Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability - Mathematics: Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage

While Lu Mingyuan was immersed in the Divine Ability Treasury, countless others across Tianyun Continent were doing the same thing.

Their identities varied—old or young, male or female, heirs of the Hundred Schools, nobles and royalty, or common folk...

Their purposes differed too—some out of boredom, killing time; others hoping to find a suitable divine ability; still others studying classics online...

At this moment, in the southern part of Tianyun Continent, a young woman from Xiaoxiang Academy sank her mind into the Divine Ability Treasury, browsing through it.

Xiaoxiang Academy was located in Liyao City of the Great Chu Kingdom. It was a rare academy dedicated solely to teaching and training women.

Unlike Qingshan Academy, where Lu Mingyuan studied, Xiaoxiang Academy only admitted women who had reached the age of eighteen.

In other words, Xiaoxiang Academy only accepted awakened adult women.

Thus, Xiaoxiang Academy could be considered an advanced academy.

At least more advanced than Qingshan Academy.

Back to that young woman. She was a senior student at Xiaoxiang Academy—Jiang Zichun. Her cultivation was very close to the Three-Star level.

On Tianyun Continent, cultivation realms based on Talent Qi were divided into: One-Star, Two-Star, Three-Star, Four-Star, and so on. These star realms corresponded to one cun of Talent Qi, two cun, four cun, eight cun...

Now, the night was deep. Having just returned to her dormitory, Jiang Zichun finished a day of grueling training. After washing up, she lay lazily on her soft bed, thinking about tomorrow's competition and how to achieve a better ranking.

A better ranking meant better rewards.

Tomorrow was Xiaoxiang Academy's monthly grand competition day.

This monthly competition was specifically designed to check the students' progress over the past month. Good rankings came with rewards—much like the monthly exams in the real world.

However, at Xiaoxiang Academy's monthly exam, only the top ten received rewards. And the higher the ranking, the better the reward.

Although Jiang Zichun's grades were good, she usually hovered around ninth or tenth place—a precarious position.

She wanted to both hold her current rank and push further.

But her hard power—things like cultivation foundation and sword realm—couldn't skyrocket in a short time. So Jiang Zichun thought about finding a suitable divine ability to quickly make up for her weaknesses and boost her combat strength.

Based on the characteristics of her Fragrant Sword technique, Jiang Zichun wanted to find a binding or restricting divine ability to assist in battle.

Of course, she hoped it would be cheap—she wasn't wealthy.

But the famous divine abilities either had too many restrictions, didn't fit her requirements, consumed too much Spiritual Qi, or were simply too expensive. Jiang Zichun admitted she could neither afford nor use them.

So she had dragged things out until now, still without finding anything suitable.

With no other choice, Jiang Zichun came to browse the newly appeared divine abilities, hoping to find a bargain. After all, legends said people sometimes struck gold.

She had heard that the Taoist School's powerful divine ability—Dharma Heaven Dharma Earth—had initially sold for just one hundred points. Now, it had risen to ten thousand.

Jiang Zichun said she couldn't afford it even if she sold herself.

Over the past few days, she had looked through hundreds of new divine abilities, but none satisfied her.

Leaving aside the life-type divine abilities that taught chess, painting, and such.

As for combat-type ones, most were simple things like summoning a long sword or a shockwave.

A few years ago, Jiang Zichun might have envied these divine abilities. But now, they couldn't even threaten her, let alone those ahead of her.

After browsing for half a day with no results, this usually gentle and amiable woman grew irritable.

She felt like smashing things.

Tomorrow was the competition. Would Jiang Zichun even fail to hold onto the top ten this time? She had heard that Zhang Yurou, who ranked twelfth last time, had recently made rapid progress in her swordsmanship, while Jiang Zichun herself hadn't improved much.

So she worried—would she be knocked down tomorrow? If so, that would be truly embarrassing.

Just then, a label reading "Peerless Great Divine Ability" caught Jiang Zichun's eye.

"Another clickbait title. 'Peerless Great Divine Ability'? I might as well call it 'Number One Divine Ability in the Universe.'"

Seeing the "Peerless Great Divine Ability," Jiang Zichun curled her lips. This kind of "Peerless Great Divine Ability" popped up almost every month—a monthly divine ability, so to speak.

Even if they existed, their effects were usually mediocre, so she normally skipped them.

But this time, for some reason, she took a second look. The divine ability's name read:

Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability—Mathematics: Chicken-Rabbit Cage Problem.

Price: 100 points.

"Spirit-Stabilizing? That should be similar to binding, right?

But binding divine abilities are expensive—tens of thousands—and have high realm requirements. I wonder how this one is?

If it's even half as good as a binding divine ability, that would be great."

If so, this divine ability was exactly what Jiang Zichun wanted. "But this 'Mathematics'—what is that? I've never heard of it."

"And 'Chicken-Rabbit Cage Problem'?

Isn't that a classic problem from the Classic of Sunzi? How does that stabilize the spirit? Could it be another teaching-type divine ability? Like Encouraging Learning?

And isn't this arithmetic? Why call it mathematics?

