Chapter 199: Measurement

In the nursing home.

Night fell, and the head chef had already left with his team; Zheng Fa and the other three moved several loungers into the yard and lay side by side.

The ecological environment here is excellent.

The weather today is clear, the night sky glittering with stars, and the plants and trees wafting a fresh fragrance.

A gentle breeze drifted down from the mountainside; the four of them chatted aimlessly, yet enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

"Their condition is daily procurement—I've already sent you their pricing," the old man said, turning his head toward Zheng Fa.

Zheng Fa nodded; he had seen their offer.

He had some grasp of market prices—during his three years of high school, he always visited the vegetable market on weekends to buy roasted chicken and such.

But their quote was genuinely generous.

Same tomatoes might cost a few yuan per catty at the market; their quote was several hundred yuan—over a hundred times higher.

This was even on the low end of the increase.

Some vegetables had even more outrageous increases.

Seeing Zheng Fa silent, the old man seemed to think he found it too low and added: "This is likely their most sincere offer."

"Huh? So sincere from the start?"

That went against the usual business practices…

"It's not because…" the old man nudged his chin toward Zheng Fa's side, pointing at Tang Lingwumin.

Tang Lingwumin smiled shyly: "I asked my father about the restaurant's revenue and ingredient costs, checked their supply channels, did the math—they're not lowballing."

"Isn't that… business confidential?"

Zheng Fa froze.

They'd practically stripped the other side bare.

"Often, the words 'confidential'…" the old man remarked with a sigh, "are just another way of saying you're not qualified."

Zheng Fa had no reply, and the old man continued: "But they have another demand."

"What?"

"Exclusive supply—and they even want to dictate what we grow. They'll pay more if we plant exactly what they request."

That wasn't surprising; for a restaurant at this level, "exclusive" might matter more than taste.

Dictating demand, of course, meant wanting greater control.

"A lot more money," the old man clucked. "The extra per week might exceed what I earned in a whole year before."

That was indeed a lot.

Though math didn't pay as well as many fields, the old man, as a professor at Beijing University, still earned a six-figure annual income from salary and side gigs.

Zheng Fa thought for a moment and asked: "If we refuse, how much would we earn per month?"

The old man glanced at him: "Lingwumin calculated it—they pay high, but demand is small—about five to six hundred thousand per week."

Zheng Fa now understood why the old man sounded tempted.

Accepting their terms would at least double the nursing home's income.

"Teacher Bai, I once mentioned the three principles of this nursing home," Zheng Fa said after a pause. "This business… is merely a byproduct of our research. We shouldn't let it consume too much of our energy."

The old man clicked his tongue, understanding Zheng Fa's stance, but sighed: "At my age, I'm dazzled by money… but you—"

Beside him, Tang Lingwumin nodded gently, smiling warmly, clearly agreeing with Zheng Fa.

"You little thing, you wear that same expression whenever Zheng Fa speaks—this business was your idea to begin with…" the old man muttered, clearly unimpressed.

"It was my idea, but… Zheng Fa is Zheng Fa."

Zheng Fa blinked, looking at Tang Lingwumin, unsure why she said that.

Tang Lingwumin lay in her rocking chair, gazing at the stars, speaking softly: "He knows what he wants. He walks one path, always, only to see what cultivation truly is. Isn't that why we came together?"

The old man froze, then burst into laughter.

Tian Zhong beside him patted his shoulder and chuckled: "I think you still haven't seen as clearly as these two kids."

…

With that settled, the next matter gave them all pause.

"Lightning? Spiritual plants?" the old man frowned. "It's stated simply… but this is far too vague."

Zheng Fa understood what the old man meant.

It was barely a concept.

"If magnetic field changes can stimulate spiritual plants, then what kind of changes? Large or small? Fluctuating? Direction? Duration?" the old man muttered. "So many variables—we don't even know where to start."

"I do know one type of lightning art—said to promote plant growth," Zheng Fa suddenly said. "Actually, three incomplete lightning arts: Heavenly Tribulation Lightning, Cloud-Rain Lightning, and this one—I call it Spirit Wood Lightning."

Here, Zheng Fa sighed.

How crude were these three lightning arts from the stone tablet realm? Even their names were made up on the spot.

For example, Heavenly Tribulation Lightning and Cloud-Rain Lightning were named by Yan Wushuang and others.

Spirit Wood Lightning wasn't named at all—mainly because there was no hope of mastering it; out of sight, out of mind!

"Three lightning arts?" Tang Lingwumin asked. "What's the difference?"

"Heavenly Tribulation Lightning seeks power and control."

"Cloud-Rain Lightning seeks control over rainfall."

"Spirit Wood Lightning seeks control over plant growth."

Zheng Fa summarized slowly.

