Chapter 82

For safety reasons, the Lightning Class ships usually don't travel too far, typically limiting their range to ten thousand kilometers. Beyond this distance, the risk increases exponentially.

The empire's territory is vast, with a large number of secondary cities, which allows the distance to be controlled within this range.

This is a medium-sized ship with over three hundred seats. Ling She was meticulous about collecting payment and arranged a very good first-class seat for Du Qian. The first-class cabin is spacious, allowing one to recline and rest.

Du Qian didn't really care about comfort; as a martial cultivator, he didn't need to worry about a day or so of travel.

The only thing that annoyed Du Qian was that he couldn't use spirit horns on the ship. When absorbing spirit horns, one enters a state of daze, almost like a hallucination, with very poor reaction to the outside world.

Although the Lightning Class ships are relatively safe, there are still many incidents of spirit beasts attacking each year. For their own safety, no one dares to absorb spirit horns on the ship.

Of course, if you just want to practice, you can. The first-class cabin has enough space. If it were the economy class, it would be a different story; it would be difficult to move around, let alone practice on the ship.

Cultivation held little interest for Du Qian. His talent was too poor, and his combat power improvement almost entirely relied on spirit horns. In the past month, his cultivation effect had improved several times over, but it still fell far short of Lei Ming, not to mention someone like Yao Jing.

Unable to absorb spirit horns and not daring to take out his talisman book, the journey became quite boring and wasteful.

Ling She's service was indeed excellent. Considering that the journey would be idle, she prepared several books for Du Qian to pass the time.

Flipping through them, Du Qian was immediately drawn to one of the books.

"Introduction to Runes" is a rather thick book. The slightly curled page corners and the darkened pages indicate that it has been read by many people, and many times.

Previously, Du Qian had read a part of the Holy Rune Dao, which, although only a small section, was an introduction to the history of runes. It still sparked his great interest in gathering runes. In fact, almost all martial cultivators would fall in love with gathering runes.

Unfortunately, the requirements to become a rune gatherer are extremely high. Ninety-nine percent of martial cultivators, throughout their lives, only have a superficial understanding of runes. The possibility of gathering their own spirit runes is very low.

Rune gatherers are few, and the role of spirit runes is significant. This is why the price of spirit runes remains consistently high.

Currently, there are a thousand known runes. Each rune can represent countless meanings, and when multiple runes are combined, they form new meanings. The study of runes is far more complex than that of written language.

The so-called meanings are vastly different from the meanings of written words. They refer to the spiritual energy flowing within the runes. Different directions and combinations, even the same rune, can have hundreds of meanings and effects.

This "Introduction to Runes" is indeed just an introduction. Despite its thickness of half a foot, the first half discusses the origin, quantity, meaning, and function of runes. It seems chaotic, as if the author found it difficult to express the content in his mind. Understanding it is genuinely challenging.

The second half is about runes, first listing the known rune patterns, a total of a thousand. Although a thousand runes sound like a lot, they only take up a few pages, with about four hundred characters per page.

The following three hundred pages only introduce three of the most basic runes. Du Qian's face turned green; each rune required over a hundred pages of introduction, indicating an extremely high level of complexity.

But as he read on, Du Qian's face turned red, not because he didn't understand, but because he understood too well.

The first rune initially seemed unfamiliar, but after reading a few pages of introduction, it felt incredibly familiar. By the time he reached the halfway point, he was completely certain that he recognized the rune, and it was a very familiar one.

"Damn, what is this thing? Splitting it into three parts, how simple. Why make it so complicated?" he muttered to himself.

The spirit components he had previously made were none other than this rune, split into pieces, and even in a messy way. Fortunately, Xingyun had helped him modify it. Without Xingyun's help, Du Qian wouldn't have been able to weave ten thousand spirit energy threads in a month. The method of splitting and weaving was too complex.

After understanding the spirit components, looking back at the runes, Du Qian found them quite easy. A few pages would have been enough to explain them clearly, and there was no need to make them so complex and messy.

"Kid, have you played with spirit components?" A middle-aged woman next to him leaned over and asked with a smile.

Du Qian had been engrossed in "Introduction to Runes" since boarding the ship, unaware of when it had filled up or when it had taken off. It wasn't until the woman spoke that he realized the ship had already left Pingchuan, and the window showed a vast wilderness. A slight look down revealed the treetops.

