Dragon Canon

Chapter 132: Humanities Students

Xu Wenwu swallowed the Dao energy covering his mouth in one gulp, improving his cultivation slightly.

Ignoring the growth in his cultivation, he declared seriously, “An army marches on its stomach! Logistics is usually what decides the victor of a war, so how can you say that the supplies are useless?”

The moment he spoke up, everyone fell silent. Suddenly, Ji Liuli asked, “Who is this man?”

Wei Yuan answered, “His name is Xu Wenwu. He hails from another world just like the one who invented the Immortal Sect Unified Examination.”

Ji Liuli looked skeptical. “An otherworldly visitor? Really? The otherworldly visitors that were recorded in history were all astounding individuals. Becoming a World Ruler True Lord is as easy as eating and drinking to them. On the other hand, this guy seems quite mediocre.”

Wei Yuan thought for a moment before answering, “He’s pretty good at training horses, and I’m trying to get him to plant trees at the moment. That’s all. I haven’t had a chance to explore his other talents yet.”

Ji Liuli immediately said, “Go do your thing and leave him to us. We’ll pick his brains and see what else he knows.”

Wei Yuan nodded and advised Xu Wenwu, “Tell them everything you know, and remember, don’t lie.”

“He won’t.” Ji Liuli lifted Xu Wenwu into the air with one hand and dropped him on a chair in front of her, saying, “Just so you know, I love it when someone lies to me. It gives me a reason to teach them a lesson. You understand what I’m saying, right?”

Xu Wenwu hurriedly nodded in response.

Ji Liuli began, “Since you’re an otherworldly visitor, you were probably thinking about dominating the world when you first showed up.”

Xu Wenwu exclaimed in shock , “How did you know?”

Ji Liuli said impatiently, “You’re hardly the first otherworldly visitor to arrive in our world. There were plenty more before you, and their personalities were practically carbon copies of each other. The men dreamed of becoming a King of Humans, and the women dreamed of marrying one.”

Not in his wildest dreams did Xu Wenwu imagine that he wasn’t one and only. His confidence instantly vanished like smoke.

Ji Liuli continued, “What do you think your world has that we don’t? What is the thing that you believe you can use to lay the foundation of your world conquest?”

This was an easy question; one that Xu Wenwu had mulled over in his head countless times in the past. He blurted out, “Gunpowder, of course!”

“Good. And what is the formula for this gunpowder[1]?”

......

Moments later, Wei Yuan ordered Yun Feifei to take some cultivators with her and set up some alarm traps in the surroundings. As for Xu Wan’er, he ordered her to cut down some trees. At the moment, there wasn’t a single decent house in the entire domain. At the very least, they should build a few wooden huts to keep out the wind and rain. Wei Yuan looked up at the sky where patches of fluffy clouds were drifting by. Barring any surprises, they were in for a downpour tomorrow.

Wei Yuan hurried back to the foot of the mountain after issuing the tasks. He was curious to know how the inquiry had gone. But knowing Xu Wenwu, he wasn’t expecting his sect fellows to learn much.

When he arrived, he saw that an array had been set up at the foot of the central peak. It was semi-transparent, but no sound could be heard from inside the array.

Inside the array, Xu Wenwu was talking enthusiastically to Ji Liuli and Bao Yun and looking very excited. From time to time, he would wave his arms with strength while exuding the air of someone set on conquering the world.

Zhang Sheng and Xiao Yu weren’t inside the array at the moment. They were admiring the scenery while wearing a look of displeasure on their faces.

A bad feeling welled inside his heart as he asked, “How did it go?”

Zhang Sheng let out a grunt before chiding him, “You should focus more on your work and hang out less with oddballs!”

The rebuke left Wei Yuan feeling completely confused, of course. He looked to Xiao Yu next for an answer.

