The laboratory hummed with life—a deep, rhythmic pulse that vibrated through the walls like a mechanical heartbeat. Black and white cables snaked across the floor, linking massive neural servers that glowed with threads of blue light. Holographic screens floated in midair, displaying endless streams of data: neural maps, electrical impulses, and shifting waves of thought.
Dr. Ashborn stood at the center of it all, his ruby-red eyes burning with exhaustion and brilliance.
For fifteen years, he had chased one impossible dream—to transcend the limits of the human brain.
If neurons could process information faster... if synapses could transmit thoughts at the speed of lightning... then couldn't humans think like gods?
He adjusted the holographic interface hovering beside him. The projection expanded, revealing a shimmering network of billions of glowing synapses connected in a fractal sphere of light. Each pulse represented a neuron firing through complex networks of thought.
Dr. Ashborn smiled.
"Neural flow velocity: one hundred and ten meters per second," he murmured. "Just a little more..."
His voice cracked—not from fear, but from standing too long at the threshold of something divine. For years, the scientific community had mocked him, branding his theories as dangerous and reckless.
But genius never fears the impossible.
In the corner of the lab stood the Quantum Neural Accelerator—a small, square-shaped device covered in intricate glowing lines that pulsed with rhythmic light, as if energy flowed through its veins. This wasn't an ordinary machine. Ashborn had synthesized and modified it himself, designed to amplify mental energy and accelerate brain function beyond natural limits.
To fulfill his dream, he had devoured vast amounts of technical, biological, and chemical knowledge.
On the holographic console, a crimson warning flashed:
Neural Network Feedback Unstable. Proceeding may cause irreversible brain damage.
Ashborn ignored it.
He hadn't come this far to stop now. Even if it cost him his life.
He took a deep breath, connected the neural accelerator, and attached the sensors to his temples and spine. Cold metal met warm skin as the machine vibrated to life.
"Begin cognitive acceleration protocol," he said softly.
The machine responded with a low, resonant hum.
Then the world erupted into brilliant light.
At first, it was beautiful.
His thoughts accelerated beyond human limitations. Images, equations, memories, and dreams collided, folding into each other until time itself seemed to freeze. Each heartbeat stretched into eternity. He could see currents of electricity rippling through the air, molecular vibrations of matter, the song of atoms harmonizing in perfect rhythm.
So this... this is what it means to think like a god.
But the beauty didn't last.
The speed of thought kept accelerating—one hundred twenty, one hundred fifty, two hundred meters per second. His neurons screamed under the weight of information flooding his mind. The boundaries between thought and reality blurred, then shattered. His mind splintered into a thousand fragments of pure cognition, as if his soul had transcended reality itself.
His brain couldn't bear it.
Darkness swallowed him.
And in the final instant before everything collapsed, he heard it—a whisper echoing from beyond comprehension.
"The speed of thought transcends worlds, Ashborn. You sought to ascend through science. Very well... let the Dao answer your curiosity."
Darkness.
The sound of a single water droplet echoed through the silence.
When Ashborn opened his eyes again, the world had changed.
The metallic scent of the lab was gone, replaced by the earthy smell of moss and stone. A faint breeze brushed against his skin, cool and damp. He sat up, disoriented, surrounded by dim flickering firelight.
He touched the ground—rough stone, not polished tile. Nearby, a small campfire burned weakly beside a few bamboo scrolls and a chipped gourd. His reflection shimmered faintly in a puddle of water.
A handsome youth stared back at him.
Sharp features. Bronze skin. Long white hair flowing down to his waist. Red eyes—familiar, yet different. A bronze token hung from his chest, inscribed with two characters: Cloud Sword.
Ashborn's breath caught in his throat.
"What the..." He reached out, touching the reflection. His fingers—young, calloused, not his own—met the cold water. "Who is this?"
He pinched his arm hard.
Pain flared, sharp and real.
"Is this... really me?"
Memories surged through his mind—foreign, yet intimate. The life of a youth named Su Ming. A low-ranked disciple of the Cloud Sword Sect. A cultivator with average talent, no family, no backing, and no future beyond his good looks.
A nobody who spent his days meditating alone in a damp cave.
And now, that nobody... was him.