"That sounds harder and harder," the old man said. "Power we can treat as current or voltage intensity, but the other two are different."

"Yes," Zheng Fa had thought about this too: "For Cloud-Rain Lightning, if we consider the rainfall process, it might involve altering water molecule polarity, using electromagnetic fields to aggregate droplets or disperse them into vapor—relatively simple large-scale electromagnetic control."

"But Spirit Wood Lightning is harder still—even if Teacher Tian's hypothesis about magnetic fields affecting plants is correct," Zheng Fa said, now wanting to sigh again. "Water molecules or raindrops respond clearly to electromagnetic fields, but how plants change is vague—the required magnetic variations may be far more complex and microscopic."

The faces of the old man and the others grew serious.

Clearly, they saw the difficulty.

"So I say these are three utterly incomplete lightning arts," Zheng Fa explained. "They're three entirely new research topics—difficult, yes, but experiments on Heavenly Tribulation Lightning are simple."

Zheng Fa didn't underestimate these three arts; in fact, many cultivators from Xuanwei Realm skilled in lightning arts now gathered around the stone tablet.

Even they were baffled by these three arts.

Without the modern world, Zheng Fa had no confidence he'd understand lightning arts better than these cultivators…

"We're not afraid of difficulty," Teacher Tian smiled. "With direction, we'll get there…"

"That's true," the old man clicked his tongue. "I suddenly feel cultivation and science are a perfect match…"

Zheng Fa wanted to sigh.

He'd considered this long ago…

If Xuanwei Realm had possessed a scientific civilization, and spent hundreds of thousands of years exploring the world…

It surely wouldn't be in its current state.

Yet on the other hand, scientific civilization wasn't inevitable…

…

Several days later, Zheng Fa stood before a long metal rod connected to several sensors—an ammeter, a voltmeter, and an infrared sensor—each linked by fiber optics to Tang Lingwumin's computer inside.

Dozens of meters away stood a high-speed camera.

Zheng Fa admitted Yan Wushuang and others might have greater innate talent for lightning arts…

But he'd never been on the talent track…

Isn't experimentation better?

For safety, the old man and the other two watched from inside the house.

This was their first experiment targeting Heavenly Tribulation Lightning.

To prevent spiritual energy from interfering with electromagnetic fields and signals, all equipment was placed outside the spiritual energy range.

Zheng Fa's spiritual power surged outward, guided by his spiritual sense, circulating according to the Heavenly Tribulation Lightning patterns in the Divine Record.

He wasn't using a technique for the first time, but he rarely did.

In his view, Xuanwei Realm's techniques and talismans were two sides of the same coin.

For instance, now—his spiritual sense directed his spiritual power through the air in a pattern resembling a talisman diagram—but unlike talismans, he was actively "capturing" the talismanic patterns in the void.

This method was inefficient; the actual power of a technique depended mostly on the strength of the spiritual power used.

Talismans, by contrast, gathered talismanic patterns from the air onto paper; the cultivator's spiritual power became a minor component.

Other differences existed too—techniques had long casting times, while spirit talismans were nearly instantaneous.

Thus, techniques gradually gave way to spirit talismans.

And Zhang Shijie's "Primordial Talisman Foundation Establishment Method" went further still—faster, requiring neither paper nor spirit ink.

Now, Heavenly Tribulation Lightning didn't even qualify as a technique.

Zheng Fa could sense that much of his spiritual power's path through the air was useless, while some segments seemed to absorb talismanic patterns—but he didn't know what they did.

Unlike Xuanwei Realm's lightning arts, Heavenly Tribulation Lightning was immensely powerful—so powerful it was immeasurable.

Zheng Fa had used lightning talismans before, but rarely reached Heavenly Tribulation-level power.

For most Xuanwei cultivators, weak and strong power were easy to perceive.

But between extremely powerful and extremely powerful, precise measurement was impossible.

One strike, and a person turned to ash—you couldn't even tell how well done they were…

Even if one felt something, precise measurement remained out of reach.

With modern instruments, Zheng Fa could — to some extent, the progress of modern science is built upon advances in observation methods.

……

As Zheng Fa circulated his spiritual power, suddenly a bolt of lightning appeared in the sky and struck the metal rod.

"How is the person?"

Before Zheng Fa could speak, the old white-haired man and others in the room rushed out to ask.

"It's fine." Zheng Fa shook his head slightly and said to the old white-haired man, "I'll draw the pattern of the spiritual power circulation I just used; please take a look."

"Alright."

And so it was.

One after another, bolts of lightning struck the metal rod.

Traces of spiritual power circulation appeared on the old white-haired man's notebook.

Related data — current, voltage, temperature, even the length, width, and shape of the lightning — were recorded on Tang Lingwumin's computer.

Only when Zheng Fa's spiritual power had been depleted to a certain point did they end the experiment.