History

Earth and Divine Land should have been two utterly unrelated worlds.

For example, Divine Land's "Celestial Sequence Table" was remarkably similar to Earth's periodic table of elements: both had seven periods and one hundred eighteen elements. Their chemical properties were also very similar. However, from what Wang Qi remembered, the atomic weights on the Celestial Sequence Table differed slightly from those on the periodic table. That meant the masses and properties of Divine Land's protons, neutrons, and electrons also differed from Earth's.

Among these countless differences, the most conspicuous was the physical quantity known as "spiritual energy."

In Earth's physics, "spiritual energy" had no place to stand. To theories that were self-consistent and could explain all known phenomena, "spiritual energy" was merely an unnecessary entity, fit only to be shaved away by Occam's razor.

But in Divine Land, even ordinary people could sense a trace of heaven-and-earth spiritual energy through qi-refining chants and martial arts. Heavenly materials and earthly treasures with bizarre physical properties emerged one after another without end.

From this point alone, Wang Qi could conclude that this was not the spacetime where Earth existed, but another universe.

But...

Improper Taoist Haishenbao, Quantum Grandmaster Bohr, Bu Rong Dao Ren Pori, Laser Lady Ma Juli, Five Masters' Extinction Qian Xueshen, Crown of Myriad Dharma Chen Jingyun, Sword Roaring the Heavens Deng Jiaxuan, the gay guy—oh no, Old Man Ji Turing...

These Free and Unfettered Cultivators, whose names seemed like some Heavenly Dao bro's prank, reminded Wang Qi of something.

This world had a connection to Earth.

And since both worlds possessed "the logic of science," that connection could certainly be investigated! Perhaps his transmigration was related to it.

The preliminary method for investigating that connection was to find its pattern.

Wang Qi picked out every major figure in the history of the Immortal Dao and compiled them into a timeline.

"This part of the ancient-method era is such a mess." Wang Qi shook his head. "The publicly acknowledged progenitor of modern methods is Primordial Celestial Sovereign Bigoci, the alternate-world counterpart of Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician. That matches Earth's scientific history. Geometric Devil Jimide, Archimedes's alternate-world counterpart, also fits. But why is there no record of the other members of the Pythagorean school?"

"Next came 'Celestial Calculator' Zu Zhongzhi? The alternate-world counterpart of Zu Chongzhi, the true founder of the Myriad Dharma lineage, who only later integrated the inheritances of Bigoci and Jimide. The only problem is that he was born before the patriarch of the City of Mountains and Rivers, Earth-Moving Devil Zhang Heng—Zu Chongzhi was from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, so he should have come after Zhang Heng of the Han Dynasty."

"One of Sky Spirit Ridge's predecessors, Myriad Flowers Valley, had Sun Simiao and Li Shizhen as its patriarchs, from the same era... I do know the common knowledge that Sun Simiao was from the Tang Dynasty while Li Shizhen was from the Ming Dynasty..."

"Quite a few modern-method founding patriarchs from the ancient-method era were alternate-world counterparts of Earth's scientists, but the timelines were a complete jumble."

After reaching this conclusion, Wang Qi turned his attention to the founding era of modern methods. "This stage began when Mysterious Star Observatory rebuilt the celestial system and Ge Bai defected from the Holy Infant Sect. The biggest problem lies with Darwin, the God of Heaven's Choice—whoever translated the name Darwin back then was really talented... Surnamed Da and named Erwen, it sounded completely natural."

Darwin, the God of Heaven's Choice, was Divine Land's first Free and Unfettered Cultivator. Although the Myriad Dharma Sect had several elders who had switched from ancient-method Mahayana cultivation to new techniques and become Free and Unfettered Cultivators, they had undoubtedly converted later than Darwin attained the Dao.

"Earth's Darwin was born far later than Newton, yet this Darwin, the God of Heaven's Choice, was actually such an old-timer."

Then came the first era of genius eruption in modern methods.

"Newton, Boyle, Hooke, Leibniz, all the way to Euler... The alternate-world counterparts of these people were born rather 'properly.' The historical convergence of the two worlds grew stronger and stronger."

"By Old Man Hai's generation, it was almost exactly the same as Earth's history." Wang Qi muttered to himself. "Then, the correlation between the two histories began to weaken sharply."

If this world's development had truly matched Earth's, then according to the differing understandings of Quantum Mechanics regarding "the principle of Schrödinger wavefunction collapse," Misty Palace should at least have split into several branches by now. Yet from the descriptions of Misty Palace spells Wang Qi had heard, Divine Land currently possessed only the observer theory of a single Copenhagen School.

"After that, the similarity between the two worlds' histories weakened drastically. Among scientists who only appeared on Earth in the sixties and seventies, very few had alternate-world counterparts in Divine Land. Their theories rarely appeared either... The last cultivator with a counterpart on Earth was Mysterious Star Observatory's Immoveable Dharma King Hawking."

