Gone with the Smoke

Li Fan heard the call from the Thousand-Faced Magic Puppet, so he opened his eyes.

First, they confirmed which Daoist avatar had pulled his primordial spirit over.

Zhu Long Cruiser Body

However, it is a modified version of the Black Scale Purple Eye radar stealth system.

The hull still uses the architecture of the cruiser "Zhu Long", while the "skin" of the hull is modeled after the hull wreckage of the Security Bureau's stealth frigate "Night Curtain", simulating a stealth coating that is effective against the company's radar waves.

Oh, it's the scout sent out fifty years ago, the stealth cruiser hull, 'Zhu Long II'.

So Li Fan knew where he was.

He extended his Divine Sense, sensing the silent deep space around him. At the limit of his Divine Sense, he entered the massive starship he had been visualizing, which resembled a slumbering mountain, lying across the darkness, just like half a million asteroids in orbit, quietly orbiting a star 2.17 astronomical units away.

It took Li Fan's stealth cruiser clone fifty years to 'fly' to the asteroid belt and find the closest corporate warship to Earth. If this speed continues, it will take at least another fifty years for the Zhu Long III and IV to reach the Trojan asteroid and the corporate fleet on Jupiter's moon.

There was no other way. The frigate 'Night Curtain' exploded so thoroughly that it was already a miracle if they could collect some fragments to recreate stealth armor. As for 'Zhu Long,' although it was a cruiser-class vessel, it was a downgraded version of a near-Earth orbit cruiser. Its engine propulsion was terrible; after all, it was like a ride on an amusement park ride, so of course they would cut corners wherever possible. It was a miracle if it could even reach its destination.

Li Fan wasn't in a hurry. Sending his clone cruiser to find the company fleet in the Solar System was just a side move. In case the system couldn't be relied on and he had to rely on himself, he could also escape in advance to avoid the company's army suddenly turning against him and capturing his main body for experiments. At least he could have a few lives to survive in deep space.

Who would have thought that the company would actually leave him alone for fifty years, focusing its main efforts on reorganizing the Divine Cult and suppressing the Xuanmen? Meanwhile, the system only took three years to bring over their Sentinel Detection Ship, and even took advantage of the company taking 49327 offline to set up an independent Deep Web server for Tianwaixian Communication.

As a result, Li Fan almost forgot that he had sent out three Zhu Long to scout ahead. After all, a Transformation Stage cruiser body could be forged with a mere 1200 mood points.

For the past fifty years, he has been wary of the company's warships jumping in his face, and he is even cautious about Moon Worship. He has to stay in the mountains day and night to cultivate in seclusion, immersing himself in the ocean of knowledge every day. Now, after arithmetic and talismans, he has almost reached the master level in array formations and mechanisms. Now he is focusing on the way of alchemy and rarely goes out to fight.

However, due to a secret agreement he made with Purple Void Dao Lord of Hengshan back then, he deliberately spared the Nangong Family's life. This way, even if the disciples of Ink Bamboo Mountain grew up and could hunt Devil Embryo for their own feasts, he could still benefit from the double bonus of the 'Sect Calamity' and 'Mountain Destruction and Temple Crush' by simply picking up a few survivors each year and cleaning up his backyard. So, over time, his mood cap has now been pushed over a million...

Well, okay, it is a bit outrageous, but it's not too bad. After all, the combat power system in this world collapsed 10 years ago, so it has to collapse to keep up with the pace of the new version.

However, the mood cap isn't really a problem. After all, the evil energy in the Taiji Realm is growing faster and faster now, so there's not much difference between Moon Worship and not Moon Worship. Just by doing practice questions, refining pills, drawing talismans, and crafting artifacts, you can earn about 100k mood points every year, so it's not slow to raise your mood.

The problem is that after so many years of cultivation, Li Fan's sensitivity has decreased. He's hardly ever affected by seeing a few eyes or legs anymore, and being calm is becoming increasingly pointless. This gradual calming down is just too slow.

