Cultivation Nerd: Chapter 262

Chapter 262 - The First Technique

The first thing I noticed after breaking through to Foundation Establishment was just how dense my Qi had become. Every technique I could cast now would hit with triple the effect, even with only half the mastery.

Typically, once someone reached Foundation Establishment, they'd focus entirely on stability. Pick an element. Refine their Qi. Avoid using elemental techniques that might misalign their spiritual roots. It was a careful, calculated process.

But I didn't need to wait.

Because I'd already lived a lifetime with the element I was going to choose. Spending an unhealthy amount of time with it. 

I doubted many cultivators had spent over twenty years using their chosen element every single day. Not in theory. In practice.

When a cultivator mastered both an element and an Earth Grade technique, something extraordinary happened. You could fuse them. Mold your Qi into something more than just raw power. Song Song had shown me that with the Falling Moon Claw. After she imbued it with her blood-based element, what was once a simple invisible wind slash became something far more deadly. Each cut she landed bled harder, drained faster.

Subtle, but quite scary.

Now that I'd reached Foundation Establishment, I had the bare minimum power to form my own organization. I could build something, gather people, get things done. Especially things that were better done in the dark. I'd keep that idea in my back pocket.

But first… the element.

I'd thought about this for a long time. Too long, maybe.

There were moments in the past where I'd considered going all in on something extreme. I once thought about using the Eight Mind Phantoms Technique to turn myself into a thought ghost, puppeteering my own body through a glitch, sacrificing my sanity without touching my soul. Risking everything.

I dropped that plan fast. It was clever, sure, but clever didn't always mean survivable. And you didn't get second chances at something like that.

So. Back to the present. My element.

I had toyed with many ideas. Grand ones.

Knowledge. Technology. Evolution.

But those were too abstract. Too big. Too formless to serve as a foundation. "Books" crossed my mind once, but it wasn't the books I cared about; it was the ideas inside them.

Fire? A classic pick. The Blazing Sun Sect would've welcomed that choice with open arms. I even had the Hearthfire Ice-Stem Flower bolstering my affinity for it. But fire felt too linear. 

Light? Intriguing, but it felt too far removed from my reality. I didn't live in light. Also, it would have taken too much energy to power something like that, meaning it would have made it unusable. 

Jade was solid. I had real, tangible experience with it. I'd built my techniques from it. But it wasn't the path I wanted to walk. Not fully.

And then it came to me... ironically, the answer had always been with me.

From my previous life.

Electricity.

Lightning.

Humanity's golden age began with its discovery. It powered our cities, carried our words, stored our knowledge, and drove our machines. It was everything. Phones, cameras, computers, lights, cars, and everywhere, in everything, at all times.

I had spent my entire life surrounded by it.

It wasn't just energy. It was life. Connection. Speed. Evolution.

Lightning was not just a force; it was civilization.

And now, it would be my element.

No, I wasn’t going to be shooting lightning bolts around anytime soon.

As for my first Foundation Establishment technique, it had to be simple. Something I could build upon, but also something experimental. A test.

Time De-Accel.

I began slowly engraving it into my newly formed Qi pillar, and with that, I officially became a one-star Foundation Establishment Cultivator.

The technique was a fusion of my past life’s knowledge of the brain and what I’d learned here. Specifically, how Qi interacted with the mind when I used my Sky Grade technique.

Time De-Accel worked by guiding a minute amount of Electric Qi into the brain, enhancing neuron conductivity. It temporarily boosted perception, reaction speed, and decision-making. To the cultivator, time appeared to slow down; not because time changed, but because their brain processed more “frames per second,” so to speak.

The downside? Overheating, mental fatigue… or even nerve damage, if overused.

My goal was to recreate that state warriors sometimes achieved in the heat of battle, when everything seemed to slow down and each movement became clear. I wasn’t sure if the lightning element could influence the mind this way, but…

It worked.

Or… I think it did. There were no blockages, no resistance, no rejection. The technique etched itself into the pillar in glowing script that only I could read, abstract, shifting lines that existed more in concept than form.

I opened my eyes.

The first thing I noticed was how strange my vision felt. It was nighttime now, but it barely registered. Darkness had shape, layers, clarity.

Snow had gathered on my shoulders and head. I brushed it off and warmed my clothes with a bit of Qi, drying the moisture instantly.

It felt like putting on glasses for the first time, like the world had always been this vivid, and I had simply been too blind to see it. The snowflakes, the way the wind curled along the rocks, the starlight refracting off the ice on distant peaks… this world was beautiful.

I spread my senses and focused.

Fu Yating. Wu Yan. Speedy.

And the egg. I couldn’t sense it directly, but I knew it was there.

Crouching down, I took a long breath. My pupils dilated so wide it felt like they might pop out of their sockets.

