Chapter 231: Walking Half a Million [Four-in-One, Asking for Subscriptions!]

The Fang Company suddenly put out a bounty of five hundred thousand spirit stones for my capture?
Wasn't it fifty thousand last time? Without me even lifting a finger, it has multiplied tenfold directly?
Could it be that my bounty shares were purchased by the Fang Company, causing its stock price to skyrocket along with the reward?
Lu Chen was utterly baffled.
He hurriedly opened the Adventurer Association news.
No related news was to be found.
Then he logged onto the Adventurer Forum.
Only then did he see that several posts had forwarded the latest news from the *Empire Entertainment Weekly*.
The Ghost Knight bombarded the palace of Salk I, Goliath destroyed the sixth planet's shipyard, the Leoni plundered the ninth planet's treasury, and abducted contract workers from the convalescent satellite.
"Contract workers, my foot!"
All of the above were supported by clear, live-action video footage.
As for the secret experiments and the breeding of Zerg offspring... not a single word was mentioned.
Lu Chen vaguely understood.
The Fang Company traded in humanoids.
The June Flower Adventure Group traded in humans.
The two sides might very well be conducting business under the table!
Of course, this was just an unfounded association.
Lu Chen suddenly felt a sense of unreality.
This was the *Empire Entertainment Weekly*, so why was the imperial media helping out the Balch family of the New Federation?
The *Federal Free Stars* showed not the slightest movement.
He suspected that if reporters from the *Pangu Voyage Log* were to go interview the Moriya Star System right now, Balch's laboratory and the Zerg hive would have already been relocated, the human women on the convalescent satellite would have signed egg-donation experiment contracts with the Balch family, and everything else would be a Zerg pasture, as legal as legally could be.
Lu Chen suddenly had a new conjecture.
Could those cutting-edge and taboo-defying experimental projects of the Empire have been secretly transferred to the Federation and the Pangu Corridor?
For instance, the star-beast atavism experiment managed by the Star Herder Adventure Group.
For instance, the star-worm experiment managed by the June Flower Adventure Group.
Both were powerful factions ranked among the Three Thousand Astral Fiends.
One was a star-worm experiment.
The other was a star-beast experiment.
Were they both trying to control giant beasts through neural networks to mass-produce powerful star-worm and star-beast fleets?
Regardless of the specifics, the Empire was likely plotting something in secret.
Yet, at least in Vincent's case, it had been completely botched.
The Empire lost control of the Star Beast Paradise and was forced to wipe out the Star Herders in one fell swoop.
As for the ultimate purpose of these experiments, Lu Chen estimated that only by entering the Blizzard Route could the answers be found.
Right now, the Adventurer Association's news had not yet been released, presumably because they were still verifying the authenticity of the matter.
Lu Chen closed the news and let out a long sigh.
"A bounty of five hundred thousand is no big deal, but applying to revoke my Imperial Hero Medal and Federal Freedom Medal is sheer nonsense. If the Fang Company really dares to do that, I'll just have to run over to the Empire's Second Alliance and wipe out their headquarters!"
Ban Yue gasped, grinning with an awkward smile:
"I totally support you... But safety first, that kind of talk is fine just between us. A bounty of fifty thousand—wait, five hundred thousand is no small sum. Although no one inside the White Dew dares to make a move, there's no guarantee someone won't tail you all the way out and strike once you're outside."
Lu Chen kept a straight face; he wasn't joking.
It hadn't been easy to painstakingly accumulate those medals. If they were taken back, the Fang Company could just wait to vanish from the universe.
All along, the reason Lu Chen had appeared relatively weak was for the sake of scavenging treasures. He was afraid of damaging the treasures on one hand, and afraid that the costs incurred would exceed the value of the treasure making it unprofitable on the other, which was why he had been so constrained.
If it were merely a matter of conducting covert sabotage, his combat power would likely skyrocket many times over... many, many times over.
"No big deal. It's always been me tracking others; no one can track me... Let's check out my goods instead."
Lu Chen led Ban Yue to the modification factory's workshop.
Ban Yue witnessed with his own eyes a crate of gold, silver, and treasures from the Zerg Princess Saliz, along with the most advanced Zerg spacecraft flight control system and spiritual-worm neural network server.
