Unexpected Intelligence

There were not too many tea houses in the inner city of Xinyue, but not too few either. Though cultivators had far less need for food and water than mortals, they ultimately could not survive without eating or drinking. Besides, quite a few among the immortals enjoyed what was in the cup.

White Horse Tea House stood in the eastern district of the inner city and counted as one of the liveliest tea houses around. Its owner followed a people-friendly approach. Though the place kept famous teas like Longjing and Biluochun in stock, its main business was affordable, robust tea. There was even a small stage inside, where comic performers and storytellers took turns performing. Over time, the tea house's proprietor had become a model of small profits and quick turnover.

At that moment, Wang Qi sat at a table in White Horse Tea House, staring fixedly at the blue-robed cultivator across from him.

Earlier, Wang Qi had happened to catch sight of the blue-robed cultivator's movement technique from just the right angle. A prankish impulse had immediately risen in him, and he had intended to call out the blue-robed cultivator's movements to the many grim-faced cultivators pursuing him. Unexpectedly, the blue-robed cultivator had seized him, dragged him all the way to this tea house, then casually tossed him onto a chair.

Afterward, the blue-robed cultivator had sprawled across the seat opposite Wang Qi and begun examining the cards in his hand.

Although the technique the blue-robed cultivator had used to restrain him had lost its effect the moment the man let go, Wang Qi still had no intention of fleeing. Zhen Chanzi had just sent him a spiritual-sense transmission, saying that this blue-robed man was at least a Foundation Establishment cultivator. If the other party bore a grudge over his prank and had no intention of letting him go, there was no way he could escape anyway.

Because he did not want too many people to know of his existence

And Xiang Qi would come looking for him once she finished the resignation procedures, while fighting and harming others were forbidden near the Immortal Alliance, so for the moment he did not need to worry about his safety.

But...

"Big brother, what exactly are you trying to do..." Wang Qi stared at the cultivator still studying his cards, unable to stop himself from banging his head against the table.

The man in blue looked up, his face full of bewilderment. "Huh?"

"I mean... the crosstalk performers onstage have already changed three times, and this pot of strong tea has been refilled until it has no taste left..."

The blue-robed cultivator suddenly understood. "Oh! So it's been that long already—then why haven't you left yet?"

Wang Qi nearly collapsed. "Fuck, you were the one who dragged me here, and you're asking why I haven't left?"

The blue-robed cultivator was equally astonished. "I only wanted to stop you from calling over that bunch of guys who kept shouting 'burn, burn, burn'! How was that dragging you here? Besides, even if you say I brought you here, didn't I already let you go?"

Huh? Wang Qi looked at the blue-robed cultivator's puzzled expression, mixed with three parts grievance, froze for a moment, then sprang up. "Damn it, when you let someone go, do you have to slam them onto a chair? Doesn't that usually mean, 'Sit here and don't move'? That hurt!"

After the two bickered for a while, they sat down again. Wang Qi gloomily downed a cup of tea. The blue-robed cultivator smiled. "Little brother, don't make that face. I admit I was at fault, but wasn't the cause your own urge to play pranks?"

Wang Qi bared his teeth and rubbed his backside. "You didn't hold back when you threw me down."

"Ahaha." The man in blue gave two dry laughs. "The connections between cause and effect are wondrous beyond words, wondrous beyond words!"

"Cause and effect?" Wang Qi had originally intended to get up and leave, but after hearing that, he could not help asking, "Does modern cultivation also study cause and effect?"

Zhen Chanzi had said that only great cultivators who had achieved success in cultivation would touch upon that level.

The blue-robed cultivator looked surprised. "Tsk, tsk. Little brother, what sect are you from? You don't even know such a basic question?"

Wang Qi replied, "I was only a Rogue Cultivator before. Later, I met a Safety Officer and accepted the arrangement to come here for the unified entrance trial."

The blue-robed cultivator's eyes widened. "Y-you-you... with this cultivation, you've clearly already broken through to Heaven's Reach! A Rogue Cultivator reaching Heaven's Reach before enrollment?" As he spoke, he raised a thumb. "Genius. You have my praise."

