Jiang Ning'an's emotions had been through quite a journey that night.
After Fang Can arranged for her to watch an educational video about transmigrators, she was shocked to learn that the world had a universal body of knowledge called physics.
The principles behind those weapons were especially striking. Once anyone understood them, they could follow the instructions and reproduce the same results, making weapons with immense destructive power.
That was entirely different from her previous idealist outlook.
After all, even when different people cultivated the same technique, their thoughts and understanding varied, so what they ultimately developed could be worlds apart.
Of course, what she found novel was the reproducibility of the immense destructive power shown in the video, not the idea that weapons were invincible.
After all, as she understood it, the Heavenly Crafts Bureau in the Great Yan Kingdom's capital had similar martial arts inheritance.
It could make objects that inflicted terrifying damage, with power no less than that of these technologically manufactured weapons.
As for Superpowered people?
In her eyes, they were martial artists who had skipped the Mortal Shedding Body stage. The uncertainty behind each ability's emergence was no different from that of martial arts.
In practical terms, superpowers and martial arts weren't much different either. At most, superpowers made a little more sense.
In just one night, Jiang Ning'an had grasped the general nature of this world and firmly etched the word "physics" into her mind.
In her view, the knowledge of the modern world was somewhat useful. Even if she didn't study it deeply, she could at least learn the basics as an amateur.
After all, knowing a little physics would help her make her idealist bluster sound more reasonable.
Coming back to herself, she heard a whooshing sound from the living room behind her. It was Fang Can, who had been practicing his fist technique all night.
Compared to when he had first started, though, the Tiger Fiend Fist he was performing now looked very different. It seemed far more in tune with nature.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Fang Can's fists blurred into afterimages, and every time he shifted direction, a crisp crack rang through the air. If the whole villa hadn't belonged to him, someone would have reported him for disturbing the peace by now.
Watching Fang Can move, Jiang Ning'an felt a sense of absurdity wash over her.
His strength, speed, and artistic conception were all clearly better than they had been the night before.
"Could everything he said really be true?" Self-doubt rose in Jiang Ning'an's heart.
As a leading disciple of the younger generation at the Tribulation Sword Pavilion, she had sensed qi within days, shed her mortal body in a year, and taken three steps along the Heaven Ascending Path before turning twenty.
The sect leader had praised her as "a once-in-a-century genius of the Tribulation Sword Pavilion," "the reincarnation of the founding patriarch," "the hope of leading the entire sect to revival," and "a rising star of Great Yan's martial world"...
She, Jiang Ning'an, was a genius among geniuses, an upstart with so many titles there wasn't room for everyone on the stage.
Even she wouldn't dare cheat her way forward this hard. Was the guy in front of her even human?
"Ptooey!" Fang Can spat out the few grains of arsenic in his mouth and frowned in dissatisfaction.
Flesh Alienation: 4.5%
"Too slow. The progress is way too slow. I practiced all night and only gained this much. At this rate, it'll take at least three or four months to reach 100%. That's way too slow."
"Sure enough, I just haven't taken enough arsenic. These few grains aren't nearly enough. After my body's been strengthened, even if I digest it all, I probably won't even bleed from all seven orifices."
Thinking of the dozen or so grains he had in stock, Fang Can calculated how long it would take for his online order to arrive. If he couldn't keep up with the pills, he might spend a whole year in the Mortal Shedding Body stage. That'd be a disaster.
"Oh, right." Fang Can looked at Jiang Ning'an, who was staring blankly at him. "Senior, can I ask you something?"
Jiang Ning'an came back to herself and suppressed her emotions. "Go ahead."
"While I was practicing just now, I felt my heart growing restless. I really wanted to vent it somewhere, to let it out. Does that mean I'm going berserk?" Fang Can asked seriously.
After all, he was still a beginner in the martial arts world and didn't know a lot of basic things. He was worried he might be practicing incorrectly.
Little did he know, the expression on Jiang Ning'an's face immediately turned complicated.
"This is the initial stage of Heart Manifestation. As your will permeates your entire body, your spiritual pressure may express itself through your gaze and movements, intimidating your enemies."
"At this stage, it's best not to suppress yourself. Let that aura out as much as possible."
Fang Can nodded in understanding. "Got it. It's the martial arts version of Conqueror's Haki."
Since it wasn't a bad thing, Fang Can stopped worrying about it. He could just let it happen naturally, when the time was right.
Jiang Ning'an's feelings, however, had become incredibly complicated.
Most martial artists didn't experience Heart Manifestation until they were on the verge of a breakthrough. The earlier it appeared, the more talented they were at martial arts.
It had taken her more than five months to show any signs of it, by which time she had nearly reached the halfway point of the Mortal Shedding Body stage. But this guy...
In short, Jiang Ning'an, who was known for her cool demeanor in the Calamity Sword Sect and cared only about martial arts, felt a sense of defeat for the first time.
Watching the boy head to school with his schoolbag, looking as energetic as ever despite practicing all night, Jiang Ning'an didn't use the Role-Playing Method to deceive herself. Instead, she seriously considered a question: "Could this guy really be a cheat made flesh, beyond even a peerless genius?"
Leaving Jiang Ning'an to question her whole life, Fang Can carried his schoolbag to class and, as usual, took out his books to review with his classmates.
But just as the whole class was about to settle down to study, an air-raid siren blared across Z City.
"What's going on? Are Superpowered people fighting again?"
"Hasn't this been happening a little too often lately?"
"I don't care! I want bloodshed! I want to see bloodshed!"
At that moment, the citizens of Z City all turned their attention outside.
The sky was clear and bright. If not for the piercing siren, everything would have seemed just as it usually did.
But only those behind the scenes knew that Z City had now been completely physically cut off from the outside world.
"We've completely cut off all outside signals from Z City and sealed every road. Now we can begin carrying out the plan."
In the underground base in Z City, researchers watched countless screens displaying surveillance footage from the city's main roads.
"Next, we'll distribute the cultivation method and have the millions of people in this pilot city practice it. With such a huge population, we should be able to fully understand the characteristics of the Idealist Cultivation Method."
"Isn't that a little too aggressive?" one researcher asked quietly.
An experienced old man glanced at him. "This is nothing. Don't forget the Carnival Day coming up. Then, all the country's trash will be dumped into this city to fight. That's when things will really get aggressive."
"This is just an appetizer," another researcher said with a shake of his head. "If these people really manage to cultivate something, they'll at least have the strength to protect themselves. But... that'll be difficult!"
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