Exploring Immortality Cultivation-Chapter 402 - 154: Feast of the Finished Vessel

The following evening, a thin snow began to fall over Fusang. The flimsy snowflakes weakly clung to the ground, quickly melting away.

"What ghostly weather for such a historically significant moment," Wang Qi muttered as he followed Wu Chengdao, with Huangfu Lian and Mo Zhenzhen in tow, towards the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion's banquet hall. The icy water on the ground stuck to his boots, which he found quite uncomfortable.

That night, the Banquet of Completion had finally arrived.

The banquet was held in the banquet hall of the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion. The architectural style of this hall did not fit with the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion's usual minimalism. It resembled more a temple, with several thick columns supporting a magnificent dome. It was said that this was once an Ancient Demon Clan Temple, preserved from ancient times. The Thousand Mechanism Pavilion had invited cultivators from Burning Gold Valley to use an atom-by-atom replacement technique, in order not to damage the remaining Spirit Prohibition, forcibly exchanging the stones for metal, which they then used to mechanize the entire grand hall. Legend had it that on the day the transformation was completed, all the Demon Beasts that remained in Fusang, which claimed to be remnants of the ancient populace, took their own lives.

This was the final step in the Immortal Alliance's unification of the East Sea.

Only after entering the great hall did Wang Qi realize that the banquet was invisibly divided into two parts. Spectators who came with friends and elders could only stay on the periphery, while nominees, grandmasters, and the disciples brought by Carefree Great Cultivators were allowed to enter the inner circle. On this point, Wu Chengdao amiably led the other two away before turning to Wang Qi with a smile and pushing him towards the inside.

Seems like he knows something... Looks like the odds of me claiming the Dao Artifact Award this time are extremely high?

Wang Qi thought somewhat casually. Feng Luoyi had mentioned this to him before, so he understood that as long as the Li Sect emerged victorious, he would definitely be able to secure the Dao Artifact Award.

Surrounding him were occasional curious glances from the grandmasters of the Wanfa Sect, combined with a mix of peer envy or hostility in their eyes. A Qi Refining Practitioner co-authoring a paper with Carefree, placing first in the Unified Entry Trial, Banished Immortal, nominee for the Dao Artifact Award, known for an arithmetic law titled with his own name... Each of these titles was eye-catching on its own, let alone when combined.

However, these titles, good and bad, fragrant and foul, mixed together constituted a complete infamy, and few peers were eager to approach Wang Qi.

Suddenly Wang Qi was displeased with this arrangement. He and Mo Zhenzhen, as well as Huangfu Lian, had little in common, but at least they could strike up a conversation, which was better than this awkward situation.

Bored, he raised his head to study the dome's decoration.

Since the materials had originally been exchanged at the atomic level, even the dents, cracks, and blemishes on the dome of the temple were preserved with atomic precision, let alone the murals. A depiction of a three-legged crow was located on the upper side of the eastern wall of the temple, connecting the painting on the dome and the wall. The three-legged crow looked lively and imposing, but it was not the highest image in the temple. Wang Qi vaguely remembered Wu Chengdao discussing this matter; he had said that the Demon Clan's beliefs were very strange. There were two kinds of deities: one was the ruling class of the Demon Clan worshipped by a multitude of demons, with the Demon Emperor as the Sun God, as the Supreme God, and the entire divine system was a lower existence. There was also a set of deities whose worship by the Demon People was forbidden, and establishing private illicit worships was a serious crime among the Demon Clan. Only the "gods of the world," the lower beings, were qualified to worship these higher existences. These higher existences were not Demon Beasts, had no concrete form, and even their domains were intangible, such as Spiritual Energy and Cultivation, unreachable for ordinary people. The Demon Emperor was the sole connection between the two divine systems.

Wang Qi shifted his gaze above the Demon Emperor Statue to find that, indeed, the embodiment of the Demon Clan's faith was a higher existence. All he saw were symbols made of twisted curves, resembling some bizarre tentacle monsters.

As he watched, Wang Qi began to feel dizzy and had to stop to press the corners of his eyes: "The Demon Clan really worships evil gods, huh? Just one look at this stuff will drain your sanity points."

However, this strange phenomenon only spurred his interest. He rested for a while and then continued to look at the murals. A man came over and asked, "Are you also interested in these things?"

"I'm looking for things like octopus heads, big eyeballs, and yellow caps," Wang Qi casually replied.

The man thought seriously about Wang Qi's answer and said, "There are no characters matching your description on these murals, but amongst the existing Ancient Demon Clan characters, there is a resemblance to the eye..."

Wang Qi looked at the elder who had struck up a conversation with him and exclaimed in surprise, "You study this as well?"

Only Grandmasters of the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion, the landlords here, and disciples of the Wanfa Sect could enter this place.

"Elders from the Wanfa Sect once said that there is nothing that can't be calculated, nothing that should not be calculated, everything in Heaven and Earth is but a calculation problem. Human hearts conceive ingeniously and the Ancient Demon Clan is elusive, but can this ingenuity and elusiveness truly be more exquisite than the Heavenly Dao? Since it is a Dao, how can it not be calculated?"

The man, unconcerned, instead started to introduce it to Wang Qi, "This is also a rather famous calculation problem, quite interesting as well. The Demon Clan civilization has been extinct for a million years, and decrypting it through related languages is simply impossible, therefore, this is purely a mathematical issue, starting with statistics..."

The elder rambled on, expounding on the process of mathematization of linguistics. His lecturing skills seemed to fall a bit short of Feng Luoyi's, and Wang Qi was a bit overwhelmed and caught only the gist of it. The elder himself didn't seem very enthusiastic about this topic, and quickly finished talking about it. Then he sized up Wang Qi for a moment, and at the same time, Wang Qi was looking at him. Wang Qi found the elder somewhat familiar and asked, "Elder, are you looking for me for something? Also, do we know each other?"

The man chuckled lightly, "I came specifically to meet you." With that, he nodded and then shook his head, "You have some spiritual insight, like an Arithmetician, it's just a pity that you care too much about those divine and elusive fallacies."

Wang Qi immediately realized that this must be a predecessor of the Li Sect. This Dharma left him feeling especially vexed. But before he could say anything, the man threw down a thin booklet and left with a flick of his sleeve, "Take a good look at this, and try to stay out of these nonsensical debates in the future."

"How absurd," Wang Qi muttered as he opened the booklet and discovered it was a Sword Manual. He had already mastered the No Mistake Sword Net and feared that learning the Li Sect's swordsmanship might disrupt his own rhythm. He intended to return the sword manual to the elder. But by then, the elder was already walking away amidst the respectful attention from the crowd.

Wait a second... Respectful attention?

"Mr. Pang must still find it a bit hard to believe, so he came to see for himself what the person who brought the Genting Sect back from extinction looks like," another voice suddenly appeared beside Wang Qi. This voice was much kinder than that of the previous elder; it was Xi Baiche. The Master of Calculation chuckled as he looked at the booklet in Wang Qi's hand, "He wanted you to experience the extension of his own theories."

Wang Qi was astonished, "That man was the Mathematics Lord?"

Xi Baiche laughed, "Yes, indeed. Anyway, let's not talk about that now. Have you prepared for today's matter?"

(To be continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)