Zǔ Zhòu's quarters transformed into a research facility that would have made the most depraved demonic cultivator queasy.
By noon, he'd had Hong quietly deliver twelve servants to his chambers—the lazy, the slow, the ones who wouldn't be immediately missed. They knelt in a row against the far wall, bound and gagged, eyes wide with terror that ripened with each passing hour.
"Subject One," he announced to the empty air, dragging a middle-aged man forward. "Let's test if spiritual energy circulation follows the Three Palace Method or the Nine Heavens Framework."
The servant—a gardener by trade, his memories supplied—tried to speak through the gag. Probably begging. They usually were.
Zǔ Zhòu placed his palms on the man's chest and back, directly over major meridian junctions. In his previous reality, channeling qi through another's body in this configuration would create a feedback loop. The question was whether this universe's laws would respond identically.
He pushed qi through his palms. The gardener convulsed.
"Interesting. The spiritual resistance is 3.7% higher than expected." He adjusted the flow, noting how the energy moved through unfamiliar pathways. "The Governing Vessel meridian curves slightly left instead of maintaining true vertical alignment. Minor variation, but exploitable."
The gardener's eyes rolled back. Foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. Zǔ Zhòu maintained the flow for exactly forty-three seconds before stopping. The man collapsed, breathing but unconscious.
"Subject One results: Universe follows modified Three Palace Method. Notation—meridian deviation allows for 4% increased energy absorption if flow pattern adjusted counterclockwise."
He dragged the unconscious gardener aside and selected Subject Two—a kitchen maid who'd served the morning's spoiled tea.
"Now, let's examine soul-body adhesion constants."
The maid whimpered as he pressed a finger to her forehead, directly on the Baihui acupoint. In theory, a Body Tempering cultivator shouldn't be able to affect another's soul. But theory assumed you didn't know the seventeen secret pressure combinations that weakened spiritual defenses.
His finger traced a complex pattern across her skull—points that shouldn't matter to anyone who hadn't spent millennia studying soul manipulation. The maid's whimpers turned to screams muffled by cloth as her soul began to loosen from its moorings.
"Adhesion coefficient of 0.94," he noted, feeling the soul's resistance. "Previous reality was 0.92. This universe holds souls slightly tighter. Compensation requires 8% additional force or..." He shifted the pattern slightly. "Ah, there we go. Attack vector seventeen-B bypasses the increased adhesion entirely."
The maid's soul flickered visibly—a faint blue shimmer around her body. Not separated, just loosened. Like a tooth wiggling in its socket.
"Subject Two results: Soul manipulation laws 97% identical. Minor variations in defensive parameters. Seventeen-B pattern confirmed as universal exploit."
He released her, and she crumpled beside the gardener. Still alive. Still useful for later tests.
Subject Three was selected for energy conversion efficiency testing. Subject Four for elemental affinity mapping. Five through Eight became a comprehensive study on pain transmission through spiritual channels.
With each test, Zǔ Zhòu's understanding crystallized. This universe's laws were nearly identical to his previous one—close enough that his vast knowledge remained applicable, different enough to provide amusing challenges.
"Subject Nine," he announced, pulling forward a young stable hand. "Causal loop formation test."
This was delicate work. He needed to create a localized temporal distortion—something that should be impossible before Void Refinement. But he knew the shortcuts, the places where reality's code had comments saying "TODO: fix this later" that never got addressed.
He carved symbols into the boy's flesh with precise qi manipulation. Not deep—he needed the subject conscious. Each symbol represented a fundamental concept: Past, Present, Future, Choice, Consequence. In the spaces between the symbols, he wrote equations in blood that described the relationship between cause and effect.
"Variable X equals temporal flow constant," he muttered, adding another symbol. "Variable Y equals causal resistance. If X over Y exceeds threshold..."
The stable hand screamed as the symbols began to glow. For three seconds, the boy experienced his next hour simultaneously—every possible future branching from this moment, all happening at once.
"Success!" Zǔ Zhòu clapped his hands in delight as the boy's mind shattered from temporal overload. "Causal laws confirmed identical. Temporal manipulation requires same exploit framework. Note—this reality's time stream is actually 0.3% more vulnerable to paradox insertion."
By the time he reached Subject Twelve, his room resembled a macabre art gallery. One wall held his "testing chart"—careful diagrams drawn in various bodily fluids, each describing a fundamental law and its variations. Servant parts were pinned at key points, demonstrating physical manifestations of spiritual principles.
The spleen, for instance, demonstrated energy storage capacity. The eyes showed light-element interaction rates. The fingers, arranged in careful patterns, mapped the relationship between willpower and qi circulation.
"Magnificent," Zǔ Zhòu breathed, stepping back to admire his work. "Laws confirmed at 98.2% similarity. The 1.8% variation is primarily in defensive structures—this reality is actually more vulnerable to exploitation, not less."
A knock interrupted his appreciation. "Young Master? Your father requests your presence for afternoon training."
Training. How quaint.
"Tell my father I'm indisposed," he called back. "Severe cultivation deviation. I'll need three days of seclusion to stabilize."
Footsteps retreated hastily. Cultivation deviation was serious business—no one would risk disturbing him if internal energies were unstable.
He turned back to his test subjects. Four were dead, their bodies providing useful data about spiritual energy dissolution rates. Three were catatonic, their minds broken but bodies intact. Five were conscious but changed—their eyes held the particular glaze of those who'd experienced impossible things.
"Congratulations," he told the survivors. "You've contributed to science. Your suffering has confirmed that I retain full access to fifty thousand years of cultivation knowledge, with only minor adjustments needed for local conditions."
He began the cleanup process, which mostly involved having the conscious survivors dispose of the dead ones. The room's blood-drawn diagrams would stay—he'd claim they were advanced cultivation theorems if anyone asked. Which they wouldn't, because Liu Wei had always been strange.
As the survivors worked, Zǔ Zhòu compiled his findings mentally:
Primary Laws: 98.2% identical Spatial Constants: 99.1% match Temporal Vulnerabilities: Actually higher than baseline Soul Binding: Slightly stronger but same exploits function Elemental Affinities: Identical interaction matrices Causal Relationships: Standard paradox weaknesses present Energy Conversion: 3.7% resistance increase, easily compensated
Most importantly, every single loophole he'd discovered over millennia remained functional. Every shortcut, every exploit, every place where reality's architects had been lazy—all still accessible.
"This universe," he said to the maid as she dragged a corpse past, "is like a lock that changed one pin while leaving the other ninety-nine identical. It thinks it's secured itself against me."
He laughed, and the sound made the windows rattle despite the clear day outside.
"It's adorable when prey thinks it's predator."
The cleanup finished, he dismissed the survivors with careful instructions. They were to report the missing servants as deserters—took their wages and fled in the night. Common enough occurrence. No one would investigate too thoroughly.
Alone again, he sat in lotus position and began processing the data properly. Each variation needed to be catalogued, compensations calculated, new formulae derived. It would take the full three days he'd claimed for seclusion.
But when he emerged, he would have completely mapped the differences between realities. His vast knowledge wouldn't just be theoretical—it would be precisely calibrated for this universe's specific laws.
The Heavenly Dao had caged a monster without understanding that the monster had written the user manual for reality itself.
And now he knew exactly which pages had been revised in the new edition.