"Even after watching the video footage and touching the evidence with my own hands, it's still hard to believe that you guys actually flew a ship straight into a heavily guarded Zerg kingdom, turned everything upside down, and still managed to make a safe retreat... Even the combat armor worn during it was assembled right here in my shop. It's truly a miracle!"
Only your family knows how to blow your own horn...
Lu Chen shrugged and smoothly flexed a massive bit of bravado:
"If we didn't pull off a miracle, what would we write in the novel?"
The moment writing a novel was mentioned, Ban Yue suddenly grew animated.
"In my novel, Princess Saliz must be a young, beautiful, and cute bug-girl who has a heart-rending human-insect romance with you—cough, cough, I mean with the male protagonist, leaving behind a pair of twin bug-babies. Just as they are talking about marriage as the male and female leads, they suddenly discover they are siblings... But no problem, both the dragon and Zerg races have a tradition of close-relative mating to keep their bloodline pure, until the monster they give birth to becomes the male lead of the third book, who is also the ultimate villain destined to destroy the universe."
Halfway through, Lu Chen felt his brain seize up, freezing in place as he earnestly chewed over this plot.
After a long pause, he said:
"Splendid. Remember to notify me when you publish the book. I'll give it a bookmark and use a plug-in script to freeload off your genuine chapters."
"Pretty good, right? This plot."
Ban Yue completely failed to pick up on Lu Chen's sarcasm, saying with immense pride before inquiring with curiosity:
"By the way, Brother Lu, do you happen to have any photos of Princess Saliz?"
Lu Chen's expression stiffened, instantly recalling Princess Saliz's massive face, and connecting it with Ban Yue's plot, he felt completely numb.
"Better not. Illusion creates beauty; only virgins who have never been in love can write the most beautiful romance."
Ban Yue froze, his neck stiffening.
"Why did you suddenly start hurling insults?"
"..."
Lu Chen thought to himself, Aren't I a virgin in this lifetime too?
He had been in a relationship in his past life, but it broke up at graduation because they didn't own a house.
Ban Yue began appraising Lu Chen's spoils of war.
Saliz's massive crate of treasures was sent off to his grandparents for a gradual, detailed appraisal.
As for the spirit-worm version of the neural network server, he meticulously measured its detailed parameters, took crisp photographs, and uploaded them to a valuation and auction website to receive peer appraisal and pricing.
Lu Chen casually flipped through Ban Yue's manuscript on the side.
The rating was a bit too intense...
It felt a bit agonizing to read, but even more agonizing not to read.
That was roughly the feeling.
Ban Yue spent over an hour back and forth, offering a sky-high total valuation of two hundred thousand for Lu Chen's two pieces of loot.
"Princess Saliz's treasures are worth one hundred and twenty thousand, and the insect-spirit neural network server is worth eighty thousand. This is the absolute highest tier I can offer... You go on a trip to the New Federation and rake in two hundred thousand in just a few days. No wonder the Fang Company put a five-hundred-thousand spirit stone bounty on your head to catch you!"
Princess Saliz's haul brought in one hundred and twenty thousand, which was quite acceptable.
A level-fifty insect-spirit neural network server fetched eighty thousand, which was also fair enough. If anyone was to blame, it was Goliath, who hadn't bothered to dismantle the level-sixty server inside the higher-tier Zerg spacecraft, instead hacking it all to pieces with a single sword stroke.
Of course, she wouldn't have had the ability to dismantle it without damage anyway; getting her hands on an uninstalled level-fifty spirit-worm server was already good enough.
"Fine, let's go with that price."
The price Ban Yue offered was reasonable enough, meeting his psychological expectations, so he couldn't be bothered to haggle further.
"Right, those battle-suit components I asked you to procure earlier, are they all prepared? I'm thinking of forging an Iron Man suit to wear around."
Regrettably, Ban Yue hadn't looked for the relevant materials at all; he had simply checked the prices and given up.
