I Studied Abroad in the Modern Times-Chapter 268Book 2: : Who Is the Preacher – Interactions

Vol 2 Chapter 268: Who Is the Preacher – Interactions

At the foot of Rainbow Mountain, a truck blared its horn—beep beep beep. A middle-aged driver, too restless to sit still, opened the door and stepped out of the cab to look ahead—at least a hundred cars were jammed up in front of him, the traffic stretching from the base of the mountain halfway up the slope.

He looked behind him. One car after another came up reeking of gasoline and smoke, like a game of Snake, tailing each other bumper to bumper.

Shaking his head, he walked up to the truck behind and called out, "Bro, got a light?"

A chubby guy hopped out, cheerful, even offered him a cigarette.

The two of them puffed away, with nothing else to do, chatting while staring at the bustling Rainbow Mountain.

"How many trips is this for you?"

"Three days now, probably ten trips. This job’s urgent!"

"Yeah, I heard like a dozen construction sites started at once. They need a ton of stuff, trucks can't stop rolling, but still can’t go in. No idea what they're building."

"Who cares, as long as the pay's good..."

The chubby guy lowered his voice and said quietly, "You’re not local, are you?"

"Nope..."

"Then you haven’t heard. Rainbow Mountain—there’ve been lots of rumors the past few years."

"What kind of rumors?"

"Rainbow Mountain’s got a demon!"

"..."

"Don’t scoff. Some folks say they’ve seen her—some female demon too beautiful to be human. Shows up when no one’s around, especially at night, flying around the mountain!" The chubby guy was dead serious.

The middle-aged man took a deep drag on his cigarette... It was a good smoke. This guy might be a little crazy, but at least he was generous.

...

Tang the Demoness sat obediently on a bench beside the dining table, legs pressed together, staring at Zheng Fa with wide blinking eyes.

Old Bai and the others circled around her, chiming in one after another.

The batch of newcomers wasn’t at the nursing home right now—this Rainbow Mountain expansion wasn’t just for recruiting people, but also for building labs, research institutions, even opening up new spiritual fields.

Some had gone down the mountain to settle family and job matters.

Others were at the construction sites supervising work.

The noise from the outside world didn’t reach the nursing home, and no one here was in the mood to care about it either—because Tang Lingwu was about to break through to Foundation Establishment.

She’d been cultivating for a bit over three years, almost four. For someone with a Single Spiritual Root, that was actually slow.

But the issue wasn’t her—it was the environment.

Early on, Zheng Fa’s cultivation was limited, and the spiritual energy at Rainbow Mountain was weak. That was one major factor.

The other was the lack of spiritual materials, especially pills—Tang Lingwu didn’t have a Condensing Yuan Pill, so she couldn’t practice the Talisman Foundation Establishment Technique.

Looking at it that way, her progress was actually fast—she not only had excellent talent, but her temperament was also top-notch. A wealthy upbringing and simple nature made her incredibly focused and sharp. Even in the Xuanyi Realm, she’d count as an outstanding genius.

By comparison, Old Bai had barely reached the seventh level of Qi Refining, and Teacher Tian’s cultivation was even shallower.

Zheng Fa had some worries:

Leaving himself aside, Tang Lingwu was the first modern-born cultivator to reach Foundation Establishment—essentially a pioneer of cultivation in this world.

Even though he believed there was a 99% chance things would go fine...

He kept thinking about that 1%.

Old Bai and Teacher Tian squeezed beside him, faces full of concern as they looked at Tang Lingwu.

Over the years, their feelings toward Zheng Fa might be complex, but for Tang Lingwu, they treated her entirely like their own child—naturally, their worry ran even deeper.

"Should we maybe wait a bit longer?"

Old Bai muttered quietly.

"I’ve already prepared," Tang Lingwu shook her head with a smile. "I feel like the time’s right."

Zheng Fa nodded. Based on experience from the Xuanyi Realm, Foundation Establishment shouldn’t be rushed, but neither should it be dragged out too long—wait too long and you might lose the nerve.

Sometimes, following your instinct really was best.

