GAMMT - Chapter 18
Chapter 18: Imprisonment
There are always more ideas than solutions. Leaving X5 Star meant leaving the world controlled by the Li Corporation. Fu Chuan used the airship's onboard network to search for common meditation methods—the free, publicly available kind that anyone could learn. She first found the most official version and printed it out. For the next few days, she immersed herself in studying the printed materials.
Generally speaking, in the world of Arcane Throne, meditation was a cultural practice every citizen was exposed to from childhood. From their way of thinking to their physical conditioning, everything was cultivated for it.
Overall, there were thousands of meditation methods. Some were ordinary with average results, while others were special and highly effective.
However, the effectiveness depended on many factors: physique, individual mental capacity, the meditation method itself, and the environment. The final result was calculated over a seven-day cycle, with the meditation effect categorized by the percentage increase over one's original mental power: 10%, 30%, 70%, or 100%.
For example, if Fu Chuan's base mental power was 100 points today, and after seven days of continuous meditation, her mental power reached 110 without any other bonuses, her meditation effect would be 10%.
The world of Arcane Throne was a cruel one. It didn't care about your resources, your background, or your circumstances. Whether you spent those seven days working to support your family or lived in luxury and could meditate all day, it only looked at your results.
It was like a college entrance exam. Whatever you scored was what you got. Results were king, deciding your fate.
As long as you achieved a good score, people would call you a genius, no matter how lazy or useless you were before. But if you failed, no amount of past genius or hard work mattered.
Therefore, the most accurate measure of talent was still based on academy assessments. Daily life-or-death struggles and dungeon runs were a measure of overall competence, but some lucky bastards could find a secret treasure chest just by stepping out to take a piss.
Fu Chuan was well aware of this. For now, she just wanted to increase her mental power as much as possible within seven days. There was no shame in working tirelessly to survive.
So, she spent two days figuring out the meditation methods and postures. It was something others had been conditioned for since childhood, yet she had to cram it all in two days. During this time, she deliberately tried to be secretive, hiding her efforts from the guards. In reality, nothing could be hidden. From the moment she used the airship's network, everything she downloaded was transmitted to the Xie Clan by the background terminal. Coupled with the printed papers, the guard captain naturally had to report it to Xie An.
Xie An, of course, found out. Arcane aptitude? That wasn't surprising, given that he was of Xie blood.
Noble offspring almost always had better arcane aptitude than commoners, and the proportion of Arcanists among them was higher. The probability of Xie Keli having arcane talent was already over 75%.
"What is the quality of his aptitude?"
The guard captain replied, "From what we can see, it seems he only recently became an Arcanist. He might have gained some experience by chance in the bandit den, perhaps reaching level two or three. As for his aptitude, probably because of the environment on X5 Star, he hasn't received any education and is unfamiliar with meditation. He's been looking up meditation principles online recently. We don't know what the results will be yet."
Xie An had no expectations for Xie Keli, nor did he feel any affection for him. In fact, he didn't want him to become too successful. If he were in Xie Keli's shoes, abandoned by his family and biological father for so long, he would feel no attachment. If he were to rise to power one day, he might not give back to his family; it would be good enough if he didn't come back to stomp on them a few times.
Besides, Xie An disliked this son from the bottom of his heart...
"If he asks you anything, don't teach him carelessly," Xie An's words sent a thousand thoughts racing through the guard captain's mind. It seemed his previous guess had been wrong.
Damn it. That fancy lobster he ate last night was a complete waste.
Fu Chuan spent seven or eight days holed up in her room on the airship and clearly felt the change in the guards' attitudes. It was most evident in the meals delivered each day.
Not only was the food unappetizing, but it was also cold.
They were clearly retaliating against her. She even suspected they might be spitting in her food.
Fortunately, she was smart enough to have prepared things like instant noodles.
"But that old dog Xie An is just shameless. He's giving me a warning just because he found out I can cultivate? And these guards are something else. Even a new outhouse gets three days of buzz, but they've already given up on me."
Fu Chuan was, after all, still young. She might appear composed, but she had her pride. She grumbled internally for a bit while continuing her meditation research.
"Strange. I've memorized the content of the meditation method, word for word. Why can't I enter a meditative state?"
The content of this low-level meditation method wasn't particularly complex or difficult. For someone with Fu Chuan's mental capacity, it wasn't hard to memorize in two days, but she just couldn't enter a true meditative state.
She couldn't understand it.
"The content is correct, so it must be the posture." She adjusted and tried over a hundred different poses, nearly twisting herself into a pretzel, but still failed.
"This is just toxic. Could it be that this meditation method is too low-level for me?" Fu Chuan gave up, slumping onto the sofa in frustration. But just then...
Ding! In that instant, a flash of spiritual light, like a fleeting bird, shot through her mind. Her entire consciousness and body seemed to be pulled into a vast, ethereal world. She saw countless elements dancing, saw the interconnected web of myriad gene sequences, saw the brilliance of arcane truths, and saw the majesty and splendor of the Arcane Throne.
They were in the distant starry sky, yet they also felt within arm's reach.
Vaguely, she felt the subtle connection between her spiritual body and the universe.
What she needed to do was to continuously meditate, to repeatedly affirm her faith in the principles, in order to gain their favor and their boons.
This was the world of meditation.
When Fu Chuan came to her senses, she looked at her current posture and finally understood.
"So, the best meditation posture for me is the classic couch slouch."
Who would have thought?
The postures she had been practicing were practically advanced Pilates.
