A Small Goal

Just as Li Fan was awestruck by Xuan Tian's superb swordsmanship and suffered a blow due to his own mediocre talent, his mood dropped a bit, and he fell into deep reflection and self-doubt. He began to ponder the sword heart and try to shape his own sword intent, and vaguely felt something.

Unexpectedly, someone had the audacity to ruin this opportunity to comprehend the sword's heart and way.

"Fellow Daoist, help me--!"

A cultivator, who was being hunted down by a cult and was desperately trying to find a way out, saw someone standing there and rushed over to ask for help.

"I'll help you my ass!"

Enraged by this ridiculous incident that disrupted his sword-wielding state of mind, Li Fan swung his hand and slapped the man's head away.

The head flew off and landed in the arms of the cult protector who was chasing after him. The protector stared at the head in his hand, then at Li Fan, who was staring at him with a dark face not far away. He realized that he hadn't been able to detect this person with his Divine Sense, so he immediately turned around and ran away.

"Not greeting people! So impolite!"

Li Fan casually made up an excuse, flicked his sleeve, and threw out the Blood God Child, which stuck to the body of the cult's protector, instantly turning the entire human form into pus and blood that was sucked dry.

Hmm, this guardian's skills are a bit lacking. He was drained dry before he could even peel off his scalp. If it were that previous deity, he would have already been far away by now, disappearing with Blood Shadow Godly Movement. Look at that, the same Cultivation Method, yet such a huge difference... Damn it, I need to quickly master the Lightning Style!

Then Li Fan hurriedly tried to enter meditation again. Relying on his photographic memory, he dodged twelve of the one hundred and eight sword strikes. Although he had made some progress, the interruption of his spiritual enlightenment was gone. He no longer had the shock and sword heart enlightenment he felt when he was brutally killed the first time.

"You ruined my path to immortality, how hateful!"

Li Fan suddenly opened his eyes, reached out and grabbed the Golden Cicada that had quietly flown out of the Xuanmen cultivator's corpse and escaped. He was burning with rage and really wanted to strangle the guy to death and beat him until his soul was scattered to the winds to relieve his hatred.

However, after some calculation, he realized that this person was not destined to die. After a final internal struggle, the kind-hearted Li Fan prevailed. So he casually used the Tai Su Qiankun to create a cage, sealed the Golden Cicada inside, took it outside Kunlun Mountain, and threw it away in a ravine far away. Consider it a small punishment.

After this side quest, False Moon also appeared. Having reached this level, Li Fan no longer needed any Revered Heavenly Demon Array as a coordinate. There were no mortals living in Kunlun Mountain, so there was no need to worry about evil energy. Therefore, he directly looked up at the Moon Worship, opened his mouth, his skull burst open, and a fist-sized black ball leaped out, jumping out of the shell of Tai Su Qiankun. His true body Tai Sha Star Core, flew across the Void Abyss to cultivate. His Dharma body scattered into a pile of dust, like drifting catkins, falling on the snow-capped mountains.

In fact, the Moon Worship Flight is theoretically similar to the membrane jump. However, although Li Fan can transform into a black hole and travel through eleven dimensions, Li Fan still cannot see through the true form of the Void Abyss every time Moon Worship.

Perhaps his Gu Guan Method wasn't good enough, or perhaps there was nothing in the Void Abyss to begin with, or perhaps, as the system said, these Non-Thing came from an extra dimension beyond the twenty-seventh dimension, from the other side of the membrane.

If in the past, when Moon Worship went to the Tai Su Realm, he would have to go on a grand adventure in another world, fight monsters, search for treasures, and have some emotional fluctuations, now that the Tai Sha Star Core, which is at the Tribulation Transcending Realm, has arrived at the Void Abyss, it is simply a matter of devouring.

Taiji Realm cannot freely consume, the Tai Su Realm is unaffected. Li Fan, controlling his Black Hole True Body, directly follows energy nodes such as the earth's veins, devouring and merging them into the planetary mantle. He swallows all kinds of things, Non-Thing, organic and inorganic matter, spiritual energy and malevolent energy, into the star core, transforming them into the purest mass and energy.

Meanwhile, Li Fan's primordial spirit explored the surface of the Tai Su Realm, studying the physical characteristics of the local creatures. He then used the Tai Su Qiankun method to mold a new Dao body avatar, much like kneading clay. Of course, the Blood God Child was also brought along, and was simply allowed to roam freely and hunt at will.