Maybe... I'll take a look first."

Jiang Zichun grew interested. This was the first time she had heard the term "Mathematics," and she was very curious. And if it really was the "Chicken-Rabbit Cage Problem" she was thinking of, then she wanted to see—just how was this supposed to stabilize the spirit?

Is it another clickbait title?

Since it was an illusion-type divine ability that could be experienced directly, Jiang Zichun had the Divine Ability Treasury cast this "Peerless Great Divine Ability" on her.

After being hit by the ability, in an instant, Jiang Zichun arrived in the illusion.

And just as she entered the illusion, a piece of information was transmitted into Jiang Zichun's mind.

The information wasn't much—it covered concepts about numbers, like one, two, three, four; and also descriptions of the heads and legs of chickens and rabbits.

After reading this information, Jiang Zichun stood in the void and frowned. "That's it? Nothing else? Looks like this really is the 'Chicken-Rabbit Cage Problem'! I thought there'd be something different."

Jiang Zichun was a bit disappointed. When she saw the name of this divine ability, she thought she might have stumbled onto a big find, but it seemed—there was no luck this time.

"Still, since I'm in, I might as well give it a try. What if there's something good hidden? Though, the chances are slim."

Then, Jiang Zichun said "Start" with a lackluster tone.

Sure enough, the problem came: "Pheasants have one head and two feet; rabbits have one head and four feet. Now, pheasants and rabbits are in the same cage. Above, there are thirty-five heads; below, there are ninety-four feet. How many pheasants and rabbits are there?"

Jiang Zichun had studied the Classic of Sunzi before and had even practiced this type of problem specifically.

So, with the help of counting rods, it took her less than ten seconds to solve it.

Answer: Twenty-three pheasants, twelve rabbits.

After answering, she could leave.

Jiang Zichun stared intently at the illusion space but found nothing unusual. Then, somewhat disappointed, she exited the illusion space and returned to reality.

"What a letdown. I think it's just an ordinary problem-solving illusion.

And it's called the Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability?

Definitely clickbait! What a waste of this young lady's time."

Jiang Zichun grumbled a few words, then prepared to continue browsing the Divine Ability Treasury to find a suitable ability quickly, since time was running out.

Just then, Jiang Zichun seemed to sense something. She quickly stopped her plan to keep browsing and experienced the Peerless Great Divine Ability again.

This time, the problem changed.

"Now, there are beasts with six heads and four feet; birds with four heads and two feet. Above, there are seventy-six heads; below, there are forty-six feet. How many birds and beasts are there?"

This problem was a bit harder than the last one, but Jiang Zichun still solved it.

Answer: Eight beasts, seven birds.

After answering, she could leave. Again, nothing unusual.

Just as Jiang Zichun was about to leave, she suddenly noticed the time taken. This time, it took her about twenty seconds to calculate the answer.

But looking at the time, Jiang Zichun suddenly realized something.

Wait, something's off. Why didn't it ask if I wanted to take a test? It just went straight in, and I could only say "Start"?

Is it forced?

Is this what "stabilizing the spirit" means?

In fact, when she first entered the illusion, Jiang Zichun had learned that the time ratio between the illusion and the outside was one to one hundred. Now that she took twenty seconds to get the answer, it meant her outside body lost control for 0.2 seconds.

From this perspective, this divine ability truly deserved the name "Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability."

The information also said that this ratio could be further reduced, down to a limit of one to ten. At that point, Jiang Zichun would lose focus for two seconds.

Ah, no. Based on experience, losing consciousness for one second would allow the target to forcibly wake up, so it should be a loss of focus for one second.

Losing focus for one second sounds short, but that single second in battle could reverse life and death.

Thinking of this, Jiang Zichun almost jumped for joy. With this, she could definitely dominate tomorrow and even have a chance at taking first place.

After exiting the illusion space, Jiang Zichun immediately bought this divine ability, as if afraid it might disappear.

After paying the Qi Luck Points, a transparent phantom appeared in Jiang Zichun's Soul Space—this was the Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability.

After touching it with her mind, Jiang Zichun fully understood the specifics of this ability.

This divine ability must hit the connection point between the target's soul and body. For humans, it must hit the head.

And like most divine abilities, its release range was limited.

For Jiang Zichun, her current Talent Qi was 3.8 inches, so her ability's release range was 3.8 meters around her. (When Talent Qi reaches 4 inches, one can advance to three stars.)

Beyond this range, the ability was ineffective.

As for the problem-setting aspect.

This ability could specify the problem range, selecting only certain problems within that range; of course, it could also generate random problems directly.

By default, the problems were randomly selected from the full range.

Moreover, Jiang Zichun, as the owner, could adjust the difficulty of the problems.

There were over three hundred problems in total, divided into three difficulty levels. The second problem she had just experienced was level two difficulty.

As for level three difficulty, she tried it herself and found it was indeed very hard. It would be difficult for most people to solve within twenty seconds.

"Truly worthy of being the Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability. Tomorrow—I'll let them taste this young lady's power."

