Chapter 926: Shower Nirvana
“So you’re certain this shower of yours…works?”
“I mean…probably. Again, I don’t have channels to test with.”
“Right.”
At this exact moment, when Patriarch Zhen Shi and Zhen Liu were about to discuss who amongst the family was going to test out this weird shower contraption, a volunteer appeared before them.
“Hello, father. Nephew.”
“Greetings, Second Uncle.”
“Xiao Hou, great timing! We need your help in testing something.”
“Huh?”
To be more specific, the Second Elder of the Zhen Clan, who was just passing by to say “hi”, had become their volunteer.
After a quick exchange of pleasantries, and an explanation of what this contraption was supposed to do exactly, the Second Elder of the Zhen Clan had been shanghaied into taking what Zhen Liu could only guess was Valresta’s first artificial shower.
There was probably a culture or group who took showers using waterfalls or something, but that was neither here nor there for the time being.
Right now, Zhen Liu’s bear of an uncle was currently standing half naked underneath a showerhead that had never been tested.
“Uh…I know I agreed to do this,” Zhen Hou said while staring up at the showerhead. It originally didn’t look that intimidating from the outside looking in, but now that he was right beneath it, he couldn’t help but to be a little fearful. “But could you explain to me exactly how this is supposed to help with my cultivation?”
“Oh, simple really it’s just-”
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*Bing-Bong*
We interrupt this chapter because it has come to the writer’s attention that it would perhaps be better to explain what Zhen Liu, Logos and Pathos did exactly as opposed to having it vaguely mentioned and hand waved through the narrative.
The following is a crude explanation of this shower’s invention, via a step by step plan.
…
Working with the kaijin, and borrowing a forge, make a series of pipes, valves and a shower head out of gold…since mundane gold is weirdly common in this world, and gold is known to purify water. Dig an underground reservoir or use one of the underground lake caves, once established, set-up an aether array known as the [Pooling Spirit Array] at the bottom. Place the [Giant Tempering Spirit Amber Pearl] at the center of the array and set up the [Oasis Teapot] in such a way that its pour speed can be controlled via a lever on the surface. After having a complete history of plumbing downloaded into the brain, set up pipes, valve and shower head so that one can tap into the underground aether infused reservoir and take a shower with it. Realize that a bare pipe shower is ugly as fuck and probably not good for long-term sanitation, hastily set up stone block casing.
5.5. Realize that a secondary treatment tank is needed to sanitize and filter the dirty post-shower water, so quickly dig that and re-rig the [Oasis Teapot] so that the heat it produces sanitizes the tank.
See if the damn thing works. ??? Profit?
…
We now return to your regularly scheduled…wait a minute…did you just -?!
|I regret nothing.|
You fossil…
*Bing-Bong*
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“…and ideally, that aether infused water will come out of the shower head and you’ll be able to absorb it. Any unabsorbed aether will simply flow back with the water, into a secondary tank that will be treated and then back into the original reservoir,” Zhen Liu explained, realizing that he sounded like a rambling mess about half way through an explanation that even he couldn’t fully comprehend.
As a result of this ranting, both Patriarch Zhen Shi and Second Elder Zhen Hou just looked at the Fourth Scion with a mildly concerned expression.
There was a rumor floating amongst families that having someone spend all of their day doing nothing but reading books was detrimental to one’s social skills, despite boosting one’s general knowledge.
A part of them wanted to intervene, but the man somehow earned the hearts of several beautiful young women in a baffling short amount of time that led to an argument over engagements and family ordering, so they decided to just…leave it.
…
“Huh…why do I get the distinct feeling that we just got passed the buck to something?”
“I don’t know, I’m more confused over how Rianna here is beating us at mahjong after we just taught her how to play!”
“I don’t know either, but I think this is called a ‘purity hand’, right?”
“Son of a bitch!”
…
Regardless, now that it had reached this point anyways, Zhen Hou figured he might as well just take breath and roll with it.
“Alright…so I just turn this valve?”
“Pull that lever, wait ten seconds and then turn that valve.”