Seeing Zheng Fa nod, Old Bai and the others said no more. Old Bai just patted his chest and sighed, "I haven’t felt this nervous since my daughter took the college entrance exam."

Actually... that was a pretty good comparison.

Or rather, Foundation Establishment had even more impact on someone’s life—especially someone like Tang Lingwu, who didn’t even need to take entrance exams...

Part of Old Bai and Teacher Tian’s tension came from this too:

Tang Lingwu’s success or failure would influence their own cultivation down the line.

When it affected their own future, of course they’d be more anxious.

Tang Lingwu grinned, showing her teeth. She looked more relaxed than them, but her eyes were still on Zheng Fa.

Old Bai was about to say something else, when Teacher Tian tugged at his sleeve.

"What are you pulling me for?"

"I need to talk to you!"

"Why can’t you say it here?"

"..."

Teacher Tian said nothing more and simply dragged Old Bai outside.

Tang Mu Dao was sharp—he followed them out of the dining room too.

Inside, only Tang Lingwu and Zheng Fa remained.

"I’m a little scared..."

Just a moment ago she’d been laughing like nothing was wrong, but now Tang Lingwu’s voice was soft and timid.

Zheng Fa said nothing, just reached out and gently patted her head.

"I’ve memorized the technique," Tang Lingwu closed her eyes slightly and kept talking, "Everything you taught me—I’ve remembered it..."

Of course Zheng Fa had been worried and didn’t let her figure it out alone. He had brought out every cultivation record related to Foundation Establishment and broken them down step by step for her—he even simulated all the possible problems.

To put it simply, they’d done several rounds of mock exams.

"I’m just thinking... if I fail, won’t those new people start questioning you..."

Zheng Fa shook his head. He thought Tang Lingwu was still a little girl overthinking things—whether they questioned him or not, he really didn’t care. He wasn’t asking anything from them.

"Don’t overthink. Just focus on breaking through."

Seeing her brows slightly furrowed, Zheng Fa offered some comfort.

Tang Lingwu nodded slowly and fell quiet.

The room went silent.

"Earlier, Professor Bai said this felt like sending someone to an exam..."

Tang Lingwu suddenly spoke again.

"Hmm?"

"I once sent you to an exam, but I never got to take one myself." She pouted. "So unfair."

Suddenly, Zheng Fa remembered that qipao of Tang Lingwu’s from back then.

Was she fishing for comfort? Or encouragement?

What now?

Wear the qipao himself?

Too much, right?

A warm, fragrant breeze hit him. Turning his head, Zheng Fa saw Tang Lingwu standing in front of him, arms wide open, face tilted up.

Seeing him turn, Tang Lingwu said with a straight face:

"Give me a boost!"

Zheng Fa stood and gently hugged her.

Only after a long while did they let go.

Tang Lingwu shook her head, her face beaming with a mischievous grin, looking quite pleased:

"Gotcha."

"Hmm?"

"I wasn’t scared at all~"

Zheng Fa was speechless. A fake-out hug?

Couldn’t she fake something bigger?

This girl’s deception skills were lacking—but her charm technique was totally self-taught...

...

A few days later, Cheng Yun brought Professor Wang and the others back to the nursing home. Going forward, the main building would serve as their dormitory.

On the way, Cheng Yun kept boasting: "I know this place inside out! Professor, I’ve got your back from now on!"

Seeing him act so cocky, Professor Wang’s face darkened.

The backyard was still Zheng Fa’s private area.

These past few days, Zheng Fa and the others had been in the backyard, keeping watch outside Tang Lingwu’s room in case anything went wrong.

"Why is it so quiet?"

Noticing the silence across the entire nursing home, Professor Wang asked Cheng Yun in a whisper.

"I heard Chairwoman Tang is making her breakthrough—Dean Zheng hasn’t left his room in days."

"Everyone’s keeping quiet."

Professor Wang nodded softly and glanced toward the backyard, feeling an odd sense of anticipation.

In the backyard, Zheng Fa sat cross-legged outside Tang Lingwu’s room, eyes closed in meditation.

