Chapter 214: Sky City
When the Feather Tribe on the ground described their Royal Family’s final trial, the stardust they arrived at was described using terms like “holy,” “filled with light,” and “scattered divine feathers covering the sky.”
However, after Xuan Chong arrived here and organized his words, he sighed: “This place is really too dirty.”
At the center of the dust is the wreckage of countless floating space facilities. These wrecks did not disperse into ring-shaped orbits along the planet’s normal trajectory, but instead stably gathered in this one spot, drifting disorderly, from tiny dust to large chunks of garbage all here.
Xuan Chong: This is just like a large amount of plastic garbage entering the Pacific Ocean, converging into floating islands in windless areas. Fish and sea turtles don’t think it’s dirty because floating garbage grows plankton, adding some nutrition to the barren ocean, but humans can see at a glance that this is the mess they made themselves.
The Feather Tribe’s description of this place as “holy” is due to this kind of non-rusted metal dust scattering white light under outer space sunlight, creating the environment that meets the eye.
However, the entire Heavenly Palace base is protected by a transparent force field, completely blocking the light from the Evil Moon outside. This protective layer mechanism is something that Yao Capital’s Nine Palaces do not possess.
Xuan Chong saw this and had to cover his mouth and nose, otherwise the dust entering the lungs would cause cancer.
Xuan Chong tried unfolding his killing intent, and it seemed a force field appeared on his body, pushing away the large amount of dust like pepper powder dispersed in soup. Xuan Chong paused slightly and muttered: “Killing intent is a force field?”
Xuan Chong arrived at the centralmost area, looked at the three-meter metal door, then looked up at the fifty-seven cameras on the left and right sides of the metal door. These cameras were scanning and identifying him.
While Xuan Chong was pondering whether to input the “six-digit password” or say “open sesame”; multiple images requiring arrangement and combination appeared on this airlock door.
Xuan Chong looked: The first group of images required arranging three squares according to the Pythagorean theorem. He completed it accordingly.
The first airlock door opened, and after Xuan Chong entered, he was blocked by a second force field. Then in this force field was the second question, with a large number of blocks appearing in the force field for a matching game.
After Xuan Chong completed it, the force field opened, then another force field appeared, followed by the third question, which was Tetris. This stage tested a certain level of planning ability and agile hand speed.
Xuan Chong: “Oh ho, this space station even has ‘puzzle game exams’.”
Note: The secret texts of those kingdom Feather Tribes all record such clearance trials and techniques in the holy land. But whether Storm City or Griffon City, none informed Xuan Chong. Of course, Xuan Chong’s culture is not something those illiterates can compare to.
Xuan Chong, who entered the zone, pointed on the force field extremely fast with his hand turning into an afterimage as the falling speed of Tetris reached eight per 0.1 seconds. The force field disappeared, and the assessment for this stage ended.
Just as Xuan Chong decided to wait for the next question, the force field indicator jumped rapidly. It showed fourth, fifth—no need to take them, directly enter the 180th question, and the force field delivered a package.
Inside the package were organic nutrient blocks, rich in sugars and fats, clearly considering the assessor’s explosive power and the large amount of physical strength lost.
Xuan Chong did not chew these supplies; he ate the nutrient block he carried himself. Looking at this 180th question, Xuan Chong paused: Molecular models floated in front of him. The prompt above said to select models to “stick together,” ultimately forming a large molecular compound that could stably exist in an environment mixed with hydrogen, chlorine, and fluorine ions.
Xuan Chong paused, then thought of his damn system, so he asked the system: “Hey hey hey, system, calculate the protein structure for me.”
System: “Sorry, calculators are not allowed in this classroom; please handle it yourself. Also, this is history class; don’t use chemistry and physics questions to stump your teacher.”
Xuan Chong was prepared for such a response; it was just a casual question.
After a while, Xuan Chong came up with his so-so configuration. After the question setter scanned for a while, it finally started giving a score: sixty-three points.
Seeing this score, Xuan Chong suddenly paused—how the hell did those Feather Tribes enter this space station?
While Xuan Chong was puzzled, the original assessment force field withdrew.
After seeing the force field disappear, Xuan Chong suddenly discovered that each force field seal just now corresponded to a passage! And since his answers might differ somewhat from the Feather Tribe’s, he skipped the previous passages.
And now this passage—Xuan Chong looked at the wear and tear at the door; it was very new, probably no one had walked through it.
