The hum of machines filled the sterile white laboratory — a deep, rhythmic sound that pulsed like a heartbeat through the walls. Silver cables snaked across the floor, linking massive neural servers that glowed with threads of blue light. Holographic screens floated midair, displaying endless streams of data — neural maps, electrical impulses, and shifting waves of thought.
Dr. Elias Kairen stood at the center of it all, his dark eyes burning with exhaustion and brilliance alike.
For ten long years, he had chased one 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 what separates man from a god?
He adjusted the holographic interface hovering beside him. The projection expanded, revealing a shimmering network of billions of glowing synapses connected into a fractal sphere of light. Each pulse represented a neuron firing, each wave a fleeting thought. Elias smiled faintly.
"Neural Flow Velocity: one hundred and ten meters per second," he murmured. "Just a little more…"
His voice trembled with a strange mix of fatigue and anticipation — the tone of a man standing at the threshold of something divine. For years, the scientific community had ridiculed 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 ring-shaped device lined with hundreds of spirit-imbued crystals, each emitting a soft, rhythmic glow. These weren't ordinary crystals. Elias had synthesized them himself — Psycho-reactive Quartz, designed to amplify mental energy and accelerate brain function beyond natural limits.
On his console, a crimson warning flashed:
⚠ Neural Feedback Unstable. Proceeding may cause irreversible brain damage.
Elias ignored it.
He had come too far to stop now.
He took a deep breath, connected the final neural link, and attached the sensors to his temples and spine. Cold metal met warm flesh as the machine hummed to life.
"Begin cognitive acceleration protocol," he said softly.
The machine responded with a low, resonant chime.
Then the world erupted into light.
At first, it was beautiful.
His thoughts accelerated. Images, equations, memories, and dreams collided, folding into each other until time itself seemed to freeze. Each heartbeat stretched into eternity. He could see the current of electricity rippling through the air, the 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 kept rising — one hundred and twenty, one hundred and fifty, two hundred meters per second. His neurons screamed under the strain. The boundaries between thought and reality blurred, then shattered. His mind splintered into a thousand fragments of pure cognition.
And in the final instant before everything collapsed, he heard it — a whisper echoing from beyond comprehension.
"The speed of thought transcends worlds, Elias Kairen. You sought to ascend through science. Very well… let the Dao answer your curiosity."
Darkness.
A single droplet of water echoed through the silence.
When Elias opened his eyes again, the world had changed.
The metallic scent of the lab was gone. The sterile hum of machines replaced by the earthy aroma 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 glimmered faintly in a puddle of water.
A stranger stared back.
A lean young man in rough gray robes, barely in his twenties. Sharp black eyes. A bronze token hanging from his chest inscribed with two characters — Cloud Peak.
Elias froze. "This isn't Earth…"
Memories not his own surged through his mind — a life of mediocrity, of struggle and solitude. The youth had been a low-ranked disciple of the Cloud Peak Sect, a cultivator with average talent, no master, and no future.
A nobody who spent his days meditating alone in a damp cave.
And now, that nobody… was him.
He laughed softly — the sound hollow, tinged with disbelief.
"So the scientist who tried to create a god becomes a failed cultivator at the bottom of the food chain. How poetic."
He rose unsteadily to his feet, brushing dust from his 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 in the air, flowing like unseen water. Qi.
So this is the energy they call spiritual essence… it's alive.
He inhaled, focusing on the memory of this body's technique — Cloud Breathing Art, First Layer. The process was crude, inefficient, primitive. The practitioner simply inhaled Qi through slow breathing and guided it along the body's meridians.
Elias frowned.
Inefficient. The neural 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, 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 faint spark flashed behind his eyelids — not physical, but mental. The air trembled faintly. For the first time, he felt Qi respond directly to thought.
So it's true… the mind commands the energy.
Excitement surged through him. His rational curiosity — the same hunger that once drove him to defy science — burned anew.
He refined the process, testing variables, adjusting rhythm, altering mental focus. Hours passed unnoticed. When he opened his eyes, the first light of dawn filtered 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 alive. He could feel the energy in the atmosphere bending, obeying the rhythm of his mind.
"If I can synchronize neural acceleration with Qi circulation… I could achieve exponential growth. Cultivation through cognition."
A faint smile curved his lips. "Cognitive Cultivation."
Outside, the world awaited.
The mountain peaks stretched endlessly toward the sky, veiled in drifting mist. Waterfalls cascaded into valleys below. In the distance, sword-wielding disciples trained in radiant bursts of energy, their movements like flowing art.
To them, strength came from bloodlines, spirit roots, and divine inheritances.
To Elias Kairen, strength would come from understanding.
He was no longer bound by the limits of spiritual aptitude. He possessed something far greater — knowledge.
He gazed toward the rising sun, eyes gleaming with a calm, determined light.
If thought defines reality, then I shall become the fastest thinker under heaven. When my mind moves, the world shall follow.
The morning breeze whispered through the mountain valleys, carrying his silent vow into the clouds.
The Doctrine of Cognitive Cultivation
Days turned into weeks.
Elias 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 named his growing theory the Mind Flux Doctrine — a new form of cultivation that fused the logic of science with the philosophy of the Dao.
Its stages were not measured by meridians or cores, but by Cognitive Velocity:
Neural Awakening (0–120 m/s): The cultivator learns to harmonize Qi with neural impulses, stabilizing mind and body.
Synaptic Resonance (120–300 m/s): Thoughts begin to directly influence energy fields; the practitioner can shape Qi through intent alone.
Cognitive Expansion: The mind perceives time at slower frames, allowing the cultivator to react before others even process danger.
Mind Ascendance: The brain becomes a vessel of soul energy; thought transcends neurons entirely.
Beyond that lay the unknown — the Speed of Enlightenment, where thought surpassed light itself and the soul touched the root of reality.
In that lonely cave, lit by a single flickering flame, Elias wrote in a tattered notebook he had found among the previous owner's belongings. His handwriting was neat, precise, the product of a mind built for both logic 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 eternity."
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.
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 Elias sat, surrounded by glowing runes and quiet determination.
He closed his eyes once more.
Qi swirled around him like a storm answering its master's call.
"Thought moves faster than light," he whispered. "And so shall I."