The Shortest Shortcut Was to Take the Long Way Around

"Master, where are we going next?" After exchanging names, Liu Qi quickly switched into the role of apprentice. Feng Xue found his behavior somewhat amusing and pointed northwest, saying:

"While I usually decide which way to go by rolling dice, since I'm mentoring someone, I can take you through the speedrun route."

"First, go and see Rong City, then follow the Sichuan-Tibet Line into Northern Xinjiang, all the way to northern Xinjiang, Yumen Qinghai, past Yumen, to experience the grasslands, and finally from Xidu, take the Shu Road, along the Jialing River back to Shangshu. After this round trip, your basic skills should be solid. The rest is up to you to figure out."

"How long will this take?!" Liu Qi's eyes widened. Although with modern transportation, circling the Earth wouldn't take long, walking on foot was a completely different story! And this was just a "speed trip"?

"The straight-line distance is less than 8,000 kilometers, but considering the various terrain issues along the way, it's at least 10,000 kilometers. My own round trip, including rest and repair time, will take about half a year, but with you in tow, it might take three or four years."

Feng Xue spoke nonchalantly, but Liu Qi felt his legs trembling.

However, he ultimately didn't utter any words of giving up. Instead, he nodded forcefully, as if making a determined gesture:

"When do we leave? I'll go back and pack my luggage."

"Don't rush. Let me teach you some basic Breathing Technique first. Go back and practice. I'll stay here for three more days. If you can Qi Sensation within three days, we'll set off. If not, I won't wait for you. Alright, go back now. Don't come back until you've Qi Sensation."

As Feng Xue spoke, she took out a booklet from her bosom. Although Liu Qi was a little nervous about the "three days" deadline, he nodded vigorously and accepted the booklet with both hands.

This manual looks very ordinary, just plain printed paper with penmanship, but Liu Qi could see a sharp edge, like a sword, in each character.

Returning home with the legendary manual, Liu Qi eagerly opened the handwritten book, and was somewhat surprised by the few pages of content.

This Breathing Technique method seems to be just basic Breathing Technique; the entire book contains no more than two thousand words, and the content is only about postures, breathing rhythms, and meditation.

Liu Qi had expected to see a bunch of impressive-sounding but incomprehensible terms, but then he realized that if a manual really appeared written in all sorts of technical terms, he probably wouldn't be able to understand it anyway.

Although the manual mentioned that one doesn't need to force oneself to sit cross-legged during meditation, and can simply choose a comfortable way to sit, he still followed the illustrations in the book and sat on the bed in the standard cross-legged position. Although his legs were still a bit unresponsive, this cross-legged posture, which should not have been very comfortable, was surprisingly bearable at this moment.

"Could it be that I chose to sit cross-legged because my legs went numb from squatting in a horse stance?" A random thought crossed Liu Qi's mind, but he quickly regained his focus. He pressed his tongue against his forehead, closed his mouth, and, following the rhythm in the book, breathed through his nose while imagining a warm current gathering and dispersing in his chest.

Actually, the Breathing Technique is a bit counterintuitive, because when you inhale, you imagine a warm current spreading out from your heart, and when you exhale, you imagine the warm current gathering. It took Liu Qi two whole hours to slowly adapt to this rhythm and begin to clear his mind and focus his attention.

While Liu Qi entered into cultivation, Feng Xue continued to sit under the overpass, gradually immersing herself in the "Crystal Dice" in her hand.

He wasn't quite sure what level of imprinting the mark would be considered complete in his consciousness, but he was certain that he hadn't reached that standard yet.

Unfortunately, this isn't the era of Short Video that will be popular a few years from now (Kuaishou has just launched as a Short Video community, and Short Video are still in their growth stage; the explosive growth period won't come until Douyin launches in 2016), otherwise Feng Xue probably would already have a "most handsome homeless man" Supernatural Tale Entry, instead of just a "[handsome]" Tag.

Yes, not long after the beautiful woman who tipped him took the photo yesterday, he generated this Tag. Although the function of this Tag is very limited, it can only make him "more likely to gain the favor of others." If this ability could not be superimposed with the [Treasure] Trait of [Money Printer], it would definitely be the most useless Tag in Feng Xue's hands.

"Sir..."

Just as Feng Xue was complaining about his Tag, a voice came from beside him. He immediately slowed down his focus on the dice and looked up to see that it was actually an Urban Management Officer.

The Urban Management Officer seemed quite polite and spoke in a friendly tone:

"Are you encountering any difficulties?"

Feng Xue looked at the Urban Management Officer seriously, and seeing his sincere attitude, she nodded and said:

"Ah, yes, yes, yes."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the Urban Management Officer's eyes immediately became unfocused, and then he walked away as if nothing had happened.

"Wow, this thing is even better than I expected!"

Feng Xue patted the small blanket wrapped around him, muttered something in surprise, and then continued to fiddle with the Crystal Dice in his hand. Just then, another Spiritual Light appeared in his Real World Rules.

As the Weird Tale of the executioners spread and master-level executioners appeared, ordinary mission requests were no longer sent to Feng Xue. The [Kung Fu Dream] Real World Rules is a non-reactive rule. Generally speaking, people who can trigger it will enter his list when he becomes Weird Tale. Except for those young people who have just come into contact with martial arts, there are very few cases of sudden increases.

A quick scan revealed another Chinese Descendant who had been bullied by Black-Coated ATM. Thinking to himself that these ATMs never learn, he casually sent a wisp of his consciousness over.

But in that instant, a flash of Spiritual Light struck him—

"If I can send a wisp of my consciousness into someone else, could I send a wisp of my consciousness into this die? Wouldn't that be like a miniature version of myself constantly being influenced?"

Once the thought appeared, it began to spread wildly in Feng Xue's mind. He couldn't wait to separate a wisp of his consciousness to try it out, and then he discovered two problems.

First, there's the ever-present issue of the intensity of consciousness. There's a significant loss during the process of sending consciousness into the dice. If the intensity of the consciousness is too high, it will damage the outer shell of the dice and contaminate the internal [consciousness]. If the intensity is too low, it will be too weak after passing through the dice, and the efficiency of permeating [consciousness] will be very low.

Secondly, consciousness is not something that can last forever. It descends upon others because the human body itself is a container for consciousness. However, the interior of this Crystal Dice is clearly not a space where consciousness can remain active for a long time. Even if a wisp of consciousness is successfully sent in, it will quickly dissipate, no different from slowly branding oneself.

"In other words, to achieve 'fully automated immersion,' we must solve two problems: the intensity of consciousness and the carrier of consciousness?"

Feng Xue rolled the dice back and forth between her nimble fingers, seemingly pondering a solution.

In the past, he would have had to abandon this seemingly promising idea at this point, but now he has another option—

Relying on the power of [Martial], a set of techniques specifically designed for this purpose was developed.

Unbelievable! When I was introducing True Thing and False Thing biological objects, I said that anything that is neither a living thing nor True Thing is False Thing, and someone actually argued with me about that simple statement...

I'm too lazy to explain this further; just look up the Five Realms Classification Method or the Three Domains and Six Realms Classification Method yourself.

For example, the classification of "Reptilia" is "all animals in the phylum Chordata that do not belong to the classes Aves, Mammals, Pisces, or Amphibians are classified as Reptilia".

Textbooks categorize things this way, so why can't I use "those that don't belong to the other two categories are the remaining ones" to describe the third category?

Finally, I know that cladistic classification is used in biological research now, but the five-kingdom classification (or six-kingdom three-domain classification) is still used in teaching, so if you want to argue with me about this, go argue with the entire field of biological taxonomy first.