Forging a level-fifty battle suit using old components and second-hand materials would only cost ten thousand spirit stones, whereas five thousand spirit stones definitely wouldn't be enough for a level-sixty suit. He suspected that Lu Chen was aiming for a level-sixty suit while once again trying to squeeze him for all he was worth as a capitalist.
"Though I'd love to make a profit off your battle suit, you walk out the door and casually earn two hundred thousand. You can just go straight out and commission a custom set of battle armor; why bother pinching pennies?"
Lu Chen thought about it, and that made sense.
Ever since he arrived on the White Dew and went through a major wave of upgrades, the difficulty of making money had dropped significantly. There really was no need to keep living a frugal, tight-fisted life anymore.
Buying a brand-new form-fitting combat suit would be nice too; with just a slight system modification, he could achieve manual stealth.
"Fair enough."
Just as Lu Chen was about to leave, Ban Yue added:
"Ever since Brother Lu defeated the Black Warrior and was hit with a fifty-thousand—uh, five-hundred-thousand bounty by the Fang Company, your sudden rise in fame has led quite a few people in the Cyber Tavern's combat arena to explicitly call you out for a challenge."
As he spoke, he pulled up the expected odds for the Ghost Knight fighting various high-level experts issued by the underground bookmakers.
Lu Chen glanced at the odds on the light curtain.
His combat information as the Ghost Knight had been submitted by Mountain Cannon.
As a contracted fighting competitor for the Ninth Brokerage Company, it was entirely justifiable for Mountain Cannon to submit his combat data.
The basic performance of the Ghost Knight was extraordinary, coupled with the epic scene of his previous obliteration of the Black Warrior, resulting in the highest odds against many undefeated fighters being only one to three, yielding a maximum payout of double the wager.
"Do I look like a fool to you? If I win, the maximum profit is only double. If I end up accidentally beaten to death by an opponent, while the other party would forfeit their prize money and betting profits, they'd secretly pocket the five-hundred-thousand spirit stone bounty from the Fang Company."
Ban Yue had known it would come to this, but he still wanted confirmation.
"Then let's wait until Brother Lu's new armor gets scrapped before we talk. Given Brother Lu's anti-common-sense adventuring style, I estimate it won't be long."
"Don't jinx it, I've only just laid eyes on my new armor!"
Collecting fifty thousand in cash and a transfer of two hundred thousand, Lu Chen returned to the Leoni, happily departing from Ban's House of Ten Thousand Treasures, fully prepared to purchase a cool and flashy set of iron battle armor.
Midway, he unexpectedly received an email from the Adventurer Association.
The sender was signed as:
Nanyuanzi.
Nanyuanzi?
Lu Chen still remembered that when he was hoodwinking the human slave women on the convalescent satellite in the Moriya Star System, he had claimed to be carrying out a mission entrusted by Nanyuanzi of the Adventurer Association.
As it turned out, those women hadn't given him the time of day.
Nanyuanzi was the first tier-one-hundred powerhouse Lu Chen had ever laid eyes on, and had bailed him out when he was being pursued by a tier-seventy imperial spy ship near the Saiyin star system.
For Nanyuanzi to suddenly seek him out at this juncture undoubtedly had something to do with the events in the Zerg Kingdom.
This matter concerned his medal status...
Without hesitation, Lu Chen replied directly to the email, then piloted his ship toward Central Island.
Having been aboard the White Dew for so long and passed by Central Island several times, this was his first time actually landing on the island.
Central Island, roughly the size of the moon, was covered in a dense, orderly expanse of towering skyscrapers, giving off a strong futuristic vibe.
At the northern pole, towering ancient iron-wood pagodas rose straight into the clouds, connected to one another by suspended iron bridges, forming a three-dimensional matrix fortress-city.
The exterior of every towering spire was draped with deep-blue, intricate spiritual runes designed for air defense and earthquake resistance.
Every shop within the pagodas featured a semi-suspended welcome floating island extending from its entrance, cultivated with a dazzling array of flowers and spiritual plants, creating the ambiance of an aerial garden.
Between the pagodas, flying vehicles of various shapes flashed with the colorful brilliance of spiritual runes, weaving through the dense forest of towers in orderly fashion.
