Shuxue was at the top of the central mountain, where the courtyard had previously been. From here, he could see the entire Sector, which stretched out in a 10-kilometer radius and was ringed by a circle of smaller mountains.
One of the mountains had been half destroyed by the battle, but he had tasked a murder of mathematical crows to rebuild it. They carried mathematical stones from the beaches of the Goldensand Sector in their beaks, and flew the pebbles over one at a time. At the current rate they were going, it would take several millennia to complete. Not that Shuxue cared.
In the valley, a huge building that very much resembled a gargantuan beanstalk towered over its surroundings. It was nearly as tall as the central mountain! It was made from misshapen metal, and was called the Infinity Spiral! It was where the Infinity Sector kept all of its rare plants and herbs, many of which required special conditions to grow.
Originally, it had only been a little bit of metal inside the treasury of the Whitecloud Sector, but Zhujiao had shouted “I’m Zhujiao!” and poured several billion units of mathforce into it, creating this thing. Under the Spiral was a maze of underground tunnels which contained all the mathematical beasts tamed by the Sector. The underground warren didn’t have a name yet, but Shuxue was intending it to be called the Infinity Dungeon.
“The Infinity Spiral is truly a profound treasure, far beyond our grasp.” Fengshui sighed in praise. “Its natural harmony with the Mathematical laws allow astounding quantities of mathforce to be generated. Within a year, our plane may even gather enough mathforce to become the second weakest plane in the Tesseract!”
“Yes, it was another posthumous donation from our Whitecloud friends, whom were too dead to comprehend the value of this treasure. I’m afraid this profound Spiral is too profound for me, at the moment.” Shuxue nodded amiably. “And there’s the profound Infinity Mission Pavilion, donated by minister Jingji of the Bluedirt Sector. The mission pavilion is managed by minister Shibing. For a sufficient price, outsiders can contract with the Infinity Sector to hire disciples as escorts and guards for merchants and forays into the Mountain Range of mathematical beasts and dungeons.”
Shuxue didn’t know what the difference between an escort and a guard was, but he didn’t pay too much attention to the paper when Feiliao had him sign it. He wasn’t too interested in worldly affairs, after all.
“Yes, I had the Infinity mission pavilion placed down exactly 300 meters from the Infinity Spiral and 23 meters from both the Infinity marketplace border and the Infinity hotel. The Infinity mission pavilion forms an equilateral triangle with the Infinity marketplace and the Infinity hotel, with angles measuring exactly pi/3 radians, with pi calculated to 21 significant figures.” Fengshui said quite smugly.
“Wow, you have pi calculated to the 20th decimal place?” Shuxue said, impressed. “You must spent quite a large amount of time on the pi visualization technique.”
Some numbers were profound and boundless, and pi was one of these special numbers! Shuxue had learned from a Geometry jade slip that pi was the circumference of a unit circle, and it was impossible to ascertain its exact value.
The only way to better understand pi was to use the pi visualization technique, where one would imagine the form of a circle in one’s head!
“Indeed. Only with a profound understanding of the irrational number pi can I optimize mathforce generation. If the angles are even a bit off, then-”
Shuxue’s hand had reached out and slapped Fengshui.
“You too, Fengshui! You actually have the nerve to call the beautiful pi an irrational number?!” Shuxue was so indignant, he felt like he could explode. “I expected better from you! Pi is not irrational, it is profound! Just because foolish humans cannot grasp the complexities and nuances of this number, does not mean it is irrational! Pi is perfectly rational!”
Fengshui rubbed her cheek, giving Shuxue a murderous look.
Shuxue was too busy fuming to notice. “Hmph! I let you off easy, minister Fengshui, because you have made this place a thousand times more profound than before! When that servant the other day also told me pi was an irrational number, I broke all 3 of his legs and rearranged his 5 organs! Anyway, let’s get back to enjoying the view, and let me expound upon the profundities of our Infinity Sector.”
Shuxue’s smile returned to his face as he looked around. “There’s the profound Infinity pill concocting workshop. The furnace complex was donated by the Redflame Sector, the ingredients come from the profound Infinity Spiral, and of course the furnaces are manned by our very own Infinity disciples.
