I tried waking the girl, but she was still unconscious. Her breathing was normal, no sign of injury, so I decided to use the time to study the cultivation guide.
Five hours passed before I closed it.
Now, I understood how cultivation worked.
To start cultivating, I needed to leave Earth and find a planet with Qi. Then, I had to absorb and refine it within my body.
It didn't sound complicated, but it depended on one thing—finding a planet that actually had Qi. If someone was lucky enough to live on such a planet, they could probably learn cultivation even without guidance.
While I was thinking about my next move, the girl moved. She slowly opened her eyes, confused.
She said something, but I couldn't understand. Her language was completely different.
I took out the pill the man left behind and swallowed it.
"Now speak," I said.
"Who are you? Where am I?"
"I'm Gu Chuan. This planet is called Earth."
I didn't bother explaining more. She looked around, still trying to make sense of her surroundings.
After a pause, she said, "My name is Gu Xue. I was told to follow you to my home planet."
Her memory was clearly incomplete. Still, it confirmed one thing—she came from the same place as that man. Even her name followed the same pattern.
For now, I didn't see a reason to ask anything else. She'd either remember later or she wouldn't.
I turned my attention to the travel device. Since I didn't plan to stay on Earth, it was time to leave.
She quietly followed me without asking questions.
The ship didn't have a name, so I gave it one — Shooting Star. It fit well enough.
It wasn't large, maybe enough for five people, but it could travel five light years per hour. For humans, that was beyond imagination. For cultivators, it was probably the bare minimum.
Once we sat down, I started it. The craft trembled and rose. Within seconds, we broke through the atmosphere.
The sky darkened, the stars grew clear, and Earth turned into a small blue sphere behind us.
I used the guide's navigation system to locate the nearest Qi-rich planet. It showed one fifteen light-years away. We'd reach it in about three hours.
There was nothing else to do, so I reviewed the information again.
The manual described three cultivation paths:
Planetary Cultivation Path – using the Qi of the planet you live on. Simple, but limited. Your growth depends on the planet's Qi and your talent. We had none, so this path was useless.
Celestial Cultivation Path – forming a connection with a celestial body's will and using it to cultivate. This method could grant talent to the talentless, but it required resonance with a celestial body, something that couldn't be done without help.
Ancient Cultivation Path – a fusion of the first two. It allowed normal cultivation while drawing strength from celestial bodies will. It needed no talent, offered limitless potential, but the method was unknown.
The guide gave one hint:
"To fuse the two paths, one must use Qi and the Universal Language."
That was it. Nothing else.
I didn't know what the Universal Language was. It wasn't any human tongue. Probably something fundamental, something the universe itself used.
I spent hours thinking about it.
If Qi existed everywhere, why hadn't humanity discovered it? We've observed the universe for centuries, measured radiation, particles, and energy forms. Yet, not once did we detect Qi. It had to be hidden, or mistaken for something else.
An energy that fills the universe, invisible, undetected, yet present.
There was only one that fit.
Dark Energy.
If Dark Energy was Qi, everything made sense. The universe wasn't empty—it was overflowing with Qi, and we just didn't recognize it.
Then, the Universal Language… what could it be?
If Qi is Dark Energy, then the language that revealed it must be mathematics. The only universal method of understanding the cosmos.
It clicked.
Everything aligned perfectly.
Qi is Dark Energy.
The Universal Language is Math.
Cultivation wasn't fantasy. It was science hidden behind a different perspective.
Just as I reached that conclusion, I heard Gu Xue's voice.
"We've arrived."