Chapter 19 Spells

Li Shiming sat in the pavilion, days after the Imperial Examination had ended, and he had not bothered to concern himself with the results.

Today, he did not practice the 'Five Elements Qi Absorption Technique' not because he was lazy, but because the four glowing stones on the Gathering Spirit Plate had lost their luminescence.

The Gathering Spirit Plate no longer attracted Spiritual Energy, making the practice of the 'Five Elements Qi Absorption Technique' essentially ineffective.

Rather than wasting his time on almost useless cultivation, he began to study spells.

The contents of 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill', 'Geng Metal Skill', and 'Earth Spirit Technique' swirled in his mind. He simulated the process of casting these spells countless times in his head.

Li Shiming had long since dismissed the servants in the garden, desiring peace, and unless it was his father, Li WenYuan, no one dared to defy his orders.

At this time, Li WenYuan was in his office, and only Li Shiming was in the garden.

"Spring Breeze and Rain Skill!" he murmured, his fingers tracing patterns in the air.

Spiritual Power Pattern coursed along with the movements of his fingers casting faint luminous trails. With the aid of the high-end conference server IBMz15, the complex rune part of the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' was perfectly drawn by him.

The process required meticulous adjustments to the output of Spiritual Energy, where even a slight error could make the spellcasting fail.

The intricate runes of Spiritual Energy paused before him, and he waited for the first appearance of the spell.

Unfortunately, after a few seconds, all he saw was the dispersion of the Spiritual Energy runes before him, without triggering the cloud and rain phenomenon described in the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' booklet.

"What exactly is the problem?" he thought back to the contents of the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' booklet. He believed in his understanding; there were no errors in his process of casting the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill.'

This attempt had cost him a third of the Spiritual Energy within his internal vortex.

Unaware of how long it would take to recover the Spiritual Energy within his vortex, he needed to find the cause of failure before testing again; otherwise, his remaining Spiritual Energy was not enough to squander.

"Intention leads to the manifestation of technique!" Li Shiming thought of a previously overlooked phrase.

He had thought this phrase meant that simply thinking of releasing the spell would suffice, but this interpretation had led to his failure.

He considered himself quite insightful in the use of consciousness, as all operations within the machine room space were conducted through consciousness.

If this 'intention' were consciousness, theoretically, the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' should have succeeded in being cast.

He reviewed the cultivation notes left by Shi Ximing, which did not elaborate much on the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill', nor did they mention what this 'intention' was.

At this moment, Li Shiming realized the importance of having a teacher. The 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' seemed to be recorded exhaustively, but for a novice, any bit of commonsense knowledge could be a barrier to spell cultivation.

He reorganized the spellcasting process in his mind. Casting the spell had strict conditions, but with the comparison to the high-end server IBMz15, he was certain of following the booklet's description.

Without having reached the Spiritual Energy needed to meet the casting requirements, he had rehearsed the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' many times in a state devoid of Spiritual Energy usage.

"Could it be that this 'intention' means having an ambiance of spring breeze and rain in mind?" A sudden idea struck him, hinting at a possibility.

But then, the problem arose—how could he create this ambiance of spring breeze and rain in his mind?

He found a way. He accessed a video of spring rain from the data bank of the high-end server IBMz15 and projected it directly into his eyes.

He felt himself amidst the misty rain, where the moisture nurtured seeds breaking through the soil, and trees sprouting new shoots.

Since the high-end server IBMz15 used his eyes as display monitors for the video, watching this video felt like watching a 3D movie in a previous life, yet even more immersive.

"Still not enough!" Li Shiming felt he was almost grasping the truth, yet he was just a hairbreadth away.

This hairbreadth of distance, just requiring him to perceive more for a period, be it a day or longer, would enable him to grasp the ambiance of spring breeze and rain.

But he had a better idea. His consciousness entered the Linux system of the high-end server IBMz15; previously he had loaded his visual senses into the server's display and scanning devices.

What he needed to do now was load all his five senses into the input and output devices of the high-end server IBMz15, enabling input of sensory perceptions into the system and conversely, translating specific virtual data from the server into sensory experiences.

For this, he even wrote a program to serve this function.

In a previous life, such a program would require many days of effort to complete.

Yet, as his consciousness desired to write this program, large segments of code were generated in sync with his thoughts.

It should be noted when Li Shiming coded, he could utilize the computing power of 190 CPUs within the high-end server IBMz15 for simultaneous computing and analysis. With his consciousness linked to the high-end server IBMz15, his computational and analytical abilities were tied to the server itself.

Moreover, because his consciousness could control any component of the high-end server IBMz15, the code he wrote was closer to being a low-level program like assembly.

Such a program was highly efficient, more straightforward, and maximized the utilization of server resources.

The entire five senses connection conversion program took only five minutes to complete.

He loaded sensations such as the spring breeze caressing, raindrops falling on the body, and the fragrance of moist soil into his sensory perceptions through the program, and replayed the video of spring rain.

He stood on the moist soil, feeling the softness under his feet, the breeze on his face, the scent of spring mud in his nose, and the raindrops falling on his body, bringing with them the vitality of spring.

"This is the Spring Breeze and Rain!" Li Shiming murmured to himself.

Instinctively, he channeled Spiritual Energy, drawing the complex runes of the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' in the void.

The complex Spiritual Energy runes hovered in the air, then exploded into a small cluster of clouds.

The clouds tumbled, with tiny flashes of lightning flickering within them before disappearing.

Raindrops fell from the clouds, and as they did, the color of the clouds gradually faded, continuing the rainy process for the duration of a cup of tea.

Li Shiming stared blankly at the scene before him. Had there been outsiders in the garden, it would have been an astonishing and shocking sight.

Truth be told, the range of the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' was not wide, about twenty square meters only.

Such an area hardly matched the legendary abilities of an Immortal to manipulate clouds and rain, but considering he was just at the Qi Refining Second Level and the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' was the most basic among the Spiritual Plant Cultivation Skills, he was extremely satisfied with the results.

The clouds formed by the 'Spring Breeze and Rain Skill' were not high, and since the garden was laid out as a landscape with a scene at every step, those outside the garden could not perceive the existence of the clouds.