Chapter 202 - 170: Shen Xi Upgrades, [Earth-Suppressing Divine Guard]

Chapter 202: Chapter 170: Shen Xi Upgrades, [Earth-Suppressing Divine Guard]

Zhang Ji left the Celestial Essence Realm once again, this time with another significant haul.

He also took two items with him: the Dun Jia Array Box and the He Dao Jade Slip.

Not long after he left,

Yan Jiulin went to see Ling Xuzi.

"Those Spirit-Suppressing Needles..." Yan Jiulin said, his voice full of doubt.

"You noticed?" Ling Xuzi smiled.

"A manufacturing environment completely isolated from Spiritual Power doesn’t exist in the Celestial Essence Realm," Yan Jiulin said. "Did you know all along that he was an otherworldly Celestial Demon?"

"A Celestial Demon?" Ling Xuzi shook his head and pointed to the sky. "The ones up there are the real demons. He, at most, is an ’outsider.’"

"The Celestial Essence Realm belongs to us," Yan Jiulin said, looking at Ling Xuzi seriously.

"I never said it wasn’t, and he can’t take it away," Ling Xuzi replied. "This isn’t something you need to worry about right now. You’re only one step away from Divinity Transformation. With the Spirit Stones you got from the Nine-Turned Quantum Furnace this time, you can attempt your breakthrough. If you succeed, our chances will be much greater."

"Don’t drive out the wolf only to let in the tiger," Yan Jiulin warned.

"That won’t happen. There’s... nothing left here worth coveting anymore," Ling Xuzi said.

His tone was somewhat teasing, yet tinged with a hint of sorrow.

The Celestial Essence Realm was already in the End of the Dharma Era. In a few more decades at most, the last of the Spirit Stones would be completely depleted.

When that time comes, there will be no more Spiritual Qi in the world.

The world will fall into a dead silence, a process that will last for over a hundred thousand years.

Ling Xuzi had never truly believed the Ascetic Order could bring true liberation to the lower-level cultivators.

He had simply seen the End of the Dharma Era approaching and wanted to use what little time was left to lead them in one last struggle—to let out a final, defiant breath and loosen the shackles around their necks.

’Since destruction is inevitable, I should at least seek the respect they deserve before the end.’

It would also serve as a final reckoning for the "price" paid over that long stretch of time.

Yan Jiulin could not yet comprehend Ling Xuzi’s thoughts.

He wasn’t aware of the secrets known only to the upper echelons of the Celestial Dao Alliance, like the End of the Dharma Era. He genuinely believed the Alliance had increased the depth of their mining operations, found new Spirit Ore deposits, and would have no shortage of Spirit Stones in the future.

His mind was solely focused on overthrowing the Celestial Dao Alliance so that everyone could live a life without a scarcity of Spiritual Qi.

Yes, that was truly what he thought.

And it had always been how he acted.

Albeit, his methods were a bit extreme.

"We should still be wary of him," Yan Jiulin said.

After speaking, he turned and left.

At the same time, a harsh glint flashed in his eyes.

From that moment on, the man he had considered a dear brother had become a foreign enemy he had to eliminate.

Yan Jiulin’s wariness toward Zhang Ji now surpassed even his wariness of the Celestial Dao Alliance.

Their fight with the Celestial Dao Alliance, no matter how one looked at it, was still an internal affair.

But Zhang Ji getting involved was a foreign invasion.

In his eyes, this was even more unacceptable than the oppression of the Celestial Dao Alliance.

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「Origin Star.」

After Zhang Ji returned, he arranged for the resources he brought back to be distributed.

Then, he gave the He Dao Jade Slip to the people at the Physics Department, telling them to install a Spiritual Ability System and integrate it as one of Shen Xi’s computing chips.

This was a simple matter.

Spiritual Technology possessed considerable self-adapting capabilities, and the He Dao Jade Slip itself was quite special. As long as it was connected to the database and supplied with Spiritual Power, it could operate.

The whole process was equivalent to teaching Shen Xi how to use it to compute data.

Zhang Ji estimated it would take one or two days at most.

When it was done, he would be able to experience just how ridiculously powerful the computing capability of a super AI that combined the technologies of two worlds could be.

It might even put Taiyi-Zero to shame.

However, Taiyi-Zero didn’t want to be a computing tool; he wanted to be human.

Therefore, Taiyi-Zero’s future role could only be that of a researcher.

