Cultivation Depends on Math and Science: I Prove the Dao with Chemistry

My name is Lin Yuan, a chemical engineer who transmigrated into the apocalypse of a world of immortal cultivation. I thought I’d come here to cultivate immortality, but it turns out I’m here to “cultivate immortality on a 996 schedule.” And the worst part is, I’ve discovered that I and a hundred thousand outer-sect laborers are nothing but expendable “materials” and “sacrifices” in the powerful higher-ups’ “Heaven-Mending Project.” My direct supervisor uses KPIs as a death warrant, while my fellow disciples see me as a thorn in their side. In the wake of the turbid-energy tides, the living are food, the dead become corpse puppets, and despair is the only rule in this world. Everyone thinks I’m as good as dead. But they don’t know that, in my eyes: An alchemy furnace isn’t a magic treasure, it’s a pressure reactor! An Explosive Flame Talisman isn’t a talisman, it’s the art of TNT! The supposedly invulnerable bodies of body cultivators are no match for the chemical reaction that makes sodium and potassium explode on contact with water! They cultivate immortality and seek the Dao. I use science to prove the Dao! They refine pills and forge artifacts. I set up assembly-line production! When a crude acetylene blowtorch burns through a Golden Core corpse puppet’s defenses, and an explosion of mixed hydrogen and oxygen flips over an ancient furnace, I’ll show them what it really means when they say: knowledge is power! This time, I’m going to turn the entire Tiangong City into a gigantic chemical plant unlike anything the world has ever seen, and use the Ostwald process to refine this high-and-mighty piece of crap they call the Heavenly Dao!