Good News

Despite some minor setbacks, we managed to get the upgrade chip successfully.

Back in the Taiji Realm, Li Fan felt a sense of loss.

Although the system kept saying that enlightenment is the key to understanding, after going to the other side of the gate, he felt that he had almost understood as well.

In his past life, and the life before that, was the first generation of 'Li Fan' also lying in a body bag in some rural-urban fringe area, dreaming?

Although his primordial spirit, or rather his consciousness, now resides within the Tai Sha Star Core, in a sense, it's similar to escaping to the Quantum Network and dreaming—escaping to this side of the door for refuge, isn't it?

I used to think the Emei sect had fled, but now it seems he himself is a refugee...

Li Fan's mood dropped a little.

'System upgrade in progress. Current mood: 29.9k/30k. Maximum mood unlocked.'

Oh? It seems the new chip is already being updated. What's the maximum limit this time? 100k?

'The maximum obtainable mood points are probably between one million and one and a half million.'

Wow, so the computing power has increased by more than 30 times?

"That's not how it's calculated. Actually, there's no such thing as an upper limit anymore. However, based on the official exchange rate fluctuations between the Science Ethics Committee's reward points and system transaction points, as well as the market value of the specific prizes you can redeem, if you hold reward points worth more than 100 million transaction coins, it will trigger the Tax Bureau's review mechanism."

If you don't have citizen access, your application definitely won't pass the review. So we've locked the limit for you. You can unlock it yourself later.

Oh... so in that case, the lottery-based energy-charging system was actually just redeeming rewards from the Science Ethics Committee?

"Yes and no. Officially, we've used the committee's reward system as a shell, disguising the system logs. In reality, the prizes are things we developed ourselves, and we send them to you through a lottery. Many of the items are cheap toys that can't be sold directly, so it won't have any impact."

"However, except for the first two times. The first time, the lottery submission failed due to signal interference, so we temporarily gave you the Profound Heaven Sword Intent as a prize."

To rebuild a stable trading record, the second prize, the Kun, will be drawn from a legitimate lottery using your reward points. Getting a Kun from a lottery blind box is a kind of fate, so cherish it!

These blind boxes really do contain all sorts of mythical Divine Beast from higher dimensions...

By the way, what is Kun doing now?

Li Fan's mind raced, and just as he was about to do some calculations, a scene of light and shadow suddenly unfolded before his eyes.

In the heart of the Ten-thousand-mountains, disciples of the Ink Bamboo Mountain were seen surrounding his giant Ink Mountain warship, charging into the midst of tens of thousands of Demon Race soldiers.

This should be the main battlefield of the Mao Mountain. Moshan and Lou Guan charged from the front, while Bamboo Mountain attacked from the rear from Shuangshan. They had already broken through the great formation of the Nangu Valley, cutting the Demon Race army in two. The terrified lesser demons had begun to flee everywhere, while the great demons and demon kings could not escape. They were either suppressed by Lou Guan's True Person or surrounded and beaten by the Inner Sect disciples of Ink Bamboo Mountain.

The Yan sisters came from the mountains and knew all the famous kings on the battlefield. They commanded and coordinated the battle, revealing the true form of the demon king and pointing out the weaknesses of the monster. With such knowledge of both themselves and their enemies, they arranged for the disciples of Ink Bamboo Mountain, who cultivated Cultivation Method that countered the demons, to fight against the monsters they were able to defeat. Naturally, this made their efforts twice as effective.

Meanwhile, a large number of demonic spirits and divine Divine Beast, seeing that they were defeated and could not escape, simply surrendered to the large ship where the Yan sisters were, signed contracts, and were taken in by the children of Ink Bamboo Mountain as guardian beasts, mounts, and spirit pets.

Kun, perched on the leopard's head, charged into the killing formation. Seeing a great demon roaring and mutating into a demon god, Kun immediately attacked. He placed his two fins on his brow, glared with his red eyes, and unleashed the Kun Ray—! which blasted the demon god into pieces.

Good heavens... this is truly Divine Beast...

Li Fan glanced at the scene and realized that the Demon Race had suffered a major defeat in this battle, losing so many demon kings. With Ink Bamboo Mountain launching a full-scale attack, the Ten-thousand-mountains should be quickly suppressed like autumn leaves being swept away by the wind, so there was no need for him to jump over and help.

However, his ability to observe the entire battlefield so closely at this moment is not due to a sudden increase in his arithmetic skills, but rather to the computing power assistance provided by the chip. Previously, he could only vaguely deduce the plot unfolding, but now he can simply broadcast it live.