She just didn't know what kind of meditation effect the couch slouch would bring her.
Seven days later, Fu Chuan's mental power had reached 233 points. By calculation, this was roughly a 10% low-tier meditation effect. Although if she discounted the first two days of fumbling around, her meditation aptitude might not be that bad, it wasn't anything to write home about either. After all, she was a monk who had joined halfway through her life. She knew she wasn't some earth-shattering genius; just being able to survive steadily was already a challenge.
And now, she had the hurdle of the Xie Clan to overcome.
The airship arrived within the borders of Jingyang City in Beluke Province. However, it didn't need to use the public spaceport. One of the privileges of nobility was the right to build private ports on their own territory. As long as your territory was large enough and met the construction standards for an airship landing base, everything was fine.
Although the Xie Clan was only a Green Blood Noble family, just as the Li Corporation had previously assessed, it was on the rise. Among the Green Blood Nobles in Beluke Province, it was a family with some promise and presence.
However... as Fu Chuan observed the airship's flight path, she keenly sensed that something was wrong.
The airship wasn't heading directly to the Xie Clan's territory in Jingyang. Its direction was off.
She had looked up the information over the past few days and knew the location of the Xie estate. So why weren't they going there directly?
Suspicion grew in her heart, but she remained silent, standing by the window and looking down at Jingyang City below. Information about it popped into her mind.
"Jingyang City, ranked ninth among the 18 prefecture-level cities in Beluke Province, with a population of nine million. Located in a barren loess plateau region, it is known for its earth and wind arcane arts. Compared to the other 17 cities, all with populations exceeding ten million, Jingyang's population is not an advantage, and its economic development is quite limited. The total number of Arcanists is far lower than in other cities. However, due to the harsh environment, the local customs have always been fierce. The local dungeon types are mostly cave and cavern-based, some of which involve environmental disasters..."
"The airship is flying out of the Jingyang urban area. It seems they really don't plan on giving me a proper welcome."
Fu Chuan knew she couldn't just sit and wait. She immediately scanned the room, rummaging through everything. She dismantled some of the less conspicuous equipment on the airship, like the water heater and display screen in her room, extracting parts whose temporary absence wouldn't affect functionality. She also removed the smart makeup camera from the bathroom, combined it with her own recorder and other spare parts, and assembled a device. Finally, she released her Feathered Spider Silk, stealthily letting it out of the airship window. She let it hang down along the ship's hull, then controlled the silk to make it trail behind the airship in mid-air, like a kite.
Of course, Fu Chuan avoided the airship's detection angles, making it "fly" under the ship's belly while maintaining its recording function...
The airship finally landed in the outskirts. Fu Chuan decisively cut the silk. Sure enough, a moment later, the guard captain came over and said to her, "Young Master, the Clan Head is occupied with some matters, so he has asked that you not return to the estate for the time being. We will wait for his arrangements. For the next few days, you will be staying here."
Fu Chuan tilted her head and looked outside. All she saw was a vast expanse of farmland. As it was autumn, the wheat fields were being harvested, a sea of gold. At first glance, it had a rather idyllic charm. In the distance, she could vaguely make out a small to medium-sized farm complex at the foot of a forested mountain, several hundred meters away. It probably covered a few hundred square meters and consisted of four or five buildings, seemingly including a stable and a pigsty.
Evidently, this was a small farm belonging to the Xie Clan on the outskirts of Jingyang City.
Fu Chuan understood.
That old dog Xie An is shameless. I'm your illegitimate son, not some mistress from a brothel you have to hide, okay? Is this really necessary?
Or had Xie Keli's value changed, and Xie An no longer needed him?
That was not good.
A mediocre waste of a child, no longer needed by the family, would either be locked away in the countryside to be raised into uselessness or dealt with in other ways. This was a common method used by many noble families.
If she had known, she wouldn't have returned to the Xie Clan. She would have been better off running away.
Fu Chuan deliberately showed her displeasure, struggling and cursing, demanding to speak with Xie An. But the guard captain and his men, having already seen through his value, were now filled with contempt. They impatiently brushed him off and led him off the airship.
"If you please, Young Master. If you won't go, then we'll have to help you."
"Take the Young Master's backpack and check if anything is missing."
Seeing them press forward, clearly intending to drag her into the vehicle by force, Fu Chuan's face darkened, and she struggled, refusing to go.
"What is the meaning of this? Is Father planning to lock me up? Then I'm not going! I'm not going to the Xie Clan. I'd rather live freely outside."
"My mother is dead anyway, and I have no other relatives. Just let me live a miserable life on my own, begging for food."
"Don't you touch me!"
In the end, Fu Chuan was forcefully and crudely pushed onto a donkey cart sent from the farm by the guards. Everything in her backpack, except for the urn, was rummaged through. Even her underwear was shaken out three times. Only after confirming there were no sensitive items was it returned to her.
Yes, a donkey cart. She refused to believe the farm didn't have a private car or an airship. They had deliberately sent a donkey cart, an act that carried a heavy dose of humiliation.
No matter how little Xie An valued him, he wouldn't go this far. There were likely other members of the Xie Clan behind this.
The guard captain sneered, mounted his horse, and led the way. Ten minutes later, they delivered him to a small, single-story courtyard on the farm. Guards were posted at the front and back doors, both of which were locked from the outside. By the time Fu Chuan realized what was happening, she had been locked inside this small courtyard, just like in a prison.
And all of this was captured by the camera lying in the field not far away, tethered by a strand of spider silk.
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