Chapter 124, Great Art Choice

Translator: Tamon

 

Modern cultivation found the notion of a blade or sword path laughable.

 

No matter how big of a pedestal you put this notion of the blade on, you couldn’t change one simple fact—it was man-made, a byproduct of humanity.

 

So why, pray tell, would the universe conform to making a fitting path to something born by man’s imagination?

 

Modern cultivation had sword arts, magical or otherwise, but dispensed with the ancient system’s glorified idea of blade or sword path. Even the strongest swordsman of the modern system, the author of Sword Path Dissolution, Crazed Sword Lagrange said, “I’m treading the path of calculations. Sword? Nothing but a convenient tool.”

 

The paths modern cultivation treaded were natural laws, a part of the primordial Dao, paying attention to the natural world as it was. Sword skills were artificial, made to elucidate this great Dao.

 

Ethereal Cloud Sword was such because Daoist Proscribe and Daoist Indisputable, at the moment of its creation, found the sword to be the best medium to showcase its true potential. They could’ve made it the Ethereal Cloud Step, or fist, or spell if they wanted.

 

Hence Wang Qi never bothered with having ‘too much on his plate’ even with his shoddy knowledge of arts. Any path-related art was good.

 

This premise gave more than enough leeway for Wang Qi to freely pick any great art.

 

Mao Zimiao asked after his explanation, “Little Qi, which great art are you after, nya?”

 

Wang Qi replied, “Most likely Myriad Arts Sect’s White Marsh True Array Divider and Thunder Resonance Blade Art.”

 

“Nya? Blade?”

 

White Marsh True Array Divider—also known as White Marsh Array Breaker, or the Minor Measured Blade Art—was Myriad Arts Sect’s Unfettered, Lord White Marsh Laplace’s grand skill. The blade art threw away basic notions such as hack, upward slash, stab, quick slice strike, block, flurry, swipe, chop, parry, whirlwind, press, and other blade skills. It relied solely on ‘dividing.’ Breaking arrays lay at the heart of this blade art. On the other hand, if someone used it for assault, the blade energy slashes could form a battle array. Furthermore, the blade art was tied to Myriad Arts Sect’s Measured Calculations, making the blade a key to understanding its skills.

 

Thunder Resonance Blade Art was another Myriad Arts Sect’s Unfettered, Fourier’s specialized martial art. The blade art and White Marsh Array Breaker were different, breaking all arts with no direct move adhered perfectly to Myriad Arts Sect’s creed of one art to break them all. Be it cultivators’ magic power or demons’ demonic energy, all had patterns. These patterns bled into the arts and skills they employed. The Thunder Resonance Blade Art made use of these patterns to find the user’s weaknesses and render them inert. That’s not all, the blade art leveraged patterns to create ‘skills.’ As this art relied on thunder and sound resonance in the beginning, it came to be called such.  

 

The bread and butter of the arts were naturally White Marsh Expansion and Fourier Expansion—Lagrange and Fourier’s equivalent on Earth.

 

Mao Zimiao cocked her head. “Why those two?”

 

Wang Qi patiently explained, “I plan on taking Myriad Arts Sect’s test and need to choose their art ahead of time. I can’t go with Sword Path Dissolution due to the reasons I stated earlier, in regard to the content of the fundamental sword and blade arts of Myriad Arts Sect. As for Integration Exalted Leibniz’s Integral Sword, well, it’s too big and expansive a topic, unsuitable for sect freshmen. Impermanence Sword is the opposite, too specific and basic, not to mention inconsistent with my path. Current Myriad Arts Sect Leader’s Almost Prime Law ain’t my type—I’ve no interest in number theory. Sure, I’d like to learn Eon Light, Arrow Controller, and the like, but these fundamental arts are similar to Heavenly Position. In short, these are my only choices.”(Tamon: Arrow Controller refers to trigonometry functions like sine, cosine, etc. It’s hard to come up with suitable titles without breaking the magical feel of the novel.)

 

Mao Zimiao sighed. “While everyone is dazzled, Little Qi is worried about having too few choices, nya. I really thought you’d pick some flashy and mystical art.”

 

Wang Qi shrugged. He had other reasons he’d rather keep for himself. 

 

He avoided the late-stage skills for a reason—he had a ton of them already. Daoist Proscribe’s works included this ultimate genius’ deduction into Elusive Palace’s best arts, like Elusory Movement, and Ethereal Cloud Sword. Albeit incomplete, being at the stage of deductions, their formulas were very useful, with the theories and thought process showing much promise. Wang Qi believed his past life’s knowledge combined with his curent life’s cultivation was sure to reverse engineer these arts. 

 

What he truly lacked was a foundation.

 

Like building a skyscraper from the top down, leaving the ground shaky.

 

He needed a way to tie theory and cultivation together. To figure out the trick, the best way to do it was to take those art corresponding to the theories he mastered, then study and analyze them.

 

Analytical mechanics and calculus were too broad. No math expert would claim they mastered them. Laplace Expansion and Fourier Expansion came naturally to Wang Qi, and White Marsh True Array Divider along with Thunder Resonance Blade Art weren’t weak by any means. 

 

Moreover, the blade arts would become great assets in understanding the specialized arts in Daoist Proscribe’s works.

 

Laplace Expansion handled matrices. Matrix mechanics was the basis of those arts. Fourier Expansion expressed all periodic functions in terms of trigonometric functions, with a wide range of applications in electromagnetism, helping Wang Qi cultivate Celestial Hymn Odyssey in the future, as well as Schrödinger’s wave mechanics, the basics of wave functions, compatible with Grand Ripple Enigma and Waveform Essence.

 

It’s not like he could outright say that, so he asked, “What about you?”

 

“Senior Sister Ai recommends All Animals Play, nya.”

 

All Animals Play, the ultimate version of the mortals’ version, Five Animals Play, a flawless guide. It was a supreme art that Spirit Beast Mountain made to imitate all beings in creation.

 

“Ai Dinglan…” Wang Qi gnashed his teeth at the mention of her name.

 

Mao Zimiao sweated. “Alright, alright, Senior Sister Ai didn’t make it hard on you on purpose, nya.”

 

Wang Qi snapped, “Who cares about that average hitting crazed broad? Not me!”

 

“Doesn’t sound like it, nya…”

 

“Nope, don’t care at all. The only one I want to smack is that dumbass over there…”

 

Among the crowd, Geng Peng, a Myriad Arts Sect Foundation Establishment assistant teacher sneezed.