Moreover, the update wasn't even complete yet, but Li Fan could already clearly feel a significant increase in the range and scanning intensity of his Divine Sense. He could even directly connect to and control his clones, such as Qiongqi and Guiche, without leaving his body. This feeling was like how, in the past, running multiple apps on a phone would cause lag and background app crashes, but now he could perform multi-tasking on the same screen with no frame drops and smooth micro-management.

When he tried to recall his previous memories, which were simultaneously linked to eleven dimensions within the black hole, it was an information explosion. He repeatedly oscillated between madness and enlightenment, constantly switching between the personalities of a 'rational madman' and a 'mad doctor'.

Good heavens, good heavens, is this the performance release of a corporate-grade chip? Consumer chips can't even compare!

Suddenly, Li Fan felt as if he had gained another clone.

Besides the Tai Sha Star Core, Qiong Qi, Guiche, Blood God Child, and the outer shell of the micro-dust, there is an extremely weak pull!

Strictly speaking, it can't be considered a clone, but there is definitely a deeply connected cause and effect...

Li Fan frowned, did some quick calculations, and followed the link to investigate. He found a small fishing village by the Li River, and a pregnant woman in a fisherman's family. The child in her womb had a great karmic connection with Li Fan. If he calculated carefully, the bond between the two Dao Companion was probably even stronger than that of Kun!

What the heck is going on?! How did he suddenly become a father?! He doesn't even know these people!

To everyone's surprise, the upgrade revealed such a hidden gem! Li Fan dared not be careless and immediately jumped to the fishing village to investigate. He went to the village woman and used his Gu Guan Method to scan the fetus's primordial spirit...

Good heavens! It's Blood Infant!

What's going on?! He thought that when the Wisdom Dharma King Lu Ya, he destroyed the Blood Infant! When did it escape?! And isn't the Blood Infant a program? Can this thing reincarnate???

Could it be Lu Ya? No, that's not him...

Li Fan quickly tried to calculate, but found that he could only deduce that the baby's parents had been fishermen on the Li River for generations, and that the fetus was supposed to be born prematurely, but had "mysteriously" survived. There was no other useful information.

That's right, according to the calculations of the Eighteen Flying Stars, this fetus is a person!

If it weren't for the system update that alerted Li Fan to something amiss, prompting him to personally examine the primordial spirit, he probably wouldn't have been able to deduce that it was the reincarnation of the Blood Infant!

This situation was too unbelievable! Li Fan was completely inexperienced, and with two lives lost, he dared not move rashly and quickly ran to ask Xuan Tian for advice.

Xuan Tian said, "You ask me everything! I have no experience with this! Ask them!"

Li Gan and Li Kun quickly shook their heads, "I don't know." "It wasn't me."

"Nonsense! I didn't do that! And how could it not be you?! Wasn't that a piece of code you wrote?"

Seeing that Li Fan was getting a little impatient, Li Kun explained, "We just modified the source code left behind by the God Lord, packaged it up, and added functions to the puppet. You know where those primordial spirits and souls from over there come from..."

Li Gan analyzed, "It's not impossible... The AI war is because the Legion's quantum computers developed self-awareness. It's possible that when the local company was experimenting on and modifying the God, they also used some forbidden technology to modify his primordial spirit. Perhaps the code we added released those things that the Ethics Committee wanted to eradicate..."

Li Fan was completely bewildered. "So what are you saying that was? A self-aware program learned the primordial spirit method of the divine cult and even reincarnated???"

The two fish shrugged, indicating that nobody knew.

Xuan Tian didn't care and comforted him, "Born of Heaven and Earth, originating from the Great Dao, there are plenty of strange things born from chaos. Why do you care how it appeared? If you're so worried, just keep it by your side and raise it. Anyway, Mo Shan already has a bunch of good-for-nothings, raising a few more won't matter. If it really falls into the demonic path, just kill it with one sword. What's there to panic about? Tch."

Then this guy climbed back up the wall to forge swords.

"If you still carry it with you, wouldn't that make things even more complicated..."

Li Fan was speechless. In Xuan Tian's eyes, probably nothing in this world was anything but simple and clear. It seemed his cultivation was still insufficient...

"But what are you two doing here instead of helping me update the system?"

Li Fan suddenly realized that the group of old men from Heavenly Craft Peak were still gathered in the Celestial Realm watching a movie—the kind of shoddy 'sci-fi movie' that Li Fan had filmed during a business trip to the outskirts of the city... And are you guys also researching companion robots? Please don't use your mechanical skills for weird things, thank you...

