Applied Immortality

Chapter 186, Free and Wild

Translator: Tamon

“I just felt like I finally understood what I lacked.”

The ripples faded as Wang Qi spoke, and the snow once again fell on him.

Even so, most snowflakes avoided him a few feet around him, with just a few straying on his face.

Wang Qi brushed the cold from his face as Zhen Chanzi asked, “What have you found out?”

“I don’t live wildly enough.”

The bomb he dropped left Zhen Chanzi unable to reply for a while. When the Great Ascension came to, he said, “If I had a body, I’d cover your face in spit. You’ve got some nerve to say that.”

He’d never seen a more shameless punk in his life. Now the same number one troublemaker under the heavens said he wasn’t being enough of a pain?

Wang Qi blocked the incoming snowflake, smiling, “Being wild isn’t the same as making trouble.

“In Albion Village, before meeting Li Ziye, I was acting crazy and odd. Now that was living wildly. Only then did I feel free.”

“‘Is a lunatic happy?’ Doesn’t this topic sound mystical?” Zhen Chanzi said, “I thought modern cultivators don’t like talking about it.”

Wang Qi asked instead, “Old man, what do you think of ‘renouncing sageness and discarding wisdom?'” (Tamon: from Book of Dao by Laozi)

The saying belonged to ancient cultivation, to deepen one’s resolve in seeking Dao. The purpose was to abandon any reasoning and use one’s instincts to grasp Dao. Ancient cultivators found it to be a good method. Ancient cultivation had ingrained mysticism, with many of its theories added to unnecessary aspects, straying as a result from Dao. Relying on instincts would align one’s direction with the path of life.

Wang Qi continued before Zhen Chanzi got to reply. “Before I became aware of modern cultivation’s existence, the godly Dao-seeking path came as a shock, rousing me…”

‘Renouncing sageness and discarding wisdom’ was anti-intellectualism. It was a concept prevalent among Earth’s religions, metaphysics, and theology, responsible for anything and everything man didn’t understand—kind of like the opposite of science.

Wang Qi sought Dao because ‘I want eternal life,’ and at that moment he severed the ‘evil notion’ then and there.

One thing was certain: shunning wisdom didn’t help with finding the truth of the world. Though this part of madness perceived a different kind of pain than the usual people, making them look cheerful in their eyes.

Scientists were the pinnacle of crazy.

Most of Earth’s scientists that made great contributions were driven by one notion. It had nothing to do with ethics, relentless in the pursuit of truth.

Even those fame-obsessed people like Laplace would risk offending a devout emperor by saying, “Your Majesty, my theory does not include the possibility of God.”

However, ‘what doesn’t bend breaks,’ the purest of people would be the farthest from normal people and the farthest from normal happiness.

The carefree and sociable Einstein wrote in his autobiography, “I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude… and this feeling is growing every year.”

Dao seekers enjoyed the greatest and purest joy in the world, despite not having much of it. There had been no shortage of scientists who fell into depression and madness, committing suicide due to their excessive talent and obsession with their ideas.

Wang Qi sighed, “Of ‘harmony in self, endurance in purpose,’ I only got the last part. I have purpose but lack the self.”

“Why purpose? Why self?”

Wang Qi shook his head with a chuckle. The answer to those questions was better kept to himself.

His ‘purpose’ was the thrill accompanying the seeking of truth. It was an unshakable belief through both his lives that tied them together. This would never change. He always was and would be a scientist, a Dao seeker.

Su Junyu’s advice made him aware of this truth, ‘rousing’ him from madness.

Then his heart started going against it.

He never realized that he wasn’t just a Dao seeker but also Wang Qi, the same kid from Divine Province’s Albion Village who cried hard from his regrets in his childhood.

Earth scientists had a ‘die while seeking Dao’ mentality. They would ignite their life with passion, resplendent and glorious. However, the premise of ‘die while seeking Dao’ was ‘life is short, learning is limitless.’ Earth was a world with a far too short a life.

Divine Province had that ‘seeking Dao’ part, but it was more of an adjective. The real meaning behind it was ‘Live with a smile, then you can seek Dao.’

The spiritual energy’s presence, the way to live forever, had already been discovered—a concept that predated even the human race.

Earth’s scholars would love nothing more than to learn even in their sleep, while Divine Province’s cultivators were content spending dozens of years in the mortal world to refine their resolve. It was all due to the latter’s belief that ‘I still have time.’

Modern cultivation emphasized ‘self,’ ‘joy of life,’ and ‘being free.’

Happy folks had an easier life than those wallowing in bitterness and hatred.

“Ever since I came here, I forgot who I am.” Wang Qi’s sigh misted and kicked at the knee-high snow. “I saw myself as a Dao seeker, forgetting I am ‘Wang Qi.’ That’s why I’ve been feeling off lately.”

“‘I am Wang Qi’ is an established fact that won’t change even if I neglect it. My words and actions are habits left from my madness, and the disturbance in my heart is still ‘Wang Qi’s inner demon.

“It wasn’t until Wu Fan told me the other day how others saw me that I finally opened my eyes. They see me as free and wild but never realized it. It’s all due to the habit I’ve developed these past years rather than me genuinely wanting amusement.

“I didn’t truly go out of my way to ‘mess around,’ didn’t try understanding what ‘messing around’ is, let alone that wild freedom.”

Wang Qi was a man of two worlds, but deep down, the Earth researcher part was already dead. He was Wang Qi, a cultivator from Divine Province.

In the trial area, he became aware of the self linking his two lives but forgot all about this life’s ‘self.’

Zhen Chanzi, with his only sense being that of spiritual power fluctuation, realized, [The kid has a new aura.] As a glorified greenhorn in math, he had no words to describe what happened to the bookworm. All he was certain of was, [It’s familiar.]

[Ai Changyuan, or Hilbert?]

[From the most promising young talent of modern cultivation, or the top Unfettered?]

“Wa-ha-ha-ha! Who am I? The world’s greatest genius! The most interesting person under the heavens! It really isn’t like me to get tangled up in that stuff.”

Zhen Chanzi sighed. “Boy, it’s been days since I’ve heard your wild laughter.”