi Xiaopeng prattled for a full hour, speaking at length and coherently about many aspects of resolve. Wang Qi found it worthwhile.

As the man finished, Wang Qi bid his farewell, caught up by Su Junyu a short distance afterward. “Walk with me. I just remembered some math problems I must tell you about.”

Su Junyu flung his arm around Wang Qi before he could reject him, dragging the junior to the library. Having gone far enough, Su Junyu let go. “Junior Brother, I must warn you, what you heard will help your resolve, but never use it in cultivation, understand?”

Wang Qi asked, “Why? I find them quite logical. Especially ‘study primal with virtue’ part…”

Su Junyu shook his head. “The argument applies only to resolve. The theory started on the wrong path.”

Wang Qi shook his head making Su Junyu continue. “Studies, pursuits, reflections, and reasonings. Only by taking this path one follows modern cultivation. The path of researching the mind begins with seeing ‘mind’ as an object. Old Second’s studies don’t use the same process and can’t be called conventional.”

Wang Qi finally realized. Freud’s psychoanalysis weren’t seen as a natural science, which meant Divine Province’s cultivators didn’t accept it as a conventional path. As far as resolve was concerned, psychoanalysis of Earth’s 21st century biggest role wasn’t in clinical psychology alone.