There’s the profound Infinity marketplace, which you mentioned before. We buy things for 70% of whatever price that imbecile Jingji arbitrarily sets, and sell them for 100%. I seem to remember the stalls were made by your Elegance Sector. The flowing patterns of the cloths covering the stalls are quite profound.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Next to the profound Infinity river, which is being dug according to your specifications by those disciples and mortals we enslaved from the Pinksnow Sector, is the profound Infinity expedition courtyard, which sends out our disciples on expeditions to dungeons and the Mountain Range of Mathematical beasts. I highly approve of the profound infinity symbol you’ve carved into the courtyard. The profound mathematical birds transport our disciples so much faster than that unprofound flying carpet I used to use. Thanks to our friends in the Yellowcloud Sector for these tamed mathematical beasts.
Here’s the profound Infinity armory, which stores all of our profound mathematical weapons and miscellaneous items. It’s right next to the not profound at all Infinity barracks, which drills our disciples in utterly pointless exercises.
The profound Infinity library lies right next to our profound Infinity palace, which holds all the jade slips and problem sets I have processed. The contours of the library are so profound, I cannot even begin to comprehend them! It’s shaped as a profound curving pyramid thing with a square base, and reels in a fair amount of mathforce, although it can’t really compare to the profound Infinity Spiral, or the profound Infinity palace. It was built from scratch in two days by your subordinates, which is quite impressive, but I feel it could use a few adjustments. There’s just something off about it.
At the base of the profound 10th mountain is the profound Infinity hotel, which- hey, where are you going?”
Shuxue stopped his speech as he saw Fengshui jump off and hurtle down the central mountain at incredible speed, beelining for the slaves currently digging the profound Infinity river.
“Hey, listen to me!” Shuxue complained as he huffed and puffed down the mountain. “I’m explaining the profundities of our Infinity Sector! You can’t just ignore me like that! I still haven’t talked about the profound Infinity mountain mansion that houses all the new arrivals yet!”
“You inept idiots!” Fengshui screeched at the slaves, completely ignoring Shuxue. Her eyelid was twitching violently. “Why can’t you follow the specifications I gave? That riverbank needs to be 2.00359 centimeters to the left, so that it can properly form a pi/12 radian angle with the Treasure workshop! Otherwise, this entire layout is completely ruined, and the amount of mathforce that will flow through this Sector would be halved!”
“Oh, right. I forgot to talk about the profound Infinity treasure workshop, as well.” Shuxue said thoughtfully to himself. “That’s where we make our own jade slips, weapons, and other artifacts. jade slips are normally only made by the Mathematical laws, but experts can condense large amounts of mathforce to create jade slips that contain insights that must be at least one realm below the level of the Mathivator.
For example, I can condense Arithmetic jade slips because I’m at the Algebra stage, but I can’t condense Algebra jade slips. Someone at the Trigonometry stage can condense Geometry stage jade slips, but not Trigonometry stage jade slips. They also can’t condense Algebra stage jade slips, because Algebra is a different branch of Mathematics than Geometry and Trigonometry, even though they are related in many profound ways. For example,-”
“Quiet, Shuxue! I’m working!” Fengshui’s hand reached out, delivering a loud slap to Shuxue’s cheek. “Nobody cares about your stupid profound this, profound that soliloquy! I already know all these things! Who are you explaining all this to, anyway? Do you think you’re some fictional character written by an unskilled author who can’t properly embed information into the story and uses you to spell things out for the readers or something?”
Shuxue blinked and stopped talking. “Sorry, I don’t know what got into me. Why does the riverbank have to be 2 centimeters to the left, anyway?”
“Because the mathforce generating equation experiences a maximum when this river has these coordinates! At this coordinate, where the first derivative equals 0 and the second-” Fengshui suddenly paled and stopped talking.
“Eh? Why’d you stop? That was an interesting explanation!” Shuxue was puzzled, and prodded Fengshui for more information.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, Shuxue. This is just obscure Arithmetic properties.” Fengshui bobbed her head. “Uh… you see, 2.00359+2.00359=4.00718, and 4.00718 squared is very close to, uhhhh, 16.0575, which is the magic number for mathforce generation! That’s all!”
Shuxue nodded, excited. “Wow, that’s so profound. Profound! Too profound!”