The Birth of Spiritual Qi

"One."

"Two."

"I'm getting more and more proficient."

Zhu Zhengwei followed the same pattern and grew increasingly skilled.

He needed real-world anchors—things people were familiar with, things that lowered their guard—so it would be easier to pull them into dreams.

In the end, he fixed the anchor gate that lured him into dreams as the "Game Login Screen," pulling people in as NPCs to mine and provide computing power for the Dream Realm Local Area Network.

Zhujing Village.

"Above heaven and below earth, I alone am supreme."

Inside the house, Zhu Zhengwei's Parents muttered those words as they looked at the infant sitting cross-legged atop the Kitchen God Altar, their reverence growing ever deeper.

"Immortal, what business do you have with us husband and wife?" they asked softly and cautiously.

"Carry me outside so I can take a look."

That day, Zhu Zhengwei spoke.

Soon, Zhu Zhengwei was carried on his mother's back.

Lush green trees surrounded them, and the sky was azure blue—a scene of beautiful mountains and clear waters.

"Mm, not bad. The village beyond the family has been fully manifested. The countryside, the fields, the neighbors—this is Zhujing Village more than twenty years ago."

Zhu Zhengwei had looked up photographs of the mountain village of Zhujing Village from the 1990s.

Though they were black-and-white photographs, they were exactly the same.

This is my realm!

"Those newly born NPC infants have filled out the rural households of Zhujing Village."

Glancing at the homes they passed, Zhu Zhengwei lay on his mother's back and thought:

"They, too, have returned to the depths of their root genes through my power, back to their childhoods, to the Novice Village where they were born."

"But for now, they have not pried open the 'Root Forbidden Gate' as I have, so they cannot feed back into their real bodies. Since this is my dream, I can do as I please. Even after they wake up, they will not remember what happened in my dream."

After one look, Zhu Zhengwei stopped paying attention to them.

For now, they were merely miners, NPCs, excavating the world map for him.

"This world is my territory!!"

Soon, Zhu Zhengwei attended class as usual during the day, then slept at night and entered the "Campus Network" to grind his Initial Account.

He discovered that one night's sleep equaled three years in the Dream World.

Though it could not compare to the eighty years of a Yellow Millet Dream, three years in a single dream was still a long time.

Of course, the dreams he woke from the next day were not especially clear. It felt as though another "self" existed in that time and space, always carrying a sense of unreality.

It was like leaving a game running idle. After waking up, his mind would be filled with the life progression of the character he had just played, like a Life Simulator.

The first night of idling in the dream: three years old.

Zhu Zhengwei exercised his body every day, enduring the dull monotony.

Because of Zhu Zhengwei's involvement, his parents felt hopeful about the future and had another son, a rare healthy baby.

His simple-minded eldest brother was named Zhang Song, while the newly born third brother was named Zhang Zhi.

If he acknowledged his ancestry and returned to his clan, he should change his surname to Zhang and be called Zhang Zhengwei.

The second night of idling in the dream: six years old.

Zhu Zhengwei's appetite grew increasingly enormous.

The family was poor, and their days grew ever more difficult.

So during the day, Zhu Zhengwei slacked off in class and began studying modern animal husbandry.

In the end, he chose wild rabbits as his path to prosperity. He set traps, hunted wild rabbits, then raised and bred them, teaching his parents in Zhujing Village breeding methods as well.

The third night of idling in the dream: nine years old.

The family became prosperous and turned into a major breeding household in the village.

His parents led the village in raising rabbits to become wealthy, taught their breeding experience, and successfully became the Village Party Secretary.

That same year, Zhu Zhengwei heard that Zhang Gouzi, who was the same age as him in the village, had fallen into the village well and crippled his leg. This surprised him greatly.

Zhang Gouzi's proper name was Zhang Xia.

Each of them had their own restarted life, and Zhu Zhengwei did not interfere.

In reality, Zhang Xia was already in university. He should not have been crippled.

During the day, Zhu Zhengwei secretly went to investigate the real Zhang Xia.

Though he had become crippled as a child in the dream, there was nothing wrong with him in reality. He was still a winner in life, feeding his girlfriend in the cafeteria as they spread the nauseating stench of romance.

After all, only Zhu Zhengwei had opened that mysterious Root Forbidden Gate, allowing dreams to feed back into his real body. For them, it was merely an ordinary dream, and they would not even remember it once they woke.

"My son..."