Old Bai and the others were there too, occasionally glancing inside, but no one spoke.

Zheng Fa suddenly opened his eyes. Without saying a word, he smiled.

Success!

Joy surged in Old Bai and the others’ hearts.

"Look outside!"

Outside, the little building on East Cliff was wrapped in a five-colored glow. Spiritual energy turned into a gentle breeze that caressed the plants in the courtyard.

The old trees sprouted green shoots, birds chirped in the woods, and even the fish in the pond were leaping and splashing.

From the main building, Professor Wang stared at the scene—he’d braced himself, but still stood there stunned.

Everyone was momentarily dazed—until they saw a graceful figure step out from the little building.

The five-colored glow shimmered behind her. The breeze lifted her robes. Under the pressure of spiritual energy, even Professor Wang and the others felt a faint sense of awe.

Toward this young girl, they actually felt... reverence.

Tang Lingwu gave them a quick glance, her gaze a little distant and dazed.

But at that moment, no one felt slighted.

They all had a strange feeling—that kind of indifference came from someone who could destroy them with just a wave of her hand.

This was, plainly, a difference in the level of life itself.

But in the next second, Tang Lingwu landed softly on the ground—facing the figure walking out from the small building, she bowed her head humbly, as if preparing to offer a deep salute.

Zheng Fa frowned slightly, raised his hand, and lifted Tang Lingwu through the air, his expression a bit puzzled.

“Repaying the grace of the one who taught you the Dao—this bow must be made.”

Zheng Fa looked toward the main building behind her, where countless eyes were watching intently.

He understood that this statement was mostly meant for them.

Zheng Fa shook his head and patted her head. “Overthinking again!”

Tang Lingwu did think a lot, but it was useful—

She had just done a live advertisement.

The next night, Zheng Fa could feel the renewed passion from the new scholars.

It’s not that they lacked enthusiasm before, but scientists tended to believe in what they saw a bit more. That simplified Golden Core had another purpose, and Zheng Fa wasn’t the type to push a performance on them, so they hadn’t seen it yet.

But watching Tang Lingwu form her Foundation gave them a major boost.

The largest meeting room in the nursing home’s main building had now been set up like a lecture hall.

In this hall, Zheng Fa was giving the scholars an introductory course to cultivation—since they’d been recruited, of course they needed to be taught how to cultivate.

Zheng Fa sat on a meditation cushion, explaining everything from the rune system step by step.

Tang Lingwu sat in the front row alongside Old Bai and the others.

The rest were seated in rows behind them.

Cheng Yun sat next to Professor Wang. At first, he was busy sizing up the nearby “big shots”:

Many of them had white hair.

Some were names he’d seen in textbooks back in college.

There were even a few whose words could shift the flow of funding across entire fields—who could change the direction of national research.

Back then, they’d always stood on the podium, not beneath it.

But now, not a single one wasn’t holding a notebook or digital device, carefully listening to the young Zheng Fa as he lectured.

It was like the roles had reversed.

Noticing him zoning out, Professor Wang elbowed him.

“Professor?”

“What are you spacing out for? Take notes!” Professor Wang whispered.

“...”

“Seize this chance!”

Cheng Yun blinked and looked forward. Three seats ahead, an old man who frequently appeared in the news was scratching his head, listening to Zheng Fa with full concentration and eagerness to learn—like he didn’t want to miss a single word.

Since many of the scholars were older and just beginning to cultivate—some not even having started martial arts training—their bodies couldn’t take much.

So Zheng Fa only lectured for about two hours each evening.

The next morning, Cheng Yun opened his door to see Professor Wang next door rubbing his eyes as he stepped out, seemingly heading to breakfast.

“Professor? You’re up already?”

“Up?” Professor Wang looked at him with a strange expression. “Who slept?”

“...”

Cheng Yun felt his liver tremble.

“You didn’t sleep!” He stared. “What were you doing all night?”

“Training, reviewing Dean Zheng’s lecture. When I got tired, I looked up some Daoist texts and materials science textbooks online for a mental break...”

Professor Wang walked as he spoke, casually.

