Artifact Spirit? The moment Qu Jianlei heard the term, he froze. How had he forgotten about that possibility?
Artifact Spirits did exist in the cultivation system. He had simply been focused on Digital Lifeforms before and overlooked this possibility.
But Xiao Hu was different. It did not yet have an obvious independent personality and was more akin to artificial intelligence.
Whenever it encountered something it did not understand, it would automatically search through big data and match it with the most logical result.
Artifact Spirit... Qu Jianlei began seriously considering the possibility.
Unfortunately, he had never seen an Artifact Spirit himself and lacked the ability to make an accurate judgment.
Still, that did not matter. He could first assume the other party was not an Artifact Spirit, although making an idiot prove its innocence did feel a little... wrong.
"The place you're inhabiting isn't where you were born... and I paid money to buy this thing!"
The other party's response was still halting. "No, where I was born... you, how can you say that?"
"I've always, always been here, ever since I could remember... since I first had memories."
"I'm not arguing about that with you!" Qu Jianlei stated bluntly. "I paid for it. Did you?"
"Paid, paid money?" The other party was clearly somewhat stunned. "What's that?"
But immediately afterward, its emotions turned agitated. "Get out! This is my territory!"
Was it repeating itself again? Qu Jianlei thought for a moment and decided to teach it a small lesson first.
His spiritual sense condensed again, using roughly thirty percent of its strength as he lightly rammed that clump of consciousness.
Yet even with that little force, the clump of consciousness was smashed apart and scattered.
One had to know that this was only a thread of the spiritual sense