Spirit Realm Network

Zhou Qing composed himself and prepared to begin today's cultivation, chiefly to test the effects of Spirit Stones.

Just as he was about to take out a Spirit Stone, a jade tablet suddenly fell from his sleeve.

It was the jade tablet representing the identity of the Senior Apprentice, as well as the tool through which the Senior Apprentice exercised his authority.

Zhou Qing temporarily set aside the Spirit Stone and examined the jade tablet.

He extended his consciousness into the jade tablet. In an instant, a bright flash filled his vision, the scene of his room swiftly vanished, and he entered a vast expanse of whiteness.

There was no end in sight within this space, nor were there any other features. Only a bulletin board stood not far in front of him.

Zhou Qing walked up to the bulletin board and found a notice explaining it. Only then did he understand that this was the Azure Cloud Sect's Spirit Realm Network, where tasks were posted and accepted.

The Spirit Realm Network was managed by the Miscellaneous Affairs Hall.

The hall master and Elders of the Miscellaneous Affairs Hall regularly gathered all manner of affairs from throughout the sect, then assigned tasks to the disciples.

These tasks were mainly divided into two types: internal duties and external duties.

External duties included overseeing spirit mines and shops controlled by the sect, eliminating disasters for mortal kingdoms under Azure Cloud Sect protection, exploring ruins, and working with disciples from other sects to fight Demonic Cultivators and monsters.

Only Inner Disciples could accept such tasks.

Outer Disciples had shallow cultivation. Most of them were not even qualified to cultivate offensive spells, so they were not permitted to descend the mountain.

They could only accept internal duties on Azure Cloud Mountain, White Cloud Mountain, and Purple Cloud Mountain.

These included tending spirit plants and spirit beasts for the Pill Hall, watching over pill furnaces, handling ruined pills, forging iron for the Artifact Hall, processing failed magical artifacts, disposing of the corpses of Elders who died at Living Dead Cliff, and cleaning the cultivation caves they left behind... and so on.

The Senior Apprentice's duty was to keep watch over task updates at all times, then assign suitable people to complete them.

Zhou Qing finally understood why everyone in the sect placed such importance on the choice of Senior Apprentice.

It was a position that could be called low in rank but weighty in power.

So long as the Senior Apprentice was willing, he could utterly ruin any of his junior brothers or sisters through all kinds of rule-abiding means.

For instance, he could repeatedly assign them arduous yet poorly rewarded tasks, leaving them no time to cultivate.

If such methods were too crude and likely to invite criticism, there were subtler means—for example, assigning a disciple a task at a critical stage of their breakthrough, thereby delaying the crucial juncture of that breakthrough.

From every angle, the Senior Apprentice held an invisible power over life and death.

Having understood his authority, Zhou Qing glanced over the bulletin board. Seeing only a few external duties and no internal duties, he stopped paying attention and withdrew from the Spirit Realm Network.

The moment he left the Spirit Realm Network and his consciousness returned to his body, Zhou Qing sensed something strange.

It was as though abnormal spiritual energy fluctuations had coiled around him before slowly receding.

The fluctuations were extremely faint. If not for his ability to sense magnetic fields, he would certainly have overlooked them.

Why were there abnormal spiritual energy fluctuations?

Thinking of what he had just been doing, Zhou Qing turned his gaze to the jade tablet in his hand.

Could these be traces left behind by the Spirit Realm Network?

To verify his guess, he once again sank his consciousness into the jade tablet, took a turn through the Spirit Realm Network, and then withdrew.

The abnormal spiritual energy fluctuations indeed appeared again.

This time, he deliberately observed them and discovered that the fluctuations in spiritual energy were like ripples on water, rapidly retreating toward Azure Cloud Mountain.

Why did this happen?

Zhou Qing pondered for a while, and suddenly his heart stirred.

What exactly was the Spirit Realm Network?

Could it really be some kind of independent space?

He did not rule out the possibility that the Cultivation World possessed the ability to create independent spaces, but the Azure Cloud Sect did not seem to have reached that level. Besides, using such an independent space for something as trivial as posting tasks would be absurd.

But if it was not an independent space, then what was the Spirit Realm Network?

An answer quickly formed in Zhou Qing's mind.

In his previous life, he had lived in a world where network space had been developed to its utmost limits.

The network space of his previous life relied on electromagnetic waves, which people used to transmit information.

And according to Zhou Qing's observations, the spiritual energy of the Cultivation World was likewise energy with different vibration frequencies.

Electromagnetic waves could transmit information and construct virtual networks.

Why couldn't spiritual energy fluctuations do the same?

So the Spirit Realm Network was actually a virtual space, and the jade tablet was merely its interface.

This world actually had a network!

That was fucking surprising.

But why had he not seen any trace of networks elsewhere?

As Zhou Qing considered the phenomenon he had just observed, he quickly found the answer.

Spiritual energy fluctuations traveled far too slowly. They simply could not support a complex virtual network.

Electromagnetic waves traveled at the speed of light, ensuring the instantaneous transmission of information.

As for the speed at which spiritual energy fluctuations traveled, judging from how quickly Zhou Qing had seen them retreat, let alone the speed of light, they probably were not much faster than his Hypersonic Iron Pellet.

In other words, they were at most still at the supersonic level.

At such transmission speeds, it was enough to establish a task-posting platform within the range of the Azure Cloud Sect's Three Peaks. But to construct a more complex virtual network? There was no need even to think about it.

Hah, all that excitement for nothing.

No, it wasn't entirely for nothing...

Zhou Qing thought that since the Spirit Realm Network relied on spiritual energy fluctuations, if he could analyze those fluctuations, could he crack the Spirit Realm Network?

This might have been impossible for others, but it was not particularly difficult for Zhou Qing, who possessed magnetic field abilities and could actively tune the frequency of spiritual energy.

If he could accomplish it, he might become the Cultivation World's first "hacker."

However, hackers did not seem to have much room to show their skills in this world.

After all, the development potential of this world's virtual networks was pitifully small.

Zhou Qing stopped concerning himself with the identity of a "hacker," which truly seemed to offer no future, and prepared to begin today's cultivation.

In the Cultivation World, cultivation was the foundation of everything.

He took out a Spirit Stone, but did not look for a cauldron.

At the Instruction Platform, he had already used his magnetic field senses and discovered that he could directly capture the spiritual energy within a Spirit Stone. He had no need for the Stone-Boiling Cultivation process at all.

Zhou Qing sat down cross-legged, placed the Spirit Stone in his palm, activated his magnetic field, and captured the spiritual energy into his body.

The spiritual energy within the Spirit Stone was exceedingly dense. With a casual sweep of his magnetic field, he drew a great amount of spiritual energy into his body.

Zhou Qing was delighted to discover that cultivating this way was far more efficient than the Stone-Boiling Cultivation Uncle Chen had described.

For ordinary cultivators, boiling Mid-Grade Spirit Stones to create an environment of highly concentrated spiritual energy could increase cultivation speed to three times the usual rate.

But Zhou Qing discovered that capturing the spiritual energy from Spirit Stones into his body with his magnetic field was fully six times faster than normal.

Three hours later, when he finished cultivating and felt the increasingly robust spiritual energy circulating within his body, Zhou Qing experienced a sense of fullness.

He released the restrictions of the Spirit Concealment Art. The Spirit Pressure within his body burst forth and churned against the spiritual energy outside him, cloaking his body in a thin layer of radiance.

Three inches of Spirit Pressure!

This was the result of his two months of diligent cultivation.