Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage-Chapter 589: The Physique Stele’s Trial of Intellect II
CH589 The Physique Stele’s Trial of Intellect II
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"However, being able to acquire knowledge is only half of the trial. You must also be able to correctly apply the knowledge you gain."
"As such, for the second half of your trial, I will present you with situations where you will have to apply the knowledge gained from reading all the books in this hall."
"Any questions?" the Heavenly Venerable asked.
Alex, somewhat speechless, looked toward the vast forest of shelves behind the youthful yet octogenarian-looking old man.
"I thought this was a Physique trial," he muttered.
The Heavenly Venerable immediately looked incensed.
"You fool! The path of tempering one’s physique —and everything related to it— is as vast as the Heavens and the Earth themselves!" the old man roared with an almost frightening youthful vigour.
"Let us talk about tempering the physique."
"The most popular method used by lower-ranked physique-type sorcerers to temper their bodies is a combination of weight training and controlled breathing exercises."
"But do you realise that shifting the lifting method by merely a few inches can drastically affect the outcome of the weight training exercise?"
"Do you know that even a brief pause or slight overexertion in one’s breathing rhythm can alter the results of a breathing exercise?"
"Now let us talk about making use of a tempered physique."
"For example, in a fight without mana or mystic energy —relying solely on one’s body and physical strength— do you realise that knowing something as simple as where to strike can be the difference between victory and defeat?"
"Even a commoner without cultivation understands that, without mana, no matter how tempered one’s fists are, they will never be stronger than the human skull— particularly the forehead."
"Punching your opponent directly in the forehead is an excellent way to break your own hand while dealing minimal damage to the opponent.
"But if you shift your strike by only a few inches —to the temple or the chin— you can knock your opponent unconscious with the same amount of force."
For the next thirty minutes, the old man continued rattling off example after example without pause, presenting numerous scenarios in which possessing knowledge —or lacking it— could drastically influence how effectively one used their tempered physique.
The worst part of it all was that the old man was incredibly cunning.
From time to time, he would intentionally transmit his voice directly into Alex’s mind, ensuring the youth was forced to listen even if he had no desire to.
Finally, after laying out dozens —if not nearly a hundred— examples and scenarios, the old man appeared ready to conclude his lecture.
"More importantly, we have the brain," the Heavenly Venerable continued.
"The brain is the most important organ in the body. It controls everything that happens within you. It coordinates the functioning of all other organs."
"Part of its duty is to enforce the limitations of what the other parts of the body can or cannot do.
"Many of these limitations are acceptable for ordinary commoners. But for a sorcerer who seeks the path of Heaven and Earth, such limits are utterly unacceptable."
"It is therefore imperative to break those limits."
"However, before one can break them, the brain must first become aware that those limits exist."
"The mind must recognise and comprehend the fallacy of those restrictions. Only then can one begin to efficiently push beyond them and ultimately shatter them."
"And the foundation of that process begins with knowledge."
Seemingly satisfied with the knowledge he had forcefully imparted, the Heavenly Venerable nodded to himself before concluding.
"The brain is the foremost part of the body that must be tempered if one wishes to raise the limits of the physique."
"The act of acquiring knowledge, pondering over it, and engaging one’s mind is itself a method of tempering the brain."
"As such, the notion that the Physique Tempering branch of Sorcery is suited only for brainless muscle-heads is not merely fallacious and erroneous..."
"...it is frankly insulting."
Alex almost felt his head spinning after the information-packed thirty-minute lecture.
Fortunately, he truly was a student of knowledge who kept his mind engaged on a daily basis.
Because of that, he barely managed to keep up with the Heavenly Venerable’s so-called ’dumbed-down’ crash course on Physique Tempering 101.
For what it was worth, Alex actually agreed with the old man’s view regarding the vastness of the secrets locked within the human body.
Even in his previous life, despite the tremendous effort and research invested by scientists and scholars across numerous disciplines —medicine, nutrition, sports science, and others— many experts agreed that humanity had only begun to scratch the surface of the knowledge hidden within the human body.
They believed the human form contained a well of infinite possibilities, waiting to be tapped and harnessed.
From this perspective, Alex reluctantly agreed with the Heavenly Venerable that one needed knowledge and understanding before beginning to temper the body.
Otherwise, one might temper the body in the wrong direction, potentially causing irreversible harm— or at the very least train inefficiently toward an unintended result.
However, reading every scroll in the hall felt somewhat excessive.
Each shelf contained dozens of scrolls, and there were hundreds of shelves filling the hall.
That meant he would need to read, memorise, and comprehend thousands of scrolls.
That was an enormous demand.
Yet the old man spoke of it as if it were the most basic requirement— like it was simply another Tuesday, as people used to say in Alex’s previous life.
The Heavenly Venerable reminded Alex of one of his university professors —his postgraduate thesis supervisor— who had a reputation for making unreasonable demands of the students under him.
Very few people ever completed their thesis research under that professor because of his extremely high standards.
However, those who did manage to finish under him often became highly sought-after experts in their respective fields.
And Alex had been one of those students.
From that experience, Alex knew that attempting to argue with such people about their ludicrous expectations was pointless.
So instead of wasting his breath, he simply walked up to a nearby shelf and began reading.
By the time he finished the first scroll, Alex found himself oddly grateful that he had misunderstood the Elemental trial.
Because if that misunderstanding had not occurred, he would never have undergone the Heavenly Tribulation— and therefore would not have experienced the rebirth that accelerated the recovery of his Truth-Seeker Eyes.
Using his eyes’ Enhanced Eyesight and Eidetic Memory, Alex quickly began scanning through the scrolls.
And thanks to OmniRune, he did not actually need to comprehend everything he was reading in real time.
All he needed to do was read the scrolls using his Enhanced Eyesight, memorise the contents through his Eidetic Memory, and then pass the information to OmniRune for proper processing— freeing his own brain from doing most of the heavy lifting.
Even so, Alex still made sure to absorb some knowledge along the way.
Since he only needed to read through the scrolls without necessarily comprehending their contents immediately, his reading speed increased to nearly five times his normal pace.
Even with that advantage, however, it would still take a very long time to finish reading every scroll in the hall.
So for the most part, Alex simply shut down his wandering thoughts and focused on reading.
Time passed quickly.
Alex soon lost track of how much time had gone by as he continued reading.
Occasionally, when the monotony became unbearable, he would pause to review the contents he had already scanned together with OmniRune, pondering over certain pieces of knowledge.
One such topic that caught his attention was the difference between the cultivation systems of Pangea and Verdantis.
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