At this moment, Li Fan also realized that his Tai Su technique could freely create physical containers in the Tai Su Realm. As long as he could collect existing Tai Su biological models, he could increase his inventory of transformation techniques.

However, the Blood God Child is quite picky about what to eat. Although he can instantly kill most of the monsters in the Tai Su Realm, Blood God Child cannot effectively devour and integrate all the substances in the Tai Su Realm.

Li Fan experimented and discovered that the Blood God Child's first priority was naturally to devour the blood of living beings. However, it wasn't limited to 'blood'; strictly speaking, it consisted of water, certain cells, organic matter, and electrolytes, which were then fused together in a specific ratio to form the Blood God Child's 'blood'. For ordinary living beings, if all their blood and even intracellular fluid were absorbed and fused by the Blood God Child, they would undoubtedly die. The difference was that if more substances were absorbed, the remaining material would decompose more mushyly; if less was absorbed, the remains would rot more into a purulent state.

So theoretically, cultivating the Blood God Child doesn't necessarily require killing people. Eating dirt, drinking water, and supplementing with vitamins and minerals would probably be enough to cultivate, though that would probably lower one's prestige...

In short, this requires effort to fuse and mix specific substances to ultimately create 'blood,' which is not as convenient and quick as directly killing.

So rather than calling it the Blood Talisman God Sect and the Blood God's Great Dao Body, it would be more accurate to call it the 'Organic Dao Body'. It's quite bizarre that the God Lord could comprehend such a strange technique; perhaps he achieved enlightenment while conducting experiments on drugs for the company...

However, this research led Li Fan to discover that he might be able to try using the 'Organic Dao Body' to shape a human form, using the Tai Su method to mold the outer skin, or rather, a spacesuit, and using the Tai Sha Star Core to provide material energy, perhaps even cultivating into a 'new human'. If he could truly integrate the three methods into one, achieving that level of refinement should qualify him as a 'Great Ascension Immortal', right?

This method of cultivation is quite suitable for Li Fan, but it is too difficult for ordinary people to cultivate, and it is probably not widely applicable. It is better to break it down and refine it little by little.

Organic matter was given to the Blood God Child, and inorganic matter was given to the Tai Sha Star Core. Once everything was consumed and wiped out, the night's cultivation was considered complete. Li Fan then jumped back into the Tai Chi World, and the universe gathered again, forming a shell to seal the star core.

Cultivating like this every day, learning arithmetic by completing side quests during the day and absorbing otherworldly knowledge to increase his cultivation at night, Li Fan's cultivation is now progressing by leaps and bounds, widening the gap between him and a normal God-King at an unimaginable speed.

However, this also has its drawbacks. For example, he is now hesitant to use his full power in his attacks, and he doesn't dare to unleash the full force of his Ghost Hand anymore. After all, a strike of this star core quality could really shatter stars and split the earth. So he should hold back and practice more mathematical and technical fighting techniques to avoid accidentally destroying the world with a simple move.

Li Fan continued questing and cultivating day and night in the Kunlun Mountain. After wandering around for about ten to fifteen days, he finally received a message from the system.

This update has failed.

Holy crap! This system is a nightmare! A system update can fail? This is the first time I've ever heard of such a thing! It's incredibly unreliable!

'Well...'

'Well...'

So what happened? How did it fail? Was there not enough money? Or was the company ripping you off?

'That's not quite it. Those corporate dogs at least have a basic sense of contractual obligation. Although the contracts themselves aren't necessarily fair.'

'Don't mention that. We've already paid, and the company goods we finally managed to get are gone. They probably got ripped off by the delivery guy...'

What?! It's been hacked! Who dares to hack my stuff?! They're asking for it!!

'It might not be the errand runner...'

'Who else could it be but him? We've been watching both sides of the door. Something went wrong with the delivery, and even the middleman isn't online anymore. They must have stolen our goods! Damn it! This local gang has no manners whatsoever!'

No way! You guys don't handle this kind of transaction yourselves? Why hire someone to run the errand? That's outrageous!

"Sigh, those kinds of system chips are illegal. They can only be obtained from other companies' labs in other domains, and they insist that citizens must participate in the transaction."

These kinds of opportunities are rare and hard to come by. The goods can be delivered, but the people can't. We don't have the manpower on the seller's side, so we can only find agents and couriers.

Who would have thought that in this era of ubiquitous quantum networking, someone would still steal a retro game pod! It's truly wicked! I should have bought insurance...

"Should we call the police? They couldn't possibly know our background, and the seller's technical disguise should be quite convincing. Even a planetary-level security gateway might not be able to detect that level of chip inside the gaming pod."

