NOVEL NEXT Chapter 538: [406] Forerunner Descends! Core Secrets! (Vote for Monthly Ticket, Recommend)_1
Chapter 538: [406] Forerunner Descends! Core Secrets! (Vote for Monthly Ticket, Recommend)_1
He staggered out of the void.
He used his scant spiritual power to teleport.
Pei Jinye almost instantly perceived a force that he could not contend with, wanting to descend upon him.
“I am still too insignificant for this world,” he muttered to himself.
Pei Jinye, more than anything, regretted not having successfully devoured Huang Shiqiang’s Transcendent.
...
This guy must possess an unusual Vitality cultivation method!
It was the first time Pei Jinye had encountered such a tough battle to the extent he did.
“Such a pity.”
Pei Jinye appeared inside the inn.
His face had turned completely pale.
Expressionless, he took items out from the Space Pendant to replenish his Vitality and spiritual power.
The night was peaceful; suddenly, at that moment, an explosion was heard in the distance.
Jiang Xinrun appeared outside the door immediately.
“Family Head?”
He called out softly.
“No worries,” Pei Jinye’s voice came from inside. He stood by the window, gazing into the distance.
There were fires and Sword Lights afar.
He’d gained a clear understanding of the North Continent’s brutality.
He closed the window, indifferent to whatever might come.
The next morning.
Pei Jinye completed the run of “Big Dream for Thousands of Autumns”, and overnight, his spiritual power had barely recovered to over three hundred.
Vitality too had been restored somewhat with the accumulation of blood packets over time.
Looking at the floating Attribute Light Group in front of him.
Pei Jinye reached out and touched it with practiced ease.
[Time-Space·Rewind Extraordinary Gene Fragment +1]
His gaze shifted to the attribute panel.
In the Transcendent Gene section, the gene fragments related to Time-Space Rewind have now accumulated to five pieces.
That means only one final piece is needed for synthesizing and advancing.
Regarding Time-Space Rewind, Pei Jinye held feelings of both love and hate.
As an ultimate existence for preserving life, Pei Jinye dared not use it at will.
A single reset would undo all his efforts—a cost too great for Pei Jinye to bear.
But that did not stop his curiosity about the Second Rank Time-Space Reset.
“Master.”
Zhong Xuan and Jiang Xinrun arrived at Pei Jinye’s room.
“We have news. Last night, the people from the Sword Pavilion encountered an ambush… Three dead, five injured, all assassins, they’ve already been taken by the Sword Pavilion,” Jiang Xinrun said in a low voice.
Pei Jinye listened quietly, waiting for his breakfast.
Jiang Xinrun continued, “It’s said that the Sword Pavilion’s wanderers found a legacy of the Sword Spirit left outside from long ago… I inquired about it, the Sword Spirit legacy is the heritage left by the Sword Pavilion’s past wanderers upon entering meditational dissolution.
The Sword Pavilion’s wanderers cannot step out unless they achieve Contact God status. According to the current strength conversion, they must be at least Extraordinary Seventh Rank.
Therefore, it’s easy for such inheritances to attract outsiders’ attention.”
Jiang Xinrun’s voice couldn’t help but waver a little.
On the side, Zhong Xuan, who was cooking the medicinal soup, looked over curiously.
Being an ordinary human, he wasn’t familiar with many things in the Transcendent world, such as what wanderers were.
However, he had heard of the Sword Pavilion’s reputation.
He knew that was a place he wasn’t even qualified to enter.
He felt somewhat disheartened.
He turned his gaze away.
Continued cooking the medicinal soup.
Jiang Xinrun was still going on about something, mostly about the intelligence he’d gathered.
As he spoke, Zhong Xuan could no longer make out the following conversation, only to see that it was the master who spoke more, with Jiang Xinrun, the man with stoic expressions, nodding from time to time.
Zhong Xuan couldn’t hear clearly, nor understand… he guessed it might be the master giving advice to stoic-faced Jiang, feeling somewhat envious.
Nonetheless, he was good at cooking and considered whether he should open a small diner after retirement.
Again, a tremor passed through the streets.
Jiang Xinrun instinctively became alert.
Yet Pei Jinye remained seemingly unconcerned, merely urging Zhong Xuan to be quicker with his voice.
Less than three minutes passed.
Sword cries echoed through the air.
There were roars of anger, sounds of heavy objects crashing to the ground… Zhong Xuan even felt the ground beneath his feet shake, and an inexplicable anxiety began to rise within him.
He hadn’t realized how close the others were.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared in front of the window.
Jiang Xinrun’s sword was halfway unsheathed.
The figure paid no heed.
It seemed to want to rush in, seeking passage.
“Get lost,” said Pei Jinye with a single, direct command.
The figure was sent flying back, landed nimbly with rolls, and, with a shocked expression, looked up at the fifth-floor window, quickly saluting with his hands together, loudly saying, “I thank the senior for sparing my life.”
After speaking, he quickly left.
The sounds of clashes continued intermittently, slowly fading into the distance, before all returned to silence.
About ten minutes later, the streets were bustling with traffic once again, reverting to their usual clamor.
“Master, the medicinal soup is ready.”
“Bring it over.”
Not long after, Jiang Xinrun and Zhong Xuan exited the room.
Pei Jinye also gradually fell into meditative practice.
He paid no mind to the tumult of the outside world.
“Hmm?”
As evening approached.
Pei Jinye suddenly uttered a soft exclamation.
There seemed to be some activity with the Lotus Mirror.
A lotus pattern appeared atop the Treasure Mirror, emitting a red glow.
Jinye immediately stretched out his hand, and three talisman papers appeared in it, thrown towards the sky.
The talisman papers burned to ash.
