----------------------------------------
Chapter 50: "The Economics of Dinner."
----------------------------------------
Shae's patience didn't last the whole walk back. "Sooo, what's your project? Thesis? Or just doing proofs as training?" She mixed in English words for what she didn't know, trying to add extra intent to them.
Bai glanced over with a raised eyebrow. "What are the prime factors of one square, seven sets, and three?" He said two words that Shae hadn't heard before, but she tried to feel out their meanings.
"Uhh, root elements?" She repeated similar Empire standard words to what his felt like, the linguistic construction Bai had used was unfamiliar, but Shae guessed the mathematical meaning was primes because the only other basic operation that fit was square-root. "Hmm, hey no fair, I left my slate at the other end of the range. Dividing is going to be a pain." She huffed. "Okay, three is the easy one. If I got your meaning correct." She hummed a few times to show she was thinking.
He nodded and kept silent. Which was about as much confirmation as she expected.
"Dividing it out: three into one cubed is easy, but into seven square... four sevens is twenty eight- no-no- I'm mixing my bases and making it too complicated." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Uhhh, three into seven sets is two sets and four, plus the rest is six sets and- five." She huffed and took a deep inhale. "Factors of six-five... well I could probably get it fast in base ten, but I'm trying not to switch bases constantly." She took a breath. "And it's taking some effort to resist." They were nearly back to the firing line.
"You could use the slate now," Bai suggested and motioned to it.
"Bah, almost done. Apologies that this is probably miserable to listen to. It's not divisible by five because of the base. Though, I would believe it's a root number if you told me it was." She looked at him.
He remained silent.
"O-kay. Seven is the hard one... Not eleven or thirteen. Wait, no, it is seven. Because it's seven less than seven sets. Which would be seven by nine- Argh! Wrong again!" She ran a hand through her hair. "Seven by eleven. My base ten intuition is completely ruining my base twelve math." She raggedly huffed out her frustration.
"It's that all of them?" Bai asked with a smirk.
"Yes, yes. The root elements are three, seven, and eleven. Final answer." She found the mark in the dirt and turned to face the targets.
"You're not going to check it with the slate?"
"Nope, don't care. I'm too pissed about missing the obvious answer." She quickly fired off two qi stabilized arrows. They were not as rushed as her last shots, and each hit one of the targets close to the center.
"Heh heh. You could use some work on your multiplication tables. However, my only complaint is you said eleven. Which should be a set less one. You are otherwise correct."
"Ugh. Really? You still say it that way? It drives me to madness that there's no word for ten and eleven. Even calling twelve a set is annoying."
"Heh heh, you're sounding more and more like a lost soul who's stuck on base ten."
"Tsk." She clicked her tongue, then took two more quick shots at the targets, only reinforcing the second. Unsurprisingly it was the more accurate of the two. "Okay, please, Senior. This run-around is getting tedious. Could I at least have some hint as to your mathematics interest?"
"Hmm, and what if I'm not done testing you?"
"Testing me for what? It's not like I'm asking to join the project, or trying to provide advice." She took another slow and normal shot, missing the rightmost target.
"There's a lot of terminology to work through. It might just sound like I'm babbling in another language." He shrugged.
She nodded. "And you essentially would be anyway. Every science basically has a branch of linguistics paired to it. So, that's what the questions were about? Working up through the fancy-talk?"
"Heh, I wouldn't call it fancy talk, but yes. Prime factors are the start of it though. I guess that might be enough..."
Shae focused on firing arrows while Bai began to lecture on his chosen interest.
----------------------------------------
It took a full batch of two dozen arrows for him to explain the couple other unique terms needed. Then two more batches to get into the real explanation.
Shae remained mostly silent. Only jumping in to ask for clarification or confirm that she was following along. The specific problem was one that she had heard on Earth, while watching internet explainer videos. Which was part of why she asked Bai for this in the first place. She couldn't recall the proofs involved, and only had a guess at remembering the solution. Even that could have just been her intuition, and she definitely couldn't prove it or set Bai in the right direction.