“...Do you have to be this intense...”

“Let me ask you—why did Dean Zheng choose us and not someone else?”

“...To speed up the research?”

“Exactly,” Professor Wang patted his student’s shoulder and smiled. “So how can we not work hard?”

Cheng Yun fell silent.

“Remember how I used to tell you guys how I pulled all-nighters in the lab back in my youth, and you never believed me...”

“...”

Professor Wang pointed at the tired scholars in the cafeteria and looked back at Cheng Yun with a grin.

“Intense?”

“To be among the first to learn cultivation.”

“To study, to research, and through that gain health, even immortality...” Professor Wang chuckled softly. “This opportunity is rare—and tailor-made for people like us.”

Cheng Yun looked at those red-eyed scholars and couldn’t find the words.

“Every one of these people was forged through grueling study and experimentation,” Professor Wang laughed again and asked, “What do you think Zheng Fa values in us bunch of weaklings who can’t even lift a bucket?”

“Spending more time—what’s the harm?”

Cheng Yun nodded blankly. His confidence as one of the nursing home’s veterans suddenly faltered, and he felt a new sense of urgency.

Looking at Professor Wang, he felt like—after all these years—his teacher had just given him another lesson.

...

After a week of basic lectures, Zheng Fa held a seminar in the same hall.

The topic of the seminar was naturally how to improve Tianhe Sword Dao—or more precisely, the Nine-Turn Golden Core Method.

Zheng Fa first distributed the compiled data and experimental results to everyone in the audience.

This recent round of recruitment had brought in over a hundred new scholars, from a wide range of disciplines—

Physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, even agriculture and mathematics—all areas that could relate to cultivation.

They all participated in the seminar.

But what Zheng Fa cared most about were the scholars from physics, chemistry, and materials science backgrounds.

After all, they seemed more directly relevant to this project.

As the audience browsed the data, Zheng Fa explained the principles and progress of the Golden Core Project. Once he finished, the audience more or less understood the problem at hand and began murmuring among themselves.

When the discussion died down, Zheng Fa said, “Everyone can split into groups or propose ideas individually. What I hope for is that each of you can study the problem from your own perspective.”

This was something he had no choice but to do.

The Tianhe Sword Dao research had hit a bottleneck—so much so that they didn’t even know where the bottleneck was.

Hosting this seminar, Zheng Fa mainly hoped to draw on the diverse thought patterns of these scholars from different disciplines, to spark new lines of inquiry.

That’s why he had even invited biologists and mathematicians.

“During the seminar, you can submit papers and review each other’s work.”

“Contributions to this project will be counted as nursing home merit points and can later be exchanged for spiritual materials and cultivation methods.”

Once he said this, the room’s discussion grew even livelier.

To give the scholars time to develop their ideas, Zheng Fa scheduled the seminar to run for a full half-month.

But the very next day, a nuclear engineering scholar—the king of overachievers—submitted a new hypothesis: the Fusion Reaction Hypothesis.

“Looking at the experimental data, the researchers have been fixated on the third step—how to combine spiritual sub-talismans and particles. But in truth, the standard Golden Core formation has three steps. Therefore, I believe the second sub-talisman may actually combine with the first during fusion—or even during fission.”

Listening from below, Zheng Fa felt the idea had merit.

But the subsequent discussion gave him even more inspiration:

Some believed the problem lay in the design of the alchemical furnace—for example, the Divine Thunder Golden Core required a furnace specific to its type, and naturally a second Five-Element Sub-Talisman would need a different setup.

Others, from a chemistry standpoint, suggested that maybe a catalyst—or a specific experimental environment—was required.

From a physics perspective, someone else brought up the idea—could it be that the energy simply wasn’t enough...

Over the span of half a month, about eighty papers were submitted, with fifteen or sixteen main hypotheses.

From Zheng Fa’s viewpoint, around seven or eight of them seemed quite plausible.

"Fundamentally speaking, if we analyze the formation of the second sub-talisman as a chemical reaction..."