At the center stood a spiral, silver-gray skyscraper that towered head and shoulders above the rest of the spires, shaped like an inverted pillar hanging from the heavens.
It was precisely the administrative center of the White Dew, the Tianxuan Tower.
It was said that a tier-two-hundred powerhouse presided over the subterranean cavern realm at the very core of Central Island.
Some even claimed there was a tier-three-hundred powerhouse...
In short, it remained a secret.
Maintaining secrets was also a form of deterrent force.
Lu Chen piloted the Leoni, using Nanyuanzi's email to pass the online clearance check mid-air before earning the qualification to dock his spacecraft in the dry dock beneath the Tianxuan Tower.
Before long, Lu Chen obtained the internal navigation map of the tower.
He disembarked.
Walking on foot into the Tianxuan Tower.
He boarded the central elevator, heading straight down to Nanyuanzi's cultivation chamber located on the eighteenth subterranean level.
This was an interior space exceeding ten li in diameter and a full five hundred meters in height.
It was decorated much like the Water Curtain Cave of Mount Huaguo, featuring breathtaking, fairyland-like scenery that felt almost like a virtual world.
Yet upon closer inspection, it was entirely real.
This was a physical cultivation chamber, not a virtual cultivation pod.
Down below, there were also vast stretches of grassland.
Roaming across the grassland were several hundred upright-walking apes.
Divided into multiple tribes.
Lu Chen was dumbfounded.
The scene looked precisely as though humanity had just descended from the trees to scratch out a living, failing even to reach the stage of devouring raw meat and blood, having only just learned how to walk upright.
The upright apes seemed rather timid around strangers.
The moment Lu Chen stepped out of the elevator and onto the grassland, the nearby tribe of upright apes fled in terror into an earthen slope cave.
"Senior Nanyuanzi, is anyone home?"
There was no response whatsoever.
Suddenly!
A massive golden staff came crashing down from the sky.
A deafening roar echoed, akin to the collapse of the heavens.
Carrying a violent, gale-force wind and a pressure exceeding tier one hundred, it smashed straight down toward the crown of Lu Chen's head.
A solid, direct blow to the head!
Yet.
Lu Chen remained utterly motionless.
He even turned his head to glance at the reaction of the upright apes inside the cave.
His expression was exceptionally calm.
As though Mount Tai were collapsing before him without a single change in his complexion.
He leisurely raised a hand.
And extended a single finger upward.
Poke!
With a single finger, he intercepted the colossal golden staff.
The staff came to an abrupt halt, and the violent gale blew the grassland completely inside out, even leveling the earthen slope of the upright apes' cave.
Lu Chen's hair fluttered wildly, his sleeves whipped about, and even the arrogant expression on his face was nearly blown away.
The wind was real, through and through.
However, the golden staff held at bay by Lu Chen's single finger turned into specks of golden radiance that slowly drifted upward and completely dissipated into nothingness.
That contraption possessed only spiritual pressure, with no physical substance.
It was an ultra-realistic formation light-and-shadow special effect.
Even Lu Chen hadn't realized it.
He had simply figured that Senior Nanyuanzi certainly wouldn't harm him, and he hadn't received any hazard warnings...
What was there to fear?
After being rescued by Nanyuanzi last time, Nanyuanzi had once used his Dharma-form spiritual flames to scorch his spacecraft.
At the time, he hadn't even dodged.
He felt that something was a bit fake.
Therefore, this time he had added a little element of bravado.
With a single finger, he had blocked Senior Nanyuanzi's staff strike!
And it turned out to be virtual?
This indicated that the entire eighteenth subterranean level was essentially a massive virtual-dojo-style cultivation pod.
Because it was embedded with a genuine physical environment, it made it extremely difficult for anyone to detect the truth.
Before Lu Chen, a blue-furred ape-man holding a juicy peach walked toward him while taking bites out of the fruit.
"Everything in the cultivation chamber is real, except for this Golden-Hooped Staff, though the spiritual pressure and the gale are real as well.
Logically speaking, cultivators below tier one hundred find it impossible to tell the difference.
Even if they suspect it's fake, who would dare gamble with their life?
Even if they dare gamble with their life, human instinct would still force your body to make an evasive reaction... Only you showed zero reaction.
