Data-Driven Daoist

After reading all the texts he had access to, both in the waking realm and in the dreamscape, Yu Han had summarised the difference between arrays and formations into one imperfect analogy.

Arrays were sentences. Formations were books. Grand formations were a library.

A single word could be a sentence. For example, ‘No.’ That was a complete array.

But usually a sentence would need more than one word. Subjects, verbs, objects, the different parts of speech.

This analogy worked best with shape-arrays because each individual shape-array was typically a sentence-like compound structure. It was rarely only one shape like a line or a square, but an interconnection of many.

Script-arrays were different. Many times, it could really be just a word. Not alphabetic like an English word, but logographic like a Chinese character. Often too, it was a phono-semantic compound, where the radical gave the array its meaning and the phonetic component part gave it its direction, allowing the practitioner to control how the array manifested spiritual energy into a magical effect.

Just like how a character like 菜 (”vegetable” uses the radical for ”grass” (艹) to hint at its meaning, a script-array might use a radical for ”fire” (火) to suggest a fiery spell, while the rest of the character provided the specific incantation or effect, like ”conflagration” or ”searing heat.”

But neither shape- or script-arrays could be just a letter. One had to draw a full character, not just the radical or phonetic component. And one had to spell a full word, not just write a few letters and be done with it! With script-arrays, you could not write fire and get the effect of conflagration.

It got confusing because the character for the number 1 was just one shape. A horizontal line. When it was drawn with the intention of a script-array, it would work. But as a shape-array, it wouldn’t.

It was an imperfect analogy. Not only because of that, but also because, although arrays could be likened to a sentence (including punctuation like periods and commas), formations could not fully be likened to a book.

There was something else. Something not intuitive that made it special. But if they were something, they were full books, and not chapters. They could be a book series, but could not be an incomplete series.

For something to be a formation, it must have a basic independent meaning that needed no other context. Similarly, arrays also needed this basic meaning, though it could be placed in broader contexts to be part of them. The way formations embodied this independent meaning differed.

It was… all too esoteric. It didn’t help that many authors used the terms arrays and formations interchangeably.

Yu Han was more drawn towards shape-arrays because they just seemed more mathematical. He wasn’t some maths savant, but he did have a working understanding of calculus, trigonometry, and linear algebra.

The resources he had on shape-arrays were better than the ones he had for script-arrays, in his opinion.

A lot of the elemental shape-arrays gotten from the practitioner notes were indirectly mentioned in the book Primer of Elemental Flows: Understanding Basic Shapes, array Principles Volume 1. Although it didn’t directly list any shape-arrays, it broke down how the ‘letters’ of the array made ‘words,’ and how ‘words’ and ‘punctuation’ were used to make ‘full sentences.’

In this case, sentences were magic circles. Though they could be magic rectangles and hexagons and other shapes too. There were shapes such as lines and curves that could connect multiple circles and hexagons together for compounding effects.

Like sentences forming paragraphs?

It probably isn’t the best idea to treat the sentence analogy as absolute. He would need to remind himself to take heed. Bad habits were harder to unlearn than learn.

Yu Han opened the list of what array resources he had.

For shape-arrays, he had the 40 practitioner notes, each a full book with anywhere from 20 to 300+ pages. These notes had 447 unique shape-arrays given as additions and appendices, with elemental types being the most common. Though the shape-arrays were unique in design, they were not unique in effect. For example, the previous four light-producing shape-arrays.

The Primer of Elemental Flows: Understanding Basic Shapes, array Principles Volume 1 was his main textbook. It was a theory book.

Circles of Serenity was about the aforementioned system of auxiliary shape-array formation-making. It was theoretical, but also philosophical, since it was written as a poem.

Constellation of One was the most technical. It explained, to a preliminary degree, what were basically this world’s equivalent of fractal theory and topology, including many of the self-imitating components he had seen. It also had a full section on how to stitch basic shape-arrays into one. He would need to do a deep dive on it soon. He didn’t remember much on fractal theory, but he knew for sure that he had once watched a 60-hour Coursera course on fractals. If he remembered correctly, he had also watched courses on topology, graph theory, combinatorics, and quantum mechanics. He remembered zilch, but with Echoing Dreamscape, he could rewatch them, fingers crossed.

I’ll have to refresh myself on computational science, information theory, and programming language logic too. Ugh, I’ll, uh, wait. No hurry.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Burnout was bad. He was only level 2. He had time, with Sima Yan no longer being an issue according to Tan Ruoxuan.

Although none of the three textbooks on shape-arrays listed actual usable arrays, Yu Han had the ones from the practitioner notes, and also seven complete scrolls each detailing one elemental shape-array formation alongside the needed shape-array components.

For script-arrays, he had The dao of Characters (Review by Liang Fuyu), Mind Vein Runes — The Bridge to Connecting Hearts, and Immortal Yan’s Edict: A Hundred Lesser Forms of the Mortal Martial Path.

Of them, The dao of Characters review was like one of the shape-array practitioner notes. It had 11 script-arrays Yu Han could use. It also gave a brief explanation on the control-shapes and the phonetic components used in script-arrays. Immortal Yan’s Edict was… insightful. It seemed to be from a practitioner who had given up on finding glory in his sect. The name of the sect wasn’t given, though the spite this ‘Immortal Yan’ felt towards the sect was clear to read.

Mister Immortal Yan moved far away, to a mortal kingdom. And used his script-array skills to train up a mortal army. He claimed his arrays could even help veteran soldiers eventually awaken their spirit roots!

I’ll have to find out more about spirit roots too.

Mind Vein Runes was the most intriguing. He was nowhere near skilled enough to draw it. By his estimate, he would need to be in the qi-gathering realm at least. He had more essence than a body or spirit cultivator, so at least he didn’t need to wait until he was in the foundation-building realm.