Ashborn—no, Su Ming—laughed softly, the sound bitter and absurd.
"So the scientist who tried to rewrite history has become a pathetic cultivator at the bottom of the food chain." He shook his head. "How ironic."
He rose unsteadily to his feet, brushing dust from his shabby robes. The cave walls glimmered faintly with traces of luminous moss. Somewhere deep within the mountain, wind howled through hidden tunnels.
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
A strange sensation bloomed within him—a faint current flowing through the air like unseen water.
Qi.
"So this is the energy they call spiritual essence..."
He inhaled, focusing on the memories of this body's technique—the Cloud Breathing Art, First Layer. The process was crude, inefficient, primitive. The practitioner simply inhaled Qi through slow breathing, guided it along the body's meridians, and stored it in the dantian.
Su Ming frowned.
Inefficient. The feedback is sluggish. The mental imagery is weak. There's no synchronization between thought and Qi flow.
His scientific instincts stirred.
If thought defines perception, and perception directs Qi... then the key to cultivation might not be talent or bloodline. It's the speed of thought itself.
He sat cross-legged, closing his eyes once more.
He visualized the human brain—synapses firing, electrical currents leaping across neurons. He imagined Qi not as mystical energy, but as electrical potential enhancing neural conductivity.
Each breath, he synchronized with his heartbeat—three beats in, four beats out. Slowly, deliberately, he guided the flow of energy to align with his mental pulse.
And then it happened.
A spark flashed behind his eyelids—not physical, but mental. The air trembled faintly. For the first time, he felt Qi respond directly to his thought.
So it's true... the mind commands the energy.
Excitement surged through him. The same hunger that once drove him to defy science now burned with renewed purpose.
He refined the process, testing variables, adjusting rhythm, altering mental focus. Hours passed without notice. When he opened his eyes, the first light of dawn spilled into the cave.
The fire had died, but his spirit blazed brighter than ever.
He raised his hand. The air shimmered faintly around his fingers—Qi responding, subtle but real.
"If I can synchronize neural acceleration with Qi circulation..." A smile curved his lips. "I could achieve unimaginable power. Cultivation through cognition."
He whispered the words aloud, testing their weight.
"Cognitive Cultivation."
Outside the cave, the world expanded before him.
Mountain peaks stretched endlessly toward the sky, shrouded in drifting mist. Waterfalls cascaded into valleys below. In the distance, sword-wielding disciples trained with radiant bursts of energy, their movements flowing like an intricate dance.
To them, strength came from bloodlines, spirit roots, and divine inheritances.
But to Su Ming, strength would come from understanding.
He was no longer bound by the limits of mortality. He possessed something far greater in this world of cultivation—knowledge.
He gazed toward the rising sun, red eyes gleaming with calm determination.
If thought defines reality, then I shall become the fastest thinker under the heavens. When my mind moves, the world—even the universe itself—shall bend to my will.
The morning breeze swept through the mountain valleys, carrying his silent vow into the clouds.
Days turned into weeks.
Su Ming documented every experiment, every reaction of Qi to thought acceleration. He discovered that the brain's electrical activity could amplify Qi flow—and conversely, Qi could reinforce neural plasticity, allowing the mind to evolve beyond its biological constraints.
He began developing what he called the Mind Flux Theory—a new form of cultivation that fused the logic of science with the philosophy of the Dao.
In the lonely cave, lit by a single flickering flame, Su Ming wrote in a tattered notebook he'd found among the previous owner's belongings. His handwriting was neat and precise—the mark of both discipline and wonder.
On the first page, he carved a single line that would one day reshape the destiny of the cultivation world:
"The Dao of Thought is Infinite—to know the mind is to touch the concept of thought itself."
He drew diagrams of neurons intertwined with meridians, merging science and spirituality into one seamless web. Equations became mantras. Meditation became computation. Enlightenment became evolution of the mind.
And thus, in the silence of the mountains, a new path of cultivation was born—the path of the Cognitive Daoist, who would one day stand at the intersection of science and divinity.
The dawn light crept across the mountains, illuminating the cave where Su Ming sat cross-legged, surrounded by faintly glowing formations of spiritual energy.
Qi swirled around him like a storm responding to an unseen master.
"Thought moves faster than light," he whispered.
"And so shall I."