Preparation and Awakening

Wu Pifu carefully washed his hands, then devoutly prayed to every sacred being he knew of, including but not limited to the Jade Emperor, the various constellations, Marshal Tianpeng, Protector of Horses... Odin, Valkyrie... Zeus, Athena... God, Jesus... and so on.

He even prayed to his parents from several hundred years ago.

May they bless him with something useful, preferably an extraordinary cultivation art like the Tiger Demon Art. In a Dream World from Baseline Reality 0.7, its extraordinary cultivation arts were hardly comparable to the Tiger Demon Art!

After finishing all this, under Jiujiu's puzzled, head-tilted gaze, Wu Pifu activated the Dream World's fully random draw. He locked its world range to the late Northern Song period of Baseline Reality 0.7, where he had established his Sanctuary.

There were no flashy lights or sound effects, nor any giant orb of light. An utterly ordinary object simply appeared before Wu Pifu.

It was a battered old conch covered in seaweed?

What the hell!

Wu Pifu was about to smash the conch in anger.

But this was normal. With a fully random draw, even drawing a clump of dirt would be normal. On the contrary, drawing the Tiger Demon Art had truly been a miracle. Still, some senior members had mentioned that when a newcomer drew from their first Sanctuary, the Main Brain seemed to take special care of them?

Holding the conch, Wu Pifu neither wanted to throw it away nor keep it. Still, he instinctively used the Main Brain to appraise it.

"Magic Conch."

"From the land of ******... It possesses strange powers. By asking it questions, one can receive answers. They may be correct, incorrect, useful, or useless..."

"One question may be asked every twenty-four hours."

Wu Pifu stood stunned for a long while, turning the conch over and over in his hands. The string of curses in his heart was practically ready to burst out.

Now that there was a Magic Conch, could SpongeBob be far behind!?

Could the garbled information from the Main Brain have meant that this thing came from SpongeBob's unfathomable undersea world!?

Wu Pifu's expression shifted as he stared at the conch shell in his hand. After thinking for a long time, he finally said to it, "Conch, what should I do next to safely survive this 'week'?"

After waiting for quite some time, the conch showed no reaction. Wu Pifu looked at it in confusion.

The Main Brain had displayed its properties, proving it was definitely no ordinary item. Then his method of asking must have been wrong... Did he have to say its full name?

"Ahem, Magic Conch, what should I do next to safely survive this 'week'?" Wu Pifu asked, feeling slightly embarrassed.

The conch shell actually began to tremble faintly, and then a deep female voice mixed with the sound of waves emerged from within it.

"Survive."

Wu Pifu immediately said in delight, "Right, survive this 'week'! No pro... no problem my ass! I already know I need to survive!!"

It seemed he had randomly drawn a valuable piece of trash...

Wu Pifu helplessly set down the Magic Conch. Though it was useless, it was still a magical item. Later, he could see whether he could sell it in the Dream World.

Having used the draw, the next step was strengthening his attributes.

This was the reward granted by a Level 2 Shelter.

So far, Wu Pifu knew the rewards for Level 1 through Level 4 Shelters. His seniors had told him that someone had supposedly established a Level 3 Shelter before, though not in their district. It had been a maintenance worker from another Gaia district. Unfortunately, they could no longer contact them, and no one knew whether that formidable person who had established the Level 3 Shelter was already dead.

Once one established a Level 1 Shelter, the Main Brain would provide a prompt revealing the reward for a Level 2 Shelter.

As far as Wu Pifu knew, a Level 1 Shelter granted one fully random draw from the Dream World where the Sanctuary was located. One might obtain a stone or a lump of dirt, or perhaps a precious treasure of that Dream World, even its supreme treasure. In any case, it was entirely random, and one would generally receive useless junk.

A Level 2 Shelter granted one attribute enhancement. This enhancement allowed any bodily attribute to be raised by one tier, but that attribute had to be one recognized by the Main Brain—in other words, one that could be displayed in the Main Brain.

This was actually the rudimentary form of human information datafication. Only after establishing a Level 3 Shelter would one's personal information be fully datafied. One world would be the world where the Level 3 Shelter had been established, and another world could be selected for information datafication. Wu Pifu had long decided that if he established a Level 3 Shelter, the first world he selected would definitely be the real world.

Before that, while in Gaia, only some of Wu Pifu's attributes had been semi-datafied.

"Wu Pifu."

"Level 1 maintenance worker."

"Body Tier 1, Soul Tier 1, Inspiration Tier 1."

"National Arts: Bright Force. Tiger Demon Art: Entering the Hall."

This was all the information Wu Pifu could currently display. Among it, Body, Soul, and Inspiration each had a small plus sign, indicating they could be selected and activated, but they could not currently be activated. This was the manifestation of insufficient datafication.

As for attribute enhancement, it could enhance everything currently displayed except his name, including Level 1 maintenance worker. After increasing by one tier, he would become a Level 2 maintenance worker, gaining more permissions—the equivalent of the combined permissions of ten Level 1 maintenance workers. Once he enhanced that, he would be able to open some sealed passages.

According to his seniors, if a Level 3 maintenance worker were enhanced by another tier, they would become a Level 1 citizen. Their permissions would immediately undergo a qualitative transformation. Not only could they open most passages, they could directly use certain Gaia projects unavailable to maintenance workers. For example, customized bioroid services—though they first had to reach a bioroid factory.

The other options were as their labels suggested. Body represented physical strength. Tier 1 was the level of an ordinary person, while Tier 2 brought an immediate explosive increase in every aspect. It was practically equivalent to an all-around twenty-first-century Olympic champion: running as fast as Bolt, punching with Tyson's strength, and possessing peak human ability in high jumping, weightlifting, neural reaction speed, and more.

