"No, the natural world has a law of survival of the fittest. Human fishing of tuna, to a certain extent, also follows this law. You won't see a school of fish and catch them all by any means necessary. Of course, humans don't have that capability yet. Therefore, the tuna that are caught and brought to human dinner tables are actually the weaker members of the entire tuna population, and their taste is naturally incomparable to those tuna that escape human capture!"
I nodded thoughtfully. "And dolphins are higher up in the marine food chain than tuna. They can selectively hunt tuna, and their hunting methods are more sophisticated than humans', allowing them to hunt the most delicious tuna."
"Especially dolphin demons," Chu Qi added. "Their individual strength alone can crush human marine technology."
In simple terms, if you're powerful, you get the best. Humans have little choice when it comes to deep-sea seafood, and their choices for farmed land animals aren't much better. With such a large human population, ordinary people can't freely choose the grade of their food. The things that are farmed are often inferior to wild ones, and consumers can only buy what merchants sell.
Over the past few thousand years, the only thing humans have successfully domesticated and achieved the ability to freely choose its grade seems to be "rice," which has surpassed its natural state.
This illustrates that despite being the masters of Earth, humanity's strength in the face of nature is still very insignificant.
I continued to ponder this issue, casually chatting with Chu Qi for a while longer. Eventually, the conversation turned to martial arts. Chu Qi, as if seeing through my thoughts, guided the topic back to the relationship between humans and nature.
"The most powerful martial force is not about humans developing their bodies to the extreme. Therefore, my upper limit as a pure martial artist is actually very low."
Chu Qi's statement contained some self-deprecation, but she was indeed at the peak of human potential.
"What about higher levels?" Chen Ke asked curiously.
Chu Qi pointed to the sky. "Of course, it's nature. Primitive humans became the kings of beasts because they learned to utilize various elements in nature."
"Ah, I understand this," Chen Ke snapped his fingers. "Primitive humans used the element of fire, ate cooked food, and drove away wild beasts. They used the element of wood to make clubs as weapons, began to cultivate, and used the element of earth to build houses and forge stone knives and spears, entering the Stone Age. Later, they mastered the element of metal, forged bronze tools, and began to use plows for large-scale farming and to create more advanced metal weapons..."
"You seem to be missing one," I said.
"What?" Chen Ke counted on his fingers. "Ah, the five elements, water is missing."
"Water is everywhere, and human bodies are seventy percent water, so water is the foundational element," Chu Qi said. "The history of human mastery of the five elements is the history of human civilization."
That makes sense!
"Therefore, the five elements are not some feudal superstition, but another expression of 'science,' or even a more advanced way of understanding the world," Chu Qi continued. "What you Qi practitioners practice, the different qi colors you can see – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – are actually the result of various elements within the human body fusing and enhancing, forming true qi. So, what you see is the reflection of true qi in physiognomy."
"What about the five element spells?" I asked again.
Chu Qi gave a thumbs-up. "That's the most powerful thing. It's about extracting the true qi cultivated within the body to control all things in nature!"
"Born from nature, transcending nature," I nodded.
"Exactly. That's the principle. So, even though Yao Yao and I can hold our own in hand-to-hand combat, if she uses five element techniques, I can't resist. And as far as I know, Nong Yue of the Mohe Group is also an expert in this area."
"Yes," I said. "I've seen it with my own eyes."
Thinking back now, Nong Yue's "Buddha's Palm" was probably an infinitely amplified version of my "qi projectile." She could condense something in the air... I can't calculate it precisely, but it shouldn't be as big as a village. It doesn't need to be. It only needs to condense into a massive sphere, like a giant balloon filled with water. As long as this balloon hits the ground and ruptures, the water inside can flood an area the size of an entire village to achieve the effect of "Buddha's Palm." The water depth might only need to be a few centimeters.
Going back to that, Nong Yue's qi projectile probably had a radius of only a few meters.