Therefore, Li Fan had no choice but to capture a large number of indescribable Devil Embryo and keep them by his side, letting them constantly attack his primordial spirit during his daily cultivation. Unfortunately, it worked at first, but now his resistance has increased, and the probability of ordinary Devil Embryo fetuses causing a drop in mood is getting lower and lower. He also needs to constantly replace them with some powerful ones to raise the limit, just to barely maintain a balance in his mood, otherwise it will overflow the limit...

Ahem, I digress. Anyway, Li Fan never expected that Zhu Long would actually find him a company fleet waiting in deep space.

The Security Bureau's stealth technology is quite impressive. Since he has silently infiltrated the range of Divine Sense without being detected by the company's radar system, he has already won half the battle.

Li Fan glanced at it briefly. It was an Yinglong-class battleship, equipped with various ultra-long-range light lances, mines, and electromagnetic cannons. It also had considerable alloy armor and energy deflection fields, making it a capital ship specifically designed for fleet battles. Clearly, his Zhu Long, a trash creature cruiser, posed no threat whatsoever to the enemy.

However, by the time Earth 0 was established, the division of tasks within the military had become very clear and precise. In particular, in such fleet formations, battleships were primarily positioned as mobile gun emplacements responsible for providing output, with a greater emphasis on cost-effectiveness, providing the strongest firepower output within a limited budget. In contrast, electronic warfare protection and command systems were provided by the flagship and electronic warfare support ships within the fleet subnet. Instead, they lacked the comprehensive configurations of mission cruisers designed for independent operations.

This wasn't the first time Li Fan had single-handedly attacked ships and fortresses. Although he didn't have a system providing hacking support, he wasn't worried. After all, he had almost finished reading his system manual, <System Programming, From Beginner to Forgotten>, reaching a level beyond beginner but not quite finished. Moreover, he often used captured 'Heluo' network pods to hone his hacking skills. A mere turret! No problem! Hacking it in!

Of course, Li Fan couldn't hack into the company fleet's subnet, but he could physically penetrate it.

Now that the mission of the Zhu Long II stealth transport ship was complete, Li Fan directly disintegrated his clone, turning the Zhu Long's flesh and blood into malevolent energy, and reconstructed it into a new version of the Thousand-Faced Immortal Dao Body. Then he took a step forward.

The next instant, inside the bio-pod storing the clone crew, within a gel-like bio-chamber resembling an egg sheath, the clone's prosthetic body burst open from its inner cavity, as if the human body had been turned inside out. Then, a black hand crawled out of the clone's mouth.

Although it took a Divine Transformation cruiser body to 'pass through the gate,' one hand was enough left.

Five fingers were inserted into the clone's face, the fingers digging along the nasal cavity and eye sockets, piercing the brain and connecting to the brain via a direct link, hacking into the clone crew's subnet.

Here it comes in, yay, a Tier VII battleship.

If he could get his hands on blueprints for something like a biological battleship, and with a Divine Transformation clone costing 1200 each, he could probably build a fleet of hundreds of ships to play around with.

Of course, these company warships are normally commanded by the fleet's intelligent system, so it's not that easy to usurp control. In fact, whether it's a fleet squadron with only two hundred Tier 7 capital ships, a fleet squadron with one thousand Tier 7 ships, or even higher-level fleet columns, battalions, corps, legions, or army groups...

No matter how many ships or how many units are organized, it makes no fundamental difference to the company's current system. All that's needed is for a fleet commander in the fleet subnet to authorize the system to fire, and the intelligent auxiliary system can complete almost all combat missions.

However, considering the strategic implications of war game simulations, extreme electronic warfare environments, and situations where the ship might fall into a strategic disadvantage, such as a subnet being hacked, communications being disrupted, or a magic puppet virus altering weapon systems, and taking into account the value of the warship itself and the system capabilities of the opposing company, these warships are still equipped with a large number of expendable clone crew members.

Li Fan checked the network and found that there were about 2,400 cloned crew members on the ship, at least half of whom were in a thawed standby state. These enhanced clone crew members, due to the use of special soldier brain implants and stimulants, have a lifespan of less than ten years. The crew that operates and maintains a battleship consists of more than 200 people, and in order to ensure combat efficiency, they work in at least three shifts. A batch of clone sequences requires the production of 600 people to keep the warship in a state of combat readiness.