It was said that every citizen was automatically adjusted to optimized genes at birth, meaning all citizens were born with Tier 2 bodies.

As for Soul and the like, Wu Pifu did not understand them very well. And Inspiration... that could actually be enhanced? Still, no one would probably choose to enhance it.

Besides the foundational attributes of life, one's learned skills could also be enhanced.

Those were National Arts and the Tiger Demon Art, which were actually categorized differently.

The ranks of National Arts were the three external cultivation stages of Bright Force, Dark Force, and Transformation Force, followed by the three internal cultivation stages of Golden Core, Astral Qi, and Seeing God Without Destruction. This was a classification of overall combat strength.

Although the Tiger Demon Art was also National Arts, its levels here represented proficiency and depth of cultivation in the Tiger Demon Art: First Steps, Entering the Hall, Mastery, Reaching the Pinnacle, and Ultimate Manifestation. These did not represent one's strength, but rather the depth of one's cultivation proficiency.

Those were all the options Wu Pifu could currently enhance.

He had already made his plans, but what truly caught his attention was the Main Brain's wording for the enhancement reward.

"You have received one reward to raise a personal attribute by one tier (non-limit-breaking)."

Since there was non-limit-breaking, did that mean there was limit-breaking enhancement?

Breaking through limits?

The more he thought about it, the more profound it seemed.

This was the reward for a Level 2 Shelter. A Level 3 Shelter granted an information datafication interface, while a Level 4 Shelter was downright incredible.

Obtain one designated item from the world where the Level 4 Shelter was located!

It directly granted any single item from the world one was in. So long as one designated it, one could obtain it immediately!

Even that world's supreme object. If there were a Primordial world from a novel, one could even obtain Hongjun's Creation Jade Disc!!

As for the reward for a Level 5 Shelter, Wu Pifu did not know. But with non-limit-breaking attribute enhancement existing, perhaps a Level 5 Shelter granted limit-breaking attribute enhancement. Of course, it might also be something else.

So far, Wu Pifu only knew that Level 5 was the highest level of Sanctuary. Whether there were Level 6, Level 7, or higher Shelters, he had no idea.

Wu Pifu immediately said, "Main Brain, use attribute enhancement. Designate the Tiger Demon Art."

"Using one reward to raise a personal attribute by one tier (non-limit-breaking). The designated enhancement option is Tiger Demon Art. Confirm?"

"Confirm."

In the next instant, Wu Pifu seemed to fall back into that dream, both illusory and real. Endless Void surrounded him. He howled and roared within it, his entire being already descending into madness.

But then, a crimson tiger roared forth and came before the maddened Wu Pifu. The scarlet tiger was incomparably enormous; Wu Pifu only reached the height of the toes before its paws. A crazed blood-red aura spread out, making his entire body tremble. Then the crimson tiger lowered its head, its blood-red eyes meeting Wu Pifu's gaze.

The next moment, Wu Pifu's body shook as he staggered backward. To his senses, traces of that frenzied blood-red aura still seemed to linger, nearly driving his thoughts entirely mad. But the spark of radiance within his consciousness suddenly expanded, its magnitude increasing by at least tenfold. No matter how wildly mad thoughts arose in his mind, that spark of radiance remained unmoving, suppressing everything. Gradually, Wu Pifu's mind settled.

It was not that his heart contained no distracting thoughts or demonic thoughts. On the contrary, those thoughts had increased several times over. But Sleepless Radiance had increased by more than tenfold, completely suppressing those distracting and demonic thoughts, calming his mind. Its effect on self-awareness of both body and consciousness had improved by far more than tenfold!

Wu Pifu silently sensed the changes in his body and mind, then instinctively began practicing martial arts.

Wind-Walking Tiger Step, Frenzied Tiger Pouncing into the Ravine, Tiger Demon Claw, Returning Body Tail...

Every training form and combat technique of the Tiger Demon Art flowed from his hands one by one. In that half-illusory, half-real state, he continuously demonstrated martial forms for at least ten minutes. Then he struck his palm against a damaged wooden table amid the Maintenance Base Station's clutter.

There was no sound. He had not even shattered the already flimsy wooden table with his palm. But when he lifted his hand, a palm print had been stamped into the tabletop, sinking more than three inches into the wood without damaging the surrounding timber.

"Dark Force! I did it!"

Wu Pifu exhaled a stream of white vapor. Like an arrow, it shot straight out over three meters before slowly dispersing.

Sure enough, the information displayed by the Main Brain had changed.

"National Arts: Dark Force. Tiger Demon Art: Mastery."

The random draw had been used, and the attribute enhancement had been used. Wu Pifu looked at the Buddha Mud before him. After some thought, he decided not to use it immediately. He planned to awaken five maintenance workers first. After all, an extra person meant extra support. If he had an adverse reaction after using the Buddha Mud, these newcomers could send him to the medical pod. Otherwise, if he were alone and suffered some adverse reaction, he would not even be able to get into the medical pod. That would truly be a pointless death.

Wu Pifu then returned to the stasis pod chamber and looked up. "Main Brain, use five awakening slots."

"Awaken five maintenance workers. Confirm?"

"Confirm."

As soon as the words fell, parts of the metal foundation beneath the stasis pods shifted. One stasis pod after another rose from the metal floor, five in total, and they began opening one by one.

After the stasis pods opened, a middle-aged-looking man stepped out of the first one. Then came a well-endowed young woman, followed by a gentle-looking man, then a boy who appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen. And inside the fifth stasis pod...

Dozens of black tentacles stretched outward. The boy nearest it was still in a daze when he was immediately wrapped up by the dozens of tentacles and dragged straight toward the fifth stasis pod.

A creaking sound that made one's scalp crawl...

The boy's head, eyes wide open, rolled out of the fifth stasis pod.

.