Chapter 1100 - 557: Released from the Cage
Although the Primordial Spirit had fused, Chen Xuantian, being merely a nine-year-old child, obviously could not fully absorb the millennia of experiences of Peng Ju like watching a movie crammed into his brain. He could only use what he saw, think about what he encountered, taking the essence and discarding the dross, prioritizing the Magic and Daoist Collection.
However, seeing the Yuan Magnetic Thunder Strike Talisman suddenly reminded him of the Nine Sons Yin Thunder, a marvel that could be hailed on Earth as both badass and outrageous. Chen Xuantian was momentarily stunned, distracted, and unexpectedly fused with a large fragment of the Primordial Spirit from Peng Ju, spiraling into random thoughts, a carousel of memories, suddenly recalling an inconsequential, seemingly trivial matter.
Indeed, it was a trivial matter; Peng Ju once asked Lingxu why he had to be ’cut’ out.
Everyone is curious about the ultimate questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? The Three Corpses Peng Ju was no different.
From the moment he was cut out by Lingxu as one of the Three Corpses, he was bewildered.
The illustrious Shushan Young Hero, Qingcheng Taoist, attained Nascent Soul in his first lifetime, receiving the Mystic Sect True Inheritance. With such origins, such natural talent, such comprehension, capable of becoming the Mountain Master of Xuanmen, what could possibly be lacking?
Yet Lingxu still cut out this life’s Dao Body as if it were a worm, discarded it like a worm.
To Lingxu, even the Qingcheng Taoist was not good enough.
Because Lingxu had truly seen something better.
The Thunder Ancestor was.
Yes, Lingxu told Peng Ju everything.
The existence of the company, the existence of wetware, the existence of the prototype.
He even taught him a set of standards utterly different from the local Golden Core Nascent Soul Divinity Transformation.
The company’s standards.
Product-level wetware specification certification.
Indeed, for the company, everything is for money; with money, everything is possible.
If the wetware, the demons, the Mountain Men of the Taiji Realm, cannot be monetized, cannot join the company’s market, they are utterly worthless.
To gain market value, there must be standards, specifications, and certifications.
For example, the various Daoists, Dao Seeds, and Dao Bodies in the Taiji Realm, and the various functions and specifications of wetware, are essentially insignificant, fundamentally no different from mortals—they are trash, they are eggs, mere toys at the conceptual design stage.
Even an impressive existence like Chan Zi, in the eyes of the company, is just like a blueprint plan in a PowerPoint presentation; no matter how excellent the theoretical design, if it cannot survive the natural selection of the environment, prove its value, and be implemented at the product end, it cannot be traded.
Therefore, most Dao Seeds are actually left to fend for themselves after birth, allowed to evolve freely. Only those that can simulate Qi Refining, evolve an inner core structure on their own, and cultivate to the Nascent Soul True Man realm gradually attract the company’s attention, considered relatively stable fixed designs, worth the company’s investment evaluation, project arrangement, script development, and undergo comprehensive functionality, performance, durability, environmental, and regulatory testing to verify if the product design meets all requirements.
These tests are what’s referred to as the ’tribulations’.
But design finalization does not imply being a finished product; it merely signifies that the wetware remains stable as a living entity, not collapsing and perishing due to sudden environmental changes and intense natural selection. However, it is far from entering the ’market’ phase.
Once a project worthy of investment is selected, the company will proceed with more intense ’tribulations’, greater investment projects, and offer more black technology, like Heavenly and Earthly Treasures and Divine Skill Secret Manuals, along with an array of bizarre new theories and black technology to promote the evolution of wetware, unlock the Genetic Lock, and activate combat permissions, enabling unrestricted evolution.
This stage is what locals commonly refer to as ’Enlightenment’.
If Enlightenment succeeds, mastering super-killers like the ’Nine Luminaries Divine Sword’ and ’Nine Sons Yin Thunder’, becoming a humanoid superweapon, the concept verification phase is considered complete, entering the stage of full concept implementation testing.
This ’implementation testing’ is far more intense and severe than individual ’tribulations’.
Because it is no longer a scripted scenario but truly turbulent times, a battlefield of blood, where the company’s and non-company’s, biochemical and non-biochemical, heaven’s and Outer Heaven’s, various verified and unverified weapons, must contend, a final battlefield of proving oneself through combat, an ultimate arena of kill and prove Dao.
To this day, in history, only one product from the Immortal Palace has passed the final combat testing, becoming a prototype wetware template widely sold by the company to Outer Heaven, that is, the so-called ’Immortal Venerable’.
In summary, back then, the young man Enlightened at Qingcheng Mountain, from the perspective of the Taiji Realm, was indeed outstanding, but in the company’s definition, it was only a fixed design, and on the scale of the Celestial Market, the competitiveness was far insufficient.
Without the company’s ’Heavenly Destiny’, without the opportunity to be armed with the ’concept’, no way to unlock the ’Permission Lock’, there is fundamentally no chance to pass the implementation testing, much less gain the company’s recognition to become a prototype of the celestial level.
Therefore, Lingxu had to cut the corpse since Lingxu sought ’Enlightenment’, sought ’Ascension’, to reach ’Outer Heaven’.
Therefore, what Lingxu needed was a combat wetware vested with ’concept’, capable of relying on it, to fight through implementation testing.