Wang Qi said, "Big brother, could you please enlighten me? What research does modern cultivation have on cause and effect?"

The blue-robed cultivator's attitude immediately became much warmer. "Come, come, sit and talk. Um, little brother, what's your name? It's inconvenient to address you without knowing it. My surname is Su. Su Junyu."

"Wang Qi."

Su Junyu pressed Wang Qi back down at the table and smiled. "Wang Qi, you haven't formally studied the modern cultivation system yet, so you probably don't know this. In fact, modern cultivation borrows quite a few terms from ancient methods, but in modern cultivation, those terms carry meanings worlds apart from what the Ancient Method Cultivators who coined them had in mind."

Wang Qi said, "I'm all ears."

"What ancient methods call cause and effect means 'sow one cause, reap one result.' It emphasizes 'cause, affinity, and result.' You plant a cause, pass through a stretch of affinity, and obtain a result. Cause and effect cannot be predicted, but good and evil will always receive their due—that is what Ancient Method Cultivators say." Modern Dharma Cultivators seemed prone to excitement whenever they spoke of fields they had studied and contemplated, and Su Junyu was no exception. He planted one foot on the tea house bench, his momentum like a river bursting through its banks. "But from the perspective of modern cultivation—bullshit. Wang Qi, do you understand the Heavenly Change Formula?"

Wang Qi nodded. Wasn't it just a function?

Su Junyu continued, "Take the simplest possible Heavenly Change Formula as an example. Add one to a heavenly element, and you get an earthly element. Understand?"

Wang Qi nodded again. x + 1 = y, the simplest function taught in middle school on Earth.

"This involves two sets: the heavenly element set and the earthly element set. Adding one to any number in the heavenly element set corresponds to a number in the earthly element set."

Wang Qi silently translated it into Earth mathematics: set x and set y...

"If, at this moment, we call the heavenly element set the cause, then the earthly element set is the result, while adding one is the 'Dao' that leads from cause to result. And that Dao is what modern cultivation seeks." Su Junyu raised the cup on the table and drained it in one gulp. "When ancient methods speak of cause and effect, they refer to illusory fortune and destiny. When modern cultivation discusses cause and effect, we seek the path from cause to result. Take this incident, for example. Your sudden urge to play a prank was not the beginning; the initial cause lay in your nature. Between your nature and the result of 'I threw you onto a chair,' how many factors took part? By what laws did they lead to that result? And if this were put into an algorithm, how would it be calculated? The more one thinks about it, the more fascinating it becomes."

Determinism?

Wang Qi's thoughts raced. In other words, had determinism yet to be conclusively disproven in this world?

There was too little information for Wang Qi to judge the level that Shenzhou cultivators' mathematical and physical research had reached. But he at least knew that Misty Palace being one of the Five Excellences meant Quantum Mechanics had already been established. And Quantum Mechanics was the first force to strike at determinism!

Wang Qi probed, "That sounds impressive. If this method were cultivated into a divine ability, wouldn't one gain the initiative at every turn when fighting enemies?"

Su Junyu burst into laughter. "Wang Qi, you've got a good eye! This is one of Myriad Dharma Sect's supreme cultivation methods: Bai Ze Calculation!"

So it really was determinism and Laplace's demon!

Wang Qi pretended to be puzzled. "But the Safety Officer senior who brought me here seemed to mention Misty Palace's Wuding... the Dao of mistiness and uncertainty..."

Su Junyu frowned and cut him off. "The cultivators of Misty Palace have gone mad. Forget it—don't blindly believe the specific principles behind this before you enter the sect. But if you encounter something strange and bizarre in the future, remember this: if the result seems rootless, then you simply have not found the root yet."

Wang Qi was somewhat delighted. That single statement from Su Junyu had revealed an astonishing amount of intelligence.

First, quantum physics had taken root in this world, but its foundations were not yet stable—at the very least, there was still no conclusion on the principle behind Schrödinger wave-function collapse. Su Junyu's insistence on the deterministic theory that "a particular cause leads to a particular result" showed that, in explaining this issue, he leaned toward the "hidden variables" school. In other words, he believed the reason for wave-function collapse was factors researchers had overlooked in their studies. This proved at least two things: first, chaos theory had not yet been developed; second, Bell's Inequality, the opportunity through which Quantum Mechanics attained the Dao, had not appeared either!

