Lu worked the crank, rotating it furiously. The crank, in turn, rotated a wheel covered in magnets, all aligned inwards towards the wire coil. Gradually, the lightning thus generated was used to heat up the connected plate, and the teapot atop it. When the water began boiling, Lu took that as his cue to stop.
He panted. “Hah, see? You don’t need to burn wood or expend qi; the generator just needs to be spun.” He poured the water into ready-made cups that he had prepared before his audience had arrived.
Neither Bull nor Gu Gian seemed overly impressed. Bull, at least, took the demonstration in high spirits. “That’s interesting. I can’t see it replacing stoves, though.” He smiled. “But I’m sure there are other uses than just making tea.”
Gu Gian was less gentle. “The steam carriage was much more impressive. You should focus on that; merchants would be willing to pay a lot to move goods reliably, without burning spirit stones. This is next to useless in comparison.”
Lu’s enthusiasm was dampened, just slightly. “Ah, but you’re seeing the generator at its worst, essentially; imagine it connected to a windmill or waterwheel, instead of turned by hand. Once I figure out how exactly they were storing the lightning…” Even after six months’ work, there was a vast gap between what he had observed in the other world, and what he could reproduce. He had given up on acid-based generators almost immediately, as he lacked any way to source the ingredients, and the less said about his attempts at a flying machine, the better. But steam-powered vehicles were extremely simple, in comparison, and with the correct formations could be run at basically zero cost.
“When you figure it out, then I’ll be impressed. For now, this is little more than a novelty.” She pushed her spectacles up. “When making a formation, one of the most essential skills is knowing when you’ve hit the limit of your abilities. I’m not saying to stop experimenting, but you should pick the low-hanging fruit before they go sour.”
Lu frowned. I understand what you’re saying, but… But the steam carriages were so… Mundane. He was certain that if lower realm disciples weren’t ubiquitous enough, to the point that they could be relied on to guard caravans, some enterprising mortal would have figured out powered transport long ago. Heat the water, use the difference in pressure to turn a wheel, that’s it. There’s not a lot I can iterate on, without a lot more research. It was in a tricky place, where his understanding of the base principles was basically complete, but moving forward meant stepping into the complete unknown. I know the trucks burned some kind of explosive oil, but I don’t know how that translated to all the other things the truck could do, that wasn’t turning the wheels.
In comparison, the lightning generator was in a sweet spot between incomprehensible and solved; working on it was fun. “Thank you for the advice, elder sister. I’ll be sure to come to you with the finalised designs.” She nodded. And of course, I’m certain that you getting a cut from the carriages, due to my not being able to finish the enchanting or formations myself, has nothing to do with it. “And Bull, thank you for providing some of the funds for my experiments. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
Bull waved him off. “I’m sure you will.” A sharp smile. “And I’m sure I could extract it in services rendered, if need be. I’ve been needing a new punching bag recently.”
No, no, there’s no need for that! Really. There’s money here, I can feel it. His entrepreneurial sense was as honed as his spiritual one, and it smelled profit. “Ah, we should probably drink our tea before it gets cold.”
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As he disconnected the crank from the rest of the machine – to prevent accidental fires – Lu ruminated on the progress he had made. In terms of cultivation, he was as near to the peak of first realm as he could get without abandoning consumption, or finding a workaround. Interestingly, that was a lot closer than he had feared – it seemed that his spiritual stomach was able to nourish his body as well, if much less than it needed to. He was basically just a hair away from being able to ascend to second realm, and he had a few ideas about how to proceed.
The one he was most focussed on was inspired by his ki channels. He had noticed while practising techniques that ki flowing through the channels didn’t eat into his spiritual veins, even if they were directly intersecting. My best guess is that it has something to do with both the channels and veins being directly integrated into my body. When my stomach has a reaction and pumps out ki, that ki doesn’t go to my channels, it just sits in a cloud until it dissipates. So I should be able to find the points where the panic-ki is leaking out, and carve proper channels.
I could also try to carve channels for my spiritual veins to run through; presumably, they keep ki out as well as they keep it in. Insulate them, so my stomach can’t dissolve them. Qi channels, rather than ki channels.
Of course that would still leave the stomach itself without veins, but he felt confident that getting the area directly around it would be enough.
Another way he could go would be to try and separate his stomach area off completely, make it completely irrelevant to his cultivation. That path had a lot of downsides, chiefly that he had no idea how he would do such a thing in the first place. It would also leave a chunk of his organs stuck at a mortal level, which would probably be bad for his health in the long run. Not a very good plan B, but better than nothing. Hopefully the channel idea works out.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Moving on to consumption, he had actually progressed quite a bit. While he couldn’t copy self-targeting spells without a partner, he was starting to be able to understand the fluctuations enough that he could look at the effect and guess the pattern that would produce it. It was still rather unreliable, but he had translated some of his more simplistic illusory arts into techniques, and had seen a bit of success in modifying the techniques he already knew. Already he could make Space Ripper do things that the base spell couldn’t, like teleport small objects around without holding them. It’s a lot easier to understand the techniques with a spacial component – presumably my consumption is helping me along, though I don’t know enough to say for certain.