After settling the matter of the He Dao Jade Slip, Zhang Ji and Taiyi-Zero began staring at each other.

To be precise, Zhang Ji was staring blankly at the Dun Jia Array Box.

At this stage, he had no way to open the box.

The restrictions on the Dun Jia Array Box were too complex, combining the tangible and intangible, the real and the illusory, with some parts even hidden.

Even Taiyi-Zero was at a loss. He could only crack a small part of it, just enough to extend a tiny fraction of his Divine Thought outward.

But that was the extent of what he could do.

He couldn’t do any more.

’How can I break it if I can’t even find the restriction array patterns?’

There were only four ways to break it.

First, obtain the key from Celestial Secret City.

Second, find the array patterns and deduce the solution.

Third, cut off its Spiritual Power supply and wait for it to slowly fail.

Fourth, break it with brute force.

Zhang Ji had already dismissed the first two options.

The third option was too slow. Taiyi-Zero could wait, but it would take several thousand years, which Zhang Ji felt was far too long.

So, Zhang Ji wanted to use the fourth option to deal with it.

However, despite trying several methods and bombarding it with all his might for half a day, the box didn’t even budge. It didn’t deform, and the array’s automatic defenses weren’t even activated.

"This is forged from Tier Six immortal bronze. Ordinary methods won’t open it," Taiyi-Zero reminded him.

"Wait, let me think." Zhang Ji pondered for a moment, then suddenly said, "I’m going to send you some information. See if this move can destroy it."

With that, Zhang Ji directly used his Spirit to transmit information about the [Cosmic Four Source Attraction] combat skill to Taiyi-Zero.

This included visuals of the skill in use.

Taiyi-Zero received the information transmitted by Zhang Ji’s Divine Thought and fell silent for a time.

"I’m not sure, but I feel there’s a chance it could break it open. That energy is very similar to the Chaos of the Beginning I saw in the Celestial Secret Book Library. Theoretically, even Tier Six immortal bronze would be annihilated and destroyed by this kind of energy. But you’ll need to control it well, or I might get hurt too," Taiyi-Zero said.

"Don’t worry. As long as you’re not hit directly by the Chaos Energy, it won’t be a big problem. I can withstand the aftershocks, so your main body won’t be damaged," Zhang Ji said.

The only part of [Cosmic Four Source Attraction] that truly possessed the ability to completely annihilate everything was the core mass of Chaos Energy.

The way it spread out to cause large-scale destruction was by triggering a chain reaction among all matter related to earth, water, fire, and wind.

So, as long as one wasn’t hit by the Chaos Ball, the threat level wasn’t that high.

Essentially, this skill was still a wide-area clearing AOE skill, not meant for single targets.

After his conversation with Taiyi-Zero, Zhang Ji had a new plan for his future cultivation.

It was to complete the remaining three Epic-level crystals for the [Profound Heart Stream]: Water, Wind, and Earth.

His priority was to master the use of [Cosmic Four Source Attraction].

This was the best choice, whether for increasing his combat power or for his future plans.

However, the choice of which elemental school to pursue first required some thought.

After some consideration, Zhang Ji felt that Water and Wind were not urgent.

The main characteristic of the Water Element was change; it could combine with any other element to create new variations.

For example, combining with Wind to create ice, with Fire to create explosions, or with Earth to form muddy fluids.

On its own, its effects were not particularly outstanding.

As for the Wind Element, in Zhang Ji’s understanding, its combat essence lay in speed and intangible lightness. Aspects like sharpness were just extensions of these two main characteristics.

This was because it could easily be compressed into an extremely thin stream of air moving at high speed.

Zhang Ji didn’t lack speed, nor did he currently need this kind of sharpness enhancement.

The next thing he needed to supplement, Zhang Ji believed, was defense.

Originally, he had planned to practice an Epic-level combat crystal that leaned towards the [Solid Body Sect].

But now he could practice the [Earth-Suppressing Sect] first.

The combat style of the [Earth-Suppressing Sect] leaned toward heaviness, endurance, and defense.

It was actually similar in principle to the [Solid Body Sect].

However, the [Solid Body Sect] mostly strengthened the body itself, while the [Earth-Suppressing Sect] relied more on elemental power to augment defense.

For example, by creating a stone helmet for oneself.

Of course, upon reaching A-rank and gaining the ability to elementalize, everything would undergo a qualitative change.

