Data-Driven Daoist

Chapter 20: Progress

True Qi: 110/110

“Your Journey Ends, Your Journey Begins.”

Tribulation: [With merely water and no food, tread ten mountains a day for ten days.]

Preemptive Tribulation Passed: [Purify Tainted Entities: 1/1.]

Did it… just talk? Yu Han’s eyes snapped open. The mist hit his face, two worlds covered in fog.

He had heard a voice. Neither man nor woman, neither young nor old. It whispered into his ears.

“Silent victory, keep it concealed

Your tribulation, best unrevealed

Heavenly secrets, guard them well

Wisdom earned before the test

In silence holds its power best

For cultivation's path is steep

And rivals' eyes never sleep

So hush your glory, hard-won prize

Lest others seek to scrutinize

The Path you've grasped before its time

Keep hidden like a distant chime

For in the realm of sword and scroll

Discretion guards the cultivator's soul.”

Yu Han stood up.

What the fuck? The voice was reciting poetry!

Dawn broke. A new day arrived.

+1 True Qi.

You Have Levelled Up.

Heavenly Allocation: Mind

+5 Primordial Qi.

A strange, energetic feeling welled up inside, threatening to spill out.

“No fucking way!”

And as if in replacement for the energy, his voice leaked out without control. He… wasn’t stuck in the bottleneck. He had straight up advanced.

It was something he thought was possible, logically thinking. But when it actually happened, the shock felt… felt…

No, that’s not shock! Yu Han brought up his status menu.

Name: Yu Han (Johan)

Level: 1

True Qi: 1 (+1)/200

Pure Qi: 8/110

Primordial Qi: 5

Lifeforce: 1/648

There were two new things! Yu Han sat back down.

“You reached the Bottleneck, didn’t you?” Li Yao was sharpening a branch into a fishing spear with a knife from the kitchen. The boy always rose before everyone. “It’s funny how obvious your reactions are. Where’d the ruthless, devious tubs go?”

“You… aren’t wrong,” Yu Han said. He didn’t just reach the Bottleneck—he broke through it.

“You heard the voice?” Li Yao winked.

“It caught me off guard.”

“I thought it was a ghost at first.” Li Yao stopped. “We could use this if we knew someone was close to a Bottleneck.”

Yu Han rubbed his chin. “Wait for them to gain True Qi in the middle of a fight, and when they’re surprised by the voice and distracted, finish them off?”

“More like if we knew someone’s tribulation, we could stop them from completing it. How would you even know if they got True Qi?”

“Enough character data. Build a prediction model of their behaviour.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh, okay.” Yu Han left the cabin. When he sat down to meditate, he went into that trance-like state.

And he was definitely in meditation, not sleep. If it was sleep, Deep Sleep and Echoing Dreamscape would have kept him lucid.

Either way, this was dangerous. If he lost it in some wilderness, he’d have no one but himself to blame if he became wolf chow.

Li Yao. That brat. He was watching over me.

A genuine connection. His dad would’ve told him to nurture it. Especially in this bleak world, where the strong preyed on the weak.

A warm feeling welled up in his heart again.

Wait, no. Eww. This ain’t some weird bromance. Yu Han pulled up the sheet again. It has to be this Lifeforce or Primordial Qi thing.

Primordial Qi: 5

Lifeforce: 2/648

It went up!

Unlike True Qi, Pure Qi, and Lifeforce, Primordial Qi only had one number and no slashes. Just a 5.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Does that mean that unlike True and Pure Qi, I can’t gain Primordial Qi? Or that there’s no limit to how much I can gain?

Lifeforce. Life, force. Why was it 648, such a weird number? It slowly ticked up, too. Yu Han had no idea what he was doing to make the number go up.

Judging from the name, it seemed to have something to do with “life.” In different medias on Earth, lifeforce could mean anything. Vitality, health points, a mystical energy for some magic and whatnot. There were no set definitions, and what it did was up to the author.

Yu Han concentrated on the letters.

Nothing happened.

Let’s think about that later.