'That's too risky! If people find out we're smuggling a system chip, the Tax Bureau's fleet will be jumping over here!'

Oops... No way! What do I say now?! I've already paid and the goods are gone! I'm still waiting to upgrade! What if Chen Jinu comes after me?!

"That's why I'm asking for your opinion. Because of this upgrade, we've mortgaged all the liquidity of our mental health counseling company. If we don't resolve this issue, we won't pass the year-end tax audit."

However, there is still a chance. Since the goods have not arrived at the port, we can pay a late payment fee, and the logistics company has agreed to extend the scheduled shipping route for us for a period of time. As long as we can find the goods in time, we can deliver them to our door.

Furthermore, there haven't been any other cross-regional shipments recently. So the goods are still in that dimension and can be recovered; the situation isn't dire yet.

"So if you're willing to take the risk, you can pledge the pot as collateral, and we can get a loan from a private bank, hire a skilled hunter to catch that bastard, and deliver him to port. Maybe we can still recoup our losses."

Why hire anyone? That's so unreliable! I might as well go and capture them myself! Hey! Can I go? I heard that legion members can travel to other worlds! You guys help me travel too! When it comes to killing and looting, I'm a professional!

"You're going? But you don't have citizenship yet, and smuggling yourself in is too dangerous! That world doesn't have the concept of 'true qi' or 'evil energy.' If the gateway traces you back to your records, you won't be able to escape. Let me make it clear beforehand, we won't risk being removed from the public system to bail you out."

Damn it! What have I ever done in my life without any smooth sailing?! Whatever! I'll just save some money! I, Li Fan, will go get my chips back! Of course, if I can pin it on the legion like I did with the cruiser attack last time, that would be even better...

"If you're willing to take the risk, that's possible. The legion equipment we connected to last time can be used, but you'll need to connect to their subnet and project your consciousness there, which will still require a proxy server and incur transaction fees..."

Damn! It's just a pot! Stop whining! Let's go get the pot! (Jumping on the membrane!)

'Huh? Huh? Huh??? Can this guy just teleport around like that now?'

'... And the system hasn't even finished loading yet; I calculated the coordinates in my head... This guy is getting more and more outrageous...'

Li Fan couldn't wait to exchange complaints with the system. At this moment, he jumped out of the void and landed at the entrance of the Qingyang Branch Altar, the former Qingyang Sect's cave.

Qingyang Sect looks quite imposing; the entire mountain is the ruins of the ancient Qingyang Palace, just like a dungeon with a big boss.

However, due to the fierce attack by the Divine Cult in previous years, the Mountain Protecting Array was broken, the Immortal City Xuan Gong techniques were destroyed, and the mountain was shattered and disintegrated. The Sect Gathering Qi Cultivation Array was also damaged, and spiritual energy was scattered all over the mountain. Spirit Stones, plants, rare birds and beasts, not to mention the obvious Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, were all collected by the Divine Cult long ago. Now, all that's left is a bare, abandoned ancient castle. It might be good for live-streaming adventure stories, but using it as a villa for people to live in would be too foolish.

Well, no wonder the cult sold off this land so readily. After all, the altar master guarding this area not only has to protect it, but also run businesses and pay taxes to the cult. Rebuilding this godforsaken Kunlun Mountain is no easy task, and someone volunteered to take over this bad asset and pay taxes, and the cult doesn't even give them a big reward—it's outrageous!

At this point, it became clear that the sergeant was quite honest. Many robots were crawling in and out of the Qingyang Sect ruins, constructing an underground palace and storing the sergeant's personal treasures and equipment. They even built a tiger's den for the Qiongqi altar master, and the decoration was quite elaborate, using a lot of local white marble and even carving a tiger at the entrance... This aesthetic is so outdated...

"Who dares to spy on my branch altar! Ah!"

Li Fan casually knocked away the overseer of the cult's protector and flew directly into the underground palace.

These past few days, he's been causing trouble in Kunlun with great fanfare, beating up this person and robbing that person, without bothering to conceal his identity. After all, he failed a few days ago and managed to escape from two powerful strategists, so now both the Divine Sect and the Profound Sect probably know that the new leader of Ink Bamboo Mountain is using his past connections to claim to be an Emei disciple and is causing trouble in Kunlun Mountain.

However, with the two Dharma Kings vying for merit and the Xuanmen disciples busy escaping, no one had time to deal with this guy. Besides, the Divine Transformation stage was useless, and no Dao Lord had the time to spare, so they could only stay far away and let him do whatever he wanted.

