Novels online

Chapter 404: Spirit Arts and Programs

"This kitty's salary is a good deal higher than yours, you low-level code grunt... enough to buy lots of dried fish treats." Chocolate meticulously read through the information in the system, so excited that electric arcs jumped around her, and sparks fizzed and popped.

It wasn't truly excited because its income was higher than its good-for-nothing owner's; rather, it was happy that as an "unregistered individual," its identity had now been "legitimized" through a "special pardon," allowing it to truly exist as a complete, independent entity in society.

All along, these mutated animals in the human world who had awakened intelligence and possessed the ability to kill ordinary people were considered "unregistered members" of society, forced to hide in the shadows like stowaways.

Not only because of crackdowns by the authorities, but also because the trade in mutated creatures had long formed a complete industrial chain. By consuming related wild animals and plants, ordinary people had a greater chance of awakening abilities, and spirit cultivators could also accelerate their cultivation. As a result, the prices of such items remained high.

Strong demand led to unscrupulous methods; at this time, a group of lower to mid-level cultivators operating in the grey areas became a nightmare for those mutated creatures determined to remain in the cities.

Setting traps, poisoning, outright robbery... they resorted to every extreme. With interests at stake, humans could be ruthless even towards their own kind, let alone dealing with other species.

But now, all of that was over. Whether they were figures from the legitimate world, the underworld, or the grey areas, all had now become good citizens under the system's management, obediently following its guidance.

As for those who couldn't become good citizens? They had all vanished. The collective soul-mind network, which served as the system's core, was always short-staffed; naturally, those who remained were all law-abiding citizens.

Bai Mo temporarily suppressed almost all conflicts with absolute violence, forcing society to undergo an exceptionally painful transformation.

"You pervert, always thinking about cat-girls! Let me go!! I'm a real cat!!!"

"So what if you're a real cat? What's wrong with liking cat-girls! One day, I'll create the most perfect transfiguration spirit art and turn you into a human!" Lin Yuedong's eyes gleamed with fanatical light, staring at Chocolate until the fur on her back stood on end.

"You're just an ordinary person with no power, yet you have the audacity to say you'll develop Spirit Arts? And weren't you supposed to be a great programmer? Have you changed your mind so quickly?" Chocolate stared intently at him with an expression typically reserved for perverts.

"Program design and Spirit Art design inherently share many commonalities. If you view the human body as a computer, Spirit Arts are like programs written to run inside the body."

"Most people just need to memorize the code; they can operate it by writing down all the memorized code, and it doesn't even matter if they don't understand the principles, as long as they can type."

"But a Spirit Art developer, like a program developer, must clearly understand all the algorithms within the program, every variable, every class, every attribute, every method..."

Lin Yuedong suddenly went against his usual character, launching into a lengthy discourse about his profession, startling Chocolate so much that she thought he had been "possessed" by some great being.

In the few years since awakening her intelligence, being curious about everything, she had spent no small amount of time online. After all, when it came to the abundance of information, no place could compare to the internet.

"Why are you staring at me with such a surprised expression?" Lin Yuedong could tell what Chocolate was thinking from her perpetually agape cat mouth.

"You, a slacker who never likes to use his brain... how could you say something like that?"

"Uh... I just got a bit carried away and said everything I was thinking." He scratched his head, smiling shyly.

"Five years. As long as I can keep going, I'll save enough Contribution Points to exchange for a Xuanhuang Fruit. Then, I can truly begin my research into transfiguration spirit art!"

Two days ago, Lin Yuedong meticulously reviewed the advancement tree assigned to him by the system. After browsing through the various subsequent tasks he needed to complete, he calculated that if he just persevered for about five years, he would accumulate enough Contribution Points from missions to exchange for a Xuanhuang Fruit.

After more than a decade of countless human and material resources invested in improvements, the current Xuanhuang Fruit, aside from its name remaining the same as before, had undergone immense improvements in raw materials, formula, manufacturing process, and even its effects.

The primary material for its production was originally only fragments of human Spirit Hubs. However, in the past two years, after a major breakthrough in process research, it now only required one-tenth of the original amount of human Spirit Hubs as an 'initiator,' supplemented by nine-tenths of concentrated mutated Sea Race flesh and blood, to replicate the original effect.

Furthermore, when consuming a second Xuanhuang Fruit after the first had taken effect, it no longer triggered the terrifying side effect of the immune system initiating self-destructive apoptosis. However, the probability of awakening a second ability decreased exponentially.

The success rate for awakening with the first Xuanhuang Fruit was approximately ninety percent, but for the second, it dropped to less than five percent, and the probability of a third successful awakening was no more than one in a thousand.

Of course, even so, some wealthy individuals, despite the extremely low probability of multiple awakenings, would desperately splurge. The money an ordinary person needed to save for half a lifetime to buy a single Xuanhuang Fruit, they would casually spend to buy them by the dozen.

Ling Tian, who made the most significant contribution to this major technological improvement, also leveraged this invention to enter the inner circle of the former Huaxia Federation, enjoying unparalleled prestige for a time.

However, this improvement actually held little value for the vast majority of ordinary people. Even after this major news was made public, the price of the Xuanhuang Fruit, which was firmly controlled by major consortiums, only dropped by fifteen percent, still remaining at approximately two million Huaxia currency units per fruit.

Instead, several monopolistic producers, whose costs had drastically decreased due to this, made immense fortunes. After all, the acquisition of human Spirit Hubs involved too many grey, even black, behind-the-scenes transactions, making the hidden costs remarkably high.

In contrast, concentrated Sea Race flesh and blood only cost two thousand Contribution Points per kilogram and had no legal issues whatsoever. This forcibly suppressed the production cost of each Xuanhuang Fruit from eight hundred thousand Huaxia currency units to three hundred thousand, transforming the major monopolistic groups' profits from three times to ten times their original margin.

Now, as Bai Mo took over the entire society with the system, he confiscated all cultivation-related materials, preparing to reintroduce an exchange system.

The original Contribution Point system was also completely reset to zero. This currency, which had once almost become the secondary circulating currency of the Huaxia Federation, was reset by Bai Mo to a state where everyone's balance was zero.

From this point forward, Contribution Points could only be acquired by completing daily tasks; there would be no more free handouts of Contribution Points, and Huaxia currency officially became a historical term. In the entire society, only Contribution Points remained as the single circulating virtual currency.

All transactions between individuals, and between individuals and the system, would now be completed directly through data changes at the system terminal.