Shi Jian, Electromagnetic Cannon Edition!

In the bedroom. Shi Jian and Liu Xiu looked each other in the eye. One wore a blank look, and the other, because the first wore a blank look, came to wear a blank look as well. In short, two utterly dumbfounded faces. A dozen seconds later! Shi Jian, having quickly finished reading The Celestial Worthy Expounds the Primordial Magnetism Jade Pivot Precious Scripture, raised his head and said to Liu Xiu in a trembling voice, "It... it really is the Celestial Worthy transmitting the Dharma?" "Uh, how could it be?" Liu Xiu looked at Shi Jian, who one moment wanted him to say it wasn't and the next wanted him to say it was. He really wanted to ask whether he was supposed to hit the man or hit the man's mother! "???" Shi Jian stalled for a moment. Once he roughly understood, his expression grew even blanker and more baffled as he looked at Liu Xiu, who was looking back at him. So you're saying you made a scripture up out of nothing. And then the ones above actually acknowledged it?! What, are you a Child of the Heavenly Dao! Shi Jian's face was stunned. He opened his mouth, and in the end said nothing, only waving a hand. He meant nothing else by it. He just suddenly wanted a moment of quiet. If he didn't get a moment of quiet alone, he was afraid he might not hold back from thinking too much and saying too much, and go down there to be quiet for good. That would be very bad. He hadn't even become the Maoshan sect leader yet! "Yes, Master. Then your disciple will come back in a little while?" Liu Xiu withdrew and decided to come again later. He meant nothing else by it. He just wanted to see whether Shi Jian could fire an electromagnetic cannon! As the saying went, electricity and magnetism were never parted. He was very curious whether Shi Jian, once he could use an electromagnetic cannon, would still perish in body and Dao in Jiangshi Supreme. If his Dao really was extinguished... then he'd report the whole thing as rigged!!! Of course, compiling this Ultimate Dao of the Electromagnetic Thunder Cannon was not only for Shi Jian. It was for himself as well. Liu Xiu wanted to know whether an electromagnetic cannon could really be brought forth through thunder arts. As things stood, it seemed there shouldn't be much of a problem. Thinking of that gleam of divine light that had appeared on the book, and of the Ultimate Dao of the Electromagnetic Thunder Cannon whose name had been changed, Liu Xiu decided that later he would make up another: The Celestial Worthy Expounds the Precious Scripture of the Ultimate Dao of the Magnetic-Field Martial Wondrous Canon. Hm? Come to think of it, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed worth a look! After Liu Xiu left, Shi Jian, seated on the meditation cushion, waved a hand with no expression and shut the door across the empty air. In the next instant the look on his face turned to bewilderment. Eyes full of incomprehension, he raised his head and looked straight ahead at the portraits of the orthodox gods of the Thunder Bureau, the ones he offered to day and night upon the altar table. Or rather, at the portrait set in the center: the portrait of the Celestial Worthy of the Ninth Heaven Who Responds to the Origin and Universally Transforms with the Sound of Thunder. He could not understand why! He could not understand it. This scripture was clearly fake... At the start it had only been suspected that the Celestial Worthy of the Ninth Heaven Who Responds to the Origin and Universally Transforms with the Sound of Thunder had transmitted it in a dream. How had it suddenly become real! It was like you, a scholar of later ages, not even daring to submit a paper to SCI. And then? Your disciple stayed up all night, wrote some damn mess of a paper riddled with typos, and submitted it. And the result... it goddamn passed!! What's more, certain theories your disciple had made up were acknowledged by some big shots. Right after that, those big shots, on the basis of the theories your disciple had put forward... published some papers! No—not on the basis of your disciple's theories! And the big shots even admitted that the things your disciple had spoken of were things they had indeed done. This was past understanding, and it could not be understood! Shi Jian thought for a long while and still could not understand what had happened. He could only put it down to the Celestial Worthy truly having transmitted the Dharma in a dream! Or else the Celestial Worthy really had gone and played with guns and cannon, and then Liu Xiu, a blind cat, had stumbled onto a dead rat... ahem... Shi Jian froze. In his heart he silently recited the Yellow Court Scripture and stopped the deeply disrespectful thought. His gaze, full of profound bewilderment, turned toward the portrait on the altar table that he had offered to for so many years. The portrait of the Celestial Worthy! Suddenly he thought of another problem. Earlier, Liu Xiu had spouted heretical arguments and defied the statutes of the Thunder Bureau. So why hadn't the Celestial Worthy sent down heavenly thunder to strike Liu Xiu? Was this boy truly a Child of the Heavenly Dao? Hilarious. He didn't believe it! He put the incomprehension in his heart away, lowered his head, and looked at The Celestial Worthy Expounds the Primordial Magnetism Jade Pivot Precious Scripture in his hands. He hesitated a moment, then began to page through it. When he had finished, he turned his head toward the door he had shut. His face returned to no expression, and he said, "Come in!" "Yes, Master!" Liu Xiu stopped knocking, pushed the door open, and came in. Smiling, he looked at Shi Jian and said, "Master, so—do you think I can master an electromagnetic cannon?" "..." Honestly, this master doesn't much want to answer that question! And when you say it, add a "thunder"!! That way this master feels a