There was also Primordial Qi. Yu Han concentrated on Primordial Qi: 5.

What the—

A weird feeling surged through him. Like a guide, appearing in his mind. But it had no letters or words. Merely pure knowledge. Or rather, instinct. Yu Han instinctively knew what to do with it.

He brought up his stats menu.

[Body Origin: 5.20]

[Spirit Origin: 7.80]

[Mind Origin: 12.20 (+1.00)]

His Mind Origin had gone up a full point!

Before, it was 11.20, and now it was 12.20. He was reminded of the strange message at the start.

Heavenly Allocation: Mind

He pulled up the substats.

Primordial Qi: 5

[Mind Origin: 12.20]

Intelligence: 14 (+1)

Memory: 17 (+1)

Perception: 11 (+1)

Clarity: 9 (+1)

Focus: 10 (+1)

All substats in Mind Origin had gone up by one! At first glance, the numbers looked like a simple mean, but because of past experience, Yu Han doggedly treated them as weighted averages, with each substat having a weight of 0.20.

Adding the weighted sum up would get the ‘Origin’ number. Since each of the five substats had gone up by 1, the primary stat went up by five multiplied by 0.20, which is one.

Yu Han nodded. Simple math didn’t need calculators.

Primordial Qi appeared in the substat menu too.

Should I try it out now, or should I wait?

He concentrated on the number. Something seemed to click, then move away. Yu Han focused on a substat in Mind Origin.

Let’s pick Memory, since it’s the highest.

Primordial Qi: 0 (5)

[Mind Origin: 16.13 (12.20)]

Intelligence: 14

Memory: 17 + 5 -> 22 (17)

Perception: 11

Clarity: 9

Focus: 10

Free stat points! Yu Han wished he could jump up and cheer. Is this a Xianxia world, or a LitRPG world?

Heavenly Allocation. After he levelled up, it selected one Primary Stat or Origin Stat, and increased each substat by one. It was like the Automatic Stat Point Gain in video games.

Primordial Qi, on the other hand, were points he could manually allocate. He could allocate them in any of the substats, regardless of which Origin it belonged to. That was what these “new” instincts told him.

Freaky. This system thing—or Dao, was it? It can implant instincts. Worse yet, after gaining stat points, his physical, mental, or spiritual stat would change. Meaning this Dao System could directly modify living, breathing beings.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to deny the possibility that I was kidnapped and put into a virtual reality simulation. Wait a minute…

Mind Origin was now 16.13. That didn’t make sense if the weights were 0.20 for each substat!

Yu Han counted with his fingers. He multiplied each of the substats by 0.20 and summed the results up.

It should be at 13.20. Why is there a difference of 2.94 in Mind Origin?

Not that he should complain. But why? The answer was simple. Yu Han grinned.

The weights changed! He burst into laughter. I fucking knew it! You think you’re so clever? You mean little mean, trying to trick me again?

He felt vindicated. It wasn’t a simple mean after all, but a weighted average. Now, the weights changed.

But again… Why?!

“Hey, Crazy Tubs, you look scary. Look in another direction.”

“Huh?”

“You look like someone stole your wife.”

“Fuck you!”

It’s fine. It’s totally fine. Yu Han scratched his palm. His nails had grown longer, so it hurt. But he kept scratching. Damn it. No, don’t be anxious. I’ll get answers when I get to the Sect.

Would he, though? By the looks of it, Sects guarded knowledge litigiously. In novels, they would have libraries and archives, with only allowed individuals having the rights to access them.

There was far too little information. And too many questions!

A pressure rose within Yu Han. He concentrated on his substats again. The strange heaviness that had moved from Primordial Qi to his Mind Origin substats shifted back.

Primordial Qi: 5

[Mind Origin: 12.20]

Intelligence: 14

Memory: 17

Perception: 11

Clarity: 9

Focus: 10

His instincts told him that he could choose to “apply” the changes made. But just changing them around wouldn’t immediately finalise it.

He played around with the stats more.