Thankfully, the swordsman was a better talker than his master. He said, “The fellow’s a total idiot! At first, he made his so-called gunpowder sound like some kind of divine miracle, but when we pressed him for details, all he knew was that it was made from charcoal, sulfur, and a substance called saltpeter. However, he only knows about the name of the substance. He has no idea what are the raw ingredients necessary to make a saltpeter or the method to create it at all!

“He even said that gunpowder can be used in many things including firecrackers, shells or bombs. But as far as I can tell, firecrackers and bombs possess completely different levels of power, meaning that they must contain different substances. Yet this fellow thinks that they’re both filled with gunpowder. What utter nonsense!

“Next, he went on to brag about something called ‘cement’ and how it’s nicknamed the ‘lifeblood of industrialization’. If we thought his gunpowder spiel was bad, this was worse. He couldn’t even remember a single ingredient in the formula!

“Finally, he mentioned the most important raw material of it all, the one that’s refined from iron, steel. For one, the steel he described didn’t sound all that impressive—at the very least, it’s a far cry from the one we know. Second, he again has absolutely no idea how his people refined iron into steel!”

Wei Yuan did not know what to say. He had already experienced all this. He knew that the guy was a good-for-nothing even in his own world. That was why he was using him for his other talents. Had Xu Wenwu been born in this world, he likely wouldn’t even pass the exams to become a licentiate. He would likely be stuck as a student for as long as he lived.

“I’m gonna head inside and have a listen,” Wei Yuan said despite all of Xiao Yu’s complaints. It was for Xu Wenwu’s sake. If the guy got a big head, at least he was there to prevent him from throwing his life away.

Despite their reluctance, Zhang Sheng and Xiao Yu ultimately followed behind him. Their mood had improved a little after admiring the scenery. They now had the capacity to tolerate the idiot a little longer.

Inside the array, Xu Wenwu perked up when he saw that everyone—especially his wise lord—had returned. He said in a solemn tone, “What I mentioned earlier are merely fanciful tricks; I’ve never bothered to learn them. In truth, my true talent lies in poetry! Speaking of, I had a sudden inspiration and composed a new poem just a while ago.”

“Tell us,” Ji Liuli replied while feigning a look of great interest.

Motivated, Xu Wenwu immediately launched into a recital, “Can you not see the Yellow River pouring from the sky—”

Smiling, Ji Liuli interrupted, “—surging towards the ocean, never to return? Continue.”

Continue? You already finished my sentence! Xu Wenwu was so shocked that he forgot whatever it was he was going to say.

It was at this moment Bao Yun spoke up. “Recite only poems that you’ve fully memorized. Then, tell me who the author is and roughly how many years ago it was written.”

Xu Wenwu racked his brains but could only recall only one or two lines from most of the poems. In some cases, he wasn’t even sure if they were poems or idioms. A long time later, he finally managed to recall one and began, “My casement veils glowing pools of moonbeams[2]....”

Of course, Xu Wenwu could not possibly remember what year and month Li Bai was born. All he remembered was that the poet was born in the Tang Dynasty, Yang Guifei, and Gao Lishi.

Fortunately for him, Bao Yun was a lot more lenient than the others. All she asked was a rough estimate—five centuries give or take.

Even more fortunate, Xu Wenwu had a general idea of the time period of the Three Kingdoms era—he could even pinpoint specific years such as 198 and 200. Using that as a basis and counting back a few hundred years, he finally answered, “Li Bai’s era was roughly one thousand and five hundred years ago.”

Bao Yun wore a thoughtful look after hearing this, “The earliest recorded appearance of the poem, Bringing in the Wine, in our historical textswas six thousand and nine hundred years ago. As for QuietNight Thought, it was three thousand and one hundred years ago. That’s a gap of three thousand and eight hundred years. All three of them had been copying Li Bai, meaning that the previous two otherworldly visitors were born after Li Bai and before Xu Wenwu. Though, if their world possesses the ability to travel back in time....”

