Chapter 67: Heating Seal
"What’s six less than sixty-four?"
With one glance at the pebble matrix, Anji immediately knew the answer.
"Fifty-eight!"
Nodding with satisfaction, Yan Ping told Anji to remember how the pebble counter worked and use it whenever she needed to check her calculations.
"If you practice enough, you’ll eventually be able to use only your fingers or the abacus to get the correct numbers. Now that we have solved one of the biggest problems, it’s finally time to understand the heating seal element."
Moving to the concept of measuring energy in breaths, Yan Ping explained how the measurement of qi isn’t constant. Depending on the cultivation level, one breath of qi could light a candle or set a house on fire. Hence, limiter and differentiator runes were introduced. They followed a mathematical formula, calculating an unknown factor.
"In short, the limiter caps the energy required that could be temporarily stored in a rune. The excess will be dispersed back into the environment. Differentiator runes are used to calculate the intensity of a function. It can sometimes be used to calculate the time needed to disperse stored energy in a rune fully. The function of a differentiator rune is very diverse."
Using the heating seal as an example, Yan Ping explained how the different runes were combined to form a boiling and heating spell. After charging the teapot with qi, the water would boil, and the remaining energy left in the teapot would slowly be used to keep the tea inside at a constant temperature so it would last longer than usual. Such an invention was useful for cold winters.
The heating seal was only one such combination of differentiators and limiters that could be applied. Yan Ping told Anji about the other examples they had in the sect. There was a self-refilling water basin that automatically refills the water used from it as long as someone charged it with qi every twelve hours. It had a massive energy storage chain of runes that allowed such a long storage period. However, the downside was that they could only make one such water basin. The material of the rune mattered.