When he arrived at Zhang Gouzi's house, his parents were wailing.

Unable to do farmwork in the village, with both legs crippled, he was practically useless. What girl would marry him? Who would support a man who could not stand or work?

"No life can escape birth, aging, sickness, death, misfortune, and disaster."

Zhu Zhengwei watched from the side, gradually sensing something.

He vaguely realized that even if these classmates who served as Servers died here, the Servers would continue operating as usual. While alive, their computing power was concentrated in the NPCs themselves. After death, their computing power began sustaining the operation of the heavens and earth, the surrounding villagers, NPCs, and environment.

Zhu Zhengwei raised his head and looked at the azure sky above the mountain village.

"After a hundred years in this great dream, they will all die."

"But the Servers will keep running. They will completely become this world's Cloud computing power, spread evenly throughout it rather than concentrated in one person."

On the fourth night, idling on the Mobile Dream Network, his dream self in the mountain village was already twelve years old.

Zhu Zhengwei continued exercising his body in an orderly manner, painstakingly grinding his innate qualifications so they could feed back into reality. Yet on that day, while breathing, he discovered something unusual.

He found a strange energy in the heavens and earth, circulating around his body with every inhalation and exhalation.

What was this?

Zhu Zhengwei opened his eyes and tried again, becoming utterly certain that this thing did not exist in reality.

Could it be unique to this "Dream Network World"?

A world that gathered soul consciousness, continuously producing soul power?

"So that's how it is, so that's how it is! This 'qi' is the Brain Coins mined by those miners using the Brain Blockchain!"

Zhu Zhengwei understood!

On the internet, Mining Machines used specific algorithms to mine on the Blockchain and obtain Bitcoin.

Wasn't that similar to what was before him?

If human brains established a dream Blockchain network and mined with their thoughts, soul energy and Brain Coins would also be born.

Moreover, humans were not mechanical mainframes that would break down from mining.

The human brain was like a muscle. After training and strain, once it recovered, it would become increasingly powerful. The more the brain was used, the more flexible it became.

In the end, after training and leveling up, they would become dream Mining Machines with increasingly powerful brains. No, increasingly powerful brains, with everyone becoming quick-witted.

Rustle, rustle.

"This aggregated Dream World seems to have shown me a possibility for extraordinary power!" He meditated in the courtyard as threads of aura circulated through his body with his breathing.

As Zhu Zhengwei continued to explore, he thought for a moment and named this method:

Qi Consumption Method.

In ancient language, the words Qi Consumption referred to ghosts and gods consuming the scent of sacrificial offerings, which was similar to this.

Furthermore, Qi Consumption was often recorded in Daoism as a fundamental orthodox Daoist cultivation method, meaning "consuming air or the qi of orchids" and "absorbing wind and drinking dew," perfectly matching its meaning.

Time flew by. He was fifteen years old after idling in the dream, while only five days had passed in reality.

The Eldest Brother was honest and simple, but seriously ill and unable to farm the land.

Third Brother, however, was lively, curious, and intelligent. Though only twelve, he constantly pestered Zhu Zhengwei with questions.

"Do immortals really exist?" he asked.

"Perhaps they once existed in ancient times."

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"From beyond the heavens."

"I've read books. The Earth is round, so beyond the heavens is outer space?" he asked.

"Yes. The Earth is round, and beyond the heavens is outer space."

"Then why can't people today cultivate?" he asked.

"The era is at its end, and the aura is too thin."

"What is the world beyond the mountains like? I heard there are Cell Phones in the county town, but our village only has one telephone and one Radio. Only a few households even have electricity."

At first, his parents were terrified by Third Brother's behavior. They feared that he was disrespecting the reincarnated immortal by constantly asking about science and probing indirectly, as though questioning the immortal's existence.

But over time, he instead came to embody his parents' hopes.

"Third Brother isn't sick. He's been smart since childhood. He is our true hope."

"Maybe by following the immortal's reincarnated body, he can gain an immortal affinity and attain Dao and immortality. Our Zhang Family has encountered a great fortune."

His parents began harboring such thoughts in secret.

Third Brother truly was intelligent, able to draw inferences from one example. He was smarter than most geniuses Zhu Zhengwei had ever seen.

The sixth night: eighteen years old.

Zhu Zhengwei was already an adult.

Because of his proper, handsome appearance, the rumors of his birth omen as an "Immortal Descends to Earth," and his extraordinary temperament, all of Zhujing Village and the surrounding villages knew of him.

