Consequences and the Principle of Cause and Effect
Liu Yi was browsing the forum when a message suddenly popped up. He paused in surprise. He hadn't expected someone to speak up so soon after the nickname feature was added.
Before long, the comments section came alive, with replies appearing one after another.
"Hello, do you have the Fairness System too?"
"Yes, I do."
"How's your training in the Body Tempering Foundation Establishment Method going?"
Messages kept popping up, and discussions sprang up one after another.
Liu Yi closed the system interface and thought to himself, The system is running normally for now. I can expand the scale of the experiment. I also need to hurry and comprehend the Principle of Cause and Effect. That's the only way I can solve the communication problem.
More importantly, I need to make the system independent and sever its causal connection to me.
Bodhisattvas fear causes; mortals fear consequences.
If I don't deal with it, as the number of hosts grows, the accumulated karma will become more and more frightening. Sooner or later, it'll pose a danger to me.
Having made up his mind, he set to work at once, traveling all over the surrounding villages and towns to distribute systems.
He only stopped after giving out 1,000 systems.
With all that done, he returned to his peaceful life.
Each day, he would sometimes immerse himself in comprehending the Great Dao Principle and sometimes play with Little Yellow.
Half a year passed. After Liu Yi's constant analysis and deduction, he finally comprehended a sliver of the Principle of Cause and Effect.
He looked at the twenty Great Dao Principles covering his Dao Seed, among which was the Contract Principle the system urgently needed.
He smiled and said with feeling, "Thanks to the help of 1,100 systems, my deduction ability has grown stronger, and I can comprehend Principles much faster."
"Although I've only scratched the surface of these Principles, it's enough to weave an upgraded system."
When he opened the system backend to check on the hosts, he was stunned.
He hadn't paid attention for just a while, and not only had the hosts' strength advanced by leaps and bounds, but the areas around them had also undergone earth-shaking changes.
Take Xu Cheng'an, for example. He had successfully broken through to the Innate Realm, and had even used his accumulated Energy Points to exchange for and master the Innate Realm cultivation method Nine Heavens Heavenly Lightning Instruction.
After his strength soared, he personally killed Xu Zhen, the bully of Xu Household Village, and reclaimed his family's seized farmland.
He also returned all the land under Xu Zhen's name to the other villagers, becoming a hero celebrated throughout Xu Household Village for a time.
As Liu Yi browsed the hosts' updates, he laughed aloud. "Just as I thought, this system holds infinite possibilities! Given enough time, breaking this world's established rules is no pipe dream."
But as he laughed, his expression suddenly turned serious.
He thought about how some hosts might use the system to commit evil in the future.
"If an evil person got hold of a system and used it to do evil, wouldn't that be my fault?"
At that thought, he immediately made up his mind to add a good-and-evil identification feature to the next version of the system, filtering out those who were utterly vicious and devoid of humanity.
However, fights and vendettas between cultivators were unavoidable, so he could leave those alone, as long as they didn't harm innocent commoners.
So, to further strengthen the system's restrictions, he planned to add a new rule:
Once a host was detected committing an unforgivable evil act, the system would automatically trigger a forced unbinding procedure.
Although he very much wanted to forcibly wipe them out, he considered that it might make the hosts wary.
That would affect the system's dissemination and promotion, so he could only settle for unbinding the system instead.
Even so, it could still serve as a constant warning to every host.
It would keep them from daring to trample moral boundaries at will and curb the occurrence of vicious incidents at the root.
Of course, the standard couldn't be so high as to demand that everyone be a sage.
If he applied the standards of a sage, probably not many people would qualify.
So his only requirement for binding the system was that a person not be utterly vicious and devoid of humanity.
Having made up his mind, Liu Yi immediately began constructing the new system with the Great Dao Principles he had mastered. The light of the Principles constantly flickered and flowed in his hands.
The first attempt failed! The system's framework fell apart as soon as it took shape.
He carefully analyzed the cause of the failure, repeatedly deduced improvements, and kept trying.
On his thirtieth attempt, he finally succeeded in weaving version 3.0 of the Fairness System.
This version added a good-and-evil identification feature, making it impossible for people with ill intentions to bind the system.
