Jiang Ding and Yuan spent some time discussing the Central Array-Spirit Computer's advancement to the eighth rank.
They traded ideas back and forth, evenly matched. Wondrous insights burst forth at every moment. Any one spark of wisdom, released into the world, would take even a Dao Integration Divine Lord thousands of years to develop—if such an insight ever came to him in his lifetime.
A passing thought from a prodigy beneath the boundless stars could reach heights that cultivators of the same rank could never touch in their entire lives.
The two had much in common. After all, both had grown up within the Immortal Sect's education system.
They also differed in many ways.
The Great Sun Sword Lord thought entirely on his own. His sword soul turned as he deduced the Immortal Sect's eighth-rank Central Array-Spirit Computer project from his understanding of swordsmanship and the laws of heaven and earth.
Yuan, meanwhile, was one man, but he could also be seen as the collective of hundreds of millions of Immortal Sect scientists, countless research institutes, and the Central Array-Spirit Computer. He applied the collective consciousness and military soul known as "the Many" to research and development. It was almost as though an entire civilization were thinking, leaving nothing unexamined and nowhere unreached.
Days passed, then years.
The two continued thinking through countless matters on equal footing, resolving one problem after another in the Central Array-Spirit Computer's advancement to the eighth rank.
As they thought, their avatars across the land, portions of their true bodies' soul-processing power, the Immortal Sect's research institutes, and its leading scientists and their teams all kept busy. They built, tested, and experimented on complex systems engineering projects involving talismans, formations, artifact refinement, construction, and more.
It was as though someone had pressed fast-forward on time.