55: Chapter 55 Resonance Hypothesis

The whole morning, he was immersed in the pleasure of efficient problem-solving.

One after another, final exam questions, competition problems, and past exam papers were, in his hands, like parts on an assembly line, quickly disassembled, analyzed, and solved.

Three hours, and he finished a whole book of physics competition past papers.

[High-Intensity Problem-Solving Training]

[Learning Dimension Experience +320]

[Cultivation +1.45]

[Physics Subject Ability Significantly Improved]

Chen Zhen leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes to rest.

His brain felt a bit tired.

[Knowledge Fusion], while powerful, consumed Mental Energy.

However, this fatigue was different from exhaustion; it felt more like the muscle soreness after high-intensity training, the price of progress.

He took a sip of the pollen water, warmth spreading from his throat to his stomach, and then to his whole body.

His Mental Energy slowly recovered.

Worth it.

At noon, Chen Zhen cooked for himself.

There was some leftover pork rib soup from yesterday in the fridge, and a bunch of green vegetables. He decided to make green vegetable and shredded meat noodles.

When cutting the meat, he subconsciously used Spirit Control.

The blade followed the grain of the meat with precision; the shredded meat came out uniform, as if cut by a machine.

The vegetables were washed clean, handled with a single Cleaning Spell.

The noodles went into the pot, and the heat was controlled with split-second precision.

Three minutes later, a bowl of green vegetable and shredded meat noodles, perfect in color, aroma, and taste, was ready.

He took a bite.

The soup was fresh, the noodles were springy, the meat was tender, and the vegetables were crisp.

It tasted even better than yesterday.

The system panel popped up:

[Cooking Skill Breakthrough]

[Skill Dimension (Cooking) Experience +15]

[Cooking Skill upgraded to Lv.2 (13/300)]

[Unlocked Ability: [Heat Sensing] Can intuitively grasp cooking temperature and time, improving dish success rate and quality]

[Upgrade Reward: Cultivation +5]

Cooking had also leveled up.

Chen Zhen took a second bite of the noodles. Sure enough, he could now clearly "feel" the temperature of the soup, the elasticity of the noodles, and the subtle layers of the tenderness of the meat in his mouth. This wasn't an increase in taste sensitivity; it was his perception becoming systematic.

Heat Sensing.

Could this ability be used in Cultivation to "intuitively grasp" the heat of Qi circulation?

He noted down this idea to try it out tonight.

Before going to the Bookstore in the afternoon, Chen Zhen went to the Secret Base first.

He opened the door and nurtured the Mint.

As Spirit Control was injected, the plant's glossy luster became more obvious, and the golden edges on the leaves changed from faint to clearly visible.

In [Anomaly Perception], the whole plant radiated faint golden, warm energy fluctuations.

[Continuous Spirit Power Nurturing]

[Mint Quality: Quasi-Spirit Plant (Transition State) → Quasi-Spirit Plant · Excellent]

[Effect: Refreshing effect +1000%, Duration +250%, Nourishes the mind, slightly increases Qi activity]

[Cultivation Progress: 68/100]

Almost there.

Chen Zhen nurtured it for a while longer until he felt the plant's absorption of Qi began to saturate.

The amount of Qi it could absorb daily was limited now; feeding it more would be a waste.

He walked to the small table and took out that black lump from the Storage Space.

After observing it for a few days, he discovered that it emitted a very faint dark blue fluorescence at night, and in [Anomaly Perception], it radiated cold, stable energy fluctuations.

It was like a piece of ice that never melted.

He tried injecting Qi again.

This time, the black lump's reaction was stronger than last time.

A ring of dark blue light halo lit up on the surface, lasting for three seconds before extinguishing.

At the same time, Chen Zhen felt that a portion of his Qi had been absorbed.

But not much, about 0.3 points.

After the absorption, the temperature of the black lump dropped a little more.

It wasn't becoming colder, but "more stable."

[Unknown Mineral (Suspected Meteorite Fragment)]

[Status: Qi Affinity Increasing (2/100)]

[Effect: Absorbs Qi, slowly changing its own properties]

[Hint: Continuous injection of Qi can gradually unlock more information]

It needed one hundred injections of Qi to unlock?

Chen Zhen calculated.

Injecting 0.3 points of Qi daily, one hundred times would require 30 points of Qi, which was about six days.

If he only injected and didn't use other Spells.

It was acceptable.

He put the black lump back into the Storage Space and listed it as one of his daily tasks.

When he arrived at the Bookstore in the afternoon, Grandpa Wu was repairing a thread-bound book behind the counter.