With the Mind Vein Rune formation, he could share his ‘inner world,’ whatever that was, with willing participants who activated the corresponding talismans. This inner world would not be fully open to others, and the formation had safety measures.

The question was, did his dreamscape count as his inner world?

The book mentioned each practitioner had unique inner world representations, and for some their inner worlds were centred around their dreams, artefacts, visions, experiences, bloodlines, desires, needs, traumas, and so much more.

Can I bring Niu’er and Li Yao to the Mirror Earth just like I can Fei Rui?

If so… if so… maybe he didn’t have to put off his trial.

A nervous tickle rose up his chest. He didn’t like the sensation. It felt as if he were trapped in a falling elevator.

He took out a shape-array note by a practitioner nicknamed ‘Wang Master Fourth,’ a long-dead senior of Stormy Reef sect from seven thousand years ago. Rather than a well-structured text, this note read more like a diary entry.

Halfway through, around page 155, it had the passage:

“…but as the serpent died, good for all, it did look to me with venomous eyes and did spit in my mind the blueprints to a greatly confounding array. So strange it was, I could not find heads nor tails of it, much like the serpent itself. But this I know, the snake tried to sneak in parts of its mind into mine. Be I shall the fool and write the array on the pages next. See the barks and the roots? Like a great sheltering parasol, all shapes joining together as though they were the leaves enlarged in the tree’s canopy. In the middle are the marks, each strange in its own way. First an eye encircled, then an ear of sphere, a nose kited, and a mouth of square. Like a face these sit, though no face I ever saw of a man or woman could be so serpentine. Still I say, it seems proper in its make. A strong array, like the lanterns keeping the ghosts away…”

“This has to be it,” Yu Han whispered.

A shape-array, one more complex than basic elemental ones, but not so complex that he felt hopeless.

He needed it to level up. He had to draw it somewhere in the mirror earth. Otherwise, he’d be stuck at level 2 forever.

This is no different from grinding in MMOs, he tried to convince himself. His stomach didn’t agree. It flipped, and he felt like puking.

Honestly, although he found drawing arrays and watching them come to life fun, he was a bit tired of just drawing cryptic shapes. They weren’t anime girls, mechas with sharp angles, or cute monster designs. There was no creativity in the process of creation, but Yu Han admitted he needed to find that creativity sooner rather than later.

How long is it going to take me to draw this? Yu Han flipped through the note with the array, which Wang Master Fourth called the ‘Snake-faced Tree-Marking array.’ Wang Master Fourth, despite his claims, was not the most creative either. Case in point, he had failed to activate the array at the end, though it was his opinion that the array couldn’t be used by humans. One needed to be a snake, or something resembling one. A fake that could shed skin and slither.

Wang Master Fourth could draw it in one go at level 5, and he wasn’t even a mind cultivator. Yu Han already had an outsized amount of essence compared to Fang Zhao and Huang Niuniu. He wasn’t sure about Li Yao as he didn’t have the Inner Awareness trait yet.

What kind of name is Wang Master Fourth anyway? Poser.

Perhaps if he practiced, he could draw this array at level 2.

Perhaps.

They said the dao would not make trials unbreakable. It would handcraft trials like a loving but stern teacher to push the cultivator to greater heights. Did it know that Yu Han possessed these practitioner notes, hence set up the trial to use one of the shape-arrays he already had access to?

Is it the same case for Niu’er’s trial?

…then what about Fang Zhao?

What if Yu Han lost these practitioner notes to a freak flood, or what if Fei Rui ate them? Would it give him another trial like it changed Huang Niuniu’s?

Yu Han had once preemptively passed a tribulation. Could he replace his trial with an equally challenging alternative, thus bypassing it?

Did he want to?

Did he even want to go back to Earth?

He put away the notes, books, scrolls, and other peripherals.

Time to sleep. He wanted to try something.

His eyes closed. Synaptic Bloom took away all his senses, and he reopened his eyes in the dreamscape. The process was oiled smooth.

He brought up his dao record.

Yu Han (Johan) | Lvl.2 | Accords: 1

Qi:

[True: 300/300]

[Pure: 217 (+73)/300]

[Primordial: 0]

[Lifeforce: 912/912]

ORIGINS:

[Mind 17.95] Int:15, Mem:25, Per:14, Cla:10, Foc:12

[Body 7.80] End:8, Vit:12, Str:8, Agi:5, Dex:6

[Spirit 8.60] Ada:17, Mag:5, Den:6, For:10, Pur:5

ARTS:

[Deep Sleep] Bloodline | Mortal 1 | Initial Step 2 | 117 (+13)/300

[Echoing Dreamscape] Auxiliary | Mortal 10 | Initial Step 7 | 373 (+105)/800

[Calm Before Storm Breathing Technique] Cultivation | Mortal 5 | Initial Step 5 (+1) | 138 (+200)/600

[Ox Tail 72 Sweeping Forms] Martial | Elite 2 | Initial Step 4 (+1) | 112 (+223)/500

[Thousand Petals Awareness] Psychic | Elite 9 | Initial Step 10 (+1) | 1100 (+1185)/1100

[Inkwell Tendrils] Bloodline | Elite 1 | Initial Step 1 | 40 (+40)/200

TRAITS:

[Existential Anchor] Mortal 2 | Requirements Not Met

[Deep Writhing Clam Bloodline] Mortal 10 | 457 (+99)/1100

[Qi Affinity] Mortal 7 | 107 (+71) /800

[Inner Awareness] Mortal 7 | 103 (+103)/800

There were many changes. But the entry for Thousand Petals Awareness caught his eye.

It was stuck there, at level 10 of initial step mastery, 1100 true qi.