On Xuan Chong’s side, seeing the creaking transformation frames operating in the other passages, he suddenly remembered the legend Ka Wu mentioned, that entering the holy land would grant a “holy mark”; Xuan Chong realized what the “holy mark” really was—implanting modifications, leaving wounds, isn’t that just a holy mark?
Xuan Chong immediately tensed up; he absolutely did not accept being forcibly genetically modified. In his previous life, he couldn’t even stand drawing blood or getting a shot. What’s more, getting cut open unclearly—he was fully prepared to open a folded space and put on a combat mech to blast the hell out of it if things went south.
Just as Xuan Chong’s whole body killing intent formed a protective force field and the nanomachine liquid on his body completed containment protection.
The passage seemed to sense the tension too; ahead, a teardrop-shaped equipment appeared in the space like a projector, scanned Xuan Chong, then printed a diamond-shaped energy mark right in front of him.
Xuan Chong paused slightly and suddenly felt his head go blank, as a powerful stream of information seemed to pour into his head. Just as Xuan Chong suspected he had messed up.
The system appeared and skipped a line: “Thought filtering device activated, 1.5 academic credits consumed.”
With the crisis resolved, Xuan Chong saw the system activate and breathed a sigh of relief. But seeing 1.5 academic credits consumed, the corner of his mouth twitched, and he muttered: “Isn’t that a bit too much consumption?”
…System fine print: Detected soul imprint, harmlessly processed…
This space station, like the Chi You Soldiers, also has an “artifact spirit” (artificial intelligence). Her response to intelligent life arriving here is to “serve according to the customer.”
Ordinary Feather Tribe members arriving here would most likely pass four or five of the early tests, at most the tenth gate, then be given a set of genetic modification, energy infusion, plus insertion of a mechanical chip, and sent back to the surface as calibrators for the high-altitude Heavenly Palace on the ground.
But Xuan Chong, in the series of tests just now, was verified not just as “communicable intelligent life” standard, but as professional pilot system. What this space station implants in pilots is an advanced energy chip—or in the words of cultivators below, this is called the “second primordial spirit.”
This space station’s own “intelligent system” (artifact spirit) sensed the “advanced immortal martial” equipment on Xuan Chong and seemed somewhat triggered. It hurriedly advanced the “second primordial spirit” process, and both sides completed language communication.
Compared to the mechanical chips implanted in those Feather Tribe brain tissues, Xuan Chong’s current planetary-level “energy chip” is worlds apart—the difference between ruling class and slave class.
According to the judgment of the force behind the Immortal Palace, the “chip” Xuan Chong obtained is an identity medal certification that can pass in this star region.
But letting a creation left by someone in this plane score Xuan Chong—the Dimensional School System does not recognize it.
Wei School system: In “moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, labor” standards, the “physical” standard—that is, the supreme sacredness of natural human healthy development—does not allow cross-level implantation.
Once other transmigrators’ leftovers try to illegally interfere with “students in school,” the “teacher” will notify the “security” system to take action.
…Classroom discipline…
The artifact spirit at the very center of the space station is an image of a woman wearing a deep blue formal attire; she is the “Sky Goddess” in the Feather Tribe’s mouth. After waiting twenty thousand years, she tried to wait for a “human with all three elements.” When she scanned Xuan Chong just now, she confirmed his physical indicators were “innately robust,” with potential to grow into one with all three elements.
Now she was introducing Xuan Chong to the central control room with extremely high specifications. Of course, now seeing Xuan Chong pull out “immortal martial,” seeming resistant, she activated the highest-level “divine sense docking.”
But it was this unauthorized action of hers that provoked a terrifying existence.
At this moment, in her perspective, the space within this star system underwent folding. All spectra underwent pixel folding.
That is, the originally complex spectral bands were compressed into fifteen hundred fixed “energy level” bands.
This phenomenon, invisible to the naked eye of ordinary people, was extremely sensitive to the equipment’s spirit. Physics, um, the laws were grasped.
Narration: Photon energy levels change bit by bit. Xuan Chong’s “teacher” adjusted the photon energy levels within the gravitational field range of this star. And causing such a big commotion was merely to forcibly block the “energy chip” information infusion.
To cut off the interference, the “history teacher” system directly pinched and altered the physical laws of this area.
Um, just like how students might access harmful information online at school, the teacher directly shields the area’s “mobile phone signal.”
Immediately after, the “Sky Goddess” was horrified to see the surrounding starry sky pixelated, and then discovered that the timer in her own system had also gone out of control.
The crystal timer stalled, but the atomic clock was still ticking.
But cesium atomic clock, hydrogen atomic clock, rubidium atomic clock—the time was out of sync.
