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Chapter 57: "Technically Correct, Also Very Wrong."

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Shae's step counting was nearly interrupted by one more person. Luckily for her, she spotted Scribe Bai before he surprised her.

"Wise Sh-" he started.

"Seven, eight, nine..." She raised her arms and interrupted him with her counting, then made an X with her arms as she reached the end of that set. "Ten square, eleven sets, and-two, three, four..." She once again thanked everything that she didn't have to numerically name every single step.

Bai got the hint and waited.

A few breaths later he raised a hand to get her attention. "Going to a full cube?"

She nodded and gestured with her hands that were helping her keep track. "Eleven square."

"Good, good. I'll wait." He said then faced forwards and walked beside her.

Two sets of steps later he hopped up into the wagon and sat on the same small crate that Shae had used when talking to Zhango. Shae tried to ignore him as he removed some paperwork from somewhere and began to review it.

She was still thankful for him moving into the wagon as she had found his steps to be slightly distracting. Her tension and anxiety of being so nearly finished was using Bai as leverage to try to distract her.

A little over a hundred meters of road later Shae triumphantly yelled, "One cubic set!" Reflexively she kept counting and two steps later her cycling rhythm lined up with her steps and she felt the phantom qi construct click and turn over: signaling the completion of this Manifold Journey practice. "Ahhh! Yes! Done finally." She sighed lightly and intentionally skipped during the next few steps while returning all her qi to her Dantian.

"Hmm. Congratulations?" Bai said without looking up.

She shook out her hands then hopped into the wagon and face planted onto the mattress. "Ugh. So glad that's over."

"Heh, I can tell. Something to do with that stack of papers there?" He pointed at her pile of notes from the monks.

"Yeah. Another beginner practice from the monks that were in Minlin."

"Ah, like that Silent Slumbering... Stretches, was it? Any progress on that?"

"Uhh, yep, that's right, but I, uh, haven't spent much more time on that. Got distracted by this other one that's a series of small daily practices."

"Like counting out a cubic set of steps?"

"Mhmm." She rolled over to look up at him. "And cycle qi at a different rhythm. Seems to be multitasking practice."

"Ah, I can see how that would work." He nodded. "Is there a harder version? Now that you've finished?"

"Luckily no. Not sure there's enough road left to get away with doing it again."

"Heh, you only need three or four li."

"Assuming I don't lose count and no one interrupts me because they think I should be resting."

"Hah, good point."

"Mhm. So. What's the harder version?"

"What makes you think I know? It's your practice."

She squinted and pointed up at him. "The way you asked. I heard it in your voice."

"Heh. Well, good instincts." He smirked. "You're correct. By the sounds of it, to make it harder you need to count something other than your steps. Perhaps your heartbeat?"

"Gmmmgh," Shae groaned. "Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a week. Maybe next year." She inhaled deeply. "What's brought you to my humble wagon, Senior Bai?"

"Well, o' Wise Shae, I heard on the wind you had a math question?" He raised an eyebrow.

"The wind? Are you eavesdropping now?"

"Not at all, but a certain senior has recently encouraged us to keep our ears open."

"Taking after Senior Apollo? That would be eavesdropping, you know."

Bai raised a finger. "Well, her too. Though, I meant Master Long. It seems like he's always aware of his surroundings."

"Ah. I suppose I've seen him make that point once or twice. As long as he's not distracted by his disciple. But really, were you just in the area, Senior?"

"Heh. By some definitions. You did draw some attention to yourself, however."

"Hmm? How so?"

"By having Guard Hon jump a set and a half paces in the air."

Shae scrunched her face up and covered her eyes with her sleeve. "Oh. That."

"Heh heh. Yes, that."

The young woman hid her embarrassment for another breath. "Oh! But that means you've already heard the math problem."

"Heh heh, yes I have." He smirked.

"And? Was I right?"

"Hmmmm. Put simply, no. Though, perhaps you get a correct mark as a technicality. However, a full square set is an absurd overestimate. On that point you were very wrong."

"Hgmmmgh." Shae grumbled, then tried to shrug like she didn't care.

"One set stronger is a close estimate. I wouldn't try for more accuracy without some hard numbers. The technicality is in changing resistance from the air itself, slowing the jumper more the faster they move. However, it's not strong enough to factor into this case."

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"Ah! Yes! I remember that. Hrm... but I'm wrong because the jump strength is linear, err, it's a direct ratio to the height jumped?" She misspoke in English, then corrected herself. "Maybe I mixed the two up."

"Yes, it's a direct ratio. All of your group's estimates were high because the mortal strength required to jump is more than you might expect, making an estimated multiple for Hon's strength lower than most might intuit. You see- Hmm, well, I don't think you need a full explanation of that right now. Still, I will say getting any hard numbers would require a lot of estimation and averaging data from numerous individuals. All that even before trying to get an accurate number for the acceleration of gravity, as you called it. That's proven to be tricky."

She frowned up at Bai. "Really?"

He nodded. "The initial force is easy enough to measure, it's essentially weight. The change while something is moving is much harder to track, and varies based on location."

She stared blankly.

He waited two whole breaths. "What?"

"You're serious?"

"Yes, of course."

She scrunched her eyes closed and emitted a frustrated groan while rubbing her forehead.