Primordial Qi: 0 (5)

[Mind Origin: 13.33 (12.20)]

Intelligence: 14 + 2 -> 16 (14)

Memory: 17

Perception: 11 + 1 -> 12 (11)

Clarity: 9

Focus: 10 + 2 -> 12 (10)

Now it’s 13.33! Why? Gods-darned stupid—why aren’t you con—calm. Calm. This isn’t a spreadsheet.

He reverted his changes and spread the stats equally.

Primordial Qi: 0 (5)

[Mind Origin: 13.20 (12.20)]

Intelligence: 14 + 1 -> 15 (14)

Memory: 17 + 1 -> 18 (17)

Perception: 11 + 1 -> 12 (11)

Clarity: 9 + 1 -> 10 (9)

Focus: 10 + 1 -> 11 (10)

“A-ha!” Yu Han raised his fists up. He shouted at the sky, “I’ll have your secrets soon.”

The other recruits gave him odd looks. Li Yao went inside the cabin, giving Yu Han a look that seemed to say not to talk to him anymore.

Yu Han felt his face heating, and sat back down.

But when data clicked into place, it felt better than a full body massage. Didn’t it?

I’m not weird. So, adding them equally keeps the weights the same at 0.20. And somehow, the very act of allocating Primordial Qi into substats changes the weights.

But… Why?

Yu Han closed his eyes and meditated for five minutes. Satisfaction came in steps. He didn’t need all the answers right now, so his heart should stop beating so quickly and his blood pressure should go down. Right this instant. It was only logical.

He slapped his right knee. It had been twitching like an unruly child.

He tested Body Origin and Spirit Origin next. Adding the Primordial Qi equally would keep the weights stable at 0.20, but adding them unequally, whether he added them all into one Origin Stat, or whether he added them to all of them, would change the weights chaotically.

No need to finalise the Primordial Qi changes this instant. He didn’t know what most of the substats did. All he knew was that Memory made the mirages in Echoing Dreamscape more substantial, and they lasted longer without him passing out into actual sleep.

He had gained other substats too. Twice, there was a message that showed assimilation of Pure Qi. Fifty Pure Qi for a stat gain in Endurance and Strength.

The weights hadn’t changed then.

But… Why?!

And why the heck was Lifeforce such a weird number? Why did the Dao System recite poetry? Was it sapient? Why did it warn everyone not to share their Tribulation details? Was it benevolent? What was Pure Qi?

Yu Han pulled his hair.

He was going to make this his bitch!

Be rational, Johan. I am Yu Han now, not some psychopathic nerd. Just a… a normal fatty.

He meditated again. Whether it took a day, a year, or a gods-darned century, he was going to get his answers. This dataset was actually pretty good. The numbers were clear with no strange outliers other than one ‘requirements not met.’ The problem was the absence of Excel. So he had to do the math the old-fashioned way.

Unlike his past life, he should be rational about data-crunching. No hiring hackers or data brokers to steal corporate secrets, nor private eyes to tail his competitors to gather dirt. He couldn’t do it even if he tried. So he might as well be proper here.

He wasn’t gonna make his dad disappointed. Never again. Even if they lived in different realities now.

The Drizzle passed by water valleys and mountaintop rivers, nearing the city. Many boats entered and exited the city like ants. It seemed to be the central hub of the area. But no boats crossed The Drizzle, as if their vessel had the waterway all to themselves. They passed by the city.

Finally, with tropical rain pounding the world all around, the boat arrived at a large village.

The mountainside was lined with numerous huts, their outlines blurred by the falling rain. The palm trees swayed in the wind, their large leaves rustling. Near the river back was a large statue of a bearded man wielding a spear. Beside it, a small shack. The sound of chants and prayers came from it in waves. It praised the god of the rivers, the lakes, and the land. The voices mixed with the sound of rain. The little jetty sat there all empty, like it was waiting for Drizzle to arrive.

Thunder cracked. Lightning flashed.

Yu Han closed his eyes. When he opened them, a silhouette loomed at the dock.