Chapter 304: Path To Promotion
After bidding farewell to the old temple priest who had obtained satisfaction from his ‘preaching heart’, Yuan Zhu returned the same way, driving the ‘new car’ aimlessly around Running City again.
In his new life, the first sports car he acquired had incredibly powerful performance after modifications, which brought back the feeling of driving around on Earth. So he cast aside those complicated thoughts and, for the first time, cruised around Running City Urban Area with an ‘appreciative’ mindset.
With no specific goal, he turned wherever his mood took him, heading toward whatever caught his curiosity, seriously taking in the sights of this city. Unfortunately, the sports car interior had no sound system and couldn’t play the radio.
Otherwise, playing a classic road trip song would make it feel even better.
No, that’s not right!
“Snake Snake, search my memory area, pick a few fitting songs, and play them inside my skull!”
“Got it, Boss!”
Soon, Candle, gripping the steering wheel, began bobbing his head in joy, immersing himself in the exotic cityscape of this otherworld city.
It had the novelty of an Earthling facing an otherworld, the nostalgia and familiarity constantly surfacing from his predecessor’s memories, plus perfectly matched music, making him unconsciously sink into the feeling.
The sports car passed by the villa area where the [Haunted House] was located twice in a row, but he had no intention of stopping; additionally, he passed through the civilian area where he lived with his younger brother three times, but didn’t even touch the brakes.
Until the dial on the dashboard showed the [Alchemy Element] dial prompting a need to replenish energy, he snapped out of the wondrous state somewhat like ‘Yuan Zhu daydreaming in an exotic immortal realm’, turned off the music, and returned to the real world.
The city streetscape before his eyes overlapped with the scenes in his memory, plus the recollection of just now ‘daydreaming’ around the city, allowing Yuan Zhu to successfully construct a three-dimensional model of [Running City] in his mind.
Then, with a stomp on the ‘accelerator’, he drove the sports car into a [Alchemy Element Refueling Station] that he was somewhat familiar with from delivering goods to the factory in the past, to replenish energy for the sports car.
The staff at the [Refueling Station] had some impression of Yuan Zhu. They just hadn’t expected the guy who usually drove a truck to somehow get his hands on such a high-end ride?! Was it stolen, rented, or borrowed from a friend?
After exchanging greetings, the employee directed him to park in the designated spot and inquired about the grade and refill amount of the [Alchemy Element].
Faced with the ‘Alchemy Element’ quality and price list from the refueling station, he was somewhat dumbfounded.
In his memory, when he drove deliveries to the factory back then, the ‘Alchemy Element’ was always added casually, the cheapest kind, and no one ever asked questions—he was used to it.
But now it seemed this sports car’s grade was quite high. They were actually asking about the ‘Alchemy Element’ quality and price?
Seeing that even adding the lowest-grade [Alchemy Element] to his car cost at least three times the usual price, Yuan Zhu had the illusion of being forced to pay an intelligence tax.
He couldn’t help asking: “What’s the difference between different qualities of this [Alchemy Element]?”
Seeing him ask this, the employee secretly thought he was indeed an outsider borrowing it to show off, but still explained: “The higher the quality of the [Alchemy Element] added, the stronger the power output, the less wear and tear on the sports car. Therefore, the longer the lifespan and self-maintenance effect. Even! It’s said that…”
“Adding the top-grade [Alchemy Element] to a vehicle long-term even has a chance to nurture a [Machine Soul]. Once a Machine Soul is nurtured, it’s a complete defy fate, transcending the ordinary. It can be reinforced and modified toward directions like [Mechanical Life Form, Alchemy Life Form]. Or, sell it as a reserve for a high-level supernatural vehicle (life form), and that’s an astronomical figure! Enough for you to casually get a new car and keep maintaining it.”
The refueling station employee boasted animatedly, and Yuan Zhu was also amazed.
However, he ultimately chose the relatively cheapest ‘three-times price’ [Alchemy Element].
As far as he knew, even if ordinary people nurtured a [Machine Soul] and spent a fortune to modify it into a [Mechanical Life Form], it would ultimately disdain its original family and choose to go solo.
Just like adopting a child, painstakingly raising them to university, then proactively taking out a loan to send them abroad to study. Then, they never come back! You can’t even sue for alimony—they’ve gone overseas.
If you encounter a grateful one, they might send you a bit of pension money each month. But if this [Mechanical Life Form] is too successful and grows too fast, directly [ascending] and leaving the present world, you won’t even get that meager living expense.
What if this [Mechanical Life Form] offends a powerful enemy and, just a few years after birth, gets dismantled into parts and sold off—what do you do then?
Yuan Zhu, having no connection to the [Mechanical System, Industrial Alchemy System], didn’t aspire to such an adventure. After filling up the energy, he drove back toward ‘his home’.