"And the beginning of all this..." Wang Qi's gaze shifted to a point on the timeline he had drawn. "The difference between Divine Land's cultivator Suo Mofei and Earth's scientist Arnold Sommerfeld."

Suo Mofei, a cultivator of Misty Palace, was obscure in Divine Land's history. There was only one record: "He died unexpectedly, entrusting his disciples Pori and Haisenbao to his senior brother Bohr."

The problem lay precisely in those words, "died unexpectedly"!

Arnold Sommerfeld had only handed his disciples Pauli and Heisenberg over to Bohr because of an ordinary job transfer. Afterwards, Sommerfeld had continued teaching and nurturing students. Moreover, Sommerfeld himself had received dozens of nominations for the Explosives King Prize; he was absolutely not someone who could be dismissed in a single stroke.

"In other words, compared to his counterpart on Earth, True Person Suo Mofei could be called a premature casualty. And the cause of death was omitted as well. There must be a heaven-shaking secret hidden in this."

Wang Qi rubbed his head and crumpled the paper he had used to organize the timeline into a ball. "Why, exactly?"

According to the records, Suo Mofei had already been a Grandmaster of the Nirvana stage when he died. With the utterly deranged weighted values of Misty Palace's methods, Suo Mofei could not possibly have been killed unless he had been besieged by Mahayana cultivators or attacked by a Free and Unfettered Cultivator.

Wang Qi scratched his head and pondered bitterly. The effects of the Thousand Plagues and Myriad Poisons Needle made his body alternately cold and hot, while his head ached as though it were about to split apart.

At last, he sighed. "Forget it. If I can't figure it out, I'll set it aside for now. Hmm, even a Nirvana-stage expert fell. For a Qi Refining cultivator like me to get involved would be a little too much like an ant trying to shake a tree."

With that, he grabbed the blanket, pulled it over himself, and fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Before drifting fully asleep, however, a faint smile curled Wang Qi's lips. "Still, this world really is quite interesting!"

Wang Qi did not know that a pair of eyes had been watching him from midair the entire time.

Once Wang Qi had fallen asleep, Chen Jingyun's floating figure flickered. Then, a crumpled ball of paper appeared in his hand. Chen Jingyun carefully smoothed it open with mana and examined it closely. It was precisely the paper on which Wang Qi had organized Divine Land's Immortal Dao history and laid out a timeline!

Chuan You Xiang Yu! Chen Jingyun had used the Void-Piercing Escape Technique to take this paper from Wang Qi's room without Zhen Chanzi noticing!

Suddenly, the Adam's apple of this Grandmaster who stood half a step into the Free and Unfettered Realm bobbed. "He is actually paying attention to True Person Suo Mofei's extinction?"

On the timeline, the event "Suo Mofei's death" had been marked with complete emphasis.

Chen Jingyun's expression changed as he surveyed Wang Qi's bedroom.

In the end, he shook his head and spoke softly, as though persuading himself. "Not necessarily. One must not overstep the bounds."

When Wang Qi woke again, it was already the evening of the next day. Symptoms such as the low fever caused by the Thousand Plagues and Myriad Poisons Needle had subsided, but his body was still somewhat weak. What dissatisfied Wang Qi most was that his clothes and bedding had been soaked through with sweat, yet Xiang Qi and Yan Heyi had transported him to Xin Yue while he was unconscious. There was no way he could have prepared a change of clothes.

Wang Qi bared his teeth and added buying clothes to his agenda.

Fortunately, he was still a cultivator, and his mana remained. He first looked around the room and unexpectedly found something resembling a faucet. It bore a small seal-script inscription; once mana was fed into it, water flowed out. He scrubbed his **underwear beneath the "faucet," evaporated the moisture with mana, then changed into the Dharma robe issued by the Immortal Alliance, leaving himself in a state fit to go outside.

At that moment, Wang Qi's stomach temple raised a protest. Wang Qi temporarily gave up on washing clothes and decided to go to the dining hall for dinner.

The dining hall was not far from the dormitories, and Wang Qi arrived after walking for a few minutes. The Immortal Academy's dining hall lacked the extravagant atmosphere of the inner city's commercial district. Its floor was paved with bluestone, with long tables and benches. The reporting period for disciples of great clans had not yet arrived, so there were not many people eating, and the xenon lamps made the dining hall feel somewhat empty.

Those enrolling now had either been recommended by lecture hall supervisors because of their talent, or had been unexpectedly discovered rogue cultivators like Wang Qi. None of them knew each other well, and their small groups of three to five sat far apart. At the doorway to the kitchen sat a cultivator in blue, with a great pile of food boxes beside him. Wang Qi sensed that the other man was roughly in the Foundation Establishment Realm and guessed that he was the sort of cafeteria server he had often dealt with in his previous life, so he walked over. Seeing someone approach, the blue-robed cultivator did not waste words and directly handed Wang Qi a food box. "Return the food box to the dining hall after you finish eating."

Wang Qi casually found a place to sit, opened the food box, and was immediately stunned.