Reclaiming All Lost Causality

The Milky Way gradually faded, and a sliver of pale dawn emerged at the horizon, setting down the first lustrous white piece upon the ink-dark chessboard of heaven and earth's union.

On a hill outside Shrek City, a balding middle-aged man with faint traces of green hair appeared silently amid spatial ripples, leading a group of bizarre-looking disciples.

"Heh! Quite lively, isn't it?" After casually tossing out that remark, he led his disciples farther away.

Although Shrek Academy was known as the strongest power, before it was a power, it was first and foremost an academy.

As Shrek Academy's demand for various metals and minerals declined, and the lake-surrounding project with its utterly unconcealed implications neared completion, even a blind man could sense the oppressive air of an impending storm within Shrek Academy.

If not for the black-and-white aura released without restraint by the two Peerless Douluo within the city—like an enormous Yin-Yang millstone enveloping the entire city—Shrek City would have long since been overrun.

How many Peerless Douluo were there on the entire continent? Ordinary factions might not know, but they understood that a single Peerless Douluo had made Shrek Academy a superpower in a league of its own. Two working together was simply beyond imagination!

What was more, some major powers possessed records of Mu En's insane feat of killing a Peerless Douluo of the same rank!

Why was it insane? Because that supreme expert, despite possessing three red Soul Rings, a full set of Soul Bones, and a golden awakening of his martial soul, had been beaten to death.

Even if rumors claimed that Mu En had also suffered grave injuries, those were only "grave injuries" relative to someone of his own rank. He could still swat little fry like them to death one-handed, no bargaining allowed.

"Truly lively..."

Ning Yi, who had rushed over from Nine Treasures City with a Titled Venerable elder after receiving the news, suddenly realized that he seemingly had no place left.

With Shrek City at the center, countless presences were hidden within a hundred li. Many were old acquaintances.

"City Lord Ning, would you care to come over for a talk?"

A divine thought came from the void. Seeing that it was an old friend, Ning Yi headed toward the source of the transmission with the elder.

Boom!

A burst of Soul Power exploded in the distant sky, then quickly vanished.

"Looks like the border has temporarily ceased fighting."

The elder beside Ning Yi suddenly transmitted his voice.

"The fluctuations of a Level Nine Soul Tool. Those people are truly bold, crossing more than half the continent."

Hearing this, Ning Yi looked over. If he remembered correctly, that direction should be Star Luo's "hidden site"... What a coincidence...

Beneath the radiant Golden Giant Tree, Chen Fu stood holding [Banished Immortal], with Mu En and Long Xiaoyao at his side.

The enormous [Azure Blue] hovered quietly behind Chen Fu like a divine wheel. Four transparent Soul Rings each held a specially made black-and-red [Ark], forming an array within the rings.

Watching the Young Man standing in the air, made ever more mystical by the Azure Blue Divine Ring's array disk, his entire body suffused with reason and divinity, Mu En silently sighed. Before he knew it, this young man had suddenly grown into someone even he could not ignore.

This Young Man's own Soul Power was clearly only at Rank Sixty, and he had not even broken through. Mu En could have crushed him with a single finger. Yet with all these enhancements, he possessed such terrifying control over Soul Power that even Mu En, a Peerless Douluo, felt his heart tremble.

The four specially made [Arks] in that divine-wheel array disk once again made Mu En feel powerless before the barriers of technology. It was something laid bare before them that they still could not copy. A prototype of what that young man called a third-generation [Ark].

Its Soul Power capacity was only at the level of an ordinary Titled Douluo, yet it could somehow continuously generate Soul Power?!

To Mu En and Long Xiaoyao, this was utterly incomprehensible. Yet Chen Fu called it "a test product that can only burn for One Minute."

"If I hand it over to you, does that mean the life and death of everyone here will be entirely in your hands?"

Mu En had already given up questioning the boundless ultra-Mental Network connected through the void to the divine-wheel array disk behind Chen Fu. It was an enormous spiritual web covering the entire city. At the center of that web was the monstrous being supported day and night by hundreds of thousands of Soul Masters, currently within the Azure Blue Divine Ring behind Chen Fu.

"Actually, the choice lies with me."

Pale golden radiance reflected against azure-blue spiritual Soul Power. Chen Fu's voice was filled with divinity and reason, distant and magnetic, yet devoid of the slightest emotional color.

"..." Mu En turned to glance at Long Xiaoyao. The latter remained silent, without a word.

...He had originally thought that the brotherhood regained after being lost could triumph over that woman. He had not expected this man to reignite his faith for that tiny shred of hope... Damn it, Mu En only wanted to curse now! Even if he had to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, today the Dragon God Douluo would first hack this bastard to death!

"I finally understand what you said back then. You can always obtain what you want through loss."

What Chen Fu had once said to Di Tian: Causality reincarnates, Yin-Yang remains balanced. Whatever one loses will eventually be compensated for in another way.

In the end, Mu En gave up arguing and protesting. His "loss" had already been decided, so he ought to properly face his "gain."

Based on his understanding of this young man, he only liked taking what was rightfully his. He disdained everything else.

This young man's "loss" was building for Shrek a Level Nine Soul Tool marvel that could no longer be defined merely as Level Nine. His "gain" was control over this super Soul Tool.

