Awakening

When Yun Jingheng woke up, it was raining outside the window.

The patter was light, tapping softly against the glass.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for three seconds.

Then he realized he was lying in a familiar place.

It was his own room, the one on Sea God Island, with fresh flowers on the nightstand that Ya Li changed every day.

"Awake?"

A voice came from beside him.

Yun Jingheng turned his head.

Ya Li was sitting by the bedside, holding an unpeeled orange in her hand.

She looked at him, her eyes slightly red, but she was smiling.

"Mom."

Yun Jingheng spoke, his voice a bit hoarse.

Ya Li reached out and touched his face.

"You've slept for two days. Are you hungry?"

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"A little."

Ya Li smiled, set the orange down, and stood up.

"Wait here, Mom will go cook you some noodles."

She walked out.

Yun Jingheng lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Two days.

He had slept for two days.

In his sea of spirit, Xiao Jiu rolled over.

"Awake?"

"Mn."

"How do you feel?"

Yun Jingheng carefully sensed his condition.

His soul power had recovered, and there was no discomfort in his body.

The only difference was that moon.

It remained the same, hanging in the center of his sea of spirit, emitting a faint silver light.

But within that silver light, a trace of red was faintly visible.

It was very faint, so faint it was almost imperceptible.

But it was definitely there.

"Blood Moon," Xiao Jiu said.

Yun Jingheng was silent for a moment.

"Is it really impossible to control?"

"...I've estimated it, and before you reach the sixth ring, it's impossible to control."

He didn't dwell on it further and threw off the covers to get out of bed.

His legs felt a bit weak when his feet touched the floor, but after taking two steps, he was fine.

He walked to the window and watched the rain outside.

Ya Li walked in carrying a bowl of noodles.

"What are you standing there for? Come over and eat."

Yun Jingheng sat back at the table and took the bowl.

It was chicken noodle soup, topped with a poached egg and sprinkled with chopped green onions.

He lowered his head and began to eat.

Ya Li sat nearby, watching him eat.

Halfway through, Yun Ming entered.

He sat down by the bed and looked at Yun Jingheng.

"How do you feel?"

Yun Jingheng swallowed a mouthful of noodles.

"It's nothing."

Yun Ming nodded.

"That's good."

He paused.

"For the next little while, do not cultivate, and do not practice your sword."

Yun Jingheng was stunned for a moment.

"Why?"

Yun Ming looked at him.

"Cultivating rashly right now will lead to trouble."

Yun Jingheng fell silent for a moment.

"For how long?"

"At least a month."

After saying this, Yun Ming stood up, walked to the door, and looked back.

"Be obedient."

He left.

Yun Jingheng lowered his head and continued eating his noodles.

A month without cultivation, without sword practice.

Then what was he supposed to do?

Stare into space?

After he finished his noodles, Ya Li took the bowl and left.

Yun Jingheng was the only one left in the room.

He sat by the table, watching the rain outside the window.

In his Sea of Consciousness, Xiao Jiu asked.

"What do you plan to do?"

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"Read, I suppose."

He stood up and walked over to the bookshelf.

The bookshelf held many books, most of which were related to Martial Souls and cultivation, with a small portion being the Introduction to Soul Tool Basics that Cai Yue'er had brought over last time.

He pulled one out at random and flipped it open.

Introduction to Soul Tool Basics.

Chapter One, The Essence of Soul Power.

He read two lines, then closed it again.

He had already read this book; it was written quite superficially, suitable for someone just starting out.

But he was not a beginner.

In his past life, he had studied physics, and now, reading these books, he always felt as if there was a barrier between him and the material.

It wasn't that he couldn't understand it; it was that he felt... it wasn't deep enough.

What was soul power?

It was a form of energy.

How did energy flow?

Along soul tool circuits.

What were soul tool circuits?

They were structures that allowed energy to flow along specific paths.

So, what if he mapped out these paths and described them using mathematics?

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

He walked over to the desk, sat down, and picked up a pen.

Then, he began to draw.

He wasn't drawing a soul tool circuit; he was drawing coordinates.

A horizontal axis, a vertical axis, and a curve.

The curve represented the flow path of soul power within the circuit.

Then he began to write formulas.

Soul power velocity, path curvature, energy loss.

One formula after another.

He filled an entire page.

Inside his sea of consciousness, Xiao Jiu poked her head out.

"What are you doing?"

Yun Jingheng did not even look up.

"Modeling."

"What?"

"Nothing."

He continued to write.

After filling two pages, he stopped and looked at the formulas.

This was knowledge from his past life, combined with the soul tool theories of this world.

Theoretically, it was correct.

But whether it held up in practice remained to be verified.

He set down his pen and stood up.

Cai Yue'er was drinking tea in her courtyard and was taken aback when she saw Yun Jingheng walk in.

"Why are you here? Didn't I tell you to rest?"

Yun Jingheng walked over and sat down across from her.

"Aunt Cai, I want to borrow something."

Cai Yue'er looked at him.

"What is it?"

"Soul tool parts. Scrapped ones are fine, but functional ones would be best."