"There are actually three possible problem points:"

Tang Lingwu summarized from the side: "First, the raw materials. Second, the environment. Third, the process."

Zheng Fa nodded.

Raw materials were the trickiest. For instance, the Talisman Foundation Establishment Technique required the Condensing Yuan Pill. If Tianhe Sword Dao was the same, and they didn’t understand the original cultivation method of the Tianhe Venerable, then chances were, they’d never be able to master this—

Especially if there was something like a catalyst involved, then it was game over.

The environment was a bit easier. The environment for the Golden Core Project involved the construction of the alchemical furnace, the concentration of spiritual energy, temperature, and pressure.

That was still traceable.

As for the process—

That was actually what Zheng Fa and his team were best at.

The Golden Core Project had already broken down the core formation process into an assembly line, and their understanding of the techniques involved was nearly unmatched across the Xuanyi Realm.

That part, at least, was relatively straightforward for them.

At that moment, Professor Wang rushed over with Cheng Yun and handed Zheng Fa a freshly printed paper. As soon as he looked at it, Zheng Fa abruptly raised his head and looked at the two of them: “Interaction forces?”

"Yes. We were thinking, if we treat spiritual sub-talismans as particles—or substances—then there must be some kind of attraction between them. From a fundamental physics standpoint, wouldn’t that be a form of interaction?"

"Electrons interact through photons—so what do spiritual energies use to interact?"

Zheng Fa had a sudden realization: "Divine soul!"

Back when he first learned talisman techniques, this had already been clear—

The attraction between spiritual energy talisman patterns only occurred within the range of one’s divine soul. In other words, the attraction between runes only happened when they were within the same divine soul’s domain!

Looking back, when Zheng Fa was refining talisman bases inside his own body, the spiritual power already contained his divine soul...

He had always assumed it was due to the effect of the Condensing Yuan Pill, but thinking about it now—

If the Condensing Yuan Pill were really so effective, why did everyone’s Five-Element Ring differ?

But if it were explained through the divine soul’s effect—

Everything made perfect sense.

"So you’re saying, the divine soul..." Tang Mu Dao frowned. "Is the medium through which spiritual energy interacts?"

Zheng Fa froze. He suddenly realized that this theory pointed to the very foundation of spell techniques!

Or rather, it explained something crucial:

Why cultivators had to train their divine soul. Why only cultivators could cast spells!

At the deepest level, it answered one of Zheng Fa’s core questions:

Where exactly does a person fit within the mechanics of a spell?

"Hard to say just yet—it still needs verification." Zheng Fa shook his head. As it stood, the theory could explain some phenomena, but it was still only a hypothesis.

They needed to validate it through more experimental results.

He glanced at Professor Wang, deeply impressed, and stood up to say:

"Regardless, this theory is incredibly insightful... Professor Wang, thank you for your hard work!"

"Cheng Yun, you know the nursing home well. If Professor Wang runs into any issues, help him out. If there’s something you can’t solve, come straight to me."

Seeing him so respectful, Professor Wang blinked, then proudly shot a look at Cheng Yun.

His eyes said it all—

Who’s looking after who now, huh? Your teacher is still your teacher, even if he turns to ash!

...

In the Jiushan Realm, Zheng Fa gently opened his eyes and took out the Jade Slip of Creation.

Inside were the eighty-plus papers from the seminar.

The most important, of course, was still Professor Wang’s paper on spiritual energy interaction forces.

But Zheng Fa couldn’t afford to be biased.

The causes of the experiment’s failure weren’t limited to one factor—he wasn’t even sure if it was really a divine soul issue.

After thinking for a moment, he sent the papers privately through the forum to Madam Xuanhua and the others.

...

On the experimental island, Yan Wushuang stared in a daze as Madam Xuanhua copied the papers one by one.

"These... all came from Zheng Fa?"

"You’ll get used to it."

"All of them, from him alone?"

"Who else?" Madam Xuanhua smiled. "I only gave him the data yesterday."

Yan Wushuang read two freshly printed papers, then put a hand on his forehead.

Just looking at these made his brain hurt.

What kind of mind does Zheng Fa even have?