…
On the way back, Snake Snake suddenly asked: “Boss, were you seriously consulting the [Yellow Heaven Method] earlier to prepare for the transformation of the [Mountain Lord’s Domain]?”
Candle nodded: “Of course! This world isn’t the [Immortal Path Universe] after all—who knows how far the bloodline inheritance of the [Tiger Demon] can hold up? Although the Tiger Demon’s ultimate talent ([Mountain Lord’s Domain]) starts by condensing a [Deed]; but afterward, the management, cultivation, and development of the [Domain] are completely cut off.”
“The [Great Desolation Immortal Scripture] shows that the next cultivation method for the [Shadow Domain] is just to continuously hunt powerful ‘demonic monsters, cultivators’, temper them into [piles] and drive them into the domain. Through this grinding effort, little by little strengthen the [Domain]’s foundation, until one day moving the underworld and connecting the Yin-Yang Realms.”
“Now the main universe has changed, the [Immortal Path World] methods may not work on Du Ling Star. We can only reference supernatural systems with mature promotion cases, pirate and plagiarize a bit, integrate into the [Mountain Lord’s Domain], and carve out a promotion path.”
Yuan Zhu was well aware that the ‘mutated spiritual root’ bound in the [Boss Template] wasn’t any top-tier demonic monster inheritance.
His [Tiger Demon Spiritual Root] came from a tiger demon probably at [Demon King (Nascent Soul level)]. Its bloodline naturally included the [Mountain Lord’s Domain] inheritance for communicating the Yin-Yang Realms.
And this [inheritance] wasn’t created by this tiger demon (the [mutated spiritual root] owner), but from an [Underworld Tiger Demon Ancestor] that once dominated the underworld and carved out a territory.
By the time the tiger demon died and was made into an ‘spy infiltration soul program’ by the [Immortal Scripture Group], it wasn’t some tribulation-crossing ascending ‘demon immortal’, let alone immortal king, immortal venerable, immortal emperor… Even its lair hadn’t opened an ‘underworld tunnel’, merely piercing a ‘yin vein spring eye’, emitting underworld malevolent qi, and arranging the lair into a ‘human world ghost realm’.
Yuan Zhu guessed that once he opened the [Mountain Lord’s Domain] and underwent one or two more upgrades, the potential of the [Boss Template] would pretty much be exhausted.
His [Shadow Tiger Demon]’s ‘passive growth’ of getting stronger just by lying there would come to an end, and next he could only create his own follow-up path and actively cultivate to upgrade.
At that time, how to deal with [Du Ling] this world full of pollution erosion? Could the no-longer-growing [Boss Template (soul data firewall)] still protect him? Against higher-level soul pollution? Then, how should he manually help the [Tiger Demon] continue cultivating and upgrading?
He had no clue about this and could only seek inspiration (malicious pirate plagiarism) from the [Yellow Heaven Method], which was closer to the [Mountain Lord’s Domain].
…
After understanding Yuan Zhu’s anxiety pain points, Snake Snake also grew tense.
Compared to Yuan Zhu who at least proactively ‘pirated, scammed, plagiarized’ to find a follow-up path for himself, she was the real slacker! Clinging to the boss’s thigh the whole way—one honor for all, one loss and she loses first, dying faster, harder, more spectacularly!
So Snake Snake said anxiously: “So which path do you favor exactly? [Kunlun Earth Immortal], [Yellow Heaven Earth Immortal], or [Industrial God Kingdom]?”
Yuan Zhu shook his head: “First, rule out the [Kunlun Method]!”
He explained: “The [Five Kunlun Immortals] are all closely related to the [Kunlun Mother (Peach of Immortality Mother Plant)] this ‘ultimate origin’. From what that old man said, [Kunlun Earth Immortals] plant spiritual roots on ‘spiritual land’, with root tendrils spreading and piercing the present world’s barrier, supporting a ‘Grotto-Heaven’ in the ‘backside’ Inner World. Doesn’t that sound a lot like the Reverse Birth Garden of the [Eclosion World]?”
Snake Snake gave Yuan Zhu full face, chiming in: “Oh! So the Immortal Realm Tree of the [Eclosion World] is a [Earth Immortal Dao Field]!”
Yuan Zhu: “Treat the ‘Bubble World’ like a flower pot, plant a [Spiritual Root (Immortal Realm Tree)] to grow wildly, ultimately occupying the entire world, and in the form of the [Immortal Realm Tree], nurture and support a ‘small Immortal Realm’. Even if the [Immortal Realm Tree] is cut down, its remnant roots in the underground world still nurture ‘four Earth Immortal spiritual roots (four major Reverse Life Immortal Sects)’.”
After the old man’s explanation, he finally understood the dominance of the [Eclosion World] before the apocalyptic disaster. Even if the world was destroyed, it could still raise four pollution-version [Earth Immortal-level Reverse Birth Spiritual Roots] in the underground world.