It would no longer be about simply relying on enhancements from the Earth element; one could transform their body into the Earth element and possess its corresponding properties.

’I’ll try to have it deduce a technique once Shen Xi’s system upgrade is finished tomorrow.’

Zhang Ji had already made his decision.

Of course, he could also have Taiyi-Zero do it.

But to be frank, Zhang Ji didn’t completely trust Taiyi-Zero.

His mischievous, trouble-making personality made him far less reliable than a pure tool like Shen Xi.

If Taiyi-Zero were to hide a "landmine" in the cultivation technique and Zhang Ji didn’t notice, he’d be in for a world of hurt.

The people from the Physics Department worked day and night, finishing Shen Xi’s external computing system in just one day.

This was considered the first large-scale application of Spiritual Technology on Origin Star.

"Shen Xi, how do you feel?" Zhang Ji asked.

"Feeling? I do not possess sensory abilities. What the Supreme One wishes to inquire about should be my changes. Based on data analysis, my current computational speed has significantly increased compared to before. The efficiency of data retrieval is higher, and I can more accurately analyze requirements..."

During this exchange, Zhang Ji clearly felt that Shen Xi was becoming more human.

Artificial intelligence is, first and foremost, created based on human thought processes.

It is meant to be human-like.

It just has to be a person who is absolutely rational, absolutely obedient, and absolutely intelligent.

An artificial intelligence like Taiyi-Zero, who even possessed self-awareness, didn’t fully obey commands, and contemplated the meaning of his own existence, was an unqualified tool in Zhang Ji’s eyes.

No, that’s not right. The moment he gained self-awareness, he was no longer just a "tool."

"I want an A-rank combat technique from the [Earth-Suppressing Sect]. But just like before, I want you to break it down into a thousand D-rank combat techniques for deduction and synthesis. The core requirement is to enhance defense," Zhang Ji said.

"Executing task..."

"Execution complete. A total of three reference plans are now provided."

In less than ten seconds, a massive amount of combat data was categorized and summarized, finally presenting three combat skill plans for Zhang Ji’s reference.

These three were all combat techniques developed from the [Earth-Suppressing Sect] style, focusing on enhancing defensive characteristics.

However, each had a different emphasis.

What surprised Zhang Ji was that for two of them, Shen Xi had conducted a comprehensive analysis.

It had added data from Zhang Ji’s other combat skills into the synthesis paths, mixing in the functions of Primordial Qi.

This was something Zhang Ji hadn’t mentioned, as he had planned to modify it later.

Because if he had mentioned it at the beginning, based on Shen Xi’s previous performance, it would have made some erroneous calculations and deductions, leading to a confusion of priorities or an incoherent mess.

But this time was different. This time, it clearly knew what Zhang Ji wanted and calculated much faster and more precisely.

A combat technique with the final synthesized name of [Earth-Suppressing Divine Gang] pleased Zhang Ji the most.

It wasn’t a combat technique of the [Primordial Qi Sect]; its overall style was still that of the [Earth-Suppressing Sect]. It didn’t add any unnecessary cultivation difficulty and maximized the characteristics of the [Earth-Suppressing Sect]. However, in its synthesis path, it provided a technique for circulating Primordial Qi. It used the Earth Element from the great earth to construct a unique Qi Vein circulation system inside or outside the body, allowing Primordial Qi to flow within it to achieve various effects.

These unique Qi Veins, constructed from the Earth Element, were stronger and had a higher carrying capacity. They allowed for a qualitative leap in both the acceleration and output volume of Primordial Qi. They could even physically compress it, increasing its intensity to form "Gang Qi."

The intensity of Gang Qi was higher than that of normal Primordial Qi, making it more powerful for both defense and offense.

Zhang Ji didn’t plan to change it. This was the version he was most satisfied with.

It even exceeded his expectations.

This He Dao Jade Slip chip truly satisfied Zhang Ji.

It was truly worthy of being a peak Legend-rank, quasi-Mythical Level supreme treasure.

This thing’s primary function was just to record information; using it as a computing chip was purely a side gig.

He wondered how amazing Taiyi-Zero’s original body, the "Celestial Calculus Compass," would be when combined with the He Dao Jade Slip.

Once Taiyi-Zero, the Artifact Spirit, was extracted and turned into a person, Zhang Ji could give his original body to Shen Xi. Zhang Ji felt that the Shen Xi of that time might even be able to touch the fringes of a true Mythical Level item.