Xiao Qi, stop meow..."
"No way! I feel as lively as a dragon. I can keep going for another three hundred rounds!"
"Three hundred... no way meow! Let me sleep!"
"How could I possibly!"
"Wu wu... If only I had known..."
Mao Zimiao lay sprawled across the table, her eyelids fluttering open and shut in fatigue. Eventually, she succumbed to the overwhelming drowsy waves and fell into a deep sleep.
"Tsk, broke her in just a short while." Wang Qi gripped a set of math problems with an expression of bored disappointment.
Zhen Chan felt speechless, "Are you really that hung up on her waking you up on the Spirit Boat?"
"Ha? What are you talking about, old man?" Wang Qi said, "This is about maintaining an image, okay! A study prodigy is dubbed as such only when they embody the overwhelming aura of one at all times! After she saw such an embarrassing side of me, I must rebuild my authority—And hey, how dare she say something as ambiguous as 'won't let you sleep' to me! She must experience the weight behind those words!"
"The weight and thickness of the problem set?"
"This 'Five Jiazi Cultivation and Three Jiazi Simulation' happens to be the most valuable among all the free books, encompassing all the introductory parts of the Great Dao. As long as one persists in completing it, even a pig can achieve a Modern Golden Core!" Wang Qi rapidly flipped through the incredibly thick problem set, "I'm doing this for her own good, you know!"
"You kept picking the hardest problems just now, all within the realm of mathematics—when it all comes down to it, isn't it just because you find it interesting?"
"Not entirely." Wang Qi casually tossed the 'Five Jiazi Cultivation and Three Jiazi Simulation' back into his Storage Bag, "Also, I'm testing whether the injury has slowed my thinking."
Wang Qi pointed triumphantly at Mao Zimiao, "Look, the insurmountable gap between her and me is still there!"
"Speaking of which, the Written Test is tomorrow, aren't you going to rest a bit?" Zhen Chan asked, "I remember the Written Test carries a weight of sixty-five percent, and with your injuries, it might be better to focus on it."
Wang Qi dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand, "No need. I'm a Qi Cultivation Stage Cultivator after all—so long as I don't overuse my brains silly cat, going without sleep for a few days won't be an issue. Plus, when have you ever seen me cram before a battle?"
"Your injuries shouldn't be aggravated by cultivation."
"I know." Wang Qi placed a porridge bowl he had taken out of his Storage Bag onto the table and then pulled out another piece of scrap paper, "Now it's time for problem-solving; blockheads should shut up."
"Hmm..." Zhen Chan, who had never been spoken to like that in his life, was slightly miffed for a moment. However, the once Mahayana Cultivator wisely suppressed his dissatisfaction. Seeing the porridge bowl, he realized what Wang Qi might be studying. And that Memory Map, originating from the Ancient Method, was something he could comprehend and absorb.
The first thing Wang Qi did was trace the patterns captured in the congealed porridge—compared to the complete Flame Cloud Map, this pattern lacked many details and was blurred. Wang Qi, however, copied it with utmost seriousness.
After finishing, Wang Qi made a duplicate of his drawing. Then, on the second drawing, he added a few strokes, dividing the pattern from the porridge into several irregular sections.
"Indeed... though raw or fragmented, it can be broken into several parts, each closely resembling a reduced version of the whole, at least superficially possessing the characteristics of fractals."
To put it simply, fractals are patterns with self-similarity properties. Their infinitely small to infinitely large self-similarity has fascinated countless mathematicians.
Muttering to himself, Wang Qi took out a third piece of paper, drawing a complete Flame Cloud Map. He overlaid the porridge pattern with the Flame Cloud Map for comparison.
"This porridge pattern is the backbone of the Fractal Map. With it, I can discern which parts of this Flame Cloud Map are fractal and which are mere embellishments."
Soon enough, a mathematically beautiful and peculiar pattern emerged before Wang Qi.
Marvelling at this pattern, Wang Qi was amazed. The ancient Great Power who created the Flame Cloud Map was a genius indeed for hiding such an exquisite pattern within an otherwise plain religious painting. Wang Qi admitted he could not do the same.
Zhen Chan inside the ring looked forward eagerly to Wang Qi's research. As soon as Wang Qi drew the correct fractal, he sketched it out in his mind, remembering it. Quickly, the elder, leveraging his Mahayana Level knowledge, made a judgment, "This is useful, much more effective than the original—how exactly did you manage that?"
Zhen Chan had had this Flame Cloud Map for over ten thousand years, but he had never been able to make any changes to it.
"This works? Is the Fractal Map the one that's effective?" Wang Qi pondered for a while, then drew another pattern. This one, however, displayed the other parts of the Flame Cloud Map, minus the fractal part, "Take a look at this."
After a pause, Zhen Chan said, "This part has no effect."
Wang Qi had an epiphany, "No wonder the fault-tolerance of that Flame Cloud Map was so high, turns out over ninety percent of the pattern is utterly useless!"
A fractal that focuses the mind?
Could Spirit Treasure Fractal Map be a Visualization Law Gate to train the soul?
Initially, the idea seemed absurd to Wang Qi, but he soon couldn't laugh it off.
—Holy shit, this might really be possible! The physical laws of Earth and Shenzhou are worlds apart; it's not impossible for fractals to have this strength!
With this in mind, Wang Qi decided to visualize a few classic fractals first to test their effectiveness.
Fractals, as a class of shapes, have been studied for over a century, and there are countless classic examples.
Starting with the simplest, Wang Qi first attempted to visualize the Koch snowflake. This fractal curve, one of the earliest formulated, is named for its snowflake-like shape. But after a while, Wang Qi frowned.
Undeterred, he switched his visualization to the Sierpiński triangle—a triangle demonstrating infinite self-similarity, commonly found in Chinese students' holiday "fun mathematics" homework, and relatively simple to describe.
The youth realized something and finally tried the Cantor set. As expected, he gained nothing.
"Looks is a special fractal." Wang Qi looked at the complete fractal and said, "Let's call it Spirit Treasure Fractal Map."