Zhang Sheng interrupted, “There’s no need to factor that at the moment. Traveling back in time is akin to reversing the Great Dao; it’s essentially on the same level as the creation of heaven and earth. Even the immortals of our world can only influence the past, not truly return to it. In their world, great power does not reside within a person’s body. Thus, traveling back in time is basically impossible for them. Even if it were possible, the power would only be reserved for a select few individuals, and these individuals could never be someone like him.”

“Why’s that?” Xiao Yu was simpler than most and asked the question without thinking.

Zhang Sheng did not mind sparing Xiao Yu some patience. He explained, “In their world, traveling back in time requires harnessing the power of the entire world. Naturally, the individual they sent back must go through a painstaking selection process. However, this fellow is far too ordinary. A monumental mission like this would never fall on his shoulders.”

Xu Wenwu finally understood what Zhang Sheng was trying to say. Forget a grand, worldwide project such as going back in time, he wouldn’t even be selected for a suicidal mission such as entering a black hole.

Bao Yun nodded after listening to Zhang Sheng until the end. “In that case, the situation is a lot simpler. Assuming that the timeline of that world is linear, then Xu Wenwu is the latest otherworldly visitor. In their world, it had only been one thousand and five hundred years since Li Bai’s death. However, a descendant of Li Bai had arrived in our world at least six thousand and nine hundred years ago. This means that time flows differently in our two worlds. It’s probably flowing much more slowly over there than it does here.”

Ji Liuli wore an odd look on her face. “I tried calculating his fortune earlier but couldn’t come up with anything. However, I did see a speck of total oblivion in his soul. An aura like this could never appear in a person’s soul normally, so there’s actually one more possibility we can append to Bao Yun’s theory—his world may have come to a standstill, or worse, met its demise. Souls were cast into the unknown as a result of this destruction, and they somehow ended up in our world as otherworldly visitors.”

But Bao Yun held up a small, milky-white bottle and said, “But that doesn’t explain how he ended up with this thing.”

Ji Liuli replied, “I have some knowledge in the art of healing and pill-making; I can take a look at this so-called bottle of ’immortal medicine’, That said, we would probably have to wait for people from the Xuanming Hall or the Mother Nature Monastery before we can get to the bottom of this.”

Bao Yun gave the bottle a shake before smiling at Xu Wenwu, saying, “I would ask you the formula for plastic, but I have a feeling that you don’t know the answer, so I won’t.”

It was such a smile that the young man forgot to breathe, and his heart skipped a few beats. He felt as though years had been shaved off his life. In the past, he had only ever seen big-name celebrities on screen, and none of them really impressed him in any way. But Bao Yun was standing in front of him right now, and the pressure she exuded was far beyond what a normal person could handle.

Somehow, Xu Wenwu mustered the courage to ask, “If I may be so bold, does this world know anything about physics, chemistry, and calculus?”

Bao Yun’s eyes lit up. “Do you know them?”

Xu Wenwu hurriedly clarified, “No, I don’t. I’m just asking.”

He paused for a few seconds before adding, “I learned them, but I had forgotten everything.”

For an instant, Xu Wenwu thought he saw a dangerous glint in Bao Yun’s eyes. However, it disappeared so quickly he thought it was just his imagination.

Ji Liuli, Zhang Sheng, and Bao Yun wordlessly exchanged glances with each other. If it wasn’t impossible to perform a soul search on an otherworldly visitor, Xu Wenwu would be on his way to the afterlife already. Historically, attempting to probe the soul of an otherworldly visitor always led to one outcome: the complete obliteration of their soul to gain absolutely nothing in return. Not even an Immortal Lord could uncover anything besides utter chaos.

Xu Wenwu had no idea that his unnecessary remark had nearly earned him a fate of utter damnation. He was busy fuming inside his head thinking: What the hell! Why is everyone who showed up here a humanities student?!

1. If you can’t answer this question, congratulations, you’re on the same level as Xu Wenwu. :D ☜

2. Quiet Night Thought by Li Bai. ☜