The company has even put two complete batches into standby mode, meaning it has at least two sets of subnets built into the fleet to prevent hacking. It seems the company is quite cautious and is truly preparing for extremely high-intensity combat readiness.

Of course, Li Fan was still very cautious. While spreading the magic puppets into the battleship clone subnet, he also spread the clone cores out through the clone recovery system to infect the gene pool and wait for an opportunity to lurk inside the ship.

If he passes the next biological inspection and the company doesn't carry out a mass extermination of the clones, it means the other party hasn't detected his infiltration. Then, when the 'Yinglong'-class battleship is activated for the mission, he can seize the opportunity to usurp the battleship, or even hack into the entire fleet's command network to create a backdoor for the system.

After making these covert arrangements, Li Fan had his clone go into hiding.

It's always better to be cautious. Li Fan had also heard from the system that this company war was quite fierce, with twelve Earths already destroyed. It wasn't the kind of low-intensity extinction, civilization rebuilding, or replanning; it was the kind of thing where the Earth's core exploded, the star shattered, the planet suffered irreparable damage, and the surface became uninhabitable. It was truly a bloodbath.

Now, not only is the mood system unknown, but even the participating parties don't know when this corporate war will end. Currently, apart from the twelve 'main battlefields,' fleets are constantly jumping into battle, and the beacons between the gates are basically all 'off.' When one of them lights up again, it will probably mean that another Earth has become a new battlefield, dragged into the war and destroyed.

So although it sounds hellish, Li Fan's luck was actually pretty good.

Thanks to the company wars, he managed to survive for at least the last fifty years.

Because they've been quiet and obedient for quite some time, and the fighting on the other side of the "gate" is so intense, neither the company nor the Security Bureau has the time or energy to focus on a local like you.

After the Clone God Lord took action at Juelong Ridge, it is said that he sealed away the four sect leaders of Xuanmen, but his whereabouts are unknown. It is unknown whether he fought to the death with Xiantong.

The company seems to have disappeared, at least outwardly, and is no longer active. It appears to have abandoned Earth 49327, leaving the task of eradicating the remnants of the Xuanmen sect entirely to the Divine Cult.

Therefore, the Xuanmen base in the north, especially in the Dui Country states, is currently in a state of constant warfare, with the Divine Sect launching a full-scale invasion of the Central Plains, attacking the Nine Great Xuan Sects dojos year after year, breaking through mountains and formations, annihilating families and killing people, and engaging in magical battles and calamities.

The Xuanmen sects of Duigan naturally fought to the death. If the Xuanmen sects from other places were to gather and come to their aid, the outcome would be uncertain, and it was even possible that they could push the Divine Sect back. But who would have thought that the treasure vault of Yuntai Peak would be teleported to Zhen, while Penglai remained closed off from the mountains? As a result, many Xuanmen sects not only failed to support their comrades in the Western Kingdom, but instead flocked to Zhen to seize the immortal opportunities, resulting in them killing each other.

Now, there is no longer a Yuntai Peak Assembly to coordinate the various sects of Xuanmen. In addition, the Taiyi and Shangqing sects have broken off relations and are blaming each other for the great defeat at Juelong Ridge. Xuanmen is becoming increasingly divided and infighting, making it even more impossible for them to unite against the enemy.

As the main forces of the Divine Sect and the Profound Sect fought fiercely in the West, the many treasures in the Cloud Terrace Treasury, as well as various divine skills and secret treasures, were scattered in the Central Plains. In addition, the Three Palaces of the Immortal Palace were destroyed, and the local government completely lost its prestige. The Tai Su Dao became popular all over the world, and various independent sects, powerful clans, and Cultivation Family rose up one after another. The once briefly stable Eastern Kingdom was once again in chaos.