What were technological barriers and gaps in philosophy? They could not even understand someone else's blueprints, yet after being sweet-talked, they had followed him into exhausting their foundations to build a castle in the air whose vital point was not in their own hands. Mu En felt like such a fool. Every last person in the Soul Tool Academy deserved a slap to the face.

"Was everything part of your plan?"

If it was, Mu En felt that his aged scalp had returned to the state it had been in during his youth, dancing wildly between life and death.

"There was never any plan. This is [Gain and Loss]. To gain, one must lose. So long as one lives, all lines of causality will be reclaimed. That is why I do nothing meaningless, such as destruction."

"This doesn't seem like something you researched, does it?"

Mu En felt that something he could understand should not have been Chen Fu's research.

"That's right. It wasn't my achievement. It was the life's work of a friend—[Gain and Loss], a conceptual framework of understanding. It corrects human behavior and is an extremely roundabout ideological tactic for confronting invincible enemies." In that era when physics had died, it had been a mad logical concept designed by a genius of the cerebral domain.

Chen Fu had been her first experimental subject, and also her only one. But with his death, it seemed to have become her final masterpiece. Still, the relevant sociological knowledge had been preserved.

"To put it in terms you can understand: calmly and rationally face your opponent, choose the right actions amid changing circumstances, and gradually grow stronger without anyone noticing."

Because it involved her life's work, Chen Fu instinctively wanted to say a few more words.

[Gain and Loss] was a concept for living, a logic for conducting oneself. Jiang Nan's purpose in engraving it into the foundational logic of Chen Fu's thoughts was to allow him to strive to survive in that era without direction. Because truly defeating their enemies would inevitably require their material technology, while she could only serve as spiritual support.

"So, what was the point of saying all that?"

Mu En narrowed his eyes slightly, deep in thought.

"Still the same. A deal."

Character Profile (so I don't forget)

Name: Chen Fu

Martial Soul: Technology Throne · [Azure Blue] (currently evolving)

Level: 60 (currently carrying out the Self-Derived Soul Ring project)

Soul Rings: Data Divine Ring, Transparent Soul Rings (embedded within the Nuclear Ark) ×4

Soul Skills: Compulsion ×5 (its presence was extremely faint, yet it was everywhere at all times)

Related Soul Tool Designs:

[Soul Tool Standard Rifle]: A Level Four Soul Tool, made as a graduation project to deal with Fan Yu. When paired with the Ark, it could bring military force down to the masses. There were currently no supporting technologies; it was merely a small practice project, not worth mentioning.

[Nirvana]: A painstaking creation from its initial stage, preliminarily involving the fields of Martial Souls and souls. It possessed the Characteristics of purifying Soul Power, could assist in the circulation of Soul Power, and even had functions yet to be developed.

[Crimson Phoenix]: A specially made Battle Soul Instrument with permission to connect to the Azure Blue mainframe. Together with Nirvana, it allowed Azure Blue to fight in Chen Fu's place. It was hard not to believe that it and Nirvana belonged to the same design series. It also possessed undeveloped functions.

[Emerald]: It could refine Jade Phosphor Serpent venom and gradually improve the body's tolerance to toxins.

[Divine Ring]: The birthplace of the Azure Blue Divine Ring, Chen Fu's preliminary integration of knowledge concerning spirit, essence, and soul. It could remove lingering souls and see through the self-restraining field of Soul Rings, though its energy level was relatively low.

[Awakening Soul Array Diagram]: The first-generation eight-trigram-shaped Soul Ring Engraver with relatively complete functionality. It still had room for improvement.

[Banished Immortal]: A so-called Level Nine close-combat Soul Tool, it was Chen Fu's expanded technological implementation of Energy Storage Ring and Melting Ring technology. It could sever those at the pinnacle and cast them down into the mortal world. It possessed an unknown special effect against Soul Masters, and its combat record was currently unknown.

[Ascension]: A so-called Level Nine Soul Tool marvel, a money-devouring beast that nearly emptied Shrek Academy's pockets. Beneath the massive Ring Lake Orbit lay its covetous designs for Shrek Academy's lifeline, the Golden Giant Tree. This strategic Soul Tool technology, equipped with a modern process-control system, left the Shrek High-level utterly dumbfounded. It was the comprehensive proof and product of all of Chen Fu's research results so far, and it truly possessed the ability to create gods.

[Ark]: The Ark, which held the core technology, was the energy foundation for all of Chen Fu's research projects.

[Azure Blue]: The datafication of a personality used to take over the Martial Soul's repetitive tasks. It assisted Chen Fu in organizing and collecting data, forming the foundation for his multi-track research.

P.S.: Technology was a double-edged sword, and every edge cut down Soul Beasts.

Thanks to [Anfen Shouji], [The Black Hand Behind Everything], and [Slacker Traveler] for the monthly tickets (σ′▽‵)′▽‵)σ

Thanks to all my good brothers for the recommendation tickets (σ′▽‵)′▽‵)σ

All the foreshadowing was slowly being wrapped up. The protagonist was about to go godlike and slaughter everything (ω｀) The final reveal of the protagonist's background was also about to begin.

Chen Fu: Move aside, it's time for me to show off! o(≧v≦)o