Translator: Strivon

  Sit up? Yeah, he did sit up. He sat in the lotus position, looking like a pyramid. He completely lost the image of the mountains and rivers imparted upon him by Xiu Shenyu.

  Luo Nan gaped with his mouth, speechless.

  Somehow, Xiu Shenyu wasn’t that surprised. He sized Luo Nan up and down a few times, then slowly said, "The breathing technique. Taking old and new techniques and fusing them into a furnace. This is a good thing."

  Xue Lei let out a breath of relief. "Then that’s good."

  He never expected Xiu Shenyu’s next words to be, "It is also a pity that the art cannot be used upon his own body."

  "What?"

  Xue Lei blinked. He was unable to translate the gym master’s words! Xue Lei looked at Luo Nan, whose head was lowered in deep thought, and saw no reaction from him. In the end, Xue Lei could only ask, "Gym master, sir, what do you mean……?"

  Xiu Shenyu did not respond to Xue Lei. He gazed at Luo Nan for a moment, then said, "I taught you to visualize the image of the mountains and rivers, but you were unable to bring about the mountains and rivers. The frozen ground. The icy waters through the crevasses. Most of it has been frozen. Water lubricates things, whereas ice brings one pressure."

  Luo Nan pondered over Xiu Shenyu’s words. After a while, he raised his head and said, "I ask the gym master for guidance."

  Xue Lei looked at the gym master. Then, he looked at Luo Nan. He ultimately confirmed that he was out of a translating job. He shirked back to a corner and stopped saying anything, but his ears straightened in attention.

  Xiu Shenyu thought as he spoke, "Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, three feet of ice does not form in a single day. I don’t quite understand your visualization technique, but I can vaguely feel things from it. From the inside to the outside, your technique is strict and rigid, but is also grand and imposing. It is enchanting. And this, of course, is an excellent thing. Unfortunately, this glacial mountain isn’t truly yours. The higher this glacial mountain is amassed, the grander and vaster it is, but at the same time, the smaller and more indistinct you become…… As a man absorbs this power, the power also absorbs the man. This is your problem."

  Gym Master Xiu was never one who was good at words. He was not quite clear in his train of thought and in his way with words when he conversed with people. It was very laborious for one to hear his speech with its many metaphors and analogies.

  To the side, Xue Lei’s eyes were spinning in circles as he heard all this. Luckily, Luo Nan combined the gym master’s words with his own understandings of his body and the prison in his mind – the interwoven dark chains – and was able to get a general understanding.

  As Luo Nan understood Xiu Shenyu, Luo Nan became seriously shocked by Xiu Shenyu’s level of insight. He really respected Xiu Shenyu. This gym master undoubtedly had true skill. However, Luo Nan gained an even deeper loss now when it came to his own situation.

  It took a while before Luo Nan could ask, "Why isn’t it mine? I’m the one cultivating using it!"

  "Is it all truly you?"

  This response stupefied Luo Nan completely.

  From the very beginning, the road he walked as he researched Formatting Theory was a road that required he rely on external forces. Psychotropic drugs. Darksider life forms. Sacrificial frames…… The decisive application of these external things was the driving force behind the leaps and bounds of growth of his soul strength. The only thing Luo Nan did was erect the frame.

  And even the frame was something he learned from his grandfather.

  Xiu Shenyu slowly stood up while Luo Nan was in his daze. He walked inside, next to the tai chi ball. There was not much lighting in the room, and the distance was far. All one could see was a fuzzy silhouette.

  Luo Nan and Xue Lei glanced at each other. They both got up and walked over.

  Xiu Shenyu disregarded the two. He simply played with the tai chi ball, causing the bowl tray on the ground to swivel. The metal ball was half a man tall and was over a hundred kilograms in weight. It began to rotate with noticeable noise. The rolling created a reverberating sound, and the cork floor was trembling.

  "This is the glacial mountain."

  Luo Nan nodded. He had automatically substituted the words ’glacial mountain’ for ’Formatting Theory’ in his mind.

  "This is you right now." Xiu Shenyu pointed at the bowl tray below as he spoke.

  The bowl tray was oscillating without end due to the heavy rotating sphere above it. Luo Nan was unable to take his eyes off it as he stared and juxtaposed his own situation with the bowl tray.

  This analogy was very intuitive. Even Xue Lei, who was confused all this time, could understand. "Gym master, do you mean that Nanster is cultivating far too quickly? A large tail obstructs action; Nanster’s too lopsided, making it bad for him?"

