As the last rays of sunlight bled from the sky, casting long, stark shadows across the pockmarked Barren Wastes, Elias Vance prepared for the next stage of his self-imposed training. The physical conditioning was complete; his body was now a perfectly calibrated instrument of destruction. Now, it was time to unleash the weapons of pure efficiency—his offensive and defensive Qi techniques, refined and redefined by his scientific understanding.
His divine sense perimeter remained active, diligently recording every energy signature. The monitoring grid fed real-time data into his internal Battle Archive VR Engine, ready to simulate and optimize. He wanted to see how his scientifically engineered Qi arts performed in a real-world, albeit empty, environment.
He started with his most dangerous melee offensive art: Molecular Rift Edge. He extended his right hand, not clenching a fist, but subtly shifting the Qi within his palm. There was no visible blade, no glowing edge. But within his enhanced perception, he saw it: a localized field of Qi, vibrating at frequencies capable of splitting atoms and even the subtle Qi threads of spiritual constructs.
"This is why I don't shake hands," he muttered, a sardonic smile on his face. He extended his invisible blade towards a massive, jagged rock spire that jutted from the plain, a formation that had likely stood for millennia, impervious to the harsh elements.
He didn't swing. He didn't thrust. He simply moved his hand, a mere inch of lateral displacement. A silent, invisible wave emanated from his palm.
The rock spire didn't crumble. It didn't explode. It simply separated. A perfectly clean cut appeared vertically through the center of the spire, as if an impossibly sharp laser had sliced through it. The two halves of the spire, momentarily defying gravity, remained standing for a breath-holding second before slowly, silently sliding apart and collapsing into massive, dust-raising ruins.
Elias analyzed the feedback. "Blade material destabilizing. Must reinforce with multi-phase alloys later. Energy cost acceptable. Effect… satisfactory." The weakness of the technique was its inherent danger to the user; maintaining such a localized sub-atomic vibration without affecting his own hand required immense precision and constant internal stabilization. It was a terrifyingly potent attack, but one to be used with extreme caution.
Next, he turned his attention to ranged combat. Inferno Converge, his "Thermal Lensing Beam." He focused Qi into his palm, but instead of forming a fireball, the spiritual energy coalesced into a shimmering, invisible lens. He compressed Qi-fire through this lens, allowing it to focus into a single, blindingly intense beam.
He pointed his palm at a distant, ancient rock outcropping, almost a kilometer away. "Also useful for instant tea," he quipped, then unleashed the beam.
A blazing white-hot beam, shimmering with converging rings of light, shot across the barren plain with the speed of thought. It hit the outcropping with a soundless flash. The rock, which was likely harder than steel, didn't shatter; it instantly vaporized, leaving a perfectly circular, incandescent hole that glowed cherry-red for a moment before cooling into a smooth, blackened tunnel. The air shimmered with residual heat.
"Penetrates defenses, burns formations, clean incineration," Elias listed, analyzing the results. "Efficient. No energy bleed. Good for precision ranged takedowns."
For larger-scale devastation, there was Fusion Singularity Blast. This was his most destructive, and most dangerous, technique. "Stellar Core Collapse," he called it. The concept was simple in theory: compress Qi-structured matter within a contained space to mimic a star-core fusion reaction, releasing an immense burst of annihilation energy.
"Had to compress space to the size of a basketball to minimize the explosion and prevent it from blowing the sect to smithereens," Elias muttered, remembering the close call during its initial theoretical development. "Never doing that again without proper containment(If i had properly mastered space law it would have been easy). I really got to find time to comprehend laws while am here" He knew that true mastery of these chaotic energies required a deeper understanding of universal laws, a step beyond his current scientific applications, but one that would certainly cause a massive spiritual phenomenon and draw unwanted attention. For now, brute-forcing the physics was enough.
He chose an isolated, particularly desolate section of the wastes, miles away from even the nearest eroded peaks. He channeled immense amounts of Qi into a point in the air before him, manipulating the very fabric of space to compress it, creating a tiny, contained void. Inside this void, Qi and ambient particles were crushed together, initiating a controlled, temporary fusion reaction.
There was no sound, only a sudden, blinding flash of pure white light that illuminated the entire barren zone for a fraction of a second. A silent, colossal pressure wave radiated outward, sweeping across the plain, flattening any remaining loose rocks, and leaving behind a perfectly circular, glassified crater over 400 meters in diameter. The ground within the crater was fused into a smooth, black, obsidian-like surface, still radiating residual heat.
