Daily Evolution from Mastering Tai Chi-Chapter 249 - 220: Steel Bones (Part 2)

"You're overthinking it. I'm just an average extreme sports athlete and guide. Moreover, hiring assassins to attack doesn't require me to act; someone else is already handling it," Carlos said, gazing pensively into the distance.

At these words,

the surrounding team members immediately exchanged confused glances, showing perplexity.

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While the discussion continued over there, Wang Ye had already found a relatively open spot in the jungle.

This location is only half a kilometer away from Swallow Cave, making flight training somewhat dangerous, as he could easily fall into the cave at any moment.

However, due to many days of rainfall, this forest had too much accumulated water, with many low-lying areas even submerged, forming small lakes. This part of the jungle had relatively less water accumulation, as most of the rainwater had transformed into rivers and waterfalls, flowing toward Swallow Cave.

Standing in the center of the open area, Wang Ye took a deep breath,

slowly controlling his Qi, attempting to lift his body upwards.

Whoosh—

The air around him began to vibrate gradually, emitting a buzzing sound, akin to the moment before a rocket's fuel ignites for liftoff, causing the surrounding ground and air to tremble wildly from the vigorous thrust.

In the next instant, Wang Ye's legs began to lift off the ground, floating more than two meters high.

His expression gradually shifted from solemn to ecstatic,

"Great, I'm floating up! I didn't expect that using just fifty percent of my strength would allow me to easily hover!"

Before upgrading to the [Flying] Skill, Wang Ye's full effort in Qi Control could only make him briefly hover a few centimeters above the ground, less practical than jumping.

The sensation of easily floating in the air was very peculiar; he felt as if he had transformed into a weightless gas, autonomously floating in midair, and even a gentle breeze could blow him away.

Once he floated over three meters high, Wang Ye attempted to ease his strength slightly, aiming to stabilize himself at a fixed altitude.

Whether for flying devices or creatures, maintaining a hovering state requires equalizing buoyancy with body weight, effectively reducing body weight to near zero. Creatures like dragonflies and hummingbirds achieve hovering mostly through wing movement characteristics, creating high pressure above and low pressure below, utilizing pressure differences to balance lift and gravity.

This hovering ability is ingrained in their genes as an inherent racial trait, allowing creatures like hummingbirds and dragonflies to hover effortlessly without deliberate learning, whereas larger bird species struggle to truly hover, relying instead on wide wings for temporary gliding.

Wang Ye had no wings or inherent racial traits; he could only rely on precise adjustments to his Qi direction for control.

If he applied too much force, he might suddenly shoot into the sky.

If he applied too little force, maintaining a hover would be difficult.

This skill required certain technical and experiential proficiency.

Despite several attempts, Wang Ye either exerted too much or too little force. He felt like a toddler learning to walk, finding smooth movement challenging, forced to crawl at first. As shown on the skill panel, his flying seemed stuck at a novice level.

Thud!!!

Wang Ye suddenly flew off course, crashing into a tree trunk and hitting the ground.

The trunk, roughly the width of a bowl, snapped directly from his impact, toppling down.

Sitting on the ground, rubbing his aching head, Wang Ye muttered, "Too much force again..."

It wasn't entirely his fault; the elusive nature of Innate Qi made fine-tuning extremely difficult. If compared to a voice-controlled game where pitch affects movement, most people manage only coarse control without finesse. Wang Ye was currently at this coarse technical level, prone to mistakes in force application.

Yet Wang Ye remained undaunted; he differed from ordinary people, having system assistance.

Thus, by endlessly training, he would inevitably grasp the correct flying method.

Continuing his training for another two hours in this area, given his immature technique, Wang Ye maintained a flight height of around three meters to prevent losing control and falling into Swallow Cave.

The consequence was the surrounding trunks in the open area were nearly all smashed apart, some even reduced to wood chips.

Covered in dirt, Wang Ye stood amidst the open space,

observed the chaotic forest he had crashed into, and couldn't help but marvel:

"Are my bones... really this hard now?"

Even high-density steel alloys should deform under such violent crashes.

Yet Wang Ye's bones showed no damage. There wasn't even the faintest microfracture; Muay Thai practitioners deliberately caused microfractures to strengthen their shinbones during training.

Wang Ye couldn't help but suspect,

after his dietary capacity regressed, his body's composition might have subtly changed.

For instance, animals have two common skeletal forms: many arthropods possess hard exoskeletons mainly composed of calcium carbonate;

whereas humans and other vertebrates have endoskeletons, primarily composed of calcium phosphate, more precisely hydroxyapatite.

No matter which skeletal form animals adopt, calcium is the key material.

Actually, during evolution, organisms could theoretically replace calcium in skeletons with elements like iron or aluminum. Today, humans can substitute bones with titanium alloy, which offers better parameters; its stress is 1.3 times higher and its strength 5 times greater than equivalent weight bones.

Biological creatures chose calcium as the skeletal element because it's the lightest, strongest in tension, most resilient, and easily replenished element in nature. Experiments showed that dissolving all calcium in bones rendered them a floppy flesh strip. Compare human bones to a skyscraper, calcium phosphate salts represent the reinforced concrete incrementally constructing sturdy bones.

Research indicates iron's oxidation-reduction activation energy is similar to ATP energy needed for producing hydroxyapatite in the body, yet forming a complete iron skeleton like hydroxyapatite structure would weigh 3 to 5 times more, tremendously impeding life activity.

Therefore, calcium is indeed the most suitable element for biological skeletons.

Choosing calcium for the skeletal material enabled humans to have tough yet light bodies.

However, all this relies on replenishing nutrients through food intake.

Now, Wang Ye has forsaken eating entirely, absorbing Sun radiation for energy, under which he needs little additional supplementation of nutrients for ultimate health.

Consequently, Wang Ye actually possesses conditions for replacing skeletal material, in short, he could replace his bones with substances other than calcium, like steel, carbon fiber, titanium alloy, or even minerals like diamond and adamantite.

Yet such evolution requires system assistance plus natural bodily selection.

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