If it were truly an ant, it wouldn’t notice this terror; but the Sky Goddess could feel the horror of the “Way of Heaven” being grasped in an instant.
Immediately after, in a dazed state of “spacetime suffocation,” the Sky Goddess felt everything return to normal, but it seemed somewhat abnormal. She felt as if something had been implanted into her source code. —In the just-now chaos of the time concept, the equipment’s spirit had already been scanned once by waves emitted from a certain “space singularity” on Xuan Chong.
The Sky Goddess came back to her senses, and then the Xi People “juvenile individual” in front of her began the conversation. This juvenile individual was Xuan Chong.
Although Xuan Chong only said a few words, it caused a massive influx of information input in the Sky Goddess’s entire system.
After the Sky Goddess (equipment spirit) scanned Xuan Chong, she suddenly discovered that this Xi People individual’s authority in the space station had skyrocketed to the highest level.
Xuan Chong asked: “Hey, can we talk?”
In Xuan Chong’s senses, the system had just given him a translator that could directly connect to the guy opposite.
And a translator actually cost one point five academic credits—Xuan Chong thought it was really damn expensive.
However, Xuan Chong didn’t know that his simple greeting had caused all the analysis systems within this powerful equipment spirit to start operating intensely.
The Sky Goddess’s search engine uncontrollably began retrieving content from her own database to analyze and understand Xuan Chong’s simple question. (If the Sky Goddess were a person, this would be equivalent to Xuan Chong’s one sentence making her lost in thought, with a flood of memories surging into her mind, helping her understand his words on her own.)
Xuan Chong strolled through the space station, visiting this ancient relic facility.
Especially after seeing the specimens preserved in the space station, Xuan Chong couldn’t help but connect all this to some ancient legends of the “Xi Ren Realm.”
Da Yao official records: In ancient times, Daoist Magic was lightly transmitted; birds and beasts, scaled and horned, all could attain the Dao. Later, with the establishment of the sacrificial dynasty, the human race greatly prospered, and the demons fled to all directions.
And in the murals and stone carvings of the Southern Border, as well as in legends passed down through generations, it was also described that in very ancient times, an “ancient sage” enlightened the hundred clans and granted them supernatural powers.
Of course, what followed was: the hundred clans lost themselves in the granted supernatural powers; after becoming demonic, they were purified by Vermilion Bird Fire in another legend.
As humans, traits like “scaled and horned” or “feathered wet eggs” appeared, and in the cognition of various ethnic groups in the current Human Realm, these were abilities granted to their distant ancestors in myths after begging the heavens.
After hearing the Sky Goddess recount during the conversation, Xuan Chong confirmed that the genetic mega-pollution on Xi Ren Star occurred in several stages.
The areas involved decisive battles with *** forces, forcing the deployment of “demonized warriors”—that is, the angels in the legends of various clans. Some “demonized warriors” produced offspring with the Xi Ren Realm, creating the pollution. Such wars happened several times.
Xuan Chong bluntly asked the Sky Goddess: “Is the Xi Ren Realm like this because the civilization completely disregarded consequences, or simply out of malice, genetically modifying humans for combat?”
Sky Goddess: “The bloodline implantation on Xi Ren Star was jointly completed by Immortal Dao Sects. The bloodlines implanted on this planet are merely trial bloodlines, which will harmlessly weaken with progeny reproduction.”
Xuan Chong: “Harmlessly weaken?—Then Xuan Chong glanced toward the direction of the Evil Moon outside.”
The Sky Goddess said: “Those four polluted bodies are malignant cases. Your realm’s (planet’s) counterattack consciousness will select maintenance personnel to resolve this issue.”
Xuan Chong: “Um, the planet’s counterattack will. Is that what you’re talking about?” Xuan Chong unleashed the supernatural power given to him by Vermilion Bird Power.
The Sky Goddess was silent for a moment: “Please allow me to apologize, Guardian of the Xi Ren Realm.”
Xuan Chong’s mind turned—he seemed to have found an opportunity to extort; he now appeared to be like a city inspector catching a violation peddler, able to raise a fuss. But how to raise it? Xuan Chong wasn’t used to this feeling of “not knowing where to hit the sore spot.”
Xuan Chong suddenly thought of the ancient “demigods” in the mouths of ancient ethnic groups; he then accessed the data to see what these perfectly genetically modified combat individuals looked like.
In this space base, Xuan Chong quickly found the species experiment base for the Feathered People population.
