Heavenly Dao felt it could not keep indulging this any longer.
It, the supreme aggregate of rules governing the Primordial Chaos, had always operated in an orderly fashion, impartial and emotionless. Yet now, a single slacker had forcibly driven it into symptoms akin to "heart attacks" and "cerebral hemorrhages." Was this acceptable?
It had to set things right! It had to straighten out this sapling that had grown crooked into a ditch!
[Heavenly Dao: Initiating... Agent Behavior Correction Protocol... Injecting... Insights into Heavenly Dao Principles... Instilling... Orthodox Primordial Chaos Values... Strengthening... Sense of Responsibility and Mission...]
A stream of Heavenly Dao information, far purer, vaster, and more irresistible than before, surged toward Xiao Kuang's sea of consciousness! It contained the laws of order since the creation of the Primordial Chaos, moral treatises, the aspirations of ancient sages, the inevitability of calamities... like a mighty Milky Way cascading from the heavens. This time, Heavenly Dao had gone all out, even drawing upon a trace of its origin power, determined to reshape this poor student's worldview into that of a qualified Dao Ancestor!
"Ugh...!"
Xiao Kuang had been lounging in his Gaming Chair with his feet propped up when all this "serious" stuff was suddenly crammed into his head. His head immediately swelled with pain, and before his eyes, countless stuffy old scholars seemed to be chanting scriptures while nodding their heads.
"The Great Dao is formless, giving birth to Heaven and Earth; the Great Dao is emotionless, moving the sun and moon; the Great Dao is nameless, nurturing all things..." (The Treatise on the Response of the Exalted One?)
"Heaven's course is constant; it does not endure for Yao, nor perish for Jie..." (Xunzi? Why was that here!)
"Calamities are necessary for the balance of Heaven and Earth, the embodiment of karmic cycles. A Dao Ancestor must follow the tide and guide all living beings..." (A Primordial Chaos textbook?)
"Shut up! All of you, shut up!" Xiao Kuang clutched his head and writhed painfully in his chair. "I hate classes the most! Especially mandatory online classes! What kind of crap doctrine is this? My head hurts just listening to it!"
His slacker instincts clashed violently with these profound Heavenly Dao principles!
Heavenly Dao Will was cold and unyielding:
[Comprehend it! Understand it! Become it! Shoulder your responsibilities!]
Xiao Kuang struggled as he roared, "Responsibility, my ass! I just want to lie flat! I just want to slack off! Who doesn't go crazy from working? You just force yourself to endure it! Everything you're saying is exploitation! It's brainwashing! I'm not doing it!"
[Stubbornly incorrigible! Intensify the infusion!]
More information flooded in, even beginning to forcibly overwrite Xiao Kuang's useless memories of "playing games," "eating chips," and "looking at pretty girls."
"Ahhh! You've gone too far!" Driven into a corner, Xiao Kuang simply gave up completely. He bundled up all the Heavenly Dao principles, moral essays, and necessity of calamities that he had just passively received, mixed them with his intense resentment of "I refuse to work" and "I want to play," then hurled them back at the source of Heavenly Dao Will in one unaltered, furious blast!
[Received: The Great Dao is formless... giving birth to Heaven and Earth... (Addendum: Give birth to what? Better to sleep.)] [Received: Heaven's course is constant... (Addendum: Constant my ass, I want a vacation.)] [Received: Calamities are necessary... (Addendum: Necessary, my ass. Wouldn't a card game to decide the winner be better?)]
Heavenly Dao:
[???]
That cold, vast Heavenly Dao Will suddenly froze, as though it had been struck head-on by a garbage truck driving in reverse!
It tried to comprehend the contaminated stream of information. Its core code spun frantically, only for its logical chains to begin collapsing:
[Warning! Contradictory commands detected! "The Great Dao is formless" conflicts with "Give birth to what?" Parsing failed!] [Error! "Heaven's course is constant" and "Constant my ass" are logically incompatible! System disorder!] [Critical error! Comparing "calamities are necessary" with "a card game to decide the winner"... conducting meaningless calculations... CPU usage 100%...] [Heavenly Dao: ((;￢＿￢))...┻━┻︵╰(‵□′)╯︵┻━┻!!!]