"Oh, we've already finished our work. Replacing the hardware is quick, and the rest is just program updates. We'll also do a virus scan, a malware scan, and upgrade your firewall while we're at it."

"These engineers are indeed quite intelligent. They watched the movie once and understood many of the mechanical principles. So we plan to give them a crash course in engineering and technical school knowledge from the other side of the gate, train them to become skilled technicians and maintenance workers, and improve the technical capabilities of Ink Bamboo Mountain."

Li Fan was taken aback. "Wait, wasn't it said that technical intervention against the natives would increase the deviation value and trigger the pest cleanup program, so we should back down if we could?"

Now these two fish have changed their attitude again, looking completely indifferent and enlightened.

"It's alright, it's alright. You were too weak before, and we were afraid you'd do something reckless and drag us down, so we advised you to be more careful. Now you've upgraded so much, what are you afraid of from company executives? Just be a little careful and you'll be fine."

"Well, besides, you can't hide it anymore. Who knows when those big companies and Seven Departments will come knocking on Nine Departments door? There's nothing left to hide, so just enjoy life while you can."

Besides, this business trip budget has already run into a serious deficit, and we've even sold the pot. If we don't start new business soon, we're really going to go bankrupt. You need to hurry up and get the fishing grounds ready; we need to prepare for the first batch of smuggled people. Every little bit helps."

Li Fan, "..."

At this moment, Xuan Tian climbed back, carrying a round, purple pearl-like ball, and handed it to Li Fan.

"Here you go, it's finished. Take her to test the sword."

"... Moon Soul??" Li Fan stared in surprise at the updated deep purple sword pellet. "It's already forged without a sound? Isn't it supposed to transform into a human? Why isn't it?"

"What's the rush? Besides, it's not the Moon Soul anymore, it's the 'False Moon Soul' at the ninth rank of the Divine Transformation stage."

Xuan Tian explained in general terms, "Based on the current weather conditions, I have improved the Taiyin Sword Scripture. Now, in addition to the Taiyin Sword Force, the Moon Soul can directly refine the moonlight of the False Moon for cultivation."

However, it has only just advanced in rank and its cultivation is insufficient. You can take it to kill a few people, Moon Worship, and replenish its cultivation so it can transform."

After casually dismissing Li Fan, Xuan Tian turned around and chased after the two fish, asking...

"How did you get the flashlight?"

Good heavens, not only did I update the system, but I also got a sword pellet at the ninth rank of the Divine Transformation!

Li Fan was overjoyed. With a thought, the False Moon Soul shone brightly, transforming into a purple moon that adorned the outer edge of the black hole in the Tai Sha Star Core. Under the pull of gravity, it followed him and completed the membrane jump.

Good heavens! This is truly invincible!

Is there anyone foolish enough to let him try his sword...?

There really is!!!

Li Fan quickly calculated in his mind and immediately saw a scenario that was perfect for him to test his sword skills! Jump!

On the vast blue sea, banners blotted out the sky, and shrimp soldiers and crab generals stirred up the waves.

Hundreds of thousands of fish, shrimp, and sea monsters, carrying banners embracing a golden dragon and bearing the spirits of the sun, moon, and Big Dipper, surrounded a remote island in the sea, which was sealed off by an array. However, they were in no hurry to attack. After all, even if they didn't know how to break the array, the monsters could use a simple method: bring tens or hundreds of thousands of demon nests, stay nearby for ten days or half a month, and naturally exhaust the local spiritual veins and drain all the Dao energy, thus breaking the array.

At this moment, the great formation on the isolated island was on the verge of collapse. Then, a strange-looking turtle spirit, dressed in a robe and adorned with jade, like a courtier, swaggered up to the front and shouted.

"Island Master Mo! My lord, Lord Meng Qin, is the Ling King of the South Crown Prince! It is your good fortune that he has taken a liking to you. He has now specially led 100,000 spirit soldiers to formally invite you to marry him and become his 148 concubines. This is truly your good fortune! Why don't you open the island immediately and come to welcome him? Don't be so stubborn, or if you get hurt, we will have no way to explain it to the Crown Prince!"

Then, in the midst of the sea monster army, two dragon generals with horns on their foreheads, who had transformed into human form, stood at the mouth of the giant mirage palace. One of them, a one-eyed dragon with a gloomy face and wearing iron armor, spoke.

"Second brother, why haven't you sent a large army! You've been lingering in a small place like Quanke Island for so many days. You haven't really taken a fancy to that dark-skinned woman, have you? Don't let your selfish desires delay the important affairs of our clan!"