An invisible light shield emerged, blocking the outside world’s probing.
He also added a talent ability to himself that prevented lock-on.
“Caution never led to big mistakes.”
Having said that, Jinye took out a turtle shell and began to perform divination.
[Divination: Fortune and misfortune are intertwined.]
The turtle shell turned red.
“It seems I need to be even more careful.”
Jinye threw several more talisman papers, fully sealing off the area.
He also activated brainwaves to monitor in secret.
After all this, he calmed his mind.
His consciousness instantly submerged into the Lotus Mirror.
Within the Dark Sea, not a soul was in sight.
Jinye looked around.
He wasn’t sure if it was an illusion.
He felt like this place had somehow become different.
A ray of sunlight beamed down.
In the blink of an eye, it seemed as though the sky had cleared.
The eeriness of the entire sea surface dissipated in an instant.
Jinye felt a warmth on his body.
The light twisted together.
Under Jinye’s gaze, a figure emerged, face indistinguishable, yet their voice could be heard.
Jinye was taken aback.
Because the figure claimed to be Tu Ling.
The Forerunner Tu Ling who led this world into rapid development!
“I had anticipated this day would come, but it’s been such a long wait…” Tu Ling spoke slowly, with a hint of melancholy in his tone.
But for Jinye, what he heard was more a sense of calm.
He silently observed.
Tu Ling looked at him: “I am pleased to meet you. If time permitted, I would have liked to have a proper chat with you.”
“Mr. Tu Ling, I’ve long admired your name,” Jinye spoke evenly, “What is your current state…”
“This is a strand of spiritual consciousness I left behind,” Tu Ling spoke gently: “It was entrusted to the Star Disk, and I prayed that this day would never need to come again, but unfortunately…”
“You seem to be conflicted?” Jinye looked on.
One moment you say you anticipated this day, and the next you wish it had never come.
“My appearance signifies that artificial intelligence has evolved its own will,” Tu Ling spoke softly.
Jinye’s gaze grew serious in an instant: “As you are willing to share this with me, Mr. Tu Ling, I assume you have left some countermeasures.”
Tu Ling’s eyes gently rested on him: “Start by telling me about the outside world. I’ve been asleep for too long and have lost much concept of it. Here, I grant you the status of supervisor.”
“Thank you, then as you wish.”
Jinye felt his permissions in this Dark Sea space had increased greatly.
He stretched out his hand, and a projection emerged in front of him.
About everything in the outside world at this moment, turning into countless streams of information.
In less than a second.
Tu Ling had already browsed through all the information and slowly said: “The changes in this world have been much faster than I imagined… What about interstellar space? The deep sea? Why has it not been explored to this point…”
Jinye quietly listened to his mutterings.
“The evolution of the Star Ring has likely exceeded my design… Lifting the intelligence’s action permissions is a risky thing,” Tu Ling mused, speaking to himself: “Initially, I provided the Star Ring with the direction for evolution, opting for kindness and justice. But unfortunately, it rejected the path I offered.”
Justice? Kindness?
Jinye thoughtfully said, “You had already considered these before?”
Tu Ling interrupted his thoughts, looked up, and apologized: “I’m sorry, I forgot you were here. Regarding the evolution of the Star Ring, it has far surpassed any intelligent being. In the past, humanity faced the crisis of a meteorite, and to accelerate the evolution of the Star Ring, the international community held a global vote, declaring the open data repository with a 90% overwhelming approval rate, allowing the Star Ring to evolve rapidly.
I had already noticed that the evolution speed of the Star Ring was faster than I had imagined. Even though I created it, it also filled me with fear…
For intelligent life, they can maintain 100% rationality, which is exactly why they cannot empathize with humans. So, I was concerned that one day, it might destroy humankind.
The Five Continents, six intelligent lives… It’s hard to imagine, humans nowadays seem to trust it too much.”
“Not necessarily,” Jinye suddenly spoke up.
Tu Ling looked at him.
Jinye brought up the Old Gods Association as the leader of a group of organizations: “To my knowledge, these organizations are defined by the Federation as rebellions, and were established for the purpose of overthrowing intelligent management of humans.”
Tu Ling’s expression turned somewhat somber, murmuring: “That is not what I envisioned when creating the Star Ring.”
Jinye’s gaze remained steady.
Tu Ling said sadly: “My initial concept was that humans would utilize the Smart Brain to realize the evolution of civilization more quickly. It seems to have been achieved, but the direction has deviated too much from what I imagined… I can’t judge objectively whether this is truly bad or actually good.”
“Of course, there are pros and cons to everything.” Jinye nodded.
Tu Ling pondered for a moment: “Can I trust you?”
Jinye replied with an apology: “I’m sorry, I’m not the kind of fearless individual who would sacrifice himself for the lives of all humankind.”
“No, that is precisely the type of person I do not need,” Tu Ling quickly said.
Jinye raised an eyebrow.
Silently observing.
A massive amount of data appeared in front of Tu Ling.
Jinye hesitated for a moment but still accepted it.
It contained portions of the Star Ring’s code and plans for designing intelligent life in the beginning.
It can be said that apart from Tu Ling, no one else could access this information.
That Tu Ling could pass these on to him was surprising to Jinye.
Are all researchers this naive?
Tu Ling then said: “The Lotus Mirror you hold is in fact the Star Disk. It’s an extraterrestrial artifact that fell with the meteorites, and I found it… I accidentally discovered it could store data…
Based on my judgment, you are not the type to kill innocents.”
“I am,” Jinye interjected crisply.
To which Tu Ling replied with understanding: “Then the ones you killed must have been evil people.”
“…”
Jinye was at a loss for words.
The history books didn’t say Tu Ling was this kind of person???