True Artificial Stupidity

The Five Elements Divine Lightning, however, never blasted out.

Looking at the lightning flashing in his palm, Lin Qingchen actually pressed it straight against himself.

Crackle-

Lin Qingchen grimaced as he electrocuted himself, but clarity suddenly dawned on him.

"Damn, I knew it. I normally wouldn't get this greedy, so why did I suddenly become so fixated on a law today...?"

A trace of lingering fear passed through Lin Qingchen's heart. It seemed the Law of the Universe really wasn't so easy to obtain. Even someone as powerful as the Dragon God had once been ruthlessly trapped by the Law of the Universe. Given how little cultivation he had now, he still had a long way to go before he could master it.

After a bout of electrotherapy, he finally suppressed the greed that had risen in his heart for the Law of the Five Elements.

"Bite off more than you can chew, and you can't swallow it. For now, I'd better focus on comprehending the Law of Water and hunting down my Third Soul Ring."

At the thought of Soul Rings, however, Lin Qingchen also remembered something he hadn't figured out during the day, so he took out the Book of Partial Understanding.

The thing was quite simple to use.

There was a purple star on its cover, representing the thousand-year Rift Ruins Earth Dragon's Soul Ring stored inside.

When he opened the book, he found page after page. Some had writing on them, but most were still blank.

The writing consisted of Lin Qingchen's past conversations with the Book of Partial Understanding. All Lin Qingchen had to do was silently recite something in his mind, and words would appear on the pages. There was no limit to their number; they would keep appearing until he stopped, and that would count as his question.

The Book of Partial Understanding would then cause words of a different color to appear after it. That was its answer.

The book had a limited number of pages, though. As far as Lin Qingchen knew, when all its pages were used up, a blank page would appear out of thin air at the end, while the first page would vanish into thin air. So the number of pages in the book was fixed, and the contents in between wouldn't be stored forever.

Honestly, the first things Lin Qingchen thought of when he looked at it were those artificially stupid programs. The fact that its answers weren't necessarily correct made the sense of déjà vu even stronger.

On second thought, it was a good thing this was artificial stupidity, not the skilled human workers used by Indian AI companies in his previous life. Otherwise, the thought of shutting Yu Xiaogang inside the book to act as an AI was downright creepy.

Lin Qingchen let out a breath of turbid air and immersed his mind in the book.

"I ask: A Rift Ruins Earth Dragon around thirty thousand years old exploded a few minutes after its death. Three Rift Ruins Earth Dragons around three thousand years old then emerged from its corpse, and they are known not to be clones of the larger Rift Ruins Earth Dragon. What exactly caused this to happen?"

There was nothing else he could do. Given that this thing was as artificially stupid as Doubao, Lin Qingchen could only try his best to describe the scene in greater detail and see whether that improved its accuracy.

Otherwise, Lin Qingchen would have simply asked what special abilities Rift Ruins Earth Dragons had.

Even so, the conclusion the Book of Partial Understanding produced still left his head buzzing.

"I answer: This book will tell you the answer to your question in the most direct, most decisive, most incisive, least wasteful, least drawn-out, least long-winded, least roundabout, least guarded, most straightforward way, giving you only the substance, only the key points, and only the core of the matter: Rift Ruins Earth Dragons actually reproduce asexually. At the instant of its death, the genetic factors in its body completed the reproductive process and caused its offspring to absorb the power in its corpse, completing their growth in an instant."

Lin Qingchen: ???

"Okay, looks like this thing's malfunctioning again."

Lin Qingchen closed the Book of Partial Understanding and chose to go to sleep.

Meanwhile, in the two girls' tent.

Ye Lingling lay with her eyes open, her gaze vacant. It was unknown what she was thinking about.

Just then, a hand gently poked her pretty face.

Only when she was sleeping did Ye Lingling take off her signature veil.

After the person beside her poked her, Ye Lingling turned her head and looked at Dugu Yan, who was also staring at her with her eyes wide open, but didn't say a word.

"What, can't sleep? Still thinking about what happened today?" Dugu Yan asked curiously.

"...A little."

The Imperial Fighting Team had been formed less than half a year ago. To be honest, Ye Lingling wasn't particularly close to the other members of the team. Only with Dugu Yan was she a little more familiar, perhaps because they were both girls.

"It's normal not to be able to sleep. You were hanging by a thread between life and death, after all. If little brother Qingchen hadn't reacted so quickly, Lingling, I'm afraid you..."

Dugu Yan suddenly fell silent. Then she pinched Ye Lingling's chin and said playfully, "Say, Lingling, you haven't fallen for little brother Qingchen, have you?"

"But that would be normal too. He did save your life, after all. How does that saying go? If the man who saves a young lady is handsome, she has no way to repay him except to offer herself in marriage. If he isn't handsome, she'll gladly be his ox or horse in her next life. Little brother Qingchen is so handsome, young, strong, and talented. Even my heart's fluttering."

Ye Lingling's pretty face reddened slightly, and she hurriedly pushed Dugu Yan's restless hand away.

"I haven't... I just..."

Dugu Yan rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, you haven't... Hey, since you don't want him, I'll make my move. Don't say I disregarded our sisterly bond when the time comes."

Ye Lingling gave her an expressionless look. "Wasn't Yu Tianheng courting you, if I remember right?"

"Heh, he's only courting me. It's not as if we've already made our relationship official," Dugu Yan said irritably.

How outstanding someone was depended on who they were compared with. Yu Tianheng's talent was exceptional, but next to Lin Qingchen, he immediately fell short.

That was true not only of his strength and talent-even in looks, Lin Qingchen won hands down.

Perhaps the only thing Yu Tianheng had in his favor was his background?

But unfortunately for him, as the granddaughter of Dugu Bo, a Titled Douluo, the thing she cared least about was background.

Hearing Dugu Yan say that, Ye Lingling felt a little tightness in her chest, though she didn't know why.

She couldn't figure out what it was about, so she simply stopped thinking about it. After silently tucking that little flutter away in the depths of her heart, she soon fell asleep.

When Ye Lingling's breathing gradually steadied, Dugu Yan rolled over and went to sleep as well.

She had to sleep; she still needed to get up for the night watch later.

The night passed without incident.

Early the next morning, Lin Qingchen opened his eyes and smiled faintly at a lively little water dragon dancing in his palm.

"So that's how it is. I didn't expect water to have so many uses. The way I used it before was far too crude."

Previously, when he used Great Water Element Escape, he could essentially only use water as a medium to move from place to place or perform the most basic manipulation of its movement.

Now, after comprehending the Law of Water, his control over water had sharply improved. He could already control water and give it shape.

That little bit of progress was not to be underestimated. In fact, now that he had reached this point, he could even try creating some Self-Created Soul Skills.

It could be said that once he began trying to comprehend a law, he could greatly broaden his fighting style instead of being restricted by his Soul Skills like an ordinary Soul Master.