Qingyun Sect, Outer Sect Spirit Fields.
This was the bottom rung of the cultivation world, a graveyard for the exploited. The air was thick with the acrid stench of rotting spirit herbs and saturated with thin, impure spiritual energy—much like an ancient, decaying machine that had run for tens of thousands of years without ever clearing its cache. It was stuttering, sluggish, and riddled with logic flaws.
"Ye Chen, stop dawdling!"
A sharp reprimand interrupted Ye Chen's thoughts. Chen Tong, the deacon in charge of this patch of spirit fields, looked down at him with cold disdain. A whip in his hand cracked through the air like a gunshot. "If the impurities in this acre of 'Red Sun Grass' aren't cleared by sunset, your entire monthly spirit stone allowance will be deducted, and you can get lost and go dig in the mines!"
Ye Chen kept his head low, gripping his hoe so hard his knuckles turned white. He had been toiling in these spirit fields for three years, and his daily task was to perform "impurity clearing" using the most primitive methods on what essentially amounted to a mountain of garbage code—this corrupted field. This was a task that an Inner Sect disciple could finish with a casual "Cleansing Spirit Art," yet it had become a KPI used to squeeze the life out of the Outer Sect servants.
"Deacon Chen, the spiritual energy circulation in this field has deadlocked. Unless someone with Foundation Establishment stage power provides guidance, it's literally impossible to—"
"Are you telling me how to do my job?" Chen Tong sneered, delivering a kick directly to Ye Chen's chest.
Agony flooded his system. Ye Chen slammed into the mud. His lungs felt as if they had been filled with molten iron, and his vision blurred. He felt the cold chill of death approaching, but instead of the world fading into darkness, the colors in his vision began to distort in a bizarre, glitching fashion.
Deep within his pupils, the mundane spirit herbs, the soil, and even the dust motes drifting in the air shed their appearances, transforming into countless lines of flickering, icy-blue characters.
That wasn't spiritual energy. It was... code.
[Warning: Vital signs at critical levels. Underlying Operating System forcing emergency takeover...] [System initialization complete. Permission Level: Root.] [Environment Detected: Qingyun Sect, Outer Sect Spirit Field (Logic Corruption Zone)] [Scanning environmental operational logic... Scan complete. Fatal error found: Red Sun Grass growth model loop-locked.]
Ye Chen gasped for air. He was terrified to realize that the tasks that had taken him days of exhausting labor now appeared before his eyes as a simple line of logic:
Object: Red_Sun_Grass_ID_00921; State: Growth_Halted; Reason: Spirit_Absorption_Efficiency = 0.01;
It was like a system deadlock. Instinctively, he reached out his finger and tapped the blue, flickering characters in the air. A translucent modification window expanded at his fingertip. With trembling hands, he changed the "0.01" to "100."
Whoosh—
A hum, like the sudden acceleration of a cooling fan, erupted in the air. The withered, dying Red Sun Grass instantly transformed, its crimson veins pulsating with a terrifyingly concentrated amount of spirit essence. In merely three seconds, the impurities in the entire field were purged, coalescing into a tidal wave of pure spiritual energy!
"What is going on?!"
Chen Tong hadn't even reacted before he was blasted back several paces by the sudden surge of spiritual energy. He watched in horror as the abandoned land began to glow, the purity of the spiritual energy now tens of times denser than that of an Inner Sect disciple's gathering array!
"You... what did you do? What demonic arts are you using, you trash!" Chen Tong's face turned pale. Fear robbed him of his senses; his long sword flashed from its scabbard, piercing toward Ye Chen's heart with the pressure of the early Foundation Establishment stage.
Within Ye Chen's pupils, the code flowed faster and faster. He watched Chen Tong's strike with cold detachment; in his eyes, the so-called "Qingyun Sword Technique" was as slow as a rusted gear.
[External attack command detected: Sword trajectory prediction complete.] [Fatal vulnerability located: Node 3 of the true qi feedback loop in the middle of the blade. Logic load: 98%.]
All he had to do was apply a reverse command to that node, and the seemingly fierce sword would self-destruct due to a "logic loop error."
Ye Chen stood still, not even shifting his stance. As Chen Tong's savage grin was inches from his nose, Ye Chen flicked his finger through the air.
"ERROR 404: Sword Logic Not Responding."
Crack!
Chen Tong's enchanted sword trembled violently in mid-air. Fine cracks spiderwebbed across the blade, and with a shrill whine, the magical tool—worth dozens of spirit stones—shattered like scrap metal into a shower of fragments.
The massive backlash sent Chen Tong vomiting blood as he flew backward like a broken kite.
Silence descended.
The surrounding Outer Sect disciples stared wide-eyed, watching the servant who was usually so timid and subservient stand up slowly, his fingertips still trailing faint, icy-blue light.
Ye Chen looked at his palms, sensing the endless, pure spiritual power flowing through him, converted directly from code. A faint smile touched his lips.
"The field is cleaned, Deacon Chen," Ye Chen stepped forward; with every stride, the very earth seemed to bow in submission to him. "Since you could define my value as you pleased, couldn't I also... modify your operational parameters?"
He waved his hand gently.
Chen Tong felt an irresistible force of law envelop his body. The spiritual circulation within him instantly collapsed, and his cultivation base dropped an entire realm on the spot!
From this moment on, he would be the one writing the rules of this world.