The Dao of Magic

52 - Frame

I used to be absolutely fascinated by space. The race for the moon was long over by the time I was born on Earth, but school and games *coughKSPcough* kindled an obsession with the immensity of the infinite black. When the shock of somehow ending up on a planet filled with cultivators had worn off, I searched far and wide for anything related to outer space.

Disappointment started to creep in when every space related technique didn't have anything to do with absolute vacuum. Names like 'Infinite Star Trigram Dance' or 'Planetary Void Traversing' were just names, the actual techniques having very little to do with either stars or planets. More disappointment set in when I realised that space was dangerous for even the most powerful cultivators.

The cultivation world was saturated with qi, but only because the local sun was a qi generator. So imagine, if a planet in a habitable orbit around a sun can gather so much energy from said sun, how much energy will a rock much closer to said sun gather? The sun poured out enormous amounts of qi along with its streams of ejected plasma. A single asteroid on an orbit close to the sun could gather more energy in a year than was present in the entire world.

So space was a deathtrap to all but gods. The only reason these sentient asteroids and other space-based creatures hadn't eaten the cultivation world as a snack was thanks to planet-wide formations keeping them away. I also suspect the multiple moons circling around said planet where not much more than shield ot stealth field generators.

So I accepted the fact that I could only step outside of the atmosphere after ascension. Now, however, things have changed.

The sun of the medieval fantasy world I am currently on is a normal sun. I think the planet's core is generating mana, but I need more information to confirm or deny this. Looking up at the stars at night shows me a peaceful star filled sky, not a hint of the gas-planet sized creatures that inhabited the interplanetary space of the cultivation world.

So I want to explore space, maybe create a moonbase or two. Set up some automated mining facilities and maybe even forcefully elevate this primitive hellhole into a space faring planet. Mad delusions of space-faring sects travelling in massive carriers while traversing the endless void fill my mind.

Anyway, I started thinking about space because I am building a ship. We all had a good laugh at the fact that I stole an entire fricking mountain and then started moving again. Night fell not too long after that, so I wove a small protection and stealth formation around the necklace and we are now chilling inside the Tree, waiting out the cold.

Well, I am chilling, my disciples are working. We have all gathered inside the main clearing, and I am projecting a blueprint in the air. My plane drone caught some footage of ships when it came back to me before nightfall, so I used those images to design a ship. I sent the drone to scout to the north, and it barely reached the sea before having to return. The design is a mix between a viking longship and an age of sail galleon. It's a two-story vessel with two masts and rowing ports all along the sides.

The thirty-meter long blueprint is made up of glowing lines and my disciples are working hard. They are cutting down trees and drying them out. They cut timber into the required shapes and place them inside the full sized blueprint.

"Teach, how long does the qi gathering realm usually take?"

Vox's sing-song voice shakes me from my musings and I reply distractedly. "Usually a year. The sets of fighting techniques I gave you all are extracts of the massive tomes they had to read through. Here, tell me if you find anything useful in here."

I pull a small piece of jade from my ring and upload an entire manual into the gem. It is the 'Celestial Guiding Paths' cultivation method, and I throw it to the redhead who just dropped a massive wooden beam on the grass.