And of course, his stomach itself had been growing just fine. Translating spells to techniques had to be done in the closed space – where the half-qi half-ki energy field was able to produce comprehensible shockwaves – but his enchantment worked constantly, no matter where he was or what he was doing. While he had mostly been focussing on cultivation, he should be able to use more techniques before running dry. Or a similar number of techniques, but using more ki; they seem a lot more flexible in terms of cost, compared to spells.
And finally, if one were to try and keep track of more ephemeral things like his relationships and reputation…
Still no luck in romance. I thought I might be able to spark something with Gu Gian, given our shared business venture, but she firmly shut that down. He sighed. At least I’m useful to the sect. He was the only one that was able to use ki, so he was brought in whenever they were testing. After a lot of poking and prodding, they had determined that the ki-like energy in the closed space wasn’t dense enough to be self-propagating, so attempting to form a spiritual stomach without crossing over fully would be impossible. Presumably in the future they would have disciples willing to start from scratch to utilise the energy, but for now it was mostly inner and core disciples who were in the know – people who wouldn’t be willing to disperse their cultivation.
It was, in a way, somewhat reassuring; he had struggled and bled to discover this power, and knowing that some inner disciples wouldn’t swoop in and surpass him right away had been nice. Not that I’m getting a swelled head, or anything. It’s just nice to have something to do other than fiddle with copper wire all day.
He had also been doing a lot of reading. Once he hit second realm – hopefully soon! – he would be able to start doing proper enchanting and formations work. Theoretically he could do it now, since qi reserve was a lot less important for those disciplines, but… He just couldn’t muster the necessary mental effort. I can handle maybe four forms at once when enchanting, not enough to do anything useful for me. Formations would be slightly easier, but the material cost… He shivered. Again, not worth it for anything I’d be doing right now. Better to put my money into making more money.
Which meant putting the finishing touches on those boring, boring steam carriages.
He finished cleaning up after his demonstration, and turned an eye to the mess of copper detritus his room had become. Ah, I miss Sulphur. I bet he would have wrote down some step-by-step instructions if I had asked…
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The carriages sold well enough. Not amazingly, people weren’t walking away with ten of the things, but enough to make a profit. Cultivators didn’t like to be used as bulk transport, and so charged a disproportionate amount to haul goods long distances. And too many horses in one place tended to attract predatory spirit beasts, so sending caravans through the wilderness unguarded was incredibly risky. Flying treasures were a distant dream to most wealthy merchants, let alone average ones.
So when Lu advertised something that could move goods long distances, without attracting spirit beasts, and at a halfway-reasonable price? They sold. Eventually people would start making their own, but for now they had a monopoly.
Which meant that even after Gu Gian took her cut, and the sect took its much more modest cut, Lu was more wealthy than most core disciples. The ones that weren’t born wealthy, anyway. The bulk of it was being secured by the sect, a service they offered to all disciples, but he kept a pile of spirit stones in his room. Just to look at, so he knew it was real. If you had asked me a year ago what the best way to make money was, I’d have said something like, ‘invest in a spirit stone mine,’ or ‘found your own sect and collect taxes from a whole region.’
…Actually, both of those are probably still better, if you’re higher realm and can defend them. But I’m first realm, first realm! This is an obscene amount of wealth! I could buy a village with this.
…Huh. I could buy a village with this. If he could leave the sect without fearing for his life, that would actually be an enticing prospect. No, no, I’m sure I’d start missing the sect almost immediately. A mortal village wouldn’t be able to cater to my refined tastes.
And he was in too deep with the Sixth Reality business to be left alone, anyway. So, retiring to the coast somewhere isn’t on the table right now. What do I spend this on, if anything?
The obvious answer was cultivation. The second obvious answer was reinvesting it into more engineering. Could I figure out guns? They may be an incredibly inelegant weapon, but I’m sure there are hundreds of farmers who would pay a modest sum to keep spirit rabbits off their carrots. And militaries, obviously. He could also just sit on it, and live comfortably for the rest of his life.
Ah, why choose? I’ll squirrel away a little nest egg – nest nut? – for if all my future ventures fall flat somehow, put some of it towards projects, and then use the remainder to cultivate. Money solves all problems!
Which meant he should probably talk to an alchemist. No, better idea; learn some alchemy, then talk to an alchemist, to make sure he wasn’t being scammed.
And also test out his qi channel hypothesis; all the spirit stones in the world wouldn’t make a difference if his dantian couldn’t advance.
…And hire a servant to prepare his meals. He was rich now!