little better hearing it! Shi Jian didn't want to answer. Even so, he unconsciously began recalling the contents of The Celestial Worthy Expounds the Primordial Magnetism Jade Pivot Precious Scripture, which he had already committed to memory. Though some of the parts that touched on electromagnetism he didn't... didn't really understand, his realm in the thunder arts was high! As the saying went, illuminate one art and the ten thousand arts all open! Having roughly grasped how an electromagnetic thunder cannon ought to be driven, Shi Jian looked at Liu Xiu. He thought a moment, nodded, then shook his head. "You can learn it. But with your present realm and spiritual power, even if you learn it, you still cannot drive an electromagnetic thunder cannon with thunder arts!" In a word, Liu Xiu's strength was too poor. Whether his cultivation realm or his thunder-arts realm, both were too poor—so poor that Liu Xiu could not drive an electromagnetic thunder cannon. "Hm? Master, you can bring it out! Wait—Master, you learned the electromagnetic thunder cannon just by reading it once!" Shock covered Liu Xiu's face. He hurriedly raised his right hand and stuck up a thumb. "Master, you're badass!" "..." You really don't have to talk so crudely! The corner of Shi Jian's mouth twitched as he grumbled inwardly. After a slight nod, he took on a bit of that way Shi Shaojian had of looking at people down his nose. Same old line: this disciple of his really did say things that were pleasant to hear! "Master, could you show me?" Liu Xiu spoke through a hehe of laughter. As he finished, he took the chance to fish an iron bead he had long since prepared from his pocket and hold it out to Shi Jian. Shi Jian did not refuse. He wanted to see the power of this electromagnetic thunder cannon too. He rose from the meditation cushion, stood ready, and took the iron bead. There was no thunder running rampant. There was only the iron bead slowly rising from his palm as Shi Jian extended his right hand and held it flat. "Watch closely!" Shi Jian spoke coolly. At a turn of thought, spiritual power circulated within his body, the thunder arts moved, the thunder qi of his five viscera shifted, and he began to drive The Celestial Worthy Expounds the Primordial Magnetism Jade Pivot Precious Scripture. He took the bing-fire yang thunder of his own heart mansion as the yang pole of the yin-yang poles, and the gui-water yin thunder within his kidneys as the yin pole of the yin-yang poles. The thunder qi of the two thunders, yin and yang, condensed in the empty air above his palm into two parallel yin-yang thunder rails about half a meter long. The two parallel thunder rails, one crimson and one blue, stood three fingers apart. From half an inch in front of Shi Jian's palm they stretched half a meter, pointing straight out the bedroom door. The hovering iron bead stirred slightly and dropped of itself onto the starting point of the twin rails. The moment the bead landed, under the force of primordial magnetism born of itself upon the yin-yang rails, it at once began spinning furiously in place. Swoosh~ Faster and faster, silver light forming a wheel. In no more than a finger-snap, glittering, blinding thunder-light began to coil about the iron bead. This was the rail-launch mechanism in the principle of an electromagnetic cannon: a pair of parallel conductive rails forming a closed circuit of pulsed heavy current. A powerful magnetic field arose between the rails, and then the Lorentz force accelerated the projectile. Of course, in Shi Jian's view, it was not like that! In his view, this was what the Primordial Magnetism Jade Pivot Precious Scripture called thunder piercing the rails—the force of primordial magnetism formed when magnetic cadence of itself gave rise to a firmament-field. The bing-fire yang thunder and the gui-water yin thunder formed yin-yang rails, one repelling and one drawing. Once the rails took shape, primordial magnetic thunder force was born of itself within them. The stronger the thunder arts, the stronger the magnetism. The stronger the magnetism, the greater the force. It was not the sudden burst of gunpowder, but the layer upon layer accumulation of the two qi of yin and yang. Watching the iron bead spin faster and faster, with a faint sense that even he was about to lose hold of it, surprise showed in Shi Jian's eyes. At a turn of thought, he joined it to the driving method of the Primordial Magnetism Jade Pivot Precious Scripture, turned his hand, and gave a light push. A ripping shriek sprang up, a violent sound of air being torn. Boom— Wrapped in thunder-light that filled the sky, the iron bead shot out all at once along the yin-yang rails of primordial magnetism and straightaway blasted forth a terrifying white surge of sonic boom. The rooms inside the Yizhuang were instantly shaken until they trembled as one. As the building shook, every tile on the roof leapt into the air. Liu Xiu only saw the iron bead... no. It should be said he only saw a slender white surge of sonic boom fly off the primordial-magnetism rails in an instant. As the air cracked and boomed, the slender white surge of sonic boom swept past the bedroom door and then, at nearly the same moment, pierced the wall beside the Yizhuang's main gate. Bang— An ear-splitting crash. The Yizhuang's mud-brick wall exploded at the sound. Broken stone and dust flew and tumbled without end, turning into dust that hid the sky. Shi Jian's expression went from his first look of surprise to shock. Eyes wide, he stared at the dust rising inside the Yizhuang. He swept out a hand. With a whoosh, a gale that flashed past suddenly rose in the Yizhuang courtyard. The gale vanished in a flash, rolling away the dust that filled the sky and laying bare the true face of the wall beside the Yizhuang's main gate—broken open in a hole more than ten feet across. "This..."