Inside a house in the Black Water Tribe, a young man in fine clothes stood by the window, frowning deeply as he watched the battle outside.
"Young Master Wu, I'm begging you! You're the only one who can save the Black Water Tribe now!
I promise, if you save my father, I'll be your servant and attend to you forever."
A gorgeous woman in revealing clothes, her figure voluptuous, knelt beside the young man and pleaded with him in a soft voice.
Wu Tong looked at Huyan Manqi, who was kneeling at his feet, and a flash of desire passed through his eyes. "Manqi, there's no need for this. Since you've asked, of course I have no reason to refuse."
He searched the crowd and found the location of Chen Village's leader.
"Manqi, wait here for a moment. I'll be right back."
He smiled confidently, opened the door, and rushed outside.
Attacked from both sides by Chen Village, the Black Water Tribe's people struggled to cope. Their chief, Huyan Qing, was tied up fighting Chen Honglie, leaving them utterly unable to organize an effective resistance. Now they were being slaughtered.
"Listen up! If you don't want to die, raise your hands and kneel! Otherwise, you'll be killed without mercy!"
Chen Hongjie swung his bone staff and shouted, his voice ringing out across the land.
The people of the Black Water Tribe had never been as united as those of Chen Village. Upon hearing the shout, nearly half of them immediately knelt, and the rest followed one after another.
Just then, a man in fine clothes charged toward Chen Hongjie. His movement technique was superb, and he was so fast that ordinary Chen Village warriors couldn't stop him.
"Hmph!"
A streak of silver flashed. Like a dancer in the darkness, A Huo swung his sword at Wu Tong several times, his blade carrying incomparably sharp Sword Qi.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Wu Tong's weapon was also a sword. He darted and shifted with exquisite skill, defending against A Huo's moves so tightly that not a drop of water could have slipped through.
"Fine swordsmanship!"
Wu Tong hadn't expected to find someone skilled with a sword in such a lowly tribe. Although A Huo's cultivation was a little low, it still made him think more highly of Chen Village.
He didn't want to waste time here, so he put more force into his sword.
"Out of my way!"
The might of his sword surged, and a single strike drove A Huo back two steps. He then continued charging toward Chen Hongjie.
"An Eighth-Stage Martial Artist?"
In an instant, Chen Village's warriors grew tense and gathered around Chen Hongjie. But Chen Hongjie showed no fear. He activated his bone staff and swung it at Wu Tong.
Chen Hongjie was a Seventh-Duan Martial Artist. Moreover, he had wielded the bone staff longer and was more attuned to it, so the power of this strike was no weaker than an ordinary Eighth-Stage Martial Artist's attack.
Raging flames surged from the bone staff, their blazing might reaching the heavens. Although Wu Tong blocked the strike, he had to retreat two steps to avoid the flames.
Wu Tong was inwardly alarmed. Chen Village's foundations were stronger than he had imagined, leaving him no choice but to call out, "Stop! I mean no harm. I'm..."
But to his surprise, the people of Chen Village paid no heed to his nonsense and attacked him one after another.
A Huo, who had just been driven back, looked furious as he chased after Wu Tong from behind and thrust his sword at him.
The elder Chen Jianfeng was even more underhanded. Disguised as an ordinary Chen Village warrior, he suddenly sprang out and nearly dealt Wu Tong a serious wound with his saber.
Meanwhile, Chen Mu fired at him from a distance with a rune gun.
Limited by its materials, the rune gun's power was difficult to improve once it reached the level of a Seventh-Duan Martial Artist. It was no longer Chen Mu's strongest means of attack, but it remained a useful weapon for sneak attacks.
Under the successive attacks, even Wu Tong, powerful as he was, made a mistake and was captured after a few exchanges.
"Stop! Let me go! Do you know who I am? I'm..."
Before long, Chen Zihu had stuffed his mouth with hemp cloth, leaving him able to make only agitated muffled noises.
"Zihu, what was he shouting just now?"
Seeing that the outcome was settled, Chen Hongjie relaxed and asked the question.
"He said he was apparently the son of some Wumeng Tribe chief." Chen Zihu curled his lip indifferently, a hint of disdain in his eyes.
"Then leave him be for now. Go collect the Black Water Tribe's property first. Once you're done, we'll take the prisoners back to the village."