Galloping Horse Power.

My Earth Grade movement technique was one I hadn’t used in a while. My fighting style didn’t usually call for it, and I often traveled with people I didn’t want to leave behind.

But now?

Now I was alone. Now I was free.

I surged Qi into my legs. My thighs swelled with power, and the moment I launched off the mountaintop, the stone cracked beneath me.

The air howled past my ears. I twisted back, catching a glimpse of the cratered summit I’d left behind. Wind screamed around me as I shot downward like a meteor.

Grinning, I spread my arms wide like wings.

“Fuck yeah!” I screamed, but the air swallowed the sound.

I was a blur, tearing through the sky.

Too much commotion, maybe. I sensed something sharp slicing through the distance toward me. A flying monstrous beast. Wait, no, two. Their Qi signatures were so tightly intertwined that they almost felt like one.

I slowed my descent with a jade armor construct forming around me, its weight and resistance bleeding off speed.

Then I saw them. Two seagulls. One of them radiated a one-star Foundation Establishment presence.

Seriously. Seagulls?

I hovered midair, blinking.

“What the hell are seagulls doing out in the middle of the night?” I muttered.

I had to wait until they got closer before I could use my arrays, which was my primary combat method now. Sure, I still had my Earth Grade techniques, but those were cards I planned to keep hidden until someone got too close.

Once the birds were in range, I formed a hand seal midair and activated Time De-Accel. My core pulsed.

In an instant, the world lurched into a crawl.

The birds didn’t stop; they still moved, but their wings cut through the air like they were dragging reality with them. Each flap stretched out into a series of sluggish frames, rippling like syrup. Sound warped into low, droning echoes. Dust hung frozen midair. It wasn’t that time had stopped, just that I’d pulled so far ahead of it.

Every heartbeat felt like a minute. Every blink, an eternity.

With the world moving slower than my breath, I shifted my fingers into a new seal.

The array bloomed to life beneath me.

Lines of light spiraled out, geometric precision forming in the air around my hovering form. I layered function after function in the space of a breath, my thoughts racing faster than most cultivators could even follow while meditating. My mind was the lightning. The rest of the world was the strike zone.

By the time the birds even finished the downward beat of their wings, the array was complete, humming with power, suspended midair.

All that remained… was the trigger.

Holy shit, this felt natural. For a second, it hadn’t even felt like casting... it felt like thinking. Like scratching an itch. Like blinking.

But then the downside reared its head: I was stuck in place.

Sure, my mind was lightning-fast. But my body? Nowhere near fast enough.

Just as the birds flapped again, the array locked into place. A blue sky-colored field shimmered into view, anchored across the space like a net.

Even though I hadn’t taken the more power-centered route of the lightning element, my Qi being perfectly in tune with it made a difference. A massive difference.

A glowing ball of lightning gathered at the top of the array, then fired two thick bolts downward.

And wow, those blasts were slow. Not in reality, but in my time-accelerated perception, it was like watching lightning travel through molasses. Every arc, every flicker, was exaggerated. It was going to take forever to hit them.

Even moving my eyes to track it felt sluggish and delayed, like walking waist-deep in water.

Still, unlike the Sky Grade technique that pushed my brain to the brink, this had no real drawback… other than boredom. Combat had never felt this long.

When it finally happened, it was like the sky cracked. The two lightning bolts reached the birds and fried them in midair, smoke, feathers, and a burst of charred scent tearing through the frozen moment.

I ended the technique.

The world slammed back into motion. Sound, time, and thought fell back into place like an avalanche.

My mind felt slightly sluggish now, like waking from a deep nap, but I could concentrate again.

I dismissed the lightning array, and the birds, already scorched, started to fall. Before they hit the ground, I lifted a hand and used Falling Moon Claw. A dozen invisible wind blades shredded them midair, reducing the fried birds to smoking chunks and tumbling meat.

As they rained down, I couldn’t help but think about the techniques I wanted to create going forward.

Lightning. It was a basic element. Common. Studied.

But I wasn’t aiming for thunder and power, I was chasing electricity. Signals. Neurons. The stuff that made modern life work: computers, networks, communication. The very essence of thought.

This was the closest I could get to the Mind Element without… well, without going insane.

So far, it was working. I didn’t feel crazy. Just excited.

I exhaled, turned west, and began to glide gently toward the group.

Time to take it slow. The Blazing Sun Sect was still ahead, and I had a plan.

Eventually, I spotted them in the distance. Fu Yating yawned and waved casually as I descended.

“Okay, I get the impression you broke through,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “But did you actually do it? I still can’t sense anything. And you move just as fast, barely visible as anything more than a flash, so it kinda seems the same from where I’m standing.”

She stretched lazily, then added, “Anyway, congrats. Can we please get back on the road now?”