Chapter 328: Plunder
A mass of misty Primordial Spirit, invisible to the naked eye, appeared within the enormous device next to the storage instrument.
The main body of the apparatus was a three-meter-tall, vertically standing metal cylinder, resembling a single-stroke piston engine suspended in mid-air when viewed from a distance.
As a red light outside the glass chamber illuminated, the Primordial Spirit within the cylinder began to rhythmically expand—contract—expand—contract, like a living heart.
It was this pulsation of the Primordial Spirit that radiated outwards, causing resonance in others.
Atomized liquid continuously sprayed from fine pores throughout the interior of the cylinder, and the Primordial Spirit, pulsating like a heart, slowly refined itself by burning this tempering liquid.
In these past few years, the energy absorbed by the Primordial Spirit solely through the Spirit Energy Network system was equivalent to nearly four months' worth of electricity consumption for the entire Huaxia Federation's population of over a billion, and this immense energy, together with the spiritual materials consumed daily, all transformed into nourishment for his Primordial Spirit's growth.
According to Bai Mo's estimations, if it weren't for such methods, relying solely on his personal accumulation would have required at least fifty to seventy years to reach his current level.
However, compared to the Chemosynthesis Stage, which boasts a lifespan of nearly a thousand years, spending a few decades accumulating power to a perfected level was nothing.
"Power gained bit by bit through painstaking effort will certainly be much easier to control than that of someone like me, who resorted to leveraging the power of an entire nation."
"But it's too slow."
To gain power in just a few years that would otherwise require decades of arduous training, the additional trouble was insignificant.
Because if he truly spent decades in the Chemosynthesis Stage, the advantage he had painstakingly built up earlier would cease to exist.
Once multiple successors caught up, Bai Mo, who disregarded human lives, would likely become a public enemy. For any force, Bai Mo, who acted completely unscrupulously, was an extremely dangerous and unstable factor.
The act of casually sacrificing over a million people to create a monster potentially capable of destroying all of humanity, solely for his own goals, had already terrified them.
Entrusting the safety of humanity to the whims of such a person was simply too perilous.
"To reach five thousand thoughts, without relying on the Golden Apple, would still take twenty years."
After various non-destructive experiments, Bai Mo concluded that the Golden Apple in his hand, which concentrated most of the essence of the super-life Ying Huo, could greatly expand his thoughts, allowing him to step into the myriad thoughts level, which was equivalent to tens of thousands of times the thinking capacity of an ordinary person.
However, the cost of doing so was immense. A sudden tenfold expansion of thinking ability was like an ordinary person in a movie taking some kind of brain-development drug, with the potential to turn into a lunatic or even die directly from physical exhaustion.
The so-called "trump card" that the self-proclaimed Gaia truly worried about was precisely Bai Mo choosing to consume the Golden Apple at any cost, and then, after meeting the thought requirements for Elementization, initiating the Elementization of his body, stepping into a new level.
Without using this Golden Apple in his hand, he estimated it would take at least twenty years for his current self, nearing the thousand thoughts level, to forge a path to cultivate to five thousand thoughts. The further one progressed, the time required would increase exponentially.
"After I'm done with the Primordial Spirit matter, I'll also need to start researching how to slowly release the effects of the Golden Apple."
Having planned for several years and spent countless resources to obtain the Golden Apple, he naturally wouldn't let it become a mere ornament that could be seen but not used.
"But for now, the primary task is still to complete the spirit refinement, allowing me to truly master every ounce of power in my hands." He decided to prioritize the development and utilization of the Golden Apple later, before his Primordial Spirit reached its optimal state.
Bai Mo did not yet have an overly urgent need to continue breaking through. Over the past decade, relying on the Contribution Point system, the Spirit Energy Network system, and the Virtual Reality system—these three existences, almost like cheat codes, designed by his own hand—he had gradually accumulated an unparalleled advantage.
The initial Contribution Point system provided him with astronomical resources, as well as a large number of cultivation methods from others, completing the first step.
As for the Spirit Energy Network system and the Union of Heaven and Man Tower built upon it, they greatly shortened the time required for Primordial Spirit accumulation, while also optimizing the circulation of his own power.
Finally, the hidden door of the Virtual Reality system allowed Bai Mo to peek into the memories of everyone participating in the combat power assessment, using the massive resources he controlled to test and even realize most people's pipe dreams. Concurrently, the thought manifestation in the Endless Continent game also provided powerful assistance for the tempering of his spiritual will.
All these factors combined were the true reason why Bai Mo, whose aptitude was merely upper-tier and still some distance from a peerless genius, was able to overpower the masses and stand at the apex.
He used the spiritual and material wealth of hundreds of millions to sustain himself alone. In essence, there was no difference between this and Ramdo, who walked the Divine Path, gathering the power of all sentient beings to strengthen himself.
The true reason Ramdo was defeated was that the One-Wheel Cult only had a population of one hundred million, while the Huaxia Federation had over one and a half billion people. The difference in their scale was a full order of magnitude.
Every Fifth-Tier expert in a high position was, in truth, more or less an exploiter. Through their power and authority, they obtained astonishing amounts of cultivation resources, indirectly suppressing others from catching up to them.
The Divine Path tended to plunder spiritual wealth, while other paths leaned towards plundering material wealth. Bai Mo, however, was more thorough, directly pursuing both.
After all, this was a cruel society. Compared to arduously pioneering new ground themselves, the giants actually preferred to plunder fledgling creators in various ways.
Just like certain massive conglomerates that, by replicating successful startup models, then used their vast resources to either acquire or crush the original creators, ensuring their leading position while simultaneously expanding into new businesses.
Meanwhile, the costs of entrepreneurship were almost entirely transferred onto others, because the projects replicated by these giants were all those that had undergone preliminary market testing and were genuinely profitable.
Times changed, but human nature did not. The cartelization of enterprises was, in fact, not much different from the eternal classes that emerged in the Spirit Qi era; in both cases, the strong took all.
"He just sent a message, said everything's fine." Chen Xi, still bewildered, decided to go for a walk outside the experimental site after seeing the reply on her phone.
The sensation of her heart being led by the rhythm was quite unsettling. She worried that if the pulsations underground suddenly ceased, her own heart might stop beating along with them.
"No matter what, we're both Fourth-Tier, so why is the difference still so vast...?" Chen Xi, holding Hua Qing's hand, walked nearly twenty kilometers away from the center of the experimental site before the sensation of her heart being seized and her breath suppressed finally vanished.
PS: Recommending a book, "I Have a Potted Plant in the Apocalypse." It uses an apocalyptic setting to write a gender-bender novel, but I don't know if the author intends for the character to transform and marry someone or transform and be in a yuri relationship 666.
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