222: Chapter 222 Quantifying Inherent Foundation

Fortune-telling was fortune-telling, but the results of several hundred years in the Fourth World were right there—some people could truly Cultivate into a Martial Artist, while others could not.

Therefore, things like "Root Bone" truly existed. It was just that Cang City's method of judging through bone-palpation and pulse-taking was far too crude; there had to be explicit, hard indicators behind it.

"Besides, we have 1.4 billion Great Xia citizens," Su Mingyuan spread his hands. "We can't possibly drag them over one by one for Sun Liang to feel their bones. Even if he doesn't eat or sleep and spends a minute on each person, it would take over two thousand years to finish everyone."

"Even if he could manage to check them all, the results wouldn't necessarily be accurate." Tao Zhe leaned against the back of his chair, crossing his hands behind his head. "Sun Liang himself has admitted to misjudging several times—back then, he thought a child had mediocre Root Bone, but later that person trained into a Tier 2 Elite Martial Artist; and there was another prospect he favored, who trained for eight years without even breaking through Tier 1."

After Tao Zhe finished speaking, the conference room fell into silence. He stared at the ceiling, his mind racing.

What on earth was Root Bone?

Sun Liang said it was Innate; some people had it, some did not, and the degree varied.

This sounded mystical, but understood in another way—certain Innate physiological differences existed among the population, and these differences determined an individual's efficiency in utilizing Spiritual Qi.

Since it was a physiological difference, there had to be a physical basis.

With a physical basis, "Root Bone" could be tested and detected.

Tao Zhe suddenly sat up straight.

"Group Leader Su."

Su Mingyuan glanced at him.

"This thing called Root Bone," Tao Zhe leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table, "Sun Liang said it was Innate, right? Some people have good Root Bone, some are poor, and some don't have it at all."

"Right."

"Think about it, what is the essence of a Cultivation Technique? It is guiding Spiritual Qi to travel through the Meridians. Spiritual Qi starts from the Dantian, passes through one Meridian after another, and reaches the target location to produce an effect."

Su Mingyuan nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"So the quality of Root Bone, when it comes down to it, isn't it just the conduction efficiency of the Meridians toward Spiritual Qi?" Tao Zhe's speaking speed picked up. "It's just like an electrical circuit—copper wires conduct electricity well with low resistance, allowing current to pass through unhindered. Switch it to rubber, and the current can't pass through. Human Meridians are the same. Some people's Meridians naturally have a high conduction efficiency for Spiritual Qi, so when Spiritual Qi enters, it travels fast and has minimal loss; other people's Meridians are like insulators, causing Spiritual Qi to scatter as soon as it enters."

He slapped the table.

"This is Root Bone. It's not some metaphysics, it's just a physical parameter—the conductivity of the Meridians to Spiritual Qi."

Su Mingyuan's fingers stopped moving.

He looked at Tao Zhe without replying, but his gaze changed.

Tao Zhe continued, "Conductivity can be broken down further. I can think of at least three dimensions—"

He pulled a pen out of his pocket, turned the report over to the blank side on the back, and drew directly on the paper.

"First, the width of the Meridians. It's Innate; thick pipes have a large flow, while thin pipes have a small flow. This is the hardware."

He drew two pipes of different thicknesses.

"Second, the permeability of the Meridian walls. Spiritual Qi doesn't just flow within the Meridians; it also needs to be absorbed from the outside. People with high permeability are like sponges, soaking in Spiritual Qi and absorbing it rapidly; people with low permeability are like stones, unable to absorb much even after soaking all day."

Next to the pipes, he drew two more circles, labeling one "sponge" and the other "stone".

"Third, the response speed of the Acupoint nodes. The Meridians form a net, and the Acupoints are the intersection points of the net, where qi energy must turn, split, and change speed. People with fast responses operate flexibly, while those with slow responses operate sluggishly."