This base storing species data was overall spiral-ring shaped. The entire spiral ring was divided into multiple segments, with each species’ data room occupying one segment. And among all the species data rooms, only the Feather Tribe passage showed recent use traces, with no dust accumulated at the gate seams. —Xuan Chong: Looks like I guessed right.
Xuan Chong stepped through the gate and then saw the form of the ancient Feathered People.
The Feathered People sealed in the static force field were fully two point five meters tall; both in height and wingspan, they were one point five times those of the Feathered People below. And from a cold weapons confrontation perspective, such a size and muscle difference could contend with over a hundred “kindred” in a short time.
Then a projection appeared, vividly showing the full-body muscle state of a Feathered People in flight. Xuan Chong then noticed that in this dynamic display, some red areas would appear; he then understood these were parts prone to injury during movement, namely that the wing roots of Feathered People might suffer fractures from collisions when flapping wings.
Xuan Chong immediately realized this was the “species weakness” marked in the data room.
Next, Xuan Chong eagerly checked the situations of other races. All sorts of flying and fast-running species had primitive state specimens here.
Xuan Chong even saw the original body of the “Dragon Horse” creature. Its height was stronger than the largest Liang breed in the Wu Family stable. Among them, the ancient breed somewhat resembled Wuzhui’s appearance. Xuan Chong muttered: “Should I solve the
…various ordinary creatures are like this, then giant beasts…
Xuan Chong stopped to observe species such as the Triceratops. While simulating its movement in the database, Xuan Chong discovered “red areas” that appeared with the movement. These red markers indicated weaknesses during movement.
There are no perfect creatures. Once intelligent species reach the stage where they can use tools, they rely on organizational capacity coordination to alternately cover each other’s weaknesses.
Xuan Chong: “Pseudo-human species, embrace the system, no shortcomings; abandon the system for specialization, a dead end.”
From watching all the way, Xuan Chong determined a “slide tackle” method for every species he encountered.
Xuan Chong took notes in his small notebook on how to use smoke to obscure vision, how to harass with shotgun and spear, and finally how to deliver lethal damage to vital points with deadly weapons. The species below, even if mutated, still could not avoid these weaknesses.
Unknowingly, Xuan Chong recorded a full book of killing records.
With the development of future civilization, the prevalence of Da Ye Iron and Mechanism techniques, those races on Xi Ren Star who rely on primitive racial talents to live indulgently and degenerately, make no effort to advance, and do not think about leveraging strengths and avoiding weaknesses, will all face survival crises.
…The inspection business trip days soon ended…
“Alan, I’m leaving.” On the “Return Area” platform in the space station, Xuan Chong, carrying large and small packages, greeted the space station’s spirit.
These “packages” were twenty groups of genetic modification raw materials space pods.
The projection of the deep blue figure, leaning against the door with reluctance, gazed longingly at Xuan Chong.
Xuan Chong felt a bit embarrassed: “When I’m not here, clean up more by yourself.”
During these ten days in heaven, Xuan Chong, unable to endure the environment, used the space station’s “magnetic vacuum” equipment to clean up the floating orbital debris around the space station; as the pulsed magnetic force moved, particles of different sizes were separated, then entered the screening area; according to different materials, they were further separated, and finally each portion was sent into the furnace to be dissociated back into basic materials.
Inside the space station’s honeycomb structure building, the long-dormant maintenance robots, after receiving the materials, took welding guns and repaired the base’s outer shell.
Previously, this function had stopped because the space station’s garbage recycling system was clogged, and the relevant mechanical arm parts were broken; the Sky Goddess couldn’t handle this faulty link, so Xuan Chong casually solved the problem.
If not for observing from high altitude that there were still issues below (with the expeditionary force side), Xuan Chong would have looked at the tutorial and inspected the Sky Goddess’s program.
The Sky Goddess replied: “Next time, you’ll come again, right?”
Xuan Chong gazed at the starry sky: “If there’s something, I’ll visit again. Now it’s mostly solved, so I won’t disturb you anymore.”
As the drop pod activated, the space station returned to quiet, and the Sky Goddess sighed as she watched this operator who had come up for ten days and chatted with her.
Although the Feather Tribe also came up, they were different from Xuan Chong; the Feather Tribe came up with treasure-seeking power, like lab rats, and their permissions had to be restricted. (If permissions weren’t restricted, the Feather Tribe who came up would indulge in immediate desires and excessively take and destroy without restraint.)
Xuan Chong had reached the qualities of an “operator”; after entering the most core area, he immediately had a sense of ownership and consciously took on the task of repairing the system’s negative entropy. This quality (the Immortal Family’s dao cultivation) was something the Feather Tribe natives lacked!