Are you truly human?"
Lu Chen thought to yourself, Speak properly, why are you starting with insults?
You're the one who isn't human!
Of course, Nanyuanzi didn't look human anyway—at least not a fully evolved one.
Looking closer, he was a middle-aged man with handsome facial features and a slightly mischievous expression, with only his hair and beard consisting of luxuriant blue fluff; otherwise, he didn't differ much from ordinary humans.
Compared to the Sun Wukong Lu Chen was familiar with, the fur color was wrong, and his height was also too tall—taller even than Lu Chen himself. His physique was robust, and his aura was formidable, yet he lacked the agile, spirited charm of the Monkey King.
Nanyuanzi saying he wasn't human was actually somewhat accurate.
Lu Chen's physical body had been crafted from scratch, and his soul had transmigrated from Earth. His constitution wasn't entirely identical to the natives of this world, so saying he wasn't human wasn't entirely wrong.
"Illusionary tricks are useless in front of me, especially things simulated via spiritual runes.
Intuition... could also be considered a certain talent of mine."
Lu Chen stated as such.
Nanyuanzi strolled across the grassy ruins and handed Lu Chen a washed peach that was quite sizable.
"When I attacked your spacecraft with my Dharma-form spiritual flames last time, you didn't even bother to dodge. That could barely be explained as intuition and boldness, but this time I launched a direct assault on your physical body. Even if you were certain I wouldn't harm you, an instantaneous bodily instinct would override your judgment and make you react."
Lu Chen accepted the peach and cautiously took a bite.
It was fresh, tender, and juicy, rich in spiritual nourishment and refreshing to the core, tasting far better than he had imagined.
Leave it to a monkey to know how to pick good peaches!
While eating the peach, he casually responded:
"That only proves that Senior's virtual Golden-Hooped Staff wasn't realistic enough and still has room for improvement."
"Look at you, turning around to lecture me instead."
Nanyuanzi didn't pursue the matter further.
In his view, although Lu Chen's talent wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, his abilities were overly peculiar, differing entirely from all known manifestations of Chosen Power.
No matter how formidable a prophet might be, they could only make predictions regarding major events on a historical or life scale, and even then could not guarantee one hundred percent accuracy; minor matters were completely unpredictable.
Even an omniscient being with heaven-defying spiritual consciousness would still exhibit an instantaneous bodily reflex.
Lu Chen was clearly weak, yet his spiritual perception was acute, and his physical reactions completely transcended the scope of humanity.
To say he wasn't human might be a form of praise, or perhaps it had hit the nail right on the head!
He truly wasn't an ordinary human being.
With this thought, Nanyuanzi pointed toward the nearby upright apes who were rebuilding their stone huts following the devastating calamity.
"What do you think, are these ape-men realistic enough?"
What, did they think he couldn't tell they were real flesh and blood?
"They're living creatures. Where did Senior get them?"
Nanyuanzi tossed his half-eaten peach over, prompting a frantic scramble among the upright apes.
"I cultivated them myself... Of course, I also had assistance from some professionals who helped me simulate how humans step-by-step transformed into humans, and whether spiritual power participated in the process."
Lu Chen was speechless; he had almost thought these upright apes were Senior Nanyuanzi's offspring.
"Did you find an answer?"
Nanyuanzi shook his head with a smile:
"Actually, the Empire has run countless experiments on this long ago, and the answer surprised many at the time: humans do not require spiritual power to evolve intelligence and civilization, whereas the other intelligent races of the galaxy ten thousand years ago could not achieve this... In other words, humanity is the crown of all creation, not the dragon race."
Lu Chen grew thoughtful.
This coincided with the conjecture that the dragon race was artificially bred by humans using dinosaurs as a base.
Yet he felt that the focal point of Nanyuanzi's words wasn't the dragon race, but humanity itself.
Could he be conjecturing that my soul and intelligence were generated in a non-spiritual state?
Lu Chen was overthinking it.
Nanyuanzi was just talking off the cuff; he was a combat fanatic, and keeping ape-men was merely a way to stave off boredom.
At the same time, he was attempting to prove that humans evolved from ape-men.
