Chapter 383: The Freedom and Principles of Refining
Su Hao returned to his room with a different mindset, still pondering the news brought by Feng Yuer.
It is believed that every year the sects in this world openly recruit numerous disciples, not only to cultivate successors for the sects and inherit immortal techniques but also for other reasons.
These reasons may not even be fully understood by Su Hao’s master, Feng Ling, and his ancestor, Feng Hua. They can only vaguely sense that something is amiss. Perhaps this is also why Feng Ling delayed Su Hao’s breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment Realm.
However, these matters within the sect are not particularly relevant to Su Hao. He only wants to learn things; if someone truly targets him, he can simply eliminate them and continue his studies.
Of course, if the cultivation world is truly distorted, Su Hao wouldn’t mind stepping in to make adjustments. As the saying goes, “When everyone is well, it is truly good!” It’s all about mutual development!
“However, I must admit that Feng Yuer’s intuition is indeed powerful to perceive anomalies so quickly!”
In addition to his admiration, Su Hao also gained a new understanding of the so-called sixth sense.
Intelligent individuals form a complete set of logical thinking after learning some knowledge. This logic strengthens as they acquire more knowledge, allowing them to quickly draw conclusions when faced with problems in daily life. This inexplicable conclusion is probably what is referred to as the sixth sense.
Feng Yuer has her own set of logical thinking, whether rational or emotional, enabling her to perceive illogical aspects even from subtle details. For example, she noticed the abnormality of her master and sensed the unshakable confidence emanating from Su Hao.
For Feng Yuer, regardless of whether her thoughts are right or wrong, it’s never wrong to think more for her own safety.
Su Hao then realized his own issue: “My mentality has undergone significant changes unconsciously, from the desperate anxiety when struggling to survive at the beginning, lacking a sense of security, to now, after mastering power, an unstoppable momentum is involuntarily revealed! With my sharpness exposed, I even find it difficult to control myself.”
Su Hao now acts with more caution. After experiencing so much, his perspective is far beyond what it used to be and is not easily understood by ordinary people. Even if he tries to restrain himself, the inherent dominance and fearlessness inadvertently revealed make him appear different from others.
Su Hao admits that he cannot pretend to be an ordinary teenager, slowly playing the game of growing up. At most, he can remain silent and spend most of his time in his room doing his research.
“Let my sharpness be exposed! If it benefits my learning, there’s nothing wrong with it. Perhaps after experiencing more in the future, I’ll know how to restrain my aura. However, I, Su Hao, am fundamentally different from them. No matter how much I restrain myself, people will still perceive it. So why bother? Let nature take its course!”
Although Su Hao thinks about how to restrain his sharpness, his thoughts inevitably drift in the opposite direction, ultimately concluding to let things take their natural course. It can be said that Su Hao wants to completely restrain his aura, but who knows how many years it will take.
Su Hao sat in meditation, clearing his mind of distractions, and then entered the pinball space, conjuring up a rune experiment platform with a wave of his hand to continue the design and experimentation of the unfinished “Absolute Defense” small formation.
Su Hao used the “Barrier” and “Hardness” runes as templates and successfully designed a very powerful shield, capable of blocking most attacks such as “impact,” “stabbing,” “high temperature,” “oscillation,” “energy,” “corrosion,” and others. However, he hasn’t figured out advanced attacks like “radiation,” “force fields,” or “mental attacks” yet.
“I wonder if I’ll encounter enemies with such attack capabilities!”
But Su Hao isn’t worried; he has two layers of protection. One is the “Opposing Space Barrier,” which shields him from attacks that require space as a medium. The other layer is the pinball space; worst-case scenario, he can sleep for millions of years and reincarnate…
After a few days, Su Hao stopped his work.
“The current ‘Absolute Defense’ can basically withstand most common attacks, but its structure is too complex, can’t be minimized, and takes too long to activate, making it impractical.”
Su Hao thought for a moment and proposed two solutions:
First, directly solidify the Absolute Defense formation on the [Child of Fate] Diamond Armor. When transforming into [Child of Fate], the ‘Absolute Defense’ formation would be activated. But this would slow down the speed of transforming into [Child of Fate].