Seeing Chen Zhen, he raised his eyelids: "You're here? Not much work today, just tidy up those few piles of new old newspapers."

"Okay."

Chen Zhen walked to the piles of newspapers and started organizing.

While sorting, he occasionally activated [Anomaly Perception] to scan.

These old newspapers were mostly from the eighties; the paper was yellowed and the edges were a bit brittle, but they were preserved reasonably well.

When he got to a pile of "Jiangcheng Evening News" from 1985, [Anomaly Perception] fed back a trace of weak fluctuation.

It was very faint, almost covered by the passage of time.

He pulled out that newspaper and looked through it carefully.

On the bottom of the fourth page, there was a short report: "Dongshan Suddenly Reveals 'Earth Light'; Experts Claim It Is a Geological Discharge Phenomenon."

The content was very short: Around nine o'clock last night, villagers at the southern foot of Dongshan discovered a pale blue halo on the hillside, lasting for about five minutes. Experts from the Municipal Seismological Bureau rushed to the scene overnight for investigation, preliminarily judging it to be a rock discharge phenomenon caused by geological stress changes, with no earthquake risk.

Beside the report, someone had written a few words in pencil: "Not discharge. Same frequency?"

The handwriting was very familiar.

It was Engineer Gu's.

It was "Same frequency" again.

Chen Zhen remembered the "Abnormal Aurora" report in that "National Geographic" magazine; Engineer Gu had written the same annotation.

Same frequency... did it mean the same "frequency" as the Dongshan strange light? Or the same "source"?

He took the newspaper to the counter: "Grandpa Wu, look at this."

Grandpa Wu took it, glanced at the annotation, and was silent for a few seconds.

"In his later years, Old Gu," Grandpa Wu said slowly, "increasingly believed in a theory: many strange things in the world, which seem unrelated, are actually projections of the same thing in different places and at different times. Just like a radio, if you tune it to a certain frequency, you can receive the program of that frequency."

He paused: "He called this 'Resonance'. The Earth has its own frequency; in some places, at some times, it will resonate with this frequency. When the resonance is strong enough, it 'leaks' out."

Chen Zhen was thoughtful.

Resonance.

He was very familiar with this physics concept.

Two objects with the same vibration frequency would transfer energy.

If the Earth truly had its own "frequency," then the Earth vein nodes were the points where resonance was strongest.

And the predicted active period in 2013, could it be a "double resonance" of the Earth's frequency and some celestial frequency?

He kept this conjecture in his mind, waiting to go back and use [Knowledge Fusion] to analyze it.

[Discovered Key Theoretical Clue: 'Resonance Hypothesis']

[exploration dimension Experience +45]

[Clue Association Network Updated: Added node 'Resonance Hypothesis', connected to 'Earth vein nodes', 'Periodic Changes', 'Engineer Gu's Late-Stage Thoughts']

exploration dimension was almost leveling up.

Before leaving the Bookstore in the evening, Grandpa Wu gave him his wages and added another ten yuan: "You organized the newspapers well today, thank you for your hard work."

"It's what I should do."

Walking out of the Bookstore, the sunset was just right.

Chen Zhen didn't go straight home but made a detour to the second-hand market and bought a few more pieces of jade.

This time he specifically picked ones with uniform texture, and the price was higher; five pieces cost fifty yuan.

Before leaving, he habitually used [Anomaly Perception] to scan the market.

Among a pile of sundries, something emitted a faint, warm energy fluctuation.

Unlike the cold feeling of jade, it was a warm, vital feeling.

He walked over, rummaged through it, and fished out a string of beads from an old wooden box.

Eighteen beads, dark brown, with a smooth surface, looking like both wood and stone.

In [Anomaly Perception], every bead radiated faint, warm energy, connecting into one piece, forming a weak energy field.

"Boss, how much for this?"

The stall owner was an old lady, who took a look: "That thing, old sandalwood, I bought it, don't even know if it's real. Give me twenty."

Chen Zhen paid the money and put the bracelet on his left wrist.

The warm feeling spread from his wrist, very comfortable.

[Obtained Item: Old Sandalwood Bracelet (Mundane Item)]

[Effect: Weakly calms the spirit, slightly clears the mind, wearing it can slightly increase the recovery speed of Mental Energy]

Another good thing.

He decided to give this bracelet to his mother.

She had been worried about his father's training camp recently and hadn't been sleeping well at night.

Sandalwood calmed the spirit; it could help a little.

When he arrived home, his mother was folding clothes in the living room.