The garbled symbols in the sky began flooding the screen wildly again. This time, they no longer conveyed rage, but an extreme sense of chaos, collapse, and... despair?
It had intended to brainwash him, only to be reverse-brainwashed by his garbage information! Its core code now seemed stuffed full of viral programs like "lying flat," "slacking off," and "playing cards"!
Heavenly Dao's operations completely stalled. The immense force of the infusion ebbed away like the tide, accompanied by something like the mournful cry of an overheating system crash. The garbled symbols flickered a few times, bright and dim, before fading and vanishing entirely, as though it needed to find a quiet corner and properly repair its shattered worldview and damaged code.
"Tch, you wanted to fight me?" Xiao Kuang panted heavily, feeling as though he had won a grueling battle to defend his slacker life. He smugly wiped away cold sweat. "You wanted to brainwash me? I may not be good at anything else, but flooding my brain with water... ah, no, I mean staying true to my useless nature—that's professional level!"
After that "great battle," he found all those "proper matters" recommended by Heavenly Dao even more unbearably boring. Finding his own entertainment was what truly mattered.
Suddenly, his eyes shifted, and he came up with another brilliant idea.
"The Dragon-Phoenix Calamity ended ages ago, right? There should still be plenty of dragons, phoenixes, and kirin left, shouldn't there? I hear that once dragons and phoenixes take human form, the men are handsome and the women are beautiful. Kirin would make pretty impressive mounts too, wouldn't they?"
Rubbing his chin, he let out a wicked chuckle. "Since I have nothing to do anyway, it wouldn't hurt to pick up a few leftovers, right? I'll bring the pretty ones back to serve tea and water. The ugly ones... uh, the ugly ones can come back and make up a zoo? It'll enrich Purple Cloud Palace's recreational culture! I really am such a considerate Dao Ancestor for my employees!"
No sooner said than done!
He once again mobilized the authority that gave Heavenly Dao such a headache, and his divine sense instantly swept across Heaven and Earth of the Primordial Chaos.
Most of the dragon remnants hid trembling in the abyssal depths of the Four Seas; the phoenix descendants clung to life at the Undying Volcano; the surviving kirin scattered across the Primordial Chaos, living in constant fear.
"Heavenly Dao Authority! Great Spatial Shift! Target: surviving members of the dragon, phoenix, and kirin clans! Selection criteria: high attractiveness, great potential, looks delicious... pfft, looks docile! Forced relocation!"
Bzzz!
Across the Primordial Chaos, countless surviving members of the three clans were licking their wounds and struggling to reproduce when they suddenly felt an utterly irresistible, supreme power descend upon them!
The next moment, no matter where they were—in deep-sea nests, volcanic lava, or remote mountains and forests—they were all enveloped by invisible spatial power. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! They became streaks of light and were helplessly dragged toward Beyond the Thirty-Three Heavens!
For a time, countless panicked streaks of light flashed across the Primordial Chaos like a reverse meteor shower, shooting straight toward the chaos beyond.
Beside Purple Cloud Palace, Xiao Kuang casually opened up a new area, added some artificial mountains and flowing water (Chaos Qi simulation version), then hung up a sign—"Purple Cloud Palace Aviary and Menagerie (Trial Version)."
Beautiful Dragon Girls, Phoenix Girls, and female kirin were picked out and stood in Purple Cloud Palace's main hall with blank faces, staring at the Gaming Chair, massage recliners, and barbecue grill in profound bewilderment. Meanwhile, more dragons, phoenixes, and kirin in their original forms were tossed into the "zoo." Seeing the gray chaos around them and their equally bewildered companions, they let out terrified, aggrieved cries—dragon roars, phoenix shrieks, and kirin howls.
Xiao Kuang looked upon his "spoils of war" in satisfaction and clapped his hands. "Perfect! Employee benefits and recreational facilities have both been greatly improved!"
From the heavens came a faint, grief-stricken sizzling sound, like leaking electricity from corrupted code. It was the sound of Heavenly Dao giving up entirely.
Before you continue