Yama Rising

“Press on!” Lin Han slapped his face and wiped his hands, “Come, let’s carry on. I’d feel like I’m letting the academy down if I fail to meet their expectations.”

“Yeah, this isn’t that urgent. Get a good rest first, and we’ll talk later. Otherwise, you’ll almost certainly face a mental block.”

As soon as they were done washing up, Wang Chenghao entered with a tin container in hand. He had been the one taking care of their food and drinks over the last few days, over and above his duties in poring through the data in the records room. The trio thanked him, before turning back to the sea of information that they were sailing right through.

As he progressed through the thesis, his thoughts became more and more streamlined, and the writing process naturally became smoother and smoother. The number of words that he managed to write each day also increased accordingly.

But if it were an important paper with far-reaching consequences, these would occupy the entire page. That said, this was generally rare, occurring approximately only once every quarter. Furthermore, most of these important papers would have been jointly published through the collaboration of several journals.

After investing so much into their research, they naturally wanted to see what level of results they would achieve.

This was what their efforts were all about!

Time passed by quickly, and it was soon twelve noon. And Qin Ye finished up the segment addressing his last premise right as the clock struck twelve.

“Awesome!!” Several moments later, Local Bully cried out with joy and abruptly shot to his feet like a mad dog, “Come! Let’s go for a barbeque! My treat!”

Qin Ye stared vacantly at his computer screen. His body felt completely drained of energy, and yet what was lost appeared to be replaced by a sense of fullness.

“I hate to say this, but the examples raised by Qin-Dog are exactly on point! One shot, one kill! They support the premises we’ve set out in the paper perfectly! There isn’t much else to say but awesome!”

Qin Ye massaged his temples and revealed a sincere, joyous smile, “You guys did a lot too.”

“Every good academic paper out there is backed by months, if not years of research and information gathering, before finally condensing all of that information into several thousand words. I’d been prepared to spend the next half a semester slogging away at the research paper when I first agreed to it, yet who would have expected…” He gazed deeply at Qin Ye, “The substantiating proof that you’ve picked out is so apt that I bet even Professor Tao wouldn’t be able to find a single loophole in it!”

Qin Ye smiled faintly. Arthis’ vast experience naturally meant that she surpassed every single academic out there in the mortal realm. They weren’t fighting on equal playing fields. He was standing on the shoulder of a giant. But, that said, this didn’t mean that he was plagiarizing everything from the old Hell. After all, Hell might not hold the same perspective on the matter as he did.

Qin Ye had started off by modelling his paper after others. Yet, as time went on, and as inspiration abounded, he began to internalize and modernize his theory of evolution of Yin spirits, giving a deeper perspective to his paper. This was by no means mere copying.

“Barbeque? You guys go ahead.” After deliberating for a moment, Qin Ye picked up his laptop and stood up, “I’ll tweak it for a little bit more, and I’ll keep you informed before I submit it for review.”

“You’re done?” Arthis asked without even looking at Qin Ye.

“There’s no need for thanks.” Arthis responded placidly, “You’re the future King Yanluo, and these are all part and parcel of the literature that should belong to your kingdom and domain in any event. So what reason is there to thank me for it? Aren’t you going to submit it right away?”

Arthis stopped typing on her keyboard, “Then, what are you planning to do? It’s not that I’m looking down on you, but given the breadth of your horizons right now, it’s already amazing that you can generate a piece of work like that.”

“Earlier, it was impractical to let him vet through every single paragraph I’d written. But now that I’m done with the first draft…”

Qin Ye nodded.

But he couldn’t delay any longer. He needed a buffer of approximately three weeks’ time from his submissions, to publication, and then to the time required for invitations to come pouring in. If he missed this window of opportunity, then the Obsidian Heaven’s Eye Bowl would be lost to him forever. To make matters worse, his Southsea Huanghuali golden trade route would have to wait till September. One was an esteemed general which he could entrust Hell’s forces to, while the other meant that Hell’s reconstruction efforts would finally take off. Qin Ye didn’t want to miss out on this prime opportunity!

He relaxed his thoughts, took a deep breath, and then began to murmur to himself.

He swiftly locked the door and hung up his ‘do not disturb’ sign. Then, he activated his shard of King Yanluo’s Seal and entered Hell once more.

“Lord Qin, you’re just in time.” Gu Qing was full of smiles, “I’ve recently completed a ground survey of Hell, and I’ve finally come up with a sketch map for our development works. Do you want to take a look…”

Gu Qing scrutinized its contents for the next twenty minutes, before finally pausing and sighing, “Is this very urgent?”

Gu Qing nodded, “The City of Salvation… Leaving that place is something so difficult that it practically borders on an impossibility. It would seem that this is your best bet right now.”

He turned his gaze to the swaying red leaves that filled every corner of Hell which dwarfed the handful of machines around. He grinned with excitement, “My Hell… will finally be able to soar in the skies.”

Qin Ye didn’t mind. He nodded, “There’s no harm in being blunt with me. To be honest, I don’t just want this paper to be published in Cultivators Weekly. I want them to dedicate a full page to its publication! The higher the quality of paper that is submitted, the more confident I would be of that!”

And if he didn’t get any invitations from those localities, then it wouldn’t help him one bit that he could leave the City of Salvation. Would he thicken his skin and insist on attending the academic forums in the coastal regions?

Gu Qing mulled over the use of language, “So here’s the thing. I wouldn’t be able to comment on the specific arguments and substantiating examples that you’ve cited. What I can comment on is the general direction and flow of the piece. Off the cuff, I can tell that the logical flow reads rather unnaturally at certain parts. There are some parts that seem rather ambiguous as well. It’s not that the arguments and substantiation aren’t rigorous enough, but the paper seems to give an impression that it lacks rigour.”

He considered for a moment, “There’s nothing wrong about the whole thing, but it just doesn’t leave a good impression. Do you understand what I mean?”

It was like a painting that had each and every element fantastically drawn, and yet the entire composite image still turned out somewhat unnatural and incohesive.

“How should we make changes, then?”

“Over the next five days, we’ll discuss it together and propel it to the highest standards we can.”