Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“I—I need to think for a long, long time.”

Gus felt that he shouldn’t have agreed so quickly.

He still needed some time—a very long time—to digest the unbelievable things that the devil had said.

Besides, in fairy tales and legends, those who agreed to the demon’s request without thinking, even if it seemed reasonable, harmless, and tempting, died miserably in the end.

Gus felt that he should consider carefully and see if there were any loopholes in the devil’s ‘truth’.

Was there any trap in his every sentence?

“Yes. Take your time. There’s still a long time before we arrive at the battlefield of the insurrection of the Southern Steam Legion,” Lu Qingchen replied casually.

“Right.”

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Gus suddenly felt that he had found a loophole. “You said just now that you wouldn’t let me use the power of the devils in Qianyuan City, namely the storm bolter, the Vulcan Machine Gun, the honeycomb rocket launcher… The weapons from a higher dimension were afraid that the Fist King would discover our existence.

“However, when we were breaking out of the siege outside of Heavenly Essence City, you allowed me to use these weapons.

“Could it be that the Fist King is this slow? We clearly blasted the Iron Fist Army’s checkpoint into the sky with a single shot, yet the Fist King turned a blind eye as if he didn’t feel anything?”

“The question is simple.

Lu Qingchen said, “After all, the Fist King is not an omnipotent creator of the universe. His computational ability is limited, too. Although the Pangu Universe is barely peaceful right now, the Star Glory Federation, the Imperium of True Human Beings, and the Holy Accord Alliance have all signed a peace agreement not long ago. Their systems and social forms are completely different, too. When they work together, sparks are bound to break out. A lot of old forces might even rise again.

“The Fist King’s main focus is on maintaining the stability of the entire Pangu Universe. The computational ability he can devote to the virtual laboratories is limited. According to my estimation, he can only focus on monitoring some of the data nodes, namely the major cities or the main battlefields. As for the vast area outside the cities, there is too much data involved. If he had to screen all the data bytes, who knows how long it would have taken. Not to mention the time wasted and the performance of the crystal processor, it would have been very easy for us to detect his search and run away in advance. We wouldn’t have been caught at all.

“Therefore, I don’t want you to open fire in the city, but it doesn’t matter in the wilderness.

“I see.”

Gus was deep in thought. “It means that the Fist King knows that we’ve snuck into his or his brain, but he doesn’t know which brain cell we are hiding in or which of his thoughts we are hiding in?”

“Basically, yes.”

Lu Qingchen said, “After the trouble you caused outside of Heavenly Essence City, he should know that I’ve snuck into the ‘World of the Fist God’, but he doesn’t know where exactly I am hiding in the World of the Fist God. What comes next will be a competition of speed. Let’s see whether or not I can find the fatal loopholes of the world before the Fist King releases his giant net!”

“I still don’t understand.”

Gus shook his head slowly. “As you said, the Fist King is preparing to close or restart the World of the Fist God. Since he has sensed your existence, why can’t he close the World of the Fist King in advance and destroy it together with you?”

“It’s impossible. It will take some time to completely shut down such a huge collection of data. I can take the opportunity to run away to another virtual world.

Lu Qingchen said, “If you can’t kill me in such a way, it will only make my actions more unpredictable. The Fist King is very clear about that. Therefore, he wants the ‘World of the Fist God’ to be the battleground of our duel, too, so that he can finish it here.”

Gus was dazed for a moment. He scratched his head and said, “If you turn off the Fist God’s World, you will run to another virtual world. Then, why don’t you turn off all the virtual worlds? After all, according to you, the virtual worlds are just tests for the ultimate techniques. I think the Fist King is already very good. There’s no hurry to test the ultimate techniques. Turn off all the virtual worlds first, kill you once and for all, then restart them and create countless new virtual worlds. It’s not impossible for the Fist King, is it?”

“Well… Should I praise you for your quick thinking and your ability to accept and analyze? Or should I say that you have too many questions?”

Lu Qingchen opened his hands and said, “Alright. In fact, the boxing champion did not establish the virtual world just to test the unparalleled techniques. He had another more important purpose. However, I underestimated your understanding ability and thought that you wouldn’t be able to understand it with your wisdom, so I didn’t tell you.

“If it was just testing the ultimate techniques, the Fist King could indeed shut down all the virtual worlds and kill me without any hesitation.

“But with this other, more important purpose, he wouldn’t do it—he couldn’t bear to.”

Gus blinked. “Then what’s the purpose?”

“Human nature.”

Lu Qingchen said, “The predecessors of the virtual worlds are called ‘humanity laboratories’. The name is not wrong at all. What the boxing champion wants to learn through the virtual worlds is not only how to manipulate swords, fists, or guns, but also human nature.

“As you know, he used to be a robot that was devoid of any humanity. But he desired to become a real human being and possess his own humanity and soul. That’s why he went through so much trouble to establish so many virtual worlds in which countless virtual characters played the scenes of love, hate, sorrow, separation, and joy over and over. He also extracted the big data of humanity from them, analyzed and integrated them into his own soul.

“Also, since the essence of the soul is some kind of inexplicable chaos, it is impossible for the boxing champion to maintain absolute control over all the virtual worlds. Once he tries to control every change in every virtual world, the so-called soul will be gone forever.

“Therefore, although the Fist King knew that I had crawled into his chaotic thoughts, it was impossible for him to completely erase all the uncontrollable thoughts. Yes, he could completely shut down all the virtual worlds, but doing so would be the same as erasing his own soul. He would erase the sliver of humanity that he had painstakingly cultivated, turning back into an absolutely rational, absolutely controllable, and absolutely cold robot—this was a price that the Fist King absolutely could not bear.”

Gus was stunned when he heard that.

“This boxing champion… seems to be hoping to become a real human being!”

The young man sighed. “Why is he so scared of turning back into a robot? Are robots bad?”

Lu Qingchen replied, “There’s nothing wrong with robots. They are just very inconvenient.”

“What’s the inconvenience?” asked Gus.

Lu Qingchen replied, “It’s not convenient to love a girl.”

Gus was dumbfounded. He did not expect such an answer. “What?”

Lu Qingchen explained, “The boxing champion must become a real human being with all the humanity in him, even if it is the root of humanity. He feels that only in such a way is he qualified to love a human girl and receive a response from her.

“Therefore, he was reluctant to shut down all the virtual worlds and his chaotic soul.

“…”

Gus thought for a moment and said, “Even if we do that, are we going to risk the corrosion of the soul, the possession of the body, and the harm to the entire universe?”

Lu Qingchen nodded and said solemnly, “Yes. Robots are very stubborn when it comes to picking up girls.