Elias, protected by an enhanced Phase Shift Shield and his Dimensional Drift Anchor, felt only a slight tremor, the residual energy harmlessly dissipating around him. "Status: Restricted Use Only," he declared, adding it to his mental codex. "Best for range attacks, specifically when I don't care about the environmental damage. Or collateral damage."
With the offensive tests complete, he turned to defenses. He activated his Phase Shift Shield, a shimmering, translucent membrane that appeared around him, vibrating imperceptibly. He then mentally launched a simulated Qi beam at himself from his AI Combat Pattern Generator. The beam hit the shield, and instead of impacting, it simply rippled through the barrier and vanished, its energy signature oscillating to a non-local frequency and cancelling out harmlessly. "Excellent," he nodded. "Sound attacks, Qi beams, elemental bursts—all negated."
He then focused on his passive defense, the Qi-Fiber Lattice Reinforcement. He used his own enhanced physical strength to launch a powerful, self-directed punch at his own chest. The blow, which would have shattered the ribs of any ascension stage cultivator, felt like a powerful, vibrating massage as the kinetic force was instantly redirected and absorbed by his internal spiritual lattice. "Thank you for the massage," he muttered, "Now I will hit you."
Next, he practiced his movement arts again, but this time pushing them to their absolute limits. He reactivated Void Skimmer: Electromagnetic Warp Glide, propelling himself across the barren zone at incredible speeds. The landscape blurred into a continuous streak, the mountains a distant, fading line. He calibrated his spatial curvature with such precision that he could skim mere inches above the ground, leaving a faint, shimmering trail of disturbed air. "Caution: Space Law not yet mastered—navigate carefully," his internal diagnostic flashed. He ignored it. He was navigating perfectly.
He then combined his movement techniques: a Void Skimmer approach, followed by an abrupt Inertial Override Step to halt his immense momentum instantly, then an immediate Electromagnetic Rail Dash to launch himself sideways at a new target, culminating in a Sonic Flux Stride that left behind disorienting sonic mini-booms with every step. The barren zone echoed with the thunderous cracks of his movements, a symphony of controlled chaos. "Not subtle," he conceded. "But highly effective for psychological warfare."
Finally, he tested his utility and recovery systems. He activated Nano-Scrub Protocol, feeling a faint tingling as microscopic Qi-bots spread across his skin, instantly removing any dust, grime, or lingering impurities from the environmental testing. He followed it with a Phase Vapor Purge, and a delicate mist spiraled from his body, carrying away sweat and any remaining toxins. The mist smelled faintly of sage and peppermint. "Let there be vapor," he declared, feeling refreshed.
He simulated a minor injury—a deep cut on his forearm—and immediately engaged Cellular Recode Pulse. A bioluminescent glow spread across the wound, and within seconds, the skin knitted back together, seamless and perfect. He even felt a brief, sharp pang of pain, quickly fading. "Healed a shattered ribcage in 1 second during initial tests. Very painful. This minor cut? Barely felt it. Not bad."
He then ran his Synaptic Reset Field, flushing the mental fatigue from hours of intense focus and computational strain. His divine sense sharpened further, his thoughts became crystal clear, and his mental stamina instantly replenished. "Great for caffeine withdrawal," he noted with a mental chuckle.
Elias concluded his testing just as the twin moons of this world began to rise, casting an eerie, silver light over the desolation. The Barren Wastes now bore the undeniable scars of his destructive sandbox. Craters, shattered rock formations, and smooth, vitrified patches of ground stretched for miles.
He stood in the center of a freshly made, massive impact crater, looking up at the rising moons.
"This," he murmured, his voice echoing in the vast silence, "is just the beginning."
He saved all the new data into his Self-Evolving Combat Log, allowing the system to learn from his field tests and automatically rewrite tactics based on real-world feedback.
Final Diagnostic (Post-Field Test):
Techniques refined: 23
Neural processing load (optimized): 25%
Tactical Efficiency Gain: +450% (initial estimates were too low)
Danger to environment: "Catastrophic"
Danger to self: "Minimal (with active defense protocols)"
Current location: "Needs a new name. 'Elias's Crater Collection' has a nice ring to it."
He smirked. "I can't even call this cultivation anymore. It's programming. And the universe is my compiler."