37: Chapter 37 Can you create nuclear fusion by hand just by wearing a dog leash? Then I'll wear one!

Taichu Holy Land, Saintess Peak.

The atmosphere was somewhat eerie; it didn't feel like preparations for a cross-dimensional academic exchange, but rather like seeing off a suicide squad.

Ji Linglong sat cross-legged on the boulder that had been half-blasted away by Qiu Qianren, holding a spirit fruit she hadn't yet had time to eat, her brows furrowed into the shape of the character "chuan."

Before her, ten golden rings hovered, each covered in dense prohibition runes, emanating an unsettling sense of oppression.

These were the spirit locking rings used by the Punishment Hall of the Taichu Holy Land to detain serious offenders.

Once you put this thing on, it didn't matter if you were at the Deity Transformation or Nascent Soul stage; your heaven-defying cultivation would instantly be suppressed to the Foundation Establishment Stage.

Ninety percent of your spiritual power circuits would be severed, and your divine sense would be compressed to within a ten-meter radius; apart from having a relatively sturdy physical body, you would basically be just a tiny bit stronger than an ordinary mortal.

"No! Absolutely not!"

A roar shook the gravel, causing it to fall in a rustle.

Elder Huoyun of the Artifact Refining Hall puffed his beard high, his red face turning the color of liver. Pointing at the hovering rings, his fingers trembling, he exclaimed, "Saintess, what is the meaning of this? I am a dignified Great Cultivator at the late Nascent Soul stage. Going to that mortal world... no, to that Scientific Immortal Realm, I'm supposed to be an honored guest! I'm going there to do research! You want me to wear this dog collar... ahem, wear this torture device over there? Where am I supposed to put my face? Where is the Taichu Holy Land's face supposed to go?"

Beside him, Daoist Qingxu of the Talisman Hall, though not shouting, had a face so gloomy it could drip water.

He clutched a newly drawn Spirit Travel Talisman and said coldly, "Saintess, this Daoist cultivates the Dao of Freedom and most abhors restraint. If I lose my cultivation, what if I encounter danger over there? I've heard that the dump trucks in that world are quite fierce. If I fail to react in time and get hit, wouldn't I become the first Nascent Soul in all the worlds to die in a traffic accident?"

Even Elder Qing Rou, who was usually the most honest and only focused on growing herbs, raised her hand weakly at this moment: "Um, if my spiritual power is sealed, how will I ripen the spirit herbs? I don't know if the soil and water over there are suitable..."

Ji Linglong rubbed her brow, feeling a headache coming on.

She naturally knew this request was excessive.

But last night, she had a dream.

She dreamed that because Elder Huoyun couldn't stand the smog of Blue Star, he sneezed and blew away the Third Ring Road of Jinghua City.

She dreamed that the Great Elder, because he lost at Fight the Landlord, stomped his foot in a rage, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake that cracked half of the Asian tectonic plate.

After waking up, she was covered in cold sweat.

Blue Star was too fragile.

To this bunch of old monsters who moved mountains and filled seas at the drop of a hat, that place was simply a world made of thin, brittle crackers.

If she didn't use some measures on them, these people wouldn't be going there to study abroad; they would be going to destroy the world.

"Respected uncles and elders."

Ji Linglong sighed, trying to soften her tone as much as possible.

"It's not that I want to make things difficult for everyone. It's just that the situation over there is special. You all know that the spatial barrier of that world is extremely thin and spiritual energy is scarce. If you go over in your peak state, it would be like shoving an elephant into a china shop; if you move even a little bit, the shop will collapse."

"So what if it collapses!"

Elder Huoyun had a fiery temper. "At worst, I'll help them refine it again! I'll use black iron to cast them a world that won't collapse!"

"And what about the people?" Ji Linglong countered. "The lives of mortals are more fragile than grass. If even a sliver of your pressure leaks out, mortals within a hundred miles will burst and die. When my husband blames me for that..."

Mentioning the words "my husband," Elder Huoyun's momentum instantly weakened by thirty percent.

After all, that was a ruthless man who could blast a Deity Transformation Demon Child with a single shot and held the ultimate mysteries of the Great Dao of Artifact Refining.

"Then... then we still can't wear spirit locking rings."