Cai Yue'er paused for a moment.

"What do you need those for?"

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"To conduct an experiment."

Cai Yue'er was silent for two seconds.

"What kind of experiment?"

Yun Jingheng pulled the sheets of paper from his robe and handed them to her.

Cai Yue'er took them and looked them over.

The first page was a mess of symbols and curves she could not understand.

The second page was more of the same.

On the third page, there was finally something familiar—a simplified diagram of a soul power circuit.

She looked up at Yun Jingheng.

"What is this?"

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"A loss model for soul power in a linear circuit."

Cai Yue'er was silent for a moment.

"A what?"

Yun Jingheng was also silent for a moment.

This question was not easy to explain.

"It's... using mathematics to describe something."

Cai Yue'er looked at him, her expression complex.

"Where did you learn these things?"

Yun Jingheng had been prepared for this.

"I read them in books. The Ancient Soul Tool Fragments mentioned a bit of it, and I figured out the rest myself."

Cai Yue'er stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled.

"Fine, you figured it out yourself."

She stood up.

"Let's go. I'll take you to the storage room."

The storage room was massive, piled high with all sorts of Soul Tool parts.

There were scrapped ones, semi-finished ones, and others whose purpose was entirely unknown.

It was as if no one even knew the point of this room's existence.

Cai Yue'er gestured vaguely.

"Pick whatever you want. Let me know when you're finished."

She walked away.

Yun Jingheng stood in the storage room, looking at the room full of parts, his eyes brightening.

He walked over and picked up a scrapped Soul Core.

The circuits on the core were burnt out, but the structure remained intact.

He examined it carefully, then set it down.

He picked up another.

He looked, then set it down again.

After picking through them for a long time, he selected over a dozen items.

Several scrapped cores, a pile of metal sheets, a few conductive wires, and some small parts he couldn't even name.

He carried the items back to his room and laid them out on the table.

Then, he began to work.

First, he dismantled them.

He took apart the scrapped cores one by one, studying the circuit structures inside.

As he dismantled them, he sketched, drawing out the circuit diagram for each core.

After dismantling five cores, he had already drawn five diagrams.

Then, he began to compare them.

Which circuit had higher efficiency, which had higher loss, which was well-designed, and which had flaws.

He used the formulas he had written to calculate them.

After calculating for the entire afternoon, he had gathered a pile of data.

Then, he began to assemble.

He wasn't making a new core; he was using those metal sheets and conductive wires to build the simplest of circuits.

A straight-line circuit.

It was meant to let soul power flow from one end to the other, doing absolutely nothing else.

Once assembled, he used a Milk Bottle to inject soul power.

The soul power flowed through smoothly.

He used those formulas to calculate the theoretical loss, then measured the actual loss.

The two numbers were not far apart.

He nodded.

Then, he began to build a curved circuit.

The sharper the curve, the greater the loss.

He calculated and measured again, recording another pile of data.

Inside his Sea of Consciousness, Xiao Jiu watched him busying himself and couldn't help but ask.

"What exactly are you doing?"

Yun Jingheng didn't even look up.

"Verifying a theory."

"What theory?"

"The laws governing the flow of soul power within circuits."

Xiao Jiu was silent for a moment.

"Is it useful?"

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"It is. Only by knowing the laws can one design better circuits."

Xiao Jiu didn't ask again.

It lay back down and continued to sleep.

In the days that followed, Yun Jingheng busied himself in his room.

He assembled circuits, measured data, calculated formulas, and drew blueprints.

Ya Li came to deliver meals every day; seeing the pile of chaotic items on his desk, she never asked, only smiled.

Yun Ming occasionally stopped by to take a look, then left without saying a word.

Cai Yue'er visited a few times. At first, she could understand his blueprints a little, but later, she couldn't make sense of them at all.

"Are you planning to become a Soul Master?"

Once, she couldn't help but ask.

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"Not really. I just find it interesting."

Cai Yue'er looked at him and suddenly smiled.

"Your father told you not to cultivate or practice swordplay, yet here you are, studying this instead."

Yun Jingheng nodded.

"I have to do something; I don't want to be bored to the point of growing weeds."

Cai Yue'er didn't say anything more and left.

A month later.

Yun Ming walked into the room and saw Yun Jingheng sitting at the desk, staring blankly at a stack of blueprints.

"The time has almost come."

Yun Jingheng looked up.

"Can I cultivate now?"

Yun Ming nodded.

"You can."

Yun Jingheng stood up and stretched his neck.

After a month of inactivity, his bones felt stiff.

He walked to the window and looked at the sunlight outside.

In his sea of consciousness, Xiao Jiu asked.

"Are you done researching that pile of stuff?"

Yun Jingheng thought for a moment.

"Just about."

He glanced back at the pile of blueprints on the desk.

Those were the results of his research over the past month.

Structural diagrams for dozens of basic circuits, efficiency data and loss formulas for each, and some optimization plans he had designed himself.

Nothing earth-shattering, just the most fundamental knowledge.

It might come in handy in the future.

"Cultivation, cultivation..."