"... I'll skip over my attempts at a proof, they're a little too dense, but that's about where I'm at with it." Bai finished by spreading his arms wide then bringing them back together in a clap, followed by awkwardly tucking his hands into the opposite sleeves.
"Huh. That was quite interesting. Thank you, Senior." Shae nodded in his direction, then reconsidered and gave him a proper bow.
He looked on expectantly, leaning forward slowly. "And?"
"And?" She raised an eyebrow. A beat later she bit her lip and turned to look up and away in thought. Then quickly shook her head. "I've no Wise words for you, I'm afraid. I could tell you my intuition as to the answer, but I've no way to prove it, and you've no reason to trust my answer."
Bai nodded. "Of course. Still, is it strange that I had some hope?"
"Heh, considering what you saw in Minlin. Probably not that strange." She took another shot. "Your theory, are you only trying to prove it correct?"
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
"Hmm, well, yes. What do you mean only?"
She shrugged. "There's two ways to get past this. Not counting giving up. You prove it, or you disprove it."
"You're saying my theory is wrong and I should try to disprove it?" He sounded a little irritated.
"No, just the second part. Attempting to disprove it should give you a new perspective on the problem, you might stumble into a way to prove it, or you might succeed in disproving it, which still ends your search." She focused and released another shot. This time she had used qi reinforcement so it struck very near the bull's-eye.
"Huh." He scratched his chin, a bit of stubble making the action a noisy scratch.
"Have you had to explain it to anyone else? Just explaining it to me might have improved your understanding of it. A great person once said that if you can't explain something to someone, you don't understand it fully. Well, that's paraphrased, it was in another language and my memory isn't great." She shrugged and took another shot.
"I've been working on this theory for this entire outing from the sect. I thought I had looked at it from every possible angle. There were a few times I had considered how to disprove it, though I hadn't actually attempted to do so." He took a deep breath. "I can't say I have a new understanding of it, but I do feel more comfortable with the facts. Thank you for listening, Wise Shae."
She smiled. "Any time, Senior."
A third person entered the conversation, "What are we talking about? Ah, sorry, did I interrupt something?"
"Not at all, Junior Chen. We were just wrapping up a mathematics discussion," Bai explained.
"Ugh, math. Gross. Hey, Sister Shae, could I try a few arrows?" Chen pointed at the pile of arrows at her feet.
"Uh, sure. I wouldn't mind a break. Have they started serving dinner yet?"
He accepted the bow from her with a smirk. "Nah, I wouldn't be here if they were." He didn't look particularly comfortable holding the bow.
Bai and Shae both frowned at his stance and wrist angle. He yelped as the string snapped against his bare forearm. The arrow went quite wide, and Shae took note of where it landed.
Bai stepped in to poke at his stance and correct his wrist angle, it seemed he picked up a lot more just from watching Shae than she had while actually doing it.
She stretched and took a moment to meditate, and checked on the current Manifold Journey practice. While she had dropped it during the bow practice, it now seemed to be complete. She hadn't checked it earlier in the day, nor noticed it complete while walking with Apollo, so she was uncertain when it had turned over to completion. Maybe, just because it's the end of the day? She wondered.
When she left meditation a fourth and fifth had joined them. Guard Shu and a certain masked individual that could only be Apollo. However, Shae quickly noted that she had changed her eyes to a pale blue.
They brought with them five plates of food and a low table. Chen and Shu were currently enjoying their food, another three plates sat untouched.
"Ah! The sleeping beauty awakes!" Shu called out.
"Beauty?" Chen asked through a mouthful of food. "Didn't know you swung that way, Shu."
She swatted his arm. "It's an idiom, idiot."
Shae was glad she was still drowsy from meditation, as she was suddenly worried how she would have reacted to that compliment otherwise. She forced a cough to the side. "Thank you for bringing supper, Seniors."
"Seniors?" Shu asked. "I'm not really that far ahead of you, and she definitely isn't." She pointed at Apollo.
Chen also raised an eyebrow but was too busy eating to say anything.