The situation in the south was no better. Although Ink Bamboo Mountain was growing stronger and even became the leader of the southern cultivation alliance, the situation among the common people was terrible. The False Moon was shining brightly for longer periods of time, and plants withered and died due to lack of sunlight. The spiritual veins were drying up, rivers changed course, and thousands of miles of fertile land turned into desert. Humans and Demon Race were fighting bloody battles for the few remaining spaces to live in.

Version update, yes, it's like a version update, a completely different game. The classic fantasy art style is gradually disappearing from this earth. Strange and mutated creatures are becoming more and more common, and it's not surprising that newborn babies have extra limbs anymore. Cultivating the Tai Su Transformation or worshipping the moon won't get you labeled as a demonic cultivator anymore; people will even envy you for becoming a disciple.

Even in a place like Lou Guan City in Li Country, a large number of protective arrays were set up, and a limited amount of spiritual jade was consumed to shield against evil energy in order to maintain a seemingly prosperous and beautiful paradise on earth.

In short, the environment of this world is no longer suitable for the creatures of the previous generation to live in.

Evolve or go extinct, the choice is yours.

But no matter what, it's still slightly better than those twelve Earths with their lights off on the other side of the door.

At that moment, Li Fan heard the call from the Thousand-Faced Magic Puppet again, so he opened his eyes.

Oh, it's a portable Celestial Devil Statue issued to the Inner Sect disciples of Ink Bamboo Mountain. It can barely be considered an avatar. It's carved from Void Jade and is none other than the Mountain Lord himself, containing a Thousand-Faced Magic Puppet.

"Greetings, Your Excellency."

The candlelight flickered without wind, and the shadow of the Celestial Devil Statue stood upright on the ground.

Li Fan, summoned into his clone, looked at Song Dayou kneeling on the ground, and the boy he had brought out from the Vacuum Land.

"Found it! Well done!"

Song Dayou dared not raise his head, and knelt on the ground to report.

"This disciple has taken the liberty of naming this child Zheng Zetian and has obtained the Daoist certificate and ordination certificate from this mountain."

"Ze Tian, this is an auspicious hexagram, a fine name. Da You, you truly haven't disappointed me. Among your peers, only you understand the hardships of mortals cultivating immortality, remembering the principle that diligence can make up for lack of talent. Your foundation is the most solid, and your calculation ability the most profound, far surpassing those fools. I trust you to handle matters."

Li Fan nodded in satisfaction, beckoned Zheng Zetian to come closer, and said...

"This child is the reincarnation of Ancestor Luo, so I'll entrust him with the basic training. I'll take him as my true disciple in the future, so you must guide him diligently and push him hard, lest his talent be wasted."

"Yes, huh? Ancestor Luo?... Luo! Ancestor Luo!!"

Song Dayou shocked and almost choked to death on a wad of phlegm. He hurriedly bowed and said...

"We will certainly live up to the expectations of the Grand Master!"

Li Fan nodded, snapped his fingers, and Song Dayou's shock paused on his face. He turned to Zheng Zetian and smiled.

"Fellow Daoist, although it was those Outer Heaven Demons who Oldest One interfered, trying to seize the reincarnation body your sect had prepared for you, in the end, it was a case of the snipe and the clam fighting while the fisherman benefits. I was the one who laughed last, making a huge profit and gaining many conveniences."

Now that I am about to break through to the realm of the celestial beings, this cause and effect must be resolved.

I stole your physical body, but now I'm giving you an even better one. I delayed your cultivation, so I promise to protect you from the three calamities and guide you to the True Person realm.

If you want to spread the Luo Sect again in the future, I will help you. If you want to rebuild the Vacuum Home, I will help you. If you want Shi Tong'er to return to human form, I will also help you!

"So we're even now, how about that?"

Zheng Zetian stared blankly at the shadow in front of him, remaining silent for a while.

"I want one of those things you guys made on the Moon too."

Li Fan chuckled and patted Zheng Zetian's head.

"You dare to insert a prototype chip born from a beast mother into your brain? You Luo Sect members are all lunatics. Fine, it's a deal."

Since that's the case, let bygones be bygones. From now on, Ink Bamboo Mountain will be your home.

Okay, the aggrieved party is settled, now he can attain enlightenment.