"But judging from chaos theory and Bell's Inequality, this world's scientific level should be around that of the 1950s. No, something seems wrong. If Five Masters' Extinction among Shenzhou cultivators corresponds to Earth's Qian Xuesen, then it should at least be close to the 1970s... No, that's wrong too. There are already several flaws in the immortal history I know. Tianze Shenjun, who corresponds to Darwin, was modern cultivation's first Free and Unfettered Cultivator, and he was a senior to Lord of Yuanli, Newton. But according to Earth's history, Darwin was born one hundred and fifty years after Isaac Newton..."

"Could it be that these strange correspondences do not fit together seamlessly? Then what principle governs them? Do they have anything to do with my transmigration?"

Seeing Wang Qi sink into thought, Su Junyu assumed his words had prompted profound reflection in a junior and laughed. "You can slowly comprehend these matters after you enroll. You should know that the cultivation of entering modern cultivation is a process of smashing one's worldview to pieces, then pasting it back together."

Wang Qi did not care about that. His worldview had already been reshaped countless times while studying in his previous life, then reshaped once more by transmigrating. He was practically developing resistance to it.

Today's gains had already been enormous. Now that he had roughly grasped Shenzhou's mathematical level, he could determine what mathematical tools to use to analyze Unforgiving Taoist's manuscript. All that remained was finding out what signature methods Misty Palace possessed, and he would be able to roughly sort out the thread of Unforgiving Taoist's manuscript.

Later, he needed to conduct several experiments, including the blackbody radiation experiment, or obtain the data from those experiments. Then he could completely analyze this manuscript. And if he could obtain modern cultivation techniques and understand how theory was combined with cultivation methods...

Hehe, just thinking about it made him a little excited!

At that moment, Su Junyu took two decks of Wuding Cards from his pocket, selected several cards from the booster packs he had just bought and added them in, then pushed one deck toward Wang Qi. "Do you know how to play? If so, I'll lend you a deck."

Wang Qi smiled. "Senior Brother Su, you really love this."

Su Junyu's face lit up. "This is where my cultivation lies."

"Cultivation?" Wang Qi raised a brow. "Bai Ze Calculation?"

Su Junyu nodded. "Precisely, Bai Ze Calculation! A game of Wuding Cards, from my perspective, is a system that constantly introduces new causes. If I can take those constantly introduced 'causes' as a foundation and calculate the result of 'victory,' that is where my cultivation lies."

Wang Qi flipped through the deck Su Junyu had lent him, and his hand trembled. "Th-this... there are so many cards with rarity above eight?"

The rarest Wuding Card in Xiang Qi's hand was only the rarity-eight "Dark Gold Lightning Art"!

Su Junyu smiled with the harmless innocence of a man and beast. "Pull hard, and miracles happen. That's how I got all one hundred and eight of my cards with rarity above eight."

"Fuck, rich guy, let's be friends! Tycoon, let's be friends!"

"Sure. Beat me, and we'll be friends."

Wang Qi thought for a moment, then pulled a miserable face. "Not realistic. I don't recognize more than half the cards in here."

As a poor man who had only played the base set, he really could not handle a tycoon's cards!

Su Junyu pulled out a book from his storage pouch. "Rulebook plus complete card catalog. Borrow it."

Wang Qi flipped through it. "Let's see, detailed explanation of base-set decks... expansion sets 'Holy Infant Calamity of Heaven,' 'Emperor-Grade World-Shaking,' booster packs for Holy Infant Sect and Emperor-Grade Heaven-Splitting Dao... Tsk, tsk, Da Luo Xuan Qing Palace's booster pack, 'Heaven-Net Over All,' and after that are the rare cards—eh!"

Suddenly, Wang Qi's pupils contracted, and then he burst into loud laughter. "Wahahaha! Just when I wanted a pillow, one arrived for my nap!"

In his hands, the catalog had opened precisely to "Misty Palace Rare Card List."