  He never expected Xiu Shenyu to shake his head. "He’s being rejected."

  "Huh?” Xue Lei was immediately stupefied once more. Then Luo Nan suddenly raised his head.

  Xiu Shenyu pressed his hand against the lines on the surface of the metal sphere and the grinding and rotating metal sphere rumbled to a stop. Xiu Shenyu opened the outer shell of the sphere while it was still slightly swaying. He took out the complicated mechanism installed within its cavity.

  "You should be this."

  Xiu Shenyu spoke calmly, "To put it briefly, man and cultivation is like drawing a circle; with the self in the center of the circle. Then, the circle is enlarged layer by layer, the range of control grows greater and greater, and its volume grows heavier and heavier. But no matter what happens, no matter where a man’s heart takes him, the journey must be one without hindrance. Follow and oppose according to your heart. This is the true path. If the journey is heavy, sluggish, and cumbersome, if it’s hard to propel down one’s path, then this is what’s called a large tail that obstructs action."

  Luo Nan first looked at the mechanical device and sunk into contemplation. Then, he looked at Xiu Shenyu. "Then, right now I……"

  "Right now you’re just a support—a medium."

  Xiu Shenyu placed the mechanical device back inside the cavity. Then, he made the metal sphere rotate again. "I assume that you, yourself, know clearly just how much strength you have left in the center of the circle."

  Luo Nan thought back to the depths of the inscribed sphere. There was that little light of flame that lacked all heat whatsoever. He took a deep deep breath and said, "But I’m still there inside!"

  "Just a portion," Xiu Shenyu responded dully. "This isn’t your technique. You just endlessly watered it, and then it turned into layers of layers of ice chunks. You let it expand, you let it become denser. You may be able to borrow its strength, but the strength has to follow its existing rules. You can’t escape its constraints by even a smidgen. I haven’t seen any substance that allows information to be fed back to the human body. There are mystic and incorporeal powers when it comes to a person’s cultivation, but for you this is just a pavilion in the air, a mirage…… You’ve built it to such a scale that what is real and what is false are flipped upside down. This is the main reason behind the imbalance between your body and soul."

  Luo Nan instinctively disagreed with the first part of Xiu Shenyu’s description, but everything changed when Xiu Shenyu mentioned how “the strength has to follow its existing rules”. Luo Nan was stupefied on the spot as if he were hit by lightning.

  The doubts that had formed during the trip here on the public transport vehicle were vaporized by the luminosity of an epiphanic lightning bolt.

  That’s right. Why didn’t he think of it before? Sensing the star river. Receiving feedback from his believers. These were all real and true achievements. They were all changes involving the mental plane, and they all existed within the frame of Formatting Theory.

  In contrast, Luo Nan had entered the rules set by President Ouyang Chen when he entered the Simulator layer of the Psychic Wave Network, while controlling the tiny paper men involved the material plane. These were fields that Formatting Theory could not access.

  Luo Nan found his powers effective in one aspect, but ineffective in another. This was the reason for it! It all lay here!

  Although this was just the view of a single person, Xiu Shenyu did not know of the concrete details involving Formatting Theory. He also was not aware of Luo Nan’s awkward situation. The fact that Xiu Shenyu was able to deduce Luo Nan’s situation to obtain an accurate assessment that was indistinguishable from reality was something that could not be described as coincidence.

  Luo Nan just stood there in his stupefaction. The darkness of the training grounds wrapped around him, as the sound of the metal sphere rolling came grinding into his heart.

  Xiu Shenyu’s voice seeped in like fine sand, "When we take in external powers, the first harm can be described as ’imprisonment’. The next harm can be called ’inversion’. The worst harm is ’parasitism’. Your current situation is between imprisonment and inversion……"

  "Gym master!"

  This was the first time Luo Nan interrupted Xiu Shenyu since tonight’s studies had started. He stared at Xiu Shenyu with fixed eyes. He gazed directly into the sunken eye sockets of this decrepit middle-aged man. Depth, remoteness, and darkness lurked within there, and it was hard to distinguish between colors. Yet there existed a heavy force that pressed onto Luo Nan’s heart.

  Luo Nan gritted his teeth and spoke, "Gym master, do you mean that there are flaws with the technique I cultivate in? Is that correct?"

  Xiu Shenyu’s response was the clearest Luo Nan ever heard from him.

  "Without a doubt."