Chen Zhen walked over and handed the bracelet to her: "Mom, this is for you."

Mother was stunned: "What is this?"

"Sandalwood bracelet, it can calm the spirit."

"You haven't been sleeping well lately, try wearing it."

Mother took the bracelet, looked at it for several seconds, and then slowly put it on her wrist.

"It's pretty." She said.

Her voice carried surprise.

Outside the window, the sky was gradually darkening, the living room lights turned on, and the warm yellow light spilled over the neat clothes.

Dinner was simple; he heated up leftovers and cooked a soup.

During the meal, his mother didn't take off the bracelet, lowering her head to look at it from time to time.

"Xiao Zhen," she suddenly said, "your dad has a martial arts competition next Monday, should we prepare a surprise for him?"

"What kind of surprise?"

"When he comes back, cook a good meal." Mother smiled, "Let him know someone at home supports him."

"Okay." Chen Zhen also smiled, "I'll do the cooking."

At night, Chen Zhen returned to his room.

He first stood in a stance for five minutes, running the Simplified Microcosmic Orbit ten times.

Under the dual blessing of [Internal Vision] and the Fire Jujube Pit, the Qi circulation became smoother and smoother, and the mass of Qi in his Dantian became more solid by a fraction.

Then, he began today's Spirit Control training.

Five stones floated up, this time challenging a new height: letting them form a dynamic, rotating small "galaxy."

The largest one rotated slowly in the center, four small ones revolved around it, each with a different revolution speed and different orbital inclination.

High difficulty, but also high reward.

He was fully focused, his Mental Energy running at high speed.

The five stones drew complex trajectories in the air, stable in the center, orderly on the periphery.

He persisted for twenty seconds, and his Mental Energy ran low.

He stopped the technique, and the stones fell.

[High-Intensity Spirit Control Training]

[Initial Glimpse of Spirit Control effect improved: Spirit Control precision +12% (currently 45%)]

[Mental Energy significantly increased]

[Initial Glimpse of Spirit Control → Minor Achievement of Spirit Control (Realm Breakthrough)]

[Obtained Status: 'Minor Achievement of Spirit Control' (Spirit Control precision +50%, fine operation limit significantly increased)]

The Spirit Control Realm had broken through.

Chen Zhen felt that his control over the Qi in his body had suddenly become much "silkier."

The flow of Qi that previously required deliberate distraction to guide could now be completed with just a thought.

The multi-line operations that previously required full effort to maintain could now leave more spare capacity.

He tried to lift those five stones with Qi.

It was as easy as lifting five feathers.

Controlling them to perform complex trajectory movements simultaneously, he was still at ease.

He tried adding another stone.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

It wasn't until he added the ninth stone that he felt his control reach its limit.

Minor Achievement of Spirit Control, a qualitative change.

He nodded with satisfaction.

The accumulation was enough; the Breakthrough was just a natural consequence.

Finally, he summoned the system panel to summarize:

[Day 26 (Day 5 of Qi Refinement Stage) Summary]

[Cultivation Gains: +14.53 (Morning run +0.95, Learning +2.33, Cooking upgrade +5, Exploration +5, Cultivation +0.8, Others +0.45)]

[Current Cultivation: 141.34/500 (Qi Refining Stage 1)]

[Spirit Power Value: 8.8/10 (Tomorrow recover to 11.5/11.5)]

[Health Dimension: Lv.4 (178/500)]

[Learning Dimension: Lv.5 (550.7/1200)]

[Social Dimension: Lv.1 (118/200)]

[Skill Dimension: Cooking Lv.2 (13/300), Organizing 72/100, Hand-drawing Lv.2 (150/300), Structural Drafting Beginner (60/100), Formation Beginner (1/100)]

[exploration dimension: Lv.2 (180/400)]

[Spell Proficiency: Cleaning Spell (13/100), Water Condensation Spell (11/100), Eye-Brightening Spell (26/100)]

[Special Status: Qi Refining Cultivator; Minor Achievement of Spirit Control; Hexagonal Warrior (All Dimensions +8%, remaining 70 hours); Runners Heart; Integrated Power Initial Success; Physical Optimization; Anomaly Perception; Literary Perception; Internal Vision; Knowledge Fusion; Heat Sensing]

[Storage Space: 1 cubic meter (Black lump x1, Jade x8)]

[Main Quest: Qi Refining Stage 1 (141.34/500)]

Minor Achievement of Spirit Control, Cooking Lv.2, Cultivation broke through 140 points.

Today was a fruitful day.