Chapter 144: Exhausting the Pond to Get All the Fish
After placing Sheldon's Spirit Hub into the specimen box, Bai Mo began to consider future matters.
"I still have no clue about the breakthrough. All I know is that immense mental power can aid it, but how exactly should this mental power act upon the Life Field?"
He had already researched numerous even slightly relevant documents and discussed various hypotheses with others at the institute, but he hadn't found a single relatively reasonable theory. He had even reread the descriptions of the Qi Refinement to Foundation Establishment methods from the Tianxuan Continent, left to him by the old Daoist, multiple times.
"Ultimately, their advancement from Qi Refinement to Foundation Establishment involved condensing an energy core. Due to differences in body structure, this was relatively simple for them. However, our Spirit Hubs and bodily structure make this step extremely difficult at the current stage. Our bodies are multi-core, unlike theirs during the Qi Refinement stage, where they can open a Qi Hai within their bodies and centralize various control hubs there."
"The integration of the original spirit energy organs into the Life Field itself already requires a considerable amount of time, and my continuous transplantation of new Spirit Hubs into my body only exacerbates this issue. Even constantly enduring high-intensity radiation from nuclear waste has had only a negligible effect in this regard."
"Also, what exactly did Luo Yi mean by 'Dao Wu Shuangxiu' back then? He seems to possess a different set of cultivation theories. I'll have to find an opportunity to inquire about it."
"The final question concerns the 'gene lock' transformation he exhibited, similar to what I'd seen before. This person harbors a considerable number of secrets. I believe they've already noticed some clues but, constrained by Luo Yi's own combat power, chose to win him over rather than forcibly probing him."
Meanwhile, the data leak incident continued to rapidly escalate.
Because Bai Mo had preemptively concealed the actual cultivation method for the spirit energy fruits required for the Xuanhuang Fruit, writing in the data that they were special varieties discovered among numerous wild species, everyone harbored the idea that they too might be lucky enough to find suitable plants and get rich overnight.
Some companies intending to develop in this direction also began secretly acquiring all kinds of so-called "spirit energy fruits," likewise attempting to find the true carriers.
As for them, they largely adopted a scattershot approach: using the instruments obtained from the system—invented by the research institute—that could simply detect if an item had a spirit energy reaction, they would extensively purchase fruits collected by the populace that showed a confirmed spirit energy reaction, offering one to two Contribution Points per fruit. Subsequently, they would conduct further screening or sell them to downstream buyers as middlemen.
As Huaxia's highest-level research unit directly overseeing this field, the Spirit Energy Research Institute naturally claimed a large slice of the acquisition war's pie. Every day, cartloads of fruits, purchased after passing spirit energy inspections, were transported to various laboratories, entrusted to relevant professionals for detailed analysis.
After the first wave of "going to the mountains and fields" reaped their rewards, even more people began to venture into the wilderness. Soon, as the number of treasure seekers increased, conflicts naturally arose.
Perhaps it was to argue over who first discovered a mutated fruit tree worth dozens of Contribution Points, or how the fruits on it should be distributed. In any case, even trivial matters could spark a quarrel.
While no one would commit murder or theft for a single spirit energy fruit worth one or two Contribution Points, verbal disputes were inevitable when interests clashed. However, such open-ended cases, where each side claimed justification, usually ended without resolution.
On another front, the other primary ingredient for the Xuanhuang Fruit stirred some controversy. A portion of the population consistently maintained that extracting Spirit Hubs from Ability Users for consumption was no different from cannibalism and that such insane behavior should be prohibited.
But others argued that such an act was merely akin to receiving a vaccination. They believed Spirit Hubs could be entirely regarded as a medicinal ingredient, similar to Ziheche, and that one shouldn't dwell too much on it. The real focus, they contended, should be on whether the source of the Spirit Hubs used to create Xuanhuang Fruit was legal.
With society increasingly leaning towards a power-oriented model, a climate where, as the saying goes, "might makes right," the former argument found little traction.
Huaxia currently had over ten million Ability Users, accounting for roughly one percent of the total population. Eating a single fruit to enter this one-percent circle seemed like a profitable venture by any measure. Forget about consuming human tissue; even if it meant eating excrement, many desperate individuals from the lower strata would probably go through with it to change their destiny.
After tending to the injured contestants, Bai Mo, stealing a moment of leisure from his busy schedule, pulled out his phone and browsed the news from the past few days. Soon, a special report titled "The Underground Spirit Hub Black Market—A Pain Unbearable" caught his eye.
"...Where there's demand, there's a market. Just like the blood-selling black market, an undercurrent also conceals a tiny minority of low-tier Ability Users desperately in need of money."
"They chose to sell their Spirit Hubs on the underground black market for a considerable income. But once they were on the operating table, their lives lay in others' hands, and some of them only then discovered that not every doctor would adhere to the agreement of only removing a portion of the Spirit Hubs... Alas, it was already too late."
"..."
The article was lengthy, mainly highlighting the darkness of the black market through the oral accounts of some victims.
"'Should I discuss with them establishing a regular Spirit Hub market, either through the government or their private forces, to conduct legitimate Spirit Hub transactions, using the Contribution Point system for settlement?'"
"'At least with the government's endorsement, a market established in this way would have proper management. If they say half, they'll cut half; it wouldn't be like those underground black markets mentioned in the report that directly cripple people. That's too wasteful; they have no concept of sustainable development. Human resources should be moderately developed; if you cut everything out, it can't regenerate. That's truly exhausting the pond to get all the fish.'"
"'However, the old men seem to value their image highly; they're all afraid of dirtying their hands. To do something like this, they'd have to come up with plausible pretexts.'"
Silently, he jotted this idea down in his notebook, then continued browsing the news below.
"'The International Human Rights Organization demands the research institute disclose the source of Spirit Hubs used for the previous batch of five hundred Xuanhuang Fruits?' Hiding in the stadium's medical room, Bai Mo glanced at the title of the next news article.
He completely ignored the human rights organization's affairs. In Bai Mo's view, it was only a matter of time before human society formally implemented a hierarchical system. When the power of the ruling class originated entirely from themselves, rather than from the approval of others, not instituting slavery was already a testament to civilization.
Comments