Recently, backyard scientists on the Helium Flash network, eager to rack up traffic, had been posting short videos questioning the theories of evolution and relativity to hoodwink the youth of the New Era.
Traffic equaled money, and people could abandon all principles for the sake of money.
"I for one would love to see a more diverse and blooming outcome, but unfortunately the universe operates on a winner-takes-all principle... Countless big-data evolutionary experiments by the Empire have ultimately led to this same conclusion: technology triumphs over cultivation every single time."
Lu Chen chewed his juicy peach with relish as he offered his own explanation:
"That only proves that the power of technology surpasses spiritual power. Technology can maximize the utilization of spiritual power, whereas the reverse is exceedingly difficult. For spiritual power to unleash force surpassing the limits of technology, it has to reach at least the level of Chosen Power."
Nanyuanzi was slightly startled.
"Oh? You are already aware of Chosen Power... Could it be that you witnessed firsthand the moment Algernon shattered the Sagittarius?"
Lu Chen nodded.
"I was right there at the scene."
Nanyuanzi wasn't surprised by this; the Adventurer Association's news office had already deduced that the Leoni was present.
"It seems Algernon has already taken note of you."
Lu Chen shook his head.
"No, Senior Algernon went there to look for someone else; crossing paths with me was merely a coincidence."
"There are no true coincidences in the universe."
Nanyuanzi paced over to the upright ape tribe and pitched in to help them construct stone huts amidst the ruins.
Lu Chen followed along, though he didn't offer to help.
"Just as I specifically brought you here today, it wasn't a sudden flash of inspiration or an arbitrary whim.
Rather, it's because you dropped my name on a certain satellite in the Moriya Star System, and the clear video footage of it was captured and published in the *Empire Entertainment Weekly*.
Thank you; now I've become a celebrity too."
Lu Chen felt rather awkward.
"My apologies. At the time, your junior wanted to find a name that the human slave women could trust, and the only person I knew in the Adventurer Association was Senior Nanyuanzi. In the heat of the moment, I blurted out Senior's name."
Nanyuanzi shook his head.
"Pity that my name carries no clout."
Lu Chen's concern lay with another crucial issue.
"Senior, will my medals be revoked?"
"I haven't heard any news from the Federation yet, but the Empire might just do it."
Saying this, Nanyuanzi suddenly furrowed his brow and said:
"Shouldn't your very first consideration be how to clear your own name?"
Lu Chen thought to himself, I'm an adventurer, what do I need a clean name for?
"There's nothing to clear. I'm an adventurer, and the thirty-eight human women I rescued were snatched away by force; it wasn't of their own free will.
They are currently receiving medical treatment on the August Floating Island.
I also captured a few primary-tier descendants of interstellar Zerg in the Moriya Star System.
And learned that they are concealing even more covert secret experiments."
Nanyuanzi flashed a wide grin, seemingly fully aware of Lu Chen's intelligence and showing no particular surprise.
"The biggest issue with this matter is that I did indeed arrange informants in the Moriya Star System, though they were limited to keeping tabs on cutting-edge scientific research.
Now, with you stirring things up and startling the prey beforehand, my informant has betrayed me."
"..."
Lu Chen's words choked in his throat. He remained stunned for a long moment, staying silent.
Only after a while did he ask:
"Does Senior know the purpose of their experiments?"
Nanyuanzi shook his head.
"I don't. That informant had been working for over a decade, but unfortunately, the inside information he possessed amounted to very little more than what you managed to uncover in half a day in the Moriya Star System. From that, one can also deduce that the experiments in the Moriya Star System are of extraordinary consequence, which is why they required such rigorous guards."
Lu Chen paused, noticing that Nanyuanzi was staring right at him with an expectant look on his face.
"So, Senior intends to use the ruse of turning the tables and have me act as your new informant?"
Nanyuanzi offered a mysterious smile.
"You are very smart."
Lu Chen had no interest in such matters.
"Regrettably, I..."
Nanyuanzi hastily cut him off.