"Ah! Are you okay? Is your headache back!?" He leaned closer and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She rolled the shoulder and brushed his hand off. "No, I'm just very annoyed and frustrated by your-" she caught herself before she said world. "Well, at a guess, by the way cultivators pass down knowledge. That proof you're working on, for example. I'd bet it's already been solved by your teacher, they just want you to work through it yourself?"

"Uhhhm. Yes. That is the standard approach. Without an intuitive understanding of the material, it's rather hard to progress through new problems."

She grunted in frustration again. "And the only way to get that understanding is having everyone reinvent the whole field of mathematics from scratch?" She accused dryly.

He coughed lightly to the side. "Well, not the whole field."

She huffed. "Sure sure. Does the teacher spend a lot of time demonstrating how to solve these problems, or do they just hand out the next problem in the series?"

He frowned down at her. "You sound like some of the students that get frustrated and want shortcuts."

She frowned back up at him. "I've promised to not make any sudden judgements or claims about the sect's teaching methods. So, I won't do that. For the sake of simplicity, which exaggeration is it closer to, Senior Bai?"

He took a moment to consider. "I've rather enjoyed the growing complexity of this problem series."

"Hah." She forced a frustrated laugh. "It's good to hear that you like it. And now, I have a guess about this gravity measurement problem. Firstly, who did you hear it from? Some specialist that gave a talk last summer?"

"Good guess. It was this summer, actually."

"Were they a space or gravity cultivator?"

"As in, what was their qi aspect or Dao? They didn't say. Though I believe they implied they had some intuition or comprehension on the matter. Which..." He looked up to think silently, then nodded to himself. "Most nascent soul cultivators have a grasp of those concepts, yet the speaker was around high-core stage, so isn't guaranteed to have that same grasp. Which does suggest they have a related cultivation aspect or Dao."

"Hmmgh. Of course. A conversation I recently had suggested those cultivators would want to keep their specialty's secrets as secrets. So, I'm not surprised they gave a misleading talk to your sect."

Bai raised an eyebrow. "You think they lied? That's a bold statement from a cleansing cultivator." He made a poking gesture with his hand and Shae felt his intent prod her in the side, just below the ribs. She swatted at his hand but missed.

"I didn't say lied. Someone would have noticed that. Just misled. Did they specify a ratio or give some examples of how much the measurement changes?"

He slowly shook his head. "Nothing close to specific. It was a generalized talk, those don't usually get into specifics. You seem to know something already? What ratio of change would you say it is?"

Shae huffed again. "Very very small. Okay. So, unless you need very precise measurements it probably doesn't matter. Like, how many decimals do you usually need?"

"Umm, decimals? I think I've heard that term in lost soul's math before."

"Err, sorry, fractions of a whole?"

"Ah, yes. That. Now I remember. Hmmm." He scratched his chin and his gaze drifted up. "I did appreciate the directness of that style of numerating."

She glared at him patiently.

"Ah. Yes, the question." He coughed to the side. "I suppose a handful of fractions is plenty."

"A handful? How imprecise!" She chuckled. "I would have said two."

He rolled his eyes. "Perhaps for mortal concerns. We have the ability to be much more precise."

"Hmm. Sure. The ability, but do we really have the need for it?"

He smirked. "My young Fairy," -she grunted at the word- "do we really need to do any of this? Cultivation is not about need."

She looked at the roof of the wagon and breathed stiffly through her nose.

After a few breaths Bai arranged his robes in preparation to stand, and turned towards the rear of the wagon.

Shae swatted at his leg. "Where are you going?"

"Uh-" He startled. "I thought you'd like time to think? Need is not a shallow subject to contemplate."

"Pfft. You understate how deep I am." She pointed at him. "For everything near this world's surface, even up a mountain or in a deep trench, falling or still: the same gravity measurement can be used, whether you prefer two fractions or a handful."

He raised an eyebrow, yet remained silent.

She let the statement hang in the air for a pair of breaths. "Now, what about you? How's your work coming along?"

He tilted his head, nodded, then relaxed back into his seat. "No major breakthroughs. Yet, your suggestion has given me much to ponder. I was able to think out nearly a full set of counter-proofs. None that I've felt the need to work through completely. Just brainstorming ideas. Thank you, though. It's given me a lot more to work with."

She nodded. "You're welcome."

"I am still curious as to what your... instincts have to say about it, especially after that discussion just now."

She smirked and shook her head. "Maybe I'll write it down and you can check it when you solve it yourself. I wouldn't want to interfere with your teacher's plans."

"Hah. I don't believe that for a heartbeat."

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The pair chatted a bit longer until the next person came along to check on Shae. Bai took that as an opportunity to leave, even though that person, Cultivator Chen, didn't stay for long.

With more time to herself she did a few stretches then did some of the core focused exercises she had discussed with Guard Shu. Then went back to reviewing her written exercises when she was too sore from that.

Perhaps an hour later she remembered to check on something from a day ago. It hadn't been long, but she could compare her notes of the water and metal formations on her Dantian. She quickly identified that the metal symbol looked unchanged. The water formation was very similar. It might have been a little smaller, but she couldn't exactly tell from her notes.

The thing she really noticed was the steam symbol. It was near water, so she had a good look at it when recording its details the other day. She could swear it was larger, just a bit. Yet, she hadn't recorded it previously so didn't have specific proof.

So, of course, she dutifully recorded its details alongside the other two. Then she did another set of crunches and side plank leg lifts.

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