What? Don't the Three Great Sects have any pride?

It depends on the specific circumstances. In fact, Ink Bamboo Mountain has a secret agreement with the Divine Sect to avoid war, and Emei is still the head of the Nine Great Xuan Sects. So, it wouldn't be a big deal if both sides temporarily backed down...

And all of this was actually Li Fan's plan for today.

Anyway, there's no way to hide the fact that I stole the pot from the cult, so I might as well just do it openly! I'll rob all around Kunlun! I'll offend the cult completely, and then no one will guess that I'm after your pot! Hahaha! If the cult comes knocking on my door later, I'll just return what I stole. What? You're missing a pot? I'll just give you a hundred! Hahahaha!

So Li Fan laughed wildly, waving his hands around and slapping them, scattering the surrounding members of the Divine Cult. Then he broke down the gate of the Qingyang Sect and rushed in to reap the spoils.

I deliberately left some of the larger pieces of legion equipment untouched, just casually smashing and destroying them, to show that I'm a rough guy and don't recognize things like 4V motors, central machine tools, or plasma cutters. But I feel a connection with this pot, so I'll take it, thank you.

'System loading complete, Li Fan's mood improved slightly.'

'Current mood, 30k/30k, upper limit locked'

Huh? System! What's going on?!

"Oh, didn't I already say that when you broke through to the Tribulation Stage and observed the eleven dimensions, you exceeded the system's computing power limit, so an upgrade was necessary?"

"Just think of it this way: your account won a prize, but the linked debit card is already maxed out, so you can't get any more mood points. Either upgrade your permissions, become a citizen of the Enlightenment Path, and sign a contract with us to unlock the limit, or upgrade your hardware and get a new card with a larger capacity to continue earning points."

But the idea that you can max out your credit card by swiping it little by little is just ridiculous...

Wait a minute, an account? A debit card? Are these mood points money?

'No, it's not money. These are exclusive reward points from the Science Ethics Council, used to reward pioneers in exploring the cosmos, developing cutting-edge technologies, and heroes who have made outstanding contributions to the progress of human civilization.'

Of course, we hacked into the server and changed your permissions, so you can't be considered a hero yet, only... an indigenous humanoid experimental subject assisting the council in biological research.

Monkey, holy crap!

'Don't worry about such trivial matters. In any case, you can use these reward points to exchange for exclusive technology and equipment within the Science Ethics Council's territory, and also gain access to their equipment. Of course, there's a limit to what you can exchange.'

That's still money...

"Legitimate tax avoidance, you know? Imagine risking your life to explore the unknown universe, fighting bloody battles with extraterrestrial creatures, only to have those nagging Tax Bureau skim a cut of the rewards you get in the end. Isn't that annoying?"

Although the Ethics Committee is quite nosy, criticizing this as immoral and that as unreasonable, their technical capabilities are quite advanced. They have a lot of strange and wonderful alien technologies hidden in their possession, and the things they create are even more advanced than military equipment. Therefore, the exchange rate between reward points and currency on the black market is probably 1 to 100.

Of course, theoretically, reward points cannot be exchanged for currency privately; that's illegal. In the black market, they're usually exchanged for specific prizes according to the customer's request, and then resold through a lottery system. Hmm, you don't really think we're just getting your divine book for free, do you?

Uh... that pot...

"It's hard to say what will happen to you. After all, you don't have citizenship. If the Ethics Committee finds out, they'll probably say you're unethical and then confiscate your case for their own investigation."

Of course, if the other party has any conscience, they might accept you as a real experimental subject and give you a hundred reward points. If you ask for a monetary reward, the Tax Bureau will collect a 30% bonus tax and a 10% personal income tax, and the official exchange rate is a bit low, so you'll probably get less than 5,000.

But at least it's clean money, which can pass a tax audit.

I risked my life to steal a pot and you only give me 5000 yuan?! What's the black market price?!

"Five thousand yuan can buy a civilian drone, and that cruiser, I'd say, is only around two million. Of course, if the company quotes a higher price, they'll make a killing. These kinds of entry-level items could probably be pledged for a billion or two billion on the black market. But the price is what it is; how to collect the money, how to record it, how to evade taxes—that's all an art. How much you can launder and spend freely depends entirely on your connections and skills."

"By the way, the system chip I got for you this time, from ordering to logistics, cost a hundred million. So, Li Fan, you understand the mission now, right?"

Got it, it's just a small goal... We absolutely have to get it back!!!