Xia Li examined the area around the Spectral Crystal Lotus carefully, not rushing forward to pick it.
Because scattered around the lotus were numerous skeletons that had long since turned to bone.
"Fully analyze the current environment."
Xia Li cautiously had the Heaven Chip scan the surroundings more thoroughly. He didn't believe his luck was really this good—such a precious treasure just handed to him.
With any opportunity, the greatest danger always came at the moment of acquisition.
〖Analyzing... current progress: 10%〗
The Heaven Chip controlled the Spirit Core to emit wave after wave of special fluctuations. Any tiny spiritual resonance would be recorded.
"Activate material scan."
"Activate bio-radar!"
Xia Li fully activated all of the Heaven Chip's detection capabilities.
The humidity, atmospheric pressure, temperature of the cave's depths, even the composition of dust particles in the air—everything had to be scanned thoroughly.
The bio-radar function was even more impressive.
It directly amplified brainwaves, enabling echolocation like a bat. The precision might not exceed electronic radar, but it could detect far more types of objects.
Closing his eyes.
Xia Li abandoned visual observation entirely, instead using the bio-radar to project a black-and-white world of outlines in his mind, processed in real-time by the Heaven Chip.
This was a conversion method.
Converting reality into virtual data, transforming his eyes from flesh to scanner.
One minute...
Five minutes...
Ten minutes...
After a full hour, Xia Li finally opened his eyes and looked at the seemingly empty cave wall above the Spectral Crystal Lotus.
To his current eyes, the wall only had some moss.
But in the Heaven Chip's data perspective, there was clearly a humanoid silhouette on the wall.
A trap!
It really was a trap!
Unfortunately, the Heaven Chip couldn't yet analyze what that invisible figure was.
First, it definitely wasn't a yin ghost. Unfortunately, the Heaven Chip couldn't connect to the network right now. Otherwise, it could search humanity's knowledge database for clues.
But as a similarly intangible entity, its methods were probably similar to yin ghosts—attacks definitely targeting the soul and spirit.
Therefore...
The solution was simple.
"Knock me out and activate autopilot mode. Pick the Spectral Crystal Lotus and return the way we came."
Xia Li directly activated his mental attack immunity.
As long as I lose consciousness, no ghost can scare me.
Then...
Xia Li's vision went black as he passed out again. The Heaven Chip piloted his body toward the Spectral Crystal Lotus.
The moment Xia Li's hand touched the lotus, a stream of black energy suddenly shot from the cave wall into Xia Li's sea of consciousness.
The sea of consciousness was a mental space everyone possessed, but the vast majority of cultivators couldn't even open their divine soul's eyes, let alone perceive their own sea of consciousness.
"What is this?"
In Xia Li's sea of consciousness, a black humanoid figure gazed at the gray, misty space and at Xia Li's divine soul at its center.
The figure was blurry and faceless—no features visible. This indicated Xia Li's divine soul had entered a dormant state.
The so-called dormant state meant having no thoughts whatsoever, no dreams, no activity—complete stasis.
And a dormant divine soul naturally possessed resistance against external intrusion.
"Impossible! Wasn't this kid awake?!"
The figure couldn't understand what was happening. Xia Li had clearly walked over with his eyes open, so why was his divine soul dormant?
This meant something else was controlling Xia Li's body.
And what came next was even more terrifying...
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The gray sea of consciousness suddenly began to shake. As the gray mist dispersed, countless characters the figure didn't recognize appeared throughout the space.
010101001101010101010101...
If Xia Li were conscious and could see inside his sea of consciousness, he would recognize it as binary code!
〖Pseudo-electronic virus detected〗
〖Initiating elimination〗
A cold, emotionless voice echoed through the sea of consciousness.
Those binary strings immediately transformed into chains, binding the black figure tightly.
"Damn it... why can't I break free..."
"Ahhh!!"
The figure roared, releasing massive amounts of black energy from its body. But before the black energy could infect the gray mist in the sea of consciousness, walls formed from character strings completely blocked and isolated it.
〖Virus attempting to modify neural code〗
〖Unknown new virus detected. Firewall automatically raised to maximum alert〗
The strings of 0s and 1s immediately formed a prison, completely confining the black figure within.
〖Parsing...〗
〖Parse failed...〗
〖Attempting parse again...〗
〖Parse failed...〗
"Damn it, what kind of artifact spirit is this?!"
The figure trapped in the data prison was now extremely panicked. He was a ghost-path cultivator, and the Spectral Crystal Lotus was his.
He'd set this trap to ambush visitors—a scheme that had never failed. But what had he encountered this time?
As a ghost-path cultivator, he could even control opponents' artifact spirits. But the artifact spirit attacking him now was unlike any he'd ever seen.
No...
Was it even an artifact spirit?
He couldn't sense even a trace of spiritual energy. Those bizarre characters formed that artifact spirit!
The characters constantly dispersed, gathered, and folded repeatedly, like a swarm of billions of insects.
〖Parse ineffective. Insufficient computing power. Cannot connect to Heavenly Dao Network〗
〖Executing forced elimination〗
The prison formed by character strings suddenly began to contract. The figure inside screamed and cursed, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn't break free from even a single chain.
The data prison shrank to its smallest size, becoming a black dot that then expelled large amounts of gray mist.
〖Virus eliminated. Releasing spiritual matter〗
〖Assessment: This virus matches no existing virus signatures. Not a virus? Living data virus? Spiritual matter virus?〗
〖Log generated〗
Even the AI in the Heaven Chip couldn't determine what had invaded Xia Li's mind. It could only generate a log for Xia Li to study himself.
Then.
The Heaven Chip piloted Xia Li to pick the Spectral Crystal Lotus and swagger out of the cave. An unknown mysterious mastermind hadn't even had a chance to say a single word to Xia Li before being forcibly eliminated by the Heaven Chip as an electronic virus.
When Xia Li next opened his eyes, he was already at the cave entrance.
"View activity log."
Curious, Xia Li immediately checked what had happened while he was unconscious. The first-person recording showed nothing unusual.
But the Heaven Chip reported a bizarre electronic virus intrusion incident.
After reviewing the elimination log, Xia Li was stunned for a while before slowly realizing what had happened.
"What kind of unlucky bastard just had to crawl into my brain?"
"Got killed by the Heaven Chip as a virus. Hilarious!"
Xia Li was speechless. Ever since Spirit-Tech had risen, the relationships between consciousness, data, and soul had been continuously decoded.
To prevent electronic data crimes, the Heaven Chip came with extremely robust built-in security software.