After finishing drawing the three dimensions, Tao Zhe put down his pen and looked up at Su Mingyuan.

"Give a score for each item and add them together; this becomes the person's Cultivation Aptitude. This thing can be quantified without needing a Master to feel the bones."

Su Mingyuan stared at the scribbled drawings on the paper for a few seconds.

"You mean that something like Root Bone can be detected?"

"It can be tested!" Tao Zhe said. "As long as we find a way to detect the conductivity of the Meridians. The principle is the same as measuring electrical conductivity—send a pulse into the Meridians and see how fast it travels, how much it attenuates, and how sensitive the node feedback is. Once three sets of data are gathered, a person's Root Bone will be clear at a glance."

Su Mingyuan was silent for a few seconds, then stood up.

"Organize this train of thought, right now." He picked up the encrypted communicator on the desk. "I am calling Professor Zhou."

When the call connected, it was 11:00 p.m. late at night at Tianmen Base.

Professor Zhou clearly had not fallen asleep yet, and the rustling sound of turning paper came through the earpiece.

Su Mingyuan did not beat around the bush, directly relaying Tao Zhe's line of thought—Meridian conductivity, three dimensions, quantitative scoring, and detectable physical indicators.

The other end of the line was quiet for about ten seconds.

"Is Tao Zhe nearby?" Professor Zhou's voice came through.

"Yes."

"I want to hear Dr. Tao's specific thoughts."

Tao Zhe took the communicator and explained the three dimensions in detail once more, this time adding more details—Meridian width corresponded to the upper limit of Spiritual Qi flow, Meridian wall permeability corresponded to absorption efficiency, and node sensitivity corresponded to the conversion speed of qi energy.

Each item had a clear physical meaning, and each could be measured independently.

With one hundred points for each of the three items for a total score of three hundred, Root Bone could be categorized based on this, which was the Aptitude Rank.

He did not speak fast, but his logic was tightly interlocked without a single word of nonsense.

Professor Zhou did not interrupt him the entire time either.

As the last word fell, the other end of the line was silent at first, and then the sound of a chair shifting came through—as if Professor Zhou had stood up abruptly.

"Just how is your brain wired?"

Without waiting for Tao Zhe to respond, Professor Zhou's tone had automatically switched to the work mode Tao Zhe was familiar with: "I will immediately organize people to research this on my end, and a prototype will be ready in three days. Send me all the Martial Artist Cultivation data, the more detailed, the better."

"We are already communicating with Cang City," Tao Zhe said. "The Cultivation data of several thousand Martial Artists will be available soon."

"Good. I'll wait for your news."

After Professor Zhou hung up the call, Tao Zhe and Su Mingyuan chatted for another half an hour, sorting through the details of the Root Bone detection before dispersing.

Su Mingyuan returned to his office, where a stack of pending documents was piled on his desk—the crystal core production report for Phase I of the Zombie World breeding plan, the allocation order for skyfall steel mining equipment in the Giant World, the radiation cleanup schedule for the Zerg World...

He unscrewed his pen cap and signed them one by one. When he reached the third document, his hand stopped—the phone screen in the corner of the desk lit up.

It was an internal bulletin sent by the security department of Tianmen Base, marked as "confidential".

The content was very brief:

The seventh sensor grid on the outer periphery of the base captured an abnormal signal today: a single, unarmed person moving toward the base along the No. 3 Ridge hunting trail. Satellite backtracking showed that the target had been active in the vicinity for over ten hours. Identity verification is underway.

Su Mingyuan glanced at it and didn't take it to heart.

Dozens of kilometers around the outer periphery of Tianmen Base were military-restricted zones, and every now and then, clueless hikers or mountain folk gathering herbs would wander in. Security could handle it; it wasn't a big deal.

Su Mingyuan put his phone back on the desk and continued signing documents.

What he did not know was that the person who had been walking in the mountains for over ten hours turned out to be his ex-girlfriend—Jiang Wanting