Elder Huoyun muttered, still making a final struggle. "At most, I promise you, once I'm over there, I'll restrain my aura and won't lose my temper casually."

"Restrain?" Ji Linglong sneered. "Uncle, last time you blew up your furnace while refining, you leveled half of the Artifact Refining Peak, and you said you would restrain yourself then, too."

"This..."

Just as the situation was deadlocked and it looked like this study abroad delegation, which hadn't even departed yet, was about to disband on the spot.

"Buzz—"

The military-grade tablet placed on the stone lit up.

The video connected, and Jiang Chen's face, slightly weary but still wearing his signature roguish smile, appeared on the screen.

The background was the sci-fi-filled command center of the National Security Bureau, with Lei Keming standing behind him, looking nervous and wiping away sweat.

"Yo, everyone's here?"

Jiang Chen held that famous thermos in his hand, looking as if he had just woken up, and greeted them with a smile: "What's going on here? Holding a struggle session?"

"Husband!" Ji Linglong, as if seeing a savior, quickly pointed the camera at the ten spirit locking rings. "The uncles and elders don't want to wear these, saying it's a loss of face. Please help me persuade them, otherwise, this study abroad plan is likely to fall through."

When Elder Huoyun saw the main man had arrived, he immediately straightened his back and cupped his hands toward the screen. Although his tone was polite, his attitude was firm: "Son-in-law, it's not that I don't give you face. It's just that this request is too absurd! We are going to your precious land to learn the advanced Great Dao of Science. If our cultivation is sealed and our divine sense is obstructed, how are we supposed to comprehend those micro-particles? How are we to gain insight into quantum entanglement? Isn't this just making us blind?"

"Exactly!" the other elders echoed one after another.

Jiang Chen listened, not rushing to speak.

He took a slow sip of water, then put down the cup. The smile on his face gradually faded, eventually turning into a look of world-weary profundity and frustration at their lack of improvement.

"Absurd?"

Jiang Chen shook his head, sighed, and his eyes were filled with disappointment.

"Respected elders, I originally thought you were the group of people with the highest comprehension and broadest vision in the Taichu Realm, which is why I specifically applied for these ten spots. I didn't expect... sigh, it seems I overestimated you."

This sigh made the elders present feel uneasy.

Elder Huoyun became anxious: "Son-in-law, just say what you have to say! How did you overestimate us? My attainments in artifact refining are second to none in the Taichu Realm!"

"I certainly know about your artifact refining attainments," Jiang Chen looked at him, his tone serious. "But what about your scientific attainments?"

He suddenly stood up, walked to the blackboard behind him, and quickly wrote down a few large characters—[Micro-Control Theory].

"Respected elders, what do you think power is?"

Jiang Chen turned around, his gaze like a torch.

"In your view, moving mountains and filling seas is power, plucking stars and grasping the moon is power. But in our scientific world, this kind of crude energy release is the most primitive and lowest form of expression!"

"True power is control!"

Jiang Chen's voice rose a few degrees, filled with persuasiveness.

"Atomic bombs are powerful, right? But why don't we use them much anymore? Because they are uncontrollable! What are we pursuing now? It's to confine huge amounts of energy within the range of a needle tip and perform operations precise to the nanometer level!"

He pointed at the spirit locking rings on the screen, his expression becoming incomparably fanatical.

"You think this is a shackle? Wrong! Wrong, absolutely wrong!"

"This is a weighted training device!"

"It's to help you lock up that violent spiritual power within you, forcing you to perceive and manipulate every single thread of the weakest power! Only when you can thread a needle with your divine sense under the cultivation of the Foundation Establishment Stage and carve nanometer-level chip formations will you truly have touched the threshold of the Great Dao of Science!"

"If you can't even manage this bit of micro-manipulation, how can you talk about quantum mechanics? How can you talk about hand-crafting nuclear fusion?"

Jiang Chen slammed the table, making the camera shake.

"On Blue Star, this is called [Extreme Micro-Manipulation Training Under High-Pressure Environments]! It's a devilish course we prepared specifically for top scientists! People beg me to let them wear this thing, and I don't even give it to them! And you? You treat it like a torture device?"

The whole place was deathly silent.

The elders looked at each other, all completely bewildered by this theory.

"Weighted training?"

"Extreme micro-manipulation?"

"So there was such a deep meaning behind this?"