If a host who had already bound it committed numerous evil acts, the system would automatically unbind itself.
It also added a Microchat messaging feature, a Mission Hall, and a QR code payment module, while improving the forum so that users could now post videos and pictures.
The Mission Hall was specifically for issuing system missions, and Liu Yi intended to use it to guide the hosts' actions.
System Seeds were also made available for exchange in the store.
These System Seeds were made by directly copying a subsystem as a template.
A system host only needed to spend 100 Energy Points to exchange for a System Seed and share it with someone else to use.
Anyone buying a paid manual in the store would enter into a contract, and a violation would result in immediate extermination.
Besides these conspicuous feature updates, the system's other functions had also been greatly optimized.
Energy storage had increased two hundredfold, and energy conversion efficiency tenfold.
As for energy transmission, the system used the Principle of Cause and Effect and the Space Principle to transfer energy between systems.
Its computing power had also grown stronger, and the system ran more smoothly.
Its information storage capacity had increased a millionfold, more than enough to meet the need to store vast amounts of information.
There had also been a breakthrough in communications. Although it still couldn't achieve real-time communication that completely ignored spatial distance, it was sufficient for the time being.
The system's security was also tighter. Even if another powerful expert obtained a system, they wouldn't be able to crack its core secrets in a short time.
Most importantly, Liu Yi had used the Principle of Cause and Effect to separate the system from himself, forming the Origin System.
This allowed the karma generated by the hosts to connect directly to the Origin System, preventing causal ties between him and the hosts from adversely affecting him.
He looked at Fairness System 3.0 and couldn't help marveling, "This is like trading a musket for a cannon! A system made entirely from Great Dao Principles is so much better than the one before."
"Now this version 3.0 finally looks a little like a real system. It's still the Pinduoduo version, but at least I've dropped the 'beggar's edition' suffix."
"The preliminary experiments are more or less done. It's time to step up promotion and spread the system further."
"The more widely the system spreads, the more benefits I can gain."
"Whether it's collecting all kinds of manuals, accumulating Energy Points for cultivation, or using the system as a super server to deduce Great Dao Principles, I need a large number of subsystems."
With that thought, he immediately got to work, sending a system upgrade notification to all 1,100 hosts at once.
As soon as Fairness System 3.0 updated, all 1,100 hosts were stunned and flocked to the forum for a lively discussion.
In the blink of an eye, "Fairness System 3.0 update" shot to the top of the forum's trending list.
"The Fairness System keeps getting more awesome, and its features are getting more comprehensive! Now you can actually take photos and record videos directly with your eyes. It's amazing!"
"I just tried it, and it's incredible! Even immortal cultivators probably can't do that, right?"
"You can also add friends and post to Moments on Microchat. From now on, we can stay in touch no matter how far apart we are. It's so convenient!"
"Haha, the System Store lets us exchange for System Seeds to share with others now. I'm planning to save up some energy and get one for my parents too."
"If we spread the system around, won't we lose our advantage?"
"That's so shortsighted! Even if you don't spread it, there will only be more and more system users. You might as well let your family use it first and get a head start."
"Exactly! Look, it's called the Fairness System. It wants everyone to be able to use it and make the world fairer and more harmonious."
"There's another important piece of news! The system has just added a good-and-evil identification feature. If anyone commits an evil act, the system will automatically unbind itself."
"That's right! This system is a heaven-sent fortuitous opportunity. Once you lose it, you'll never get it back, so everyone, make sure you don't do evil from now on!"
As Liu Yi browsed the forum discussions, he quickly realized that he couldn't rely solely on hosts to spread the system of their own accord. He had to take action and actively promote it himself.
At the same time, he needed to make good use of the Mission Hall to issue system promotion missions and increase the hosts' enthusiasm for spreading it.
He opened his personal center and saw that he had only 100,000 Energy Points left, mainly because he had spent too many deducing the Great Dao Principle earlier.
Fortunately, his Energy Points were steadily increasing, but he still needed to save up for a while longer.
If the system spread too quickly and he didn't have enough energy to exchange for rewards when the time came, that would be far too awkward.