Matchmakers constantly wore down his doorstep.

Among them were quite a few beautiful university "Female Classmate" NPCs who came to propose marriage.

However, Zhujing Village had already become an independent realm, the Mountain Village Region.

In reality, they could not leave. They had not gone out to study or encountered modern society. They were full of rustic village-girl manners and could barely read a single character, doing even worse in the dream than they had developed in reality.

"I have no desire to marry yet," Zhu Zhengwei declined.

He truly did not want to wet the bed.

And wetting the bed together with the Female Classmates from the neighboring dorm building without prior arrangement would be even more embarrassing.

His eldest brother, who had severe Hemophilia, also wished to marry.

But his illness was too serious. With a body as fragile as porcelain, he could not even farm, so no one was willing to come and arrange a match.

"How about I teach Eldest Brother a method? This is not a method for seeking immortality and the Dao, and it has no miraculous powers like moving mountains. It is merely a simple foundational health-preservation method. Sense the qi of heaven and earth, and it can make your body a little stronger," Zhu Zhengwei said.

Unfortunately, no matter what he did, Eldest Brother in the Dream World could not sense the existence of qi.

Zhu Zhengwei also taught the Qi Consumption Method he had researched to his younger brother and even his parents, but none of them could learn it.

It might have been normal for others to fail to learn it.

But for someone as intelligent as Third Brother to be unable to learn it, there had to be a major problem.

"Could it be that there are too few Servers, and the soul qi in this world is too thin, so only I, the master of this dream, can sense it?"

"Or perhaps, as the chosen son of this dream, I was born able to consume qi, while ordinary people need a specific Qi Consumption cultivation method before they can absorb it?"

Zhu Zhengwei woke up during the day and fell into deep thought.

"Maybe it's also because too few Brain Coins have been mined and the Spiritual Qi is too sparse. I'll expand the number of Mining Machines first and see."

He tried expanding the Cloud Server, searching for other hometown chat groups around Zhujing Village, which were also added to his Assassination List.

Zhu Zhengwei was becoming increasingly audacious, practically reckless, planning to continue pulling classmates into the dream Local Area Network.

According to his research, those Servers had indeed become much smarter and more alert over the course of a week. It was beneficial to them.

Thus, he no longer felt psychologically burdened.

During the day, he wandered around the school, scouting potential targets in search of a second batch of high-quality human Servers.

While secretly lying in wait, he successfully targeted some well-known Academic Masters on campus. He even began secretly targeting professors and advisors in the Faculty Building, pulling them into dreams and into his Miner World Group.

"Nothing to do in your dreams? Since you're idle anyway, why not exercise your brain a little?"

He added fifty at once, only stopping when he felt that any more Servers would be beyond his control.

Boom!!

The number of Servers increased.

The world map surrounding Zhujing Village expanded dramatically.

That current of qi did indeed grow stronger, and his cultivation speed increased as well.

"Unfortunately, they still can't sense it?" Zhu Zhengwei could not help feeling somewhat regretful.

"Perhaps it isn't a matter of how much qi there is. Maybe a special sensing method is required."

"Only I know it naturally. It is almost instinctive to me. And as I strengthen my soul through the Qi Consumption Method, making it more agile and powerful, I can expand more Cloud Servers and continue expanding the map. It is a virtuous cycle."

In the blink of an eye, a week of days and nights passed.

Zhu Zhengwei was already twenty-one.

His Qi Consumption Method had circulated for nearly ten years, and he vaguely felt a current of qi moving through the meridians throughout his body.

He even tested it on animals and found that he could clear some of their blood stasis and meridians. Ten years of qi cultivation had given him some barely useful abilities.

After thinking it over, Zhu Zhengwei arrived at the home of crippled Zhang Gouzi. "Perhaps I can cure him."

"What?"

His parents were greatly shocked as they looked at the mysterious Young Man with a Tear Mole.

Zhang Gouzi's crippled leg had been caused by blood stasis in his meridians.

If he had been sent to the hospital in time, it would not have been a major problem. But the countryside lacked such medical conditions, which was why there were so many disabled people.

After several attempts, Zhu Zhengwei cleared his meridians.

"An immortal!"

"A true immortal!"

Zhang Xia's family was endlessly grateful. Zhu Zhengwei's reputation spread once more without wings, eclipsing many shamanesses and Daoist priests who played at mysticism throughout the surrounding villages—a true Living Immortal.