"My reputation isn't great, and I've offended quite a few people. Furthermore, upon reaching the Blizzard Route, some adventurers deliberately target those groomed by the Association... After all, the Adventurer Association is an official collective; it's impossible for us to openly acknowledge backing adventurers who delve deep into the most secluded zones of the Pangu Corridor to execute the most perilous missions."
Lu Chen saw right through his reverse psychology.
Alas, he felt zero enthusiasm for it.
"Sigh, trying to provoke me won't work. I'll only ever adventure at my own pace."
Nanyuanzi waved his hand with a smile.
"No problem. You only need to provide us with first-hand news intelligence during your travels.
Regardless of whether this intelligence is made public, you will receive a handsome reward.
The Adventurer Association does not interfere with the course of history, but we need to grasp first-hand intelligence to avoid being manipulated by others.
I have many informants, but their track records are pathetic... Some have betrayed me, others have lost contact, and one even worked his way up to become the deputy to a Heavenly Fiend, about to become the boss himself."
Lu Chen still shook his head resolutely.
"This is no different from live-streaming an adventure; it's not the way I like to adventure."
Nanyuanzi frowned. According to his investigations, Lu Chen should have been the sort of adventurer who placed making money as his primary objective.
How could he reject such a straightforward task?
"Aren't you afraid of being misunderstood? Aren't you afraid of having your medals revoked due to those misunderstandings?"
"Misunderstandings don't matter, but if anyone dares to revoke my medals, I'll dismantle their entire household."
With that, Lu Chen turned and walked out of Nanyuanzi's cultivation chamber.
He took the elevator back to the first floor of the Tianxuan Tower and departed the Adventurer Association branch building.
Yet inwardly, he was thinking:
"Do you take me for a fool? You claim you want cutting-edge intelligence, but I bet what you want most is intelligence on me."
...
Lu Chen piloted the Leoni, rapidly leaving Central Island.
Along the way, he could sense that the spacecraft surrounding the Leoni were far denser than before.
Two reasons:
First, he had departed from Central Island, making it highly likely for others to assume he was an Association informant.
Second, he was carrying a hefty bounty of five hundred thousand spirit stones on his back—he was walking capital worth half a million.
Lu Chen paid it no mind, continuing his flight in a swaggering manner.
Before long, he headed to the forward section of the White Dew, arriving at a brand-name shop that manufactured and sold retro battle armor:
Radiant Battle Armor.
"Retro battle armor" implied something akin to Iron Man's suit.
New-style battle suits were mostly skin-tight suits made of nano-materials, rumored to be more advanced than retro armor.
However, Lu Chen disliked wearing skin-tight suits.
They molded things a bit too large... impossible to conceal.
Radiant Battle Armor had been immensely popular back in the day, but nowadays, squeezed out by various new-style suits, its sales figures grew increasingly dismal.
Lu Chen disembarked his ship and entered the magnificent, spacious store.
During prime time in the evening, there were only a scattering of people inside the shop.
Accompanied by a shopping guide, Lu Chen toured every single model of battle armor available.
The advantages of Radiant Battle Armor were that its beam swords and mini nuclear fusion reactor devices were exceptionally advanced.
The armor's built-in propulsion and endurance were formidable.
It also came equipped with corrosive drills, allowing it to penetrate the heavens and burrow into the earth, virtually indestructible.
It could be integrated into a specialized storage wristband.
It was the ultimate companion for planetary exploration outside the ship.
The disadvantages were its relatively poor stealth capabilities and maneuverability, lacking the agility of new-style battle suits.
Furthermore, the physical requirements placed on the pilot were extremely stringent; the pilot's cultivation level could not fall short of the armor's level by more than ten tiers.
Lu Chen inquired about the prices:
A level-fifty battle armor cost eighty thousand spirit stones.
A level-sixty battle armor cost two hundred and eighty thousand.
This pricing was truly somewhat outrageous!
Although it was cheaper than spacecraft and combat mechas of the same tier, it still exceeded them by a third—and that was just for a suit of armor!
Buying a level-fifty armor would be a complete waste for Lu Chen.
With his physical resonance and explosive force, even while running bare, he possessed combat power exceeding tier fifty; did he really need your battle armor?