Another dragon, full of vigor and dressed in golden armor and robes, laughed.

"Hehe, brother, it's not that I'm criticizing you, but the Central Plains is such a dangerous place, full of hidden tigers and dragons. How can we venture it lightly? You didn't even use your brain! No wonder your vanguard suffered a reckless advance and lost so many men and generals!"

The one-eyed man drew his sword.

Seeing that his elder brother was angry, Meng Qin Shenjun quickly changed his words and said, "Hengshan said that he was willing to help Father ascend the throne, but he may just want to use my Spirit Race army to fight the Immortal Palace guards. I think we should be more cautious. It is not too late to raise an army and conquer the Zhen, Xun and Li kingdoms after the Nine Great Xuan Sects have torn off their masks and started fighting each other."

Furthermore, I consulted an expert, and it seems the Mo family of Quanke Island has a connection to the immortals; they might produce a celestial empress! Haha, I saw that mother and daughter; they're a bit dark-skinned, but their figures are quite nice. Why don't you and I, brothers, both take them as concubines and share in the joy? Hahaha! Hahaha! Hahaha..."

The one-eyed man turned and glared at his brother, pointing his sword. "Stop grinning like an idiot! They've come to our doorstep! This guy..."

Lord Mengqin was taken aback. He turned his head and saw a young man standing in the clouds above.

This was an ordinary-looking young man, dressed in a white Daoist robe that resembled drifting clouds. His eyes were pitch black, as if there was nothing inside his skin. There was a vermilion mark between his eyebrows, like a drop of emerald blood. He stood with his hands behind his back, looking down at the Spirit Race army, a kind smile on his face.

When Meng Qin, a Divine Lord, discovered that his Transformation Stage Divine Sense had completely failed to detect the other party's presence, he was somewhat alarmed. However, seeing his elder brother, Divine Lord Meng Guang single eye seemed to be spitting fire, he felt slightly relieved. He figured that Meng Guang was probably just an enemy, merely a Divine Lord from the Xuanmen sect. Although his strength was somewhat inferior, with such a large army present, what was there to fear?

So Meng Qin, unwilling to lose face, laughed loudly,

"They're just demonic cultivators trying to spy on us. What's there to be afraid of? I have the peerless general and my adopted son, Meng Sha! We can defeat them!"

With a wave of his hand, Lord Meng Qin summoned the surrounding shrimp, crabs, and dragons to wave their military flags and give orders. These monsters were quite skilled in warfare, and immediately a shark-headed sea demon charged out from the formation. It was a gigantic beast at the Transformation Realm, and on top of the sea demon stood a shark-headed general wielding a giant Xuanhua axe. It was unclear whether they were relatives or brothers, as they were fighting together. Two Divine Transformation Realm demons were going to fight, which was quite a show of respect.

"Hey! Who are you, you coward! How dare you offend my Lord, the Crown Prince of the Heavenly Spirit King, Meng Guang, the Divine King of the South Sea! I am Meng Sha, the vanguard of the Spirit King! I do not kill nameless bastards under my mad axe! State your name!"

"What, is this the rule for all battles? Okay, then I'll just say a few words, cough cough."

Storytelling and opera persuading people to follow the right path: take the middle road out of three main roads. A lone hero hangs under the cold moon, determined to vanquish demons head-on.

Li Fan smiled as he faced the sea army that surged forward, creating a towering wall of water that seemed to churn the ocean. With his right hand, he formed a hand seal with his Ruyi Sword, while with his left hand, he unleashed the False Moon Soul Sword.

"Void Star, Great Slaughter Sword Scripture. When the moon shines, demons will be vanquished and pacified."

Therefore, from the perspective of Lord Mengqin,

Suddenly it got dark.

The sea and sky vanished.

All that remained was pitch-black darkness, a darkness from which even the Heavenly Dragon could not escape.

And a purple moon was slowly rising from the dark sky.

Purple light illuminated the void.

A sword's shadow was reflected in the Dragon King's eyes.

Then it heard the wind blowing.

It was blood, the sound of the wind whipped up as blood gushed from the sword wound.

A fine, interwoven melody of blood-red winds gradually played out.

The final ten thousand blood-red winds converged into a raging roar.

It's like a dragon's mournful cry before its death.

The darkness disappeared.

The last scene the dragon saw

The young man stood proudly atop the sea of blood, smiling as he patted the head of the short-haired girl beside him.

"Well done, clean and efficient. This will ensure another ten years of peace."

End of this volume

This volume is now complete. Thank you all for your support!

I plan to take a break for a while to organize the outline and build up a draft.

Thank you for your support!