Chen Hongjie had heard of the Wumeng Tribe. It was a fairly strong medium-sized tribe, but it was over a hundred kilometers from Chen Village.
Chen Village had dared to offend even a high-ranking tribe, so why would it fear a mere medium-sized one? No matter what, the Black Water Tribe had to disappear from the Wuyan Mountain Range tonight.
Tribal warfare had always been a matter of the weak falling prey to the strong, with no room for mercy. By not ordering the pursuit and slaughter of the elderly, children, and women who had fled, Chen Hongjie had shown the last measure of humanity.
Huyan Manqi, who had been hiding in the house, received no good news. Before long, Chen Village's warriors found her and took her prisoner as well.
Two hours later, the sky had begun to pale. Chen Village's warriors escorted a long line of prisoners as they left the Black Water Tribe's settlement in a great procession.
Behind them, a raging fire engulfed the Black Water Tribe. From that day onward, the Black Water Tribe was no more, leaving only burned ruins behind.
Chen Village, inside the talisman-making room.
Pieces of spirit wood covered in runes lay before Chen Mu. He was carefully modifying the runes on them, occasionally picking up a book beside him and leafing through a few pages, his expression intensely focused.
As a programmer reborn in this world, he regretted that it had no computers. Given the chance, he naturally wanted to recreate them here.
Computers were the supreme crystallization of technological civilization's wisdom. An ordinary person might not have been able to make one even with another thousand years.
But Chen Mu was different. He was a talisman master, and one who possessed the Rune Ancestor's inheritance.
In essence, the civilization of this fantasy world was actually at a far higher level than that of the Earth where Chen Mu had lived in his previous life.
After all, as far as Chen Mu knew, this world's land area was much greater than Earth's. The Wilderness alone spanned hundreds of millions of square kilometers, and beyond it lay the Central Land, the Western Region, the Endless Eastern Sea, and other places. Each was nearly as vast as the Wilderness, if not larger.
The humans born in such a vast expanse were also incomparably powerful. As the books said, rulers of high-ranking tribes could already fly through the sky, burrow through the earth, move mountains, and fill seas.
Above the high-ranking tribes stood the legendary Wilderness Divine Temple. Its people could live for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and when angered, they could destroy mountain ranges with a wave of their hands.
Chen Mu's master, the Rune Ancestor, was a figure at that level, so he knew just how terrifying the Rune Ancestor's realm was.
Even the most advanced technology on the Earth of Chen Mu's previous life could never have achieved what the Rune Ancestor could.
Thus, the True Explanation of Runes that Chen Mu was studying was, in fact, more profound than the computer technology of his previous life.
But technological civilization was not without its merits. After all, it represented another direction in the development of civilization.
And now Chen Mu was using the knowledge of a more advanced fantasy civilization to build the crystallization of technological civilization, combining the two.
Chen Mu had begun researching how to make a computer two years ago and had only recently made a small breakthrough. The blocks of spirit wood before him were the control chips he had developed-that is, the computer's central processing units.
Generally speaking, a central processing unit's structure could be roughly divided into three core components: the arithmetic logic unit, the registers, and the control unit.
Runes also had similar structures. Chen Mu had consulted many books on runes before finally creating three core rune structures: a logic operation rune, a data storage rune, and a control rune.
Of these, the logic operation rune was the most difficult. Its efficiency directly determined how powerful the central processing unit was.
The logic operation rune Chen Mu made also used binary principles at its foundation, but instead of physical circuit switches, it used yin-yang line runes.
Yin-yang line runes were more flexible than physical switches, and they could be compressed continuously. Chen Mu had compressed hundreds of thousands of them into the logic operation rune he had just made, which had left him utterly exhausted.
Once the logic operation rune was complete, the data storage rune mainly depended on its material and was not very difficult.
The final control rune regulated the input and output of external information. Like activating talisman paper with spiritual power, it was a very common structure in runes, and Chen Mu completed it in just a few days.
Limited by its material, the chip he had just made had limited computing power and wasn't very capable. But no matter what, he had made the most important component.
With the control chip in hand, the day he could make a computer was not far off.
But he still needed to explore how to put a computer's capabilities to use and make it helpful to him in daily life.