Second, turn the ‘Absolute Defense’ formation into objects like inner armor shields for carrying around. But carrying a large shield? That’s just absurd.
“Let’s put the Absolute Defense formation aside for now, learn some refining knowledge, and perhaps miniaturize the formation to embed it into artifacts, turning it into small items like rings or bracelets.”
Su Hao took a deep breath, waved his hand, and transformed the pinball space into a library, displaying rows of shelves filled with books, neatly categorized by the world where the knowledge was obtained.
Su Hao slowly walked into an arc-shaped aisle labeled ‘Cultivation World,’ found the category of ‘Refining,’ randomly pulled out a book, sat down, and a chair generated behind him, catching him steadily.
Su Hao opened the book and focused his mind slowly.
It’s time to absorb knowledge and explore the sea of books again!
“I hope these books can last for a while!”
There seem to be a lot of books, with one book a day, it would take ten years to read them all, but it’s not really the case.
Su Hao’s approach to reading emphasizes understanding the roots and principles, not being misled by surface knowledge, thus avoiding getting lost in the sea of books.
As long as he reads a portion of the books, grasps their principles, and verifies the authenticity of propositions, Su Hao can quickly deduce most theories and applications from a single point.
This enables Su Hao to start reading slowly at the beginning, but his speed increases as he progresses. Eventually, he can casually flip through a book, glance at the introduction, and predict the contents of the book with a high degree of accuracy. Afterwards, the value of these books to Su Hao greatly diminishes, providing him with nothing more than inspiration.
It’s similar to solving mathematical problems; once you grasp the basic principles of mathematics, what’s the use of reading numerous exercise books? It’s just a waste of time, with only occasional questions offering new insights: “Wow, I didn’t know you could do it this way. I’ve learned something!”
This is Su Hao’s gradually optimized thinking logic, almost to the point of transformation. This has nothing to do with whether one’s brain is smart or not. It has some similarities with the old saying of ‘experience.’
After immersing himself in the sea of books for six months, Su Hao thoroughly mastered the basic theories and common knowledge of refining. He reached the experimental stage and found that the space in his room was insufficient. It was then that he remembered his agreement with Feng Ling to provide him with an independent living space.
So Su Hao found Feng Ling and, much to her reluctance, claimed her independent ‘boudoir’ for himself.
But he left something good for Feng Ling—the small ‘Spiritual Wave’ generation array arranged in the room, inscribed with ‘Spiritual Wave’ runes. By inputting a small amount of spiritual power, the content of ‘spiritual energy’ in the room could be increased, serving as a small compensation for Feng Ling.
As soon as Feng Ling moved in, she refused to move out, immediately realizing why Su Hao cultivated so quickly. It turned out that this seemingly ordinary little cave was actually a blessed land.
Another year and a half passed, and Su Hao was now sixteen years old.
In total, Su Hao had spent two years reading through all the books in the library that were useful to him.
The books Su Hao mainly looked at were focused on ‘Formations’ and ‘Refining,’ but there were also many biographies of immortals, historical legends, and so on, which Su Hao casually browsed through during his leisure time. However, all of them were related to the Golden Core Realm and below, and none were related to the Nascent Soul Realm and above.
The books on ‘Formations’ only provided some supplementary information to Su Hao, with no significant gains. However, in the field of ‘Refining,’ Su Hao’s level had even surpassed some refiners who had immersed themselves in refining for many years.
This was not because of anything else, but because Su Hao’s vision and design philosophy were far beyond what these cultivators could compare to.
Most cultivators’ design philosophy for artifacts was ‘Flow of Instinct,’ meaning ‘I believe that the harder the material used to refine the defensive artifact, the stronger it will be, so I choose the hardest material for refining.’
Su Hao’s refining philosophy was ‘Flow of Principle,’ meaning ‘What is the principle behind generating a shield? Which variable controls the strength of the shield? How can we optimize and improve the cost-effectiveness of the shield?’
After absorbing the essence of refining in this world, Su Hao successfully outperformed the refiners of this world by a large margin.
So, how exactly are the ‘artifacts’ of this world made?