Snake Snake: “Sounds pretty good! We brought quite a few ‘pollution root nodules’ from the [Eclosion World], which can be planted in the [Domain] to simulate the Earth Immortal model.”
Yuan Zhu shook his head: “But do I have a [Spiritual Root] on me? [Holy Light] burns people like candles—though Holy Light has high waste rate and usually no return on investment (retained matter), at least it tempers the [Soul], leaving an indestructible [revival save file]. As for [Yellow Heaven], I don’t plan to try it directly, but the material for forging [Bone Structure] comes from oneself, the forged [Bone Structure] is still used on oneself, plus it comes with a [Golden Body Statue], so the sense of security is also high.”
“Now look at the [Kunlun Method], directly implanting foreign matter (Peach of Immortality root tendril) into the flesh to construct a new energy cycle system. From the start, it’s absolutely controlled by the [Kunlun Mother]. The subsequent [Five Immortals Methods] are all controlled by the [Kunlun Mother Plant], otherwise a [Rogue Immortal] group would have emerged.”
The emergence of the [Rogue Immortal] group was a group of Kunlun Cultivators trying to escape control by the [Kunlun Mother] this pollution root.
The death-fearing Snake Snake cherished her life more than Yuan Zhu; just thinking of her boss being controlled by the [Kunlun Mother] meant she would definitely die faster. So she shook her head repeatedly: “Then between [Yellow Heaven] and [Industrial God Kingdom], which one do you prefer? I think the [Industrial God Kingdom] is great—the [Yellow Heaven Method] sounds like too heavy a responsibility, having to open a [World], and no turning back once you shoot the arrow. So choose the [Industrial God Kingdom] route! It can combine well with [Anti-Law], building agent distribution channels. Let the minions bring goods for us!”
Yuan Zhu: “But the [Industrial God Kingdom] has a big problem: it must master the ‘supernatural industrial system’ of the [Second Epoch], must [establish a factory], and an [industrialized factory building] at that, to upgrade to [Industrial God Kingdom], then uproot the factory and ascend. However, what ascends is merely a [Factory]. The massive industrial raw materials and their production sites won’t ascend with the [God Kingdom], but remain in the present world, transported via ‘space tunnel’ formed by the [Deed].”
“These are all weaknesses of the [Industrial System]. Once enemies attack the numerous raw material bases in the human world, the [Industrial God Kingdom] has to firefight everywhere, greatly consuming divine power, projecting to the human world to counterattack, maintain order and security. Cultivate massive [Security Legions], and in numerous different spaces, condense [Deeds] to open new space anchors, new production sites… This is simply not something a small individual operator like me can handle.”
Why did the [Second Supernatural Industrial Revolution] ultimately fail? Naturally because the [Industrial God Kingdom] had many fatal flaws and was quickly replaced by the third-generation [Commercial Deity].
Today’s [Commercial Deity] isn’t an independent [System], but any [Pollution System] can enter this field and condense the [Commercial Deity] status.
For example, [Mao Mao King (Anti-Law)] can do it, [Industrial God] can too, [Tiger Demon] likewise, even if the [Goblin Hegemony Competition] succeeds, it can deify thereby and conduct related commercial operations.
Snake Snake said disappointedly: “Then we can only choose [Yellow Heaven]?”
Yuan Zhu: “I haven’t decided yet, but [Yellow Heaven] is indeed closest to the [Mountain Lord’s Domain]. I also need to build a [Mountain Lord Temple] for the Tiger Demon—from this point, the compatibility is extremely high. At least it can be referenced for the construction direction of the [Mountain Lord’s Domain].”
……
Around 4:30 PM, Yuan Zhu parked the car near his rundown building and went home one step ahead, waiting for his younger brother to get out of school.
He didn’t know how much time passed?
The broken door made a ‘creak—squeak’ sound.
Yuan Su, pushing the door open and entering, saw the familiar figure sitting by the dining table, head down reading the newspaper. He froze completely, and after a dazed moment, said in disbelief: “Bro?!”
Yuan Zhu looked up, seeing the other’s shocked expression, asked displeased: “What’s with that look on your face? Like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“You, how did you suddenly come back?!”
In recent months, increasingly accustomed to his big brother appearing and disappearing mysteriously, not coming home at night; with stacks of cash inexplicably appearing on the bedroom desk or under his pillow, Yuan Su felt at a loss at his big brother coming home early from work.
It was just like in fairy tales, the ‘miraculous boy’ who always did housework at night suddenly appearing in the daytime!
Suddenly, he thought of something and grew inexplicably nervous: “Big Brother, did you get into trouble outside and come back early to lie low? Don’t worry, I absolutely won’t make a fuss or act unusual! Are you short on money? I’ve saved up a big sum here, didn’t spend it recklessly, can give it back to you for emergency first.”
