Chapter 229, Universe

Translator: Tamon

 

The embodiment of the world led to the shaping of all creation and thusly universally pulled upon the world.

 

Spiritual power tweaked gravity’s values. The warping forces of gravity pulling and pushing at Wang Qi made his head spin. His blade ended up being directed into Ai Changyuan’s left punch. The latter stashed his apple into his bag while flicking his right before slapping Wang Qi’s blade.

 

Gravity bound matter together, the power of convergence. Any gravitational attack inflicted upon matter would have devastating effects. Wang Qi was certain his blade would be reduced to bits.

 

However…

 

“The same trick won’t work on me!” Wang Qi roared, his eyes sharp and focused to a point. The world in his eyes took a different hue as it lost its abstract nature, laying bare its secrets in physical form.

 

Ai Changyuan’s fist vanished from Wang Qi’s sight, replaced by a curved surface. Wang Qi’s toes curled, his back tightened, and he twirled his weapon. Through the boost he got from the quantum field strengthening the chemical bonds in his body, more powerful than that of a loaded spring, the force unleashed was akin to an explosion.

 

Wang Qi’s entire power was put into his blade, making the shoddy piece of metal aim for Ai Changyuan’s right hand with greater and greater speed.

 

“You’re making use of my gravity?” Ai Changyuan gave the blade a slap without a care. However, for some reason, the blade glanced past his strike instead. His plan to shatter the blade fell through. At this point, the blade powered by Wang Qi’s force and Ai Changyuan’s gravity reached an incredible speed. Wang Qi leveraged it to escape Ai Changyuan’s sphere of influence.

 

“A cycloid?” Ai Changyuan guarded against Wang Qi’s blade.

 

The cycloid, or curve of fast descent, described an object’s speed under the influence of gravity, a geometric shape revealing the most optimal path of borrowing gravity’s power.

 

Wang Qi’s blade trajectory was a variant of the curve of fast descent applied to complex gravitational forces.

 

Watching Wang Qi regain his posture from afar, Ai Changyuan smiled. “Not bad; I see you came prepared.”

 

Wang Qi nodded. “It’s nothing. I made sure to eat gruel every day for breakfast and lunch the past week, all to fight off my motion sickness. Only at dinner would I eat something normal—it was hell, I tell you!”

 

Ai Changyuan’s mouth twitched. “You missed the point… but whatever. Average skills can’t take you down. So why not test out our best?”

 

[Test our best? What’s he up to?]

 

Wang Qi felt something was off. He stared in shock as Ai Changyuan raised his palms into the air from his sides, breaking the celestial body’s pull on himself and taking flight. Then the mighty power of the world converged on him.

 

“This gravitational power…” Feeling the changes around him, Wang Qi paled. “He’s grasping far more pull than he did last time! I-is this because of that bite of the apple?”

 

[I can’t let him finish!]

 

Wang Qi bore through the queasiness stemming from the erratic pull on his body using Celestial Hymn Odyssey spiritual power to wrap around his blade in a silver glow.

 

[Then here’s a gift for you, a spiritual powered pulse wave!]

 

Wang Qi was quick to calculate the trajectories of his blade. As he slashed, a silver wave appeared in the air.

 

The blade struck a second time, but Ai Changyuan was unmoving.

 

As the fifth wave appeared, Ai Changyuan showed a change. His arms relaxed, his body drawing a circle as his palms formed an arch with sublime grace.

 

A vague and chaotic area formed as Ai Changyuan finished a circle, then he moved to draw the second one.

 

The blade finished its sixth slash.

 

Wang Qi could no longer see Ai Changyuan’s movements. Colors covered him, like a mosaic.

 

“It’s the result of complex gravitational force influencing light, making it chaotic.”

 

The youth gasped. This was no Qi Refining skill. [Did Ai Changyuan’s power reach such a level after only one bite?]

 

Wang Qi had an off feeling out of nowhere. He looked around blankly, yet saw nothing unusual. Ai Changyuan finished wrapping the place in his spiritual power.

 

“Tch.” Wang Qi slashed the eight time, sighing, [The last time you were only good at making meatballs, but this time you even know Revolving Heaven.] (Tamon: Naruto reference.)

 

Just one more slash and he could link all the ones before together.

 

Wang Qi’s bad feeling only grew stronger.

 

[What the… just what’s going on? What’s this feeling?]

 

The intense feeling was suffocating. Then his skin crawled, jumping back like a frightened cat.

 

Then his vision went fuzzy.

 

[What happened?]

 

Wang Qi looked back to find Ai Changyuan there. A few strands of fabric drifted between them, from the part of his sleeve that didn’t clear in time. It was then Wang Qi felt something on his ear, only to find blood smeared on his fingers as he touched it.

 

A mere glancing wound, yet it already got its pound of flesh!

 

[What the hell happened?!]

 

Wang Qi woke with a start, coughing. “You little… that was cosmic light expansion!”

 

Cosmic light expansion was Earth’s term for time.

 

Gravity’s nature was space-time of matter, and matter was space-time’s form. Conversely, space-time decided how matter moved. This was classic general relativity, the current understanding modern cultivation had of matter, time, and space.

 

General relativity, however, raised one more crucial point—time was movement’s vector.

 

In other words, controlling gravity meant controlling space and, by extension, time itself.

 

Ai Changyuan’s Qi Refining spiritual power couldn’t stop time, but it was more than enough to trigger isolated space-time dilation zones and make him feel time deviation!

 

“This time’s bad.” Wang Qi stared at Ai Changyuan hard. “I can’t trust my eyes due to the warping of light by the complex gravitational field—like feeling for fish in water when you can’t even see their position.

 

“And now I can’t even trust my sense of time. The random space-time dilation areas make a complete mockery of all my predictions!”