Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

Standing below the stage, watching the people on stage working hard to make a living through their art, I felt a pang of pity.

He strolled around the temple fair, stopping frequently, and before he knew it, noon had passed. Hearing that there would be a lantern festival in the evening, he decided to take his sister back to the Wu family home to rest.

As they passed the stage from the beginning, the younger sister suddenly asked, "Brother, did the stone break?"

Zhuang Xing craned his neck to look and replied, "It looks like they're smashing it."

The morning performance is almost over. The troupe also needs to eat. They need to rest and reorganize at noon before starting the performance again in the afternoon. This whole morning performance is enough to keep them going. If it drags on any longer, it will inevitably annoy people.

At this moment, the hammer was finally raised high, about to smash down.

Zhuang Xing picked up his younger sister, and the two of them watched together. They saw the iron hammer swinging powerfully, and the hammer struck the blue stone with a muffled thud. The big man below did not change his expression. Zhuang Xing focused his Qi in his eyes and saw that the Qi on the big man's body was gathered in his chest.

He was surprised to find that the stone hadn't been tampered with; it was genuine bluestone that had been smashed with a hammer.

clang!

clang!!

clang!!!

The hammer struck three times, each blow harder than the last, making the onlookers' hearts tremble.

With a few crisp cracking sounds, the bluestone split open. With the final swing of the hammer, the stone shattered, and the middle part was even pulverized.

The big man stood up, holding a handful of stone powder in his hand, the powder falling through his fingers like quicksand.

The crowd cheered, and some people who had waited all morning felt it was all worth it after seeing this performance.

Zhuang Xing and his sister were lucky enough to not miss the grand finale.

But after the play ended, they started selling plasters again, this time with two different people.

"They say you've been practicing medicine for fifty years and don't treat other diseases, but you're exceptionally good at treating leg ailments. Is that true?"

“From my great-grandfather to my family, five generations have been dedicated to treating leg ailments.”

Zhuang Xing smiled, shook his head, and left without wasting any more money on ointment. However, he still tossed ten coins into the little girl's bowl before turning and walking away.

Chapter 288 Set squares and compasses

After having another meal at the Wu family's house, Zhuang Xing didn't rush to take his younger sister out in the afternoon.

The temple fair wasn't just for one day; people would gradually disperse after two or three days. He wasn't in a hurry; there was no need for him to go on a special forces trip and try to see everything in one day.

Tomorrow I can visit the places I haven't been to yet. Once I've explored them all and seen most of the stalls, I can bring back gifts for my family.

He thought he should also bring a small gift back to Yunling. Yunling had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare flower tea and medicine for his family, and he hadn't returned the favor yet.

If I had known there was a temple fair in Yidu, I should have invited Yunling to come and visit together, and I should have also invited my parents to come out for a trip.

When he left, Zhuang Xing didn't know there was a temple fair. He thought he was just going to deliver a message, which would only take a day or two at most. Besides, his parents didn't seem to be going out, and Yunling had just gone back to his uncle's house for one night. It would be a bit presumptuous to take Yunling away the next day, so he didn't go looking for her. Now, he realized that he had made Yunling and his parents miss such a big festival, and he felt a little regretful.

But it's pointless to be hindsight now. Let's think about what new and interesting things Yunling might like that she saw this morning.

As he was thinking, he saw Little Jasmine take out those blueprints again.

She wasn't very interested in temple fairs. Although she had lost contact with her family for three years after being abducted by human traffickers when she was a child, she had spent the remaining eight years growing up in Yidu, so temple fairs were not a new thing for her.

More than going out to play, she wanted to finish the blueprints for the sled. She figured that after the temple fair was over, Sister Baiyu would come to see her again, and then she could share her newfound knowledge with her sister.

At a young age, Zhuang Xing noticed that she had picked up a ruler and compass to draw. The ruler was a straight wooden ruler with markings on it, and the compass was a wooden compass used to draw circles. These two tools had long been in use by people.

Even before the Great Yu Dynasty, the people of this land had mastered the art of mapmaking.

Previously, Zhuang Xing didn't pay much attention to these things; he only focused on himself and the people around him.

But as he gets older, and as he discovers that the world has changed dramatically because of his actions, he now looks to many other places.

He realized that although he had a ruler and a compass, he seemed to have never seen a set square or a protractor.

In his understanding, the ruler, set square, and protractor should be a set.