The woman next to him looked to be in her forties, wearing a clean set of homespun clothes. At first glance, she seemed like a neighbor's aunt, but upon closer inspection, the clothes looked very pleasing to the eye.

In this regard, Du Qian's discernment was ordinary, as he had seen very little. However, he subconsciously felt that the clothes were not as ordinary as they appeared.

After all, who could be an ordinary person to board a Lightning Class ship and sit in first class? In fact, Du Qian was the most noticeable one in the entire first-class cabin, though he didn't realize it.

"Played with them, they're quite easy, just very time-consuming," Du Qian said, shaking his head. He regretted not selling the spirit components he had made. To liquidate them, he would have to wait a few months, and he wasn't sure if Changping City would accept them.

But wait, wouldn't selling them be a loss? He didn't know what spirit components were used for before, but after reading this book, he wouldn't be a fool.

When spirit components are combined, they form runes. How much is a rune worth? A spirit component costs only ten yuan. Even if Du Qian's math wasn't great, he could do this simple calculation.

"You find it quite easy?" the woman asked in surprise.

"Yes, it is quite easy, but splitting the spirit energy threads is very troublesome," Du Qian said honestly. Without the time spent splitting the energy threads, weaving a spirit component wouldn't take much time at all, and it was quite fast.

"How is your math and solid geometry? Which academy did you graduate from?" The woman was even more surprised. She was confident in her discernment. Du Qian was young, at most just entering an academy. She didn't expect to encounter a genius in a secondary city like Pingchuan.

Of course, she had seen many geniuses. The knowledge required to become a rune gatherer far exceeds the imagination of ordinary people. It is a highly specialized and comprehensive discipline.

Mathematics, solid geometry, spatial geometry, and energy fluid dynamics are just the basics. Excelling in these subjects doesn't guarantee that you can become a rune gatherer. In addition to these professional subjects, the higher your combat power, the better.

However, these disciplines are not easy to master and require a lot of time to study, which naturally limits combat power. Finding a successor is much harder for a rune gatherer than for a martial cultivator.

"Very poor, I haven't attended an academy. I graduated from a war orphan school a month ago." Du Qian had studied mathematics and solid geometry, but only the basics. In the eyes of a rune gatherer, even if he scored full marks in all subjects, it wouldn't even count as a foundation.

People like Liu Yan, who are extremely sensitive to numbers and have a keen sense of three-dimensional space, are very rare.

"War orphan school, huh." The woman's face showed obvious disappointment. Over the years, very few talents have emerged from orphan schools, and their foundations are too weak. Some may initially show great promise, but over time, their weak foundations become apparent.

Such people, after reaching a certain height, will stagnate and find it much harder to improve compared to those who have received formal education.

"Let me give you a problem, can you help me solve it?" The woman was still a bit reluctant. Could her luck have turned bad?

"Solving problems, let's skip that. I barely passed math in my graduation exam," Du Qian said honestly. If he had studied hard, he could have been a top student, but only in an orphan school. In other good schools, his grades would have been at the bottom.

His high scores were mostly from humanities subjects. Du Qian had a very good memory, and rote memorization was the easiest way to score.

Subjects like mathematics and geometry, which require a lot of time and mental effort, Du Qian was lazy to spend time on. He would rather spend that time cultivating, even if it only increased his combat power by a point or two.

War orphans are practical people who know from a young age what kind of life they will face. Anything unrelated to life is not worth studying.

Due to this mindset, the students of war orphan schools generally have low grades, with humanities subjects often outperforming science subjects.

"Very simple problem, sitting on the ship is boring anyway. It's going to take more than a day to reach the next city. You read fast, aren't you almost done with this book?" The woman was good at persuading, and Du Qian was genuinely tempted.

After reading "Introduction to Runes," he had no interest in the other books. However, this book could keep him occupied for a long time. He only recognized the first rune; the next two were unfamiliar.

Even without these two runes, he had read the first half but barely understood it. Since he didn't understand it, he would need to read it several times, so he wouldn't be bored.

He was tempted because he felt that the woman next to him was not simple. If she was giving him a problem, there must be a purpose.

Du Qian remembered that on graduation day, Liu Yan had solved a math problem that left everyone speechless and was immediately taken by a merchant. Within a month, he became a rune gatherer.

Damn, is my talent really that poor? Why hasn't anyone given me a problem? Even if I can't solve it, you should at least try.

Now, someone was finally giving him a problem. How could he not be tempted?