Two weeks have passed.
In these two weeks, Connor was studying the art of array formations. By this time, he had already grasped the basics. Right now, Connor is in his room, reading a book called "Qi injection." Vermand wrote it. The book contains his experience with things called "Injectors." What are injectors? Well, let me explain.
Every Qi array has three different types of components from which it is built. Every type does its own job inside the whole array.
The first type is called "Accepter," this type is responsible for accepting the Qi from the cultivator for further manipulations. The primary goal of accepters is to gather the energy and transfer it to other components.
The second type is called "Converter." Those components manipulate Qi in a specific way to create something or, in some cases, destroy something. The primary goal of convertors is to make Qi do what the array formation master wants them to do.
The third type is called "Injectors," as mentioned earlier, Connor is reading a book about them right now. Injectors are used to inject Qi from accepters to converters. It is some kind of bridge between them. As written in the book, there are many types of injectors.
The first mentioned type of injector in the book was "Piston-Injector." This injector collects Qi inside himself for a while and then pushes it to the converter with a piston made of special material. Another type of injector is called "Rotation-Injector." Inside, the injector is divided into four parts by the walls. When the injector receives Qi from the accepter, walls, also made from special material, start to rotate. These injectors are commonly used to evenly distribute Qi between many converters.
All those components are very useful by themselves. But the craft of array formations lacked something, something crucial.
In theory, with all these injectors, converters, and accepters, one could build anything. You can transform Qi as you wish. What is the problem?
The grand problem of array formations was, as Connor called them, "Conduits." Conduits were supposed to act as wires in array formations and transfer Qi, but, unfortunately, they didn't exist.
There was no way to transfer Qi on long distances. No, even on small distances there was no way to transfer Qi without significant losses. Without help from the cultivator, Qi couldn't even travel a distance of 5 meters. It would just dissipate!
So, in the current situation, all array formations looked like a three-part structure. It was just components mentioned earlier connected together. Of course, it could do something, but what was the point of it if the cultivator could do everything on his own with even higher efficiency?!
Well, there was a point if you wanted to do something non-trivial. You could construct an array that would perform some complicated actions with Qi that cultivators without special techniques couldn't do. Unfortunately, that required a high-end specialized converter, usually made specifically for your needs. Of course, this will cost a lot and couldn't be mass-produced. Jarvinen clan right now probably couldn't afford even one of those special-made converters, so it was out of the question.
If Connor wanted to make a lot of money for the Jarvinen clan, he would need to invent something cheap that everyone in the town would want, and at the same time, everyone could afford.
For days ago, Alrick told him that only 4% of the capital city population are cultivators. That meant if he wanted to make money from array formations, he would need to invent a way of charging those arrays with Qi that wouldn't involve cultivators. There were many ideas in Connor's mind, like creating a battery based on his discovery of Qi magnetism or creating a Qi gathering station. But every his idea would eventually hit a bottleneck of energy transfer.
He would need to transfer a tremendous amount of Qi if he wanted his inventions to work, but he couldn't do it without conduits.
So, current Connor's goal was to make the fourth type of array formations components, conduits!
He had been thinking about them for some time already, he wanted to get inspired from Vermand's book, but unfortunately, there wasn't much. Connor wanted to figure out how to make Qi move in a particular direction. The first thing he thought about was moving Qi with the wind like in the blizzard. But after some experiments, he figured out that the wind must be extremely strong to move Qi effectively. It wasn't technically feasible to produce such wind in current conditions.
Suddenly after reading for a while, an idea struck Connor's mind.
"How do I move Qi inside my body? Could I use this principle to move Qi outside my body?"
That may be a path! Immediately, Connor tried to circulate his Qi. At the same time, he tried to focus on how exactly his body moved Qi in the meridians.
One minute, five minutes, thirty minutes, one hour, two hours...
Nothing!
Connor felt nothing!
It looked like energy just moved because it wanted to, without any force pushing it. Ridiculous!
The young scientist didn't want to waste his time anymore. If he couldn't find an answer by himself, he would go and ask. With that thought in mind, he left his room and headed to the workshop on the 13th floor. When he arrived, he tried to push the door, but, after some attempts, it appeared that the door was closed. It seemed that Vermand wasn't here.
"Oh, great!" Thought Connor.
He stood in front of the door for some time, but then he remembered that Vermand wasn't the only person he knew in this clan. Alrick could also help him.
After receiving this enlightenment, Connor ran to the floor below because it was dinner time right now. Verman didn't eat in the canteen, so he couldn't be there.
When he entered the dining hall, he understood that Alrick wasn't lying. The whole floor was filled with people and their voices! The place was truly crowded to the extent. The room where cultivators reached the Energy Amalgamation realm ate was separated from the main hall. Alrick wasn't an Energy Amalgamation realm cultivator, but because of his previous achievements and everyone's respect for him, he was allowed to eat with Energy Amalgamation realm cultivators. So, Connor proceeded directly to that place. After some maneuvering between his older clan member's bodies, he finally arrived in the fancy, spacy room, decorated with wooden columns, beautiful chandeliers, and other luxuriant furniture.
"Wow, with all that furniture, Jarvinen clan are trying to motivate their members to cultivate harder or what? Or the Energy Amalgamation realm cultivators are just trying to show off? Well, it isn't important right now anyway," Thought Connor, while walking to Alrick's side.
-Um, can you help me, please?
Alrick was caught right in the middle of his meal, so he was slightly confused when Connor called him.
-Yes, what do you need, child?
Alrick calmly replied.
-I can't feel how my body moves Qi in meridians, you know why?
Alrick was already accustomed to that kind of questions, so it didn't take much time for him to come up with the answer.
-You can't feel your whole body without a soul.
Connor didn't show any emotion on his face.
-So, until I become a Soul Creation realm cultivator, I won't be able to feel how my body moves Qi, yes?
Alrick nodded.
-Yes, you are correct.
After some thinking, Connor asked.
-Can you please explain this to me? I really need to know it right now.
Alrick averted his eyes and quietly answered.
-I... I didn't think about it when I had my cultivation, and I can't check it now...
It looked like the red-haired man was ashamed because of that, but Connor didn't notice it.
-Okay, can you tell me when Vermand will return?
Vermand was a stage nine Soul Creation realm cultivator, as Connor recently figured out, so he could answer Connor's questions.
-He left the city for three or four days. You'll have to wait for him.
"I can't wait for so long! I will waste a lot of precious time in this case!" Thought Connor
-That's a shame...
Right now, he can't figure out any feasible way to answer his questions. There wasn't any blizzard near for him to cultivate fastly. But he needed to figure out everything as fast as possible because he felt that answer to Qi conductivity could be found in the depths of his own body.
What could he do in a situation like this?
Cultivate? It wasn't efficient to cultivate here. There wasn't enough Qi in the atmosphere.
Wait for Vermand? Just a waste of time.
Read? Maybe, but still, he wanted to find answers as fast as possible. He was too interested.
He hardly tried to figure out how he could accomplish his goal, but nothing would come to his mind.
"I really would just sit in this tower and wait for Vermand? How boring... Wait, tower?"
A wild idea crossed the young boy's mind.
-Can I go to the top of the tower?
"What is he planning again?" Thought Alrick
Although Alrick didn't understand why Connor wanted to go to the top of the tower, he wouldn't refuse him just because of that.
-I think yes, but what do you want to do there?
Slowly, a wide grin appeared on Connor's young face
-Nothing much, just cultivate to the Soul Creation realm!