Piloting a level-sixty armor would be somewhat strenuous; even if he forced himself to wear it, he could only utilize it at critical moments, with endurance impossible to guarantee.
Naturally, the core issue remained that it was simply too expensive.
"Can you give me a discount? I'm an old fan of Radiant Battle Armor, a die-hard enthusiast of beam swords!"
The shopping guide shook her head apologetically:
"I'm sorry, two hundred and eighty thousand is the promotional price. You can check our official website; it has consistently sold for over three hundred thousand previously. Its performance is not the least bit inferior to new-style battle suits, and in some aspects, it even surpasses them—for instance, its endurance and power propulsion. However, we still recommend that Mr. Lu advance to tier fifty before purchasing a level-sixty battle machine."
"..."
Lu Chen felt looked down upon.
Two hundred and eighty thousand... Never mind then; he'd buy it next time he returned, by which time he might genuinely need to break through to tier fifty to handle it.
...
Leaving the Radiant store behind, Lu Chen piloted the Leoni and turned back toward the August Floating Island.
Docking his ship in the dry dock, he arrived at the August Clinic and inquired at the front desk with the female nurse.
He learned that:
Madame August had constructed an oversized wooden house in the forest and settled the human slave women inside.
Having taken sedatives, they were already fast asleep.
Goliath was undergoing soothing therapy in the herbal bath pool.
Airi was resting in the monitoring room beside the forest wooden house, observing the sleep activities of the human women alongside Maru and Tun Tun.
"Who would've thought that Airi, a wolf-girl, would care so much about human women? She probably empathizes with the female slaves' plight."
Lu Chen sighed.
Beside him, the robotic nurse stared at him without blinking.
"Mr. Lu truly is a good person."
Lu Chen paused, smiling awkwardly:
"Are you handing out good-guy cards to me too?"
The female nurse suddenly asked him:
"Mr. Lu, has your insect-spirit neural network server already been sold?"
"Mn."
Lu Chen nodded, unsure of her intent.
The female nurse said with a hint of disappointment:
"What a pity... Madame said that kind of server might be able to provide her with high-tier fuzzy computing power, allowing her to possess a thought process approaching that of a human."
Lu Chen smiled and pinched her pretty silicone cheek.
"That's a bug's soul, it's no good for you. In the future, I'll find you a better server."
The female nurse nodded with full expectation.
"Mn, I'll be waiting!"
Lu Chen turned and left.
Suddenly, a thought struck him...
"Wait, could the purpose of the Zerg Kingdom's laboratory also be to manufacture human soul servers, upload consciousness, and achieve ascension in broad daylight?"
Throughout this journey of adventure, he had encountered:
Whale servers.
Star beast servers.
Bacterial servers.
Spirit-worm servers.
Might there come a day when human servers existed?
Where humans were farmed, with their nervous systems strung together in a Matrix-style setup?
However, this fell into the realm of virtual ascension.
"This kind of virtual ascension is actually just a new means of exploiting the lower classes of humanity, squeezing the neural computing power of human beings.
The technical difficulty shouldn't be too high; surely they aren't still conducting such experiments in this day and age?
Judging from the Empire's ban on neural network servers alone, it's very likely they had already successfully developed it long ago, only for something to go wrong."
Lost in thought, Lu Chen strolled leisurely toward the Pine and Maple Forest behind the clinic, passed through the purple bamboo grove, and reached the edge of the pond.
The mist over the pond was quite light.
At a glance, he spotted Goliath and Madame August.
Goliath was fast asleep.
Wait... Madame?
Lu Chen's expression froze.
Ah, my eyes!
All that snowy white flesh...
Fortunately, Madame was soaking in the water, with plenty of aquatic herbs and flower petals obscuring the surface.
He only caught sight of a pale neck, broad, plump shoulders, and towering snowy slopes...
Not too outrageous yet.
"My apologies, I walked into the wrong place."
Lu Chen turned to leave, but Madame's voice came from behind:
"You've come at just the right time. Goliath's condition isn't looking too good. The one who tied the bell must untie it; you should come help me channel our energy and stabilize her blood-demon seal."
Wishing everyone a happy monthly ticket drive at the start of the month!
(End of this chapter)