"Uh, well, she is teaching Senior Bai. Would Teacher be more appropriate?" Shae asked while joining them at the low table.
Shu nodded slowly. "I suppose. Though, she's not teaching you so probably not."
"I'm new to archery as well, I'm sure she could teach me a few things." Shae glanced at the woman, but she was watching Bai's form and didn't react.
Shu shrugged, "Anyway, eat, eat. We have qigong soon, you should join in again."
"Hmm, how soon? I wouldn't mind more bow practice before dark. Especially if there's a teacher available." She quickly filled her mouth after speaking.
Bai briefly glanced over with a sour look. She smirked back at him.
"When Long's ready," Chen said through half a mouthful.
"Hmm," she mumbled back, then swallowed. "This is pretty good. Have you been eating like this every day?"
The other two had the good manners to look slightly guilty. Shu swallowed her own food. "Well, not every day. And it's not as good as the sect kitchens."
Shae's eyebrows shot up. "I hadn't thought about those! Is it a fixed menu, or can we order whatever we like?"
Shu and Chen shared a glance. Then Shu explained, "Most people are on the grain liberation diet. So, there's a fixed menu for that as it's supposed to aid cultivation. While it's called a diet, It's still great food, and they vary the offerings regularly."
Chen swallowed and jumped in, "Outside of that, it gets kind of expensive. Limited by quantity, too, but the chef's do amazing work and it's well worth the treat when you can afford it."
"Oh!" Shae exclaimed. "So, they have immortal chefs? With amazing qi infused food, like in the stories?"
The two shared a look again, cheeks stuffed with food. They both shook their heads. "Nah." Chen got out from behind a sleeve.
Shae filled her own mouth and waited.
When Shu finished her mouthful she pointed at Shae with her chopsticks. "You can put in a request for something specific. Though, that's usually done by your master or a specific cultivation teacher. And it's very expensive. Don't expect to be able or willing to afford anything soon, or ever really." She thought to herself for a moment, "Economically speaking: immortal cooking is not really a full system that can work properly. It relies too much on the generosity of the chef. They have to essentially donate their time and experience and the sect might even need to take a loss on the materials, just to make it affordable for the lower stage cultivators that would benefit the most from the meal. It happens; it's just super rare."
Shae scrunched up her forehead for a couple breaths. "O-kay. How is it much different from an alchemist making pills?"
Shu raised her eyebrows and nodded excitedly while pointing with her chopsticks again. She chewed and swallowed quickly. "Ya-yeah, that's a great comparison. I think it really comes down to quantity. Alchemists have more teachers, more students, more demand for their product. And each recipe tends to make more pills than cooking, uhh, I think, not really sure there."
"Ah, right. That does make sense." She nodded. "Bulk discounts and all. Forging must have similar economics to alchemy then?"
Shu had her mouth full of food again. She half nodded and wobbled a hand in the air, then held her chopsticks up and mimed peeling them apart, like you would with mass manufactured bamboo chopsticks.
Shae titled her head, "Split? Ah, a split between the two types... Because they have most of the same things as alchemy, but each piece takes longer to make, and might be custom orders."
Shu nodded, and covered her mouth with her sleeve. "I've also heard there's something about the materials themselves. Quality or consistency or something."
"Mmm!" Chen mumbled through his food.
"Chew and swallow, please," Shae said with patient glare.
He nodded and focused on that. A slow breath later he said, "I've heard a lecture about this actually. It's about the quality and consistency of the materials. Metals are very consistent, making them easier to work and more predictable, followed closely by wood. Plants and such for alchemy are next, mainly those grown specifically for alchemy. Just slight variations year to year. But monster meat and wild plants are extremely variable, which is what is used in immortal cooking."
Shae's eyes went wide again as she understood. "So the chef has to constantly adjust and compensate for wildly different ingredients? That would make it very difficult."
"Bull's-eye!" Chen said and pointed at her with chopsticks full of long green beans in sauce. The sauce splattered on the table between them. "Oops." He said flatly then put the beans in his mouth.
They all returned to eating. More casual conversation bouncing between them as needed.
----------------------------------------