He habitually took this as common sense, but in reality, it was only common sense to himself.

That's normal. People in this world are busy making a living, and they don't have the extra time to study things like engineering and science.

What Zhuang Xing considers a simple set square actually involves a lot of geometric knowledge.

Putting everything else aside, even the degree of an angle hasn't been defined yet. As for the theorem that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees, which even elementary school students can recite, Zhuang Xing would still not understand the various properties of a triangle even if he went to a private school teacher, no, to a scholar who specializes in studying Neo-Confucianism.

Seeing that Xiao Moli was engrossed in drawing, he had an idea. He asked Brother Wu to go to the woodshed and get a good piece of firewood. Using his sword energy, he shaved the wood into a flat plank.

He borrowed Jasmine's ruler, and his younger sister and Jasmine curiously gathered around to watch him use the ruler to measure lengths and draw an isosceles right triangle and a classic right triangle with sides in a 1:2 ratio on the wooden board.

After outlining the shape, he waved his hand and "peeled" the triangle out of the wooden board. The cut surface was very smooth and flat. He used his innate Qi, and the sharp sword energy was like a fast knife of a machine tool to make two perfect drawing tools.

After finishing the set square, he also improved Xiao Moli's compass. Xiao Moli's wooden compass was very rough, consisting of two pointed wooden strips, a rope, and a wooden stopper. He made some small parts out of wood.

"Little Jasmine, do you have any unused iron or bronze utensils at home?" Zhuang Xing asked. "Not too big, just a little bit is enough."

Little Jasmine thought for a moment and said, "Would the old hairstyle be alright, Taoist brother?"

"Are there any tools or devices that you never actually use?"

Zhuang Xing felt it was a waste to use a hair bun as a small part. After all, the hair bun was a work of art. He wanted to break off a piece of metal to fix the compass and make it more durable. If he broke it, the hair bun would definitely break. What if it was a token of love from Sister-in-law Wu Da and Sister-in-law Wu, or a birthday gift from Xiao Moli's parents, which had great sentimental value? That would be bad.

But Little Jasmine didn't seem to mind at all. She said, "It's okay, Taoist brother. That's my old hairstyle. I haven't used it for a long time."

"Are you sure it's okay?" Zhuang Xing asked again.

Without hesitation, Xiao Moli said, "It's okay."

By now, she probably understood what Zhuang Xing was doing: he was helping her improve her drawing tools.

That old hair bun would only gather dust in the closet, but if it were turned into a ruler, it could be kept by her side often. In a sense, that would be more meaningful, so Little Jasmine did not hesitate at all.

"I'll go get that old hair bun," said Little Jasmine, and she ran into the house.

Zhuang Xing scratched his head. Since things had come to this, he might as well use a hair bun.

While Xiao Moli was rummaging through the house, her younger sister was still carefully observing the set square that Zhuang Xing had removed.

Zhuang Xing patted her head and asked, "Little sister, did you understand?"

"Of course I understand, brother," the little sister said. "You're making hidden weapons, aren't you? These two pieces of wood are so sharp, it would really hurt to stab someone's butt with them!"

As she spoke, she covered her buttocks, as if afraid of being pricked by that pointed head.

Zhuang Xing smiled and told her, "This is a set square, it's used for drawing."

The younger sister nodded, but she still kept a wary eye on the two boards.

While the brother and sister were arguing, Little Jasmine took out a small copper hairpin. The hairpin was engraved with a simple pattern, a flower, but it was impossible to tell what kind of flower it was because the engraving was too hasty.

Several patches of green verdigris had formed on the hair bun, indicating that it hadn't been used for a long time. Seeing that it wasn't anything precious, Zhuang Xing felt relieved.

He originally intended to use his sword energy to smooth out the hair bun, but suddenly had a brilliant idea and switched to using his own supernatural powers.

If he wanted to, he could use this hair bun as a "sword" to control; he had tried it before, and he could control anything related to metal.

The sword-controlling technique was less about controlling a sword and more about some mysterious force depicted on the mural granting him an ability to "control a sword" in order to fulfill his desire for such control.

He could bend swords before, but this was the first time he had used this supernatural power to make small parts.

Chapter 289 The Essence of Supernatural Powers

Zhuang Xing grasped the hair bun, calmed himself, and mentally constructed the necessary structural components.

There aren't many things needed: a fixed point, a nut, and a screw. That's all. Its main purpose is to secure the two sticks of the compass together, making it more robust and durable.