“Right.”
Following Zhen Liu’s rather simple instructions, Zhen Hou proceeded to pull the lever and cause a chain reaction of mechanical events that were unseen to him.
To briefly describe what was happened after he pulled the lever, he simply caused a mechanism to tip over the [Oasis Teapot] so that the endless boiling water from inside of it would pour directly into the reservoir containing both the [Giant Tempering Spirit Amber Pearl] and the [Pooling Spirit Array].
This stimulated both the aforementioned pearl and array, causing the water in the reservoir to take on the more energetic properties of the [Giant Tempering Spirit Pearl], while the increase in water level allowed the liquid to enter the pipes and build up pressure.
“Alright…here goes…”
Once ten seconds had passed Zhen Hou twisted the valve, expecting the worst.
Pssshhh
“It works!”
“Huh? Oh…that’s actually kind of nice.”
Only to be pleasantly surprised by the rain of warm water falling down on him from above.
While Zhen Hou let out an internal sigh of relief that this shower contraption didn’t cause him to explode or dump scalding hot water on top of his head, Patriarch Zhen Shi was more or less flabbergasted.
With how dense Zhen Liu’s explanation was in regards to this shower contraption, he assumed that there would be a bit more shock and awe involved.
Instead, it looked more or less like getting caught in a pleasant summer shower.
Granted, he wasn’t the inventor of this device so he couldn’t really complain. He could, however, ask its inventor what the big deal was.
“Alright, now that I see how it works…I’m still confused. How is this a better way to make use of the [Giant Tempering Spirit Amber Pearl]? Couldn’t we have achieved similar results with a perforated barrel?”
“You’d think that, but no. Also, it’ll be easier to demonstrate than it is to explain,” Zhen Liu told his grandfather before redirecting his focus to his uncle. “Second Uncle, your skin should probably be feeling a tingling sensation beyond the hot water. Can you confirm that?”
“Uh…yeah, I think so,” Zhen Hou agreed while sensing the aether in the water…before getting distracted. “Hey, what’s this dial on this…shower head?”
“That’s the output setting, you can mess with that later. For the time being, can you try and absorb the aether that’s flowing over you right now?”
“Uh…sure?”
Under the assumption that this worked similarly to the [Tempering Spirit Pond], Zhen Hou focused on absorbing the aether from the water droplets on his skin.
“Alright let’s see…what the fuck?”
“Is something wrong, Xiao Hou?”
“No…if anything, this seems to be more effective than the pond. Not sure how though…”
“Wait, what?”
“Allow me to explain,” Zhen Liu began to explain, again, for the sake of his grandfather and uncle.
The long and short of it was simply a matter of dilution and breakdown.
Turns out, [Giant Tempering Spirit Amber Pearls] and their smaller relatives, are able to slowly diffuse their energies into mundane pools of water as opposed to rapidly diffusing into the atmosphere.
This diffusion makes it so that most mortal cultivators are able to absorb the energy of the pearls without worrying about it going to waste.
On that note, historical documents revealed that this dilution rate is based on the temperature and purity of the water used, with boiled being the best medium to extract the energy from the pearls.
However, having someone sit in a boiling vat of water could best be described as…inhumane.
However, by having the hot water dispersed into much more manageable droplets, like in a shower, makes it significantly more bearable in the cultivator.
On top of that, having the aether concentrated into droplets as opposed to a giant pool makes it much easier for the cultivator to digest the gains.
To put in perspective, this was the equivalent of drinking a carton of juice one cup at a time as opposed to chugging it all at once.
With this perspective in mind, Zhen Shi now had one more question left.
“So…if this shower method makes it so that the entire clan can benefit from the [Giant Tempering Spirit Amber Pearl]…how long until it runs out?”
“Uh….a thousand years, give or take?,” Zhen Liu repeated from what Logos and Pathos told him. “On the plus side, all of our Aether Masters just got a qualitative boost.”
At this moment, Zhen Shi looked at his grandson with a numb expression. ‘How is a thousand year warranty a bad thing?’
