I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

Compared to the heated battle shouts in Sword Qi Gorge, the Talisman Pavilion was unusually quiet, with the air filled with the distinctive fishy smell of cinnabar and the burnt smell of burning yellow paper.

The students sitting here come from diverse backgrounds. There are recent college graduates, veterans, and imaginative teenagers. They are holding calligraphy brushes, frowning as they painstakingly copy the complex runes on the blackboard.

For most people, drawing talismans is like drawing a precise picture that cannot be wrong. You can't add or omit a single stroke. It relies on feel and rote memorization.

But in the third row of the classroom, by the window, there was one person who stood out.

His name is Zhang Ke, he is 35 years old, and before entering the university he was a P8 level technical architect at a major Internet company.

He possessed the industry's signature features—a slightly thinning head and thick-rimmed black glasses. At this moment, unlike the others who blindly copied, he was holding a pair of calipers…???

He gestured at the yellow paper on the table, his brows furrowed so deeply they could trap a fly.

"No...this is completely illogical."

Zhang Ke muttered to himself, his voice filled with suppressed anxiety.

"Zhang Ke, calm down."

On the platform, Elder Xuanji (a high-level Qi Refiner NPC generated by the system), who was in charge of the lecture, slowly opened his eyes.

"The art of talismans emphasizes sincerity; the energy flows from the brush. How can you comprehend the Way of Heaven by measuring with those mundane rulers?"

The surrounding classmates all turned to look, some snickering, others feeling sorry for him. Zhang Ke had already burned twenty talismans in the past few days, and was known as a "talisman black hole".

"Elder, it's not that I don't want to calm my mind."

Zhang Ke stood up, adjusted his glasses, and pointed to the beginner-level [Basic Fireball Talisman] on the blackboard.

"I really can't understand this logic."

He pointed to a complex spiral pattern in the middle of the rune, his tone as serious as if he were conducting a technical review.

"Elder, what is the purpose of these three 'wind patterns'? If it's to increase the input of spiritual energy, then straight-line transmission should have the least loss; if it's to change attributes, the previous 'starting stance' has already completed the fire attribute conversion. These three curves, apart from increasing the difficulty of drawing them and delaying the transmission of spiritual energy, I see no practical significance."

Elder Xuanji paused slightly as he stroked his beard, and said calmly, "This is a rule passed down from our ancestor. These three lines represent the 'meaning of Samadhi.' Although they have no practical effect, they are a sign of reverence for the God of Fire. If one line is missing, the talisman's core will be unstable, and it will explode."

"So it's... a decoration?"

Zhang Ke's lips twitched.

As an architect who has been battling "mountains of shit code" for ten years, what he finds most intolerable is this kind of mystical logic: "Although I don't know why, this line of code cannot be deleted or the program will crash."

"Reverence for the God of Fire?"

Zhang Ke looked at the talisman, and the light in his eyes changed.

"No, in my opinion, this is clearly a mistake made by some talisman master thousands of years ago, or a mistake made to complete the stroke count, which is why later generations dared not correct it, resulting in a 'technical debt' passed down from generation to generation."

"presumptuous!"

A young student nearby couldn't help but say, "Brother Zhang, you're getting a bit too nitpicky. Just copy the drawing and see if it works, isn't that enough?"

"It works, but it's extremely inefficient!"

Zhang Ke's stubbornness kicked in. What he hated most in his life was inefficiency and redundancy.

"Elder, I'd like to give it a try."

Zhang Ke took a deep breath, pulled a carbon pen from his pocket (that's right, he didn't even want to use a brush), and drew a cross coordinate on the yellow paper.

"What do you want to do?" Elder Xuanji frowned slightly.

"Reconstruction".

Zhang Ke uttered two words, his eyes becoming extremely sharp.

Amidst the puzzled looks of the others, Zhang Ke began to write.

He didn't perform the work smoothly and effortlessly like a traditional talisman master.

He looked like he was drawing a circuit diagram.

"The header is 'input interface', reserved."

"The talisman is the 'core of logic processing,' but these three spirals are invalid loops; delete them!"

"The tail of the rune is the 'output port,' and the strokes here are too scattered, which easily leads to energy leakage and blockage!"

Zhang Ke muttered incomprehensible technical terms as he drew lines on the yellow paper.

The fancy cloud patterns, spirals, and decorative strokes have been removed.

He forcibly reduced the original complex "fireball talisman" by nearly 40%.

The remaining graphics are simple, rigid, and full of the geometric beauty of industrial design.

"This is insane! Is this what you call a talisman?" The classmate next to him was dumbfounded. "If this could light up, I'd eat the table."

Zhang Ke ignored it.

He finished the last stroke, his forehead covered in sweat. Although there were fewer strokes, each one required extremely precise mental guidance, which was more tiring than typing ten thousand lines of code.

"run."

Zhang Ke let out a low shout, pressed his finger on the talisman, and infused it with his meager spiritual power.

Om-!

No preheating, no flickering.

The yellow paper on the table burned to ashes in an instant.

Immediately afterwards, a blinding red light illuminated the entire Talisman Pavilion.

boom!!!

It wasn't one of those light, floating fireballs.

A pillar of fire, like a compressed air cannon, roared out from the table and slammed directly into the testing stone wall at the back of the classroom.

With a loud bang, debris flew everywhere and dust billowed.

When the smoke cleared, everyone was stunned.

On the Qinggang stone wall that was strong enough to withstand the attack of the third level of Qi Refining, a charred pit appeared, with traces of high-temperature melting still remaining around it.

"this……"

Elder Xuanji suddenly stood up, so startled that he didn't even realize he had torn off a few strands of his beard.

As a system-generated master, his database clearly shows the power of the standard fireball talisman—it's definitely not that great, nor that fast!

The entire class fell silent.

The classmate who had threatened to eat the table was now staring wide-eyed, as if his jaw had dislocated.

Zhang Ke looked at the large pit, pushed up his glasses, and revealed a tired but satisfied smile.

"The logic makes sense now."

"By eliminating redundant steps, the resistance to spiritual energy transmission has been reduced by about 50%, and the activation speed has been increased by 30%."

"This is... the Fireball Rune v2.0 optimized version."

……

[Outside the door - Corridor]

Gu Qing stood outside the door, quietly watching this scene through the window.

He didn't go in to disturb them, but nodded silently.

This is the effect he wants from recruiting talents from all walks of life.

If Kunlun only recruits a group of disciples who know how to kowtow and become disciples, and who follow the old ways, then Kunlun will forever remain a second-rate sect.

What he needs is a collision.

It is using modern people's thinking and logic to brutally "rape" this ancient and rigid cultivation system.

"very good."

Gu Qing gave the system a command in his mind:

"Give Zhang Ke a commendation. Also, grant him advanced access to the Talisman Pavilion."

Looking at the figure in the classroom with a slightly high hairline and a fanatical gaze, he had already set the tone for the future of the talisman department in his mind.

In this world, there may be someone whose swordsmanship is divine, capable of breaking through all laws with a single strike.

But someone like Zhang Ke will tell everyone:

As long as the logic is rigorous enough and the algorithm is excellent enough.

Even the most basic fireball talisman, I can optimize for you into a missile.

Inside the classroom, Zhang Ke had already turned around, looking at the dumbfounded students behind him, and picked up the ruler in his hand:

"Everyone, stop memorizing that outdated textbook."

"Next, we'll scrap all this 'antique code' and start from scratch."