This was his first attempt to use his supernatural powers to process a metal object. When he first acquired this power, he thought it was just a simple sword-controlling technique, but over the years, his understanding of this power has become increasingly profound.

This is not the conceptual "sword control technique." In essence, the supernatural power that Zhuang Xing acquired is not "sword control."

Ultimately, what exactly constitutes a sword?

Stones can also be used to make knives and swords. In the Stone Age, people tied sharp stones to tree branches to make the simplest stone spears. They learned to sharpen the stones to cut meat and hides.

As civilization gradually developed, it entered the Bronze Age, and today we are in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Due to the mining and use of coal, a large amount of iron is being smelted.

Copper, iron, and the unique spiritual minerals of this world, nurtured by spiritual energy, can all be used to make weapons, specifically swords.

Stone swords and wooden swords are swords, as are bronze swords and iron swords, but Zhuang Xing's supernatural powers cannot wield the first two types of swords.

Based on his own experience over the years, this supernatural power is more like converting his true qi into a kind of magnetic field, thereby driving his sword to fly.

Of course, that's not entirely accurate.

Because he must first infuse the object with his true qi in order to make it fly. If it were a magnetic field, theoretically he could manipulate the surrounding metal with invisible power, like Magneto, even without touching the object.

His understanding of this technique was only superficial; unfortunately, he lacked the necessary conditions to conduct in-depth research on this supernatural power.

It's like a person who, although alive in this world, has blood flowing through their body, from the heart to the internal organs, circulating throughout the entire body every moment, and can eat and drink normally, how can they fully understand the mysteries of their body, what their functions are, how the food they eat is transformed into energy for their activities in their stomach and intestines, and how it is circulated throughout the body via the blood to maintain their daily life activities, and how can they fluently tell others about it?

Zhuang Xing only knows how to use it, but to this day, he still doesn't know its principles and structure.

However, this does not affect Zhuang Xing's use of supernatural powers. People riding bicycles do not need to know why two-wheeled bicycles do not fall over; they only need to pedal hard.

He has had this supernatural power for seven years. Unlike swordsmanship and cultivation techniques, this supernatural power does not have the characteristic of "use it or lose it". It is more like a slightly complex tool. The more he uses it and the longer he uses it, the more proficient he becomes.

He first infused his true qi into his hair bun, and then two invisible sword energies cut out from his fingertips, slicing the bronze hair bun into three pieces.

The first part to be made was the tip, which was simple and didn't require a particularly sophisticated mechanism. He took the wooden stick from the compass and the small section of bronze artifact underwent a visible deformation in his hand, turning into a cap-shaped tip that could just hold the small wooden stick in place.

Screws and nuts are relatively more delicate, since they are a set. If the threads don't match, they can't be screwed together.

He focused his attention, and his powerful memory, which he had possessed since childhood, played a crucial role. He had a strong ability to construct spatial ideas in his mind, and he simultaneously controlled the two bronze artifacts to change. After a moment, two very modern-looking parts appeared in his hands.

The rest of the assembly was simple. He put the compass together, and then used it to draw two concentric circles, one large and one small, on the wooden board with the triangular hole. With his hand in a knife shape and his sleeve brushing across, he "cut out" a semi-circular protractor that had not yet been marked with graduations.

This protractor has a hollow center, since it's made of wood. If a blank space wasn't cut out, it would completely block the object being measured, making it impossible to take a reading.

The set of tools—triangle ruler, compass, ruler, and protractor—made Zhuang Xing feel a deep sense of familiarity.

He clenched his fist. It was the first time he had used his supernatural powers to do such delicate work, and surprisingly, it wasn't difficult at all. Looking at it this way, it seemed that there were still many areas where this supernatural power could be developed, and it wasn't just for killing enemies.

In short, he gave the entire set of tools to Xiao Moli. Xiao Moli was amazed to see how Zhuang Xing made them. She carefully put them away with both hands, wrapped them in silk cloth, and treated them as if they were priceless treasures.

In terms of craftsmanship alone, this is quite a treasure. Moreover, the person who crafted it is a renowned reincarnation of a lucky star. If Zhuang Xing were to act as a notary, this thing might actually fetch a good price.

But strip away this outer shell, and they are essentially just a set of not-so-complex drawing tools.

As the world's first set of tools to include a set square and a protractor, it is of great historical significance.