As she spoke, Jiang Zichun nearly burst out laughing. But judging by her expression, she really did look like a mouse that had stolen some oil.

Laughing away, Jiang Zichun suddenly felt something was off—was this divine ability actually effective against others?

If it was effective, then why had she never heard of anyone using the Quanxue Divine Ability in combat?

Thinking of this, Jiang Zichun quickly checked the information in the Divine Ability Treasury.

After a while, having spent 5 Qi Luck Points, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out that some people really had considered using illusion-type divine abilities like Quanxue for battle.

But unlike this Chicken-Rabbit Cage Divine Ability, the Quanxue Divine Ability required the other party's consent to pull them into the illusion.

It was said that this restriction existed because literary-type questions simply had no definitive answers, or rather, no answer recognized by all intelligent beings.

The real root cause was that the divine ability itself could not infer or deduce the answers to subsequent questions from the limited prior information provided, so it couldn't be forced. To force it, the logic had to be self-consistent and the answer derivable.

For example, the next line after "学而时习之" from the Analects—there was absolutely no standard answer.

Unless you fed the entire "Xue Er Chapter" as prior information to the answerer, then "不亦说乎" would count as the standard answer, and you could force them to fall for it. Otherwise, if they answered "一二三四五六," you couldn't say they were wrong.

But if you gave them the answer, how could you still trap them?

Keep in mind this was an illusion—the moment you gave the answer, the other party could instantly recall everything, no matter how long the answer was. Or rather, while you were feeding them this information, they could copy it out on the spot in the illusion, think it through, and still answer in a split second.

Of course, if the illusion wasn't forced, then as long as the answer matched the pre-prepared one, it would work. This was actually the basis for the [Quanxue Divine Ability]'s assessment.

So from this perspective, [Quanxue] wasn't very suitable for combat.

Another reason was that the more prior knowledge such illusion-type divine abilities required, the more Spiritual Qi they consumed. Teachers in the academies generally only started learning this divine ability after advancing to Four Stars. That's why Four Stars were also called Master-level, meaning one could serve as a teacher to others.

By then, their Talent Qi was at least eight inches, allowing them to draw in more Spiritual Qi, so they could afford the Quanxue Divine Ability.

Or rather, only at this point did they have the capacity to release a Quanxue with so much prior knowledge. And even then, the prior knowledge in [Quanxue] was just a table of contents, with no actual content, so it couldn't force others to fall for it.

There was also the issue that the more Spiritual Qi consumed when releasing the divine ability, the longer the release time.

It was said that the release time for the Quanxue Divine Ability was around seven to eight seconds.

So from this point too, the Quanxue Divine Ability wasn't suited for regular combat.

To sum up the above points: no definitive answers, no logical self-consistency to derive answers, inability to force others to fall for it; or too much prior knowledge, too high release requirements, and too slow a release speed.

Thus, over all these years, no low-level illusion-type divine ability suitable for combat had ever appeared.

And this "Chicken-Rabbit Cage Divine Ability" did very well in this regard. Its prior knowledge was minimal—only the concepts of numbers and rules, and the concepts of heads and legs—so it could be described in less than a hundred words.

Less prior knowledge meant less Spiritual Qi consumed, and thus less release time.

So this Chicken-Rabbit Cage Divine Ability was almost instantaneous.

Moreover, the answers to the questions within this divine ability could be fully derived from the prior knowledge, giving it a basis for being forced.

That is to say, as long as one had intelligence and could understand the concept of numbers, then in theory, they could solve the subsequent questions.

Of course, if they couldn't solve them, that meant their intelligence was too low.

Thinking of this, Jiang Zichun's eyes suddenly sparkled.

"According to this, this divine ability would work on alien races too!"

Alien races also had the concept of numbers and intelligence; they could fully understand the prior information and derive the answers.

"But... if it really works, then this is huge. No, I have to test it thoroughly later. Wait, let me first see who this great figure is? So incredibly impressive."

Jiang Zichun suppressed her urgency, wanting to see the name of this divine ability's creator, to pay her respects first.

Who knew, the moment she saw the name, Jiang Zichun was completely stunned, her mind filled with "Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?"

"Anonymous? This person's surname is Anon?"

"Surname Anon? How have I never heard of that surname before?"

"Wait, Anonymous, that's also called 'Nameless,' right? It refers to someone unwilling to reveal their name."

"So, this great figure might be hiding their identity for some reason?"

Thinking it over, Jiang Zichun shook her head. "Forget it, I'll just go test this peerless divine ability first! This young lady is waiting to dominate tomorrow."

Changfeng City.

The moment Jiang Zichun purchased the divine ability, Lu Mingyuan, who was still browsing the Divine Ability Treasury, suddenly received a notification that the divine ability he had uploaded earlier had sold one copy.

Upon receiving the news, a surge of excitement flooded Lu Mingyuan's heart.

But he knew this matter shouldn't be exposed, nor could he talk about it, so he could only think to himself: Who has such good eyesight? So quick on the draw.

Looks like I can sleep well tonight.

It was only at this moment that Lu Mingyuan was certain he was really about to take off. And his plan probably wouldn't need to change either.