Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“That explains a lot.”

Li Yao knew that the Fist King must have misunderstood something.

It did make sense on second thought. The false identity that he had fabricated happened to be the Fist King’s real secret. No wonder the Fist King had mistaken him for his own kind under such coincidences.

After thinking for a moment, Li Yao said, “Neither of us are in our best state right now. The dangerous environment we are in also requires us to work together frankly. So, I’ll just tell you the truth. I am not an artificial intelligence but an incomplete soul, or a spectral Cultivator of sorts.”

While he was talking, Li Yao was amused. “In other words, I am a ghost who pretends to be a spiritual puppet, whereas you are a spiritual puppet pretending to be a ghost. The two of us are indeed quite similar.”

It was rather funny when he thought about it. The spiritual puppet named ‘Fist King’ was so advanced that its intelligence was at least on par with the ‘Ultra Spirits’.

Not long ago, Li Yao had been fighting the ‘Ultra Spirits’ that were under the command of the extraterrestrial devils in the Star Glory Federation. Little did he expect that he would be honest with an ‘Ultra Spirit’ so soon and even probably work together with the creature?

Li Yao was somewhat at a loss, wondering whether he should hate, fear, or bond with the Ultra Spirit named Fist King.

“How is that possible?” the Fist King said solemnly. “In the past decades, I have examined countless spiritual puppets, including the models that can automatically learn and upgrade like myself. I have also encountered thousands of ghosts and scrutinized the mysteries of their remaining souls. You may fool other people, but you certainly cannot deceive me. The soul form that you have simulated is obviously slightly different from that of normal human beings. You should be an artificial intelligence several levels higher than me. How can you be a human being?”

“…Ha?”

“The first time we met each other, I only vaguely felt that something was wrong,” the Fist King said. “But when you took action again in the battlefield, I was absolutely assured of my finding. Otherwise, how could I have invited you to enter the heart of ‘Great Iron City’? However, I still underestimated you at that time and did not know that you were so advanced and would even save me in the end.”

Li Yao’s soul was almost sweating. “I-is it possible that you are mistaken?”

After a brief silence, the Fist King said, “The soul that you have simulated is much more arcane and complicated than the limits of my calculation. I have never met someone of my own kind like you before. Perhaps most human beings will be fooled by you, but my conclusion can’t be wrong. Whatever you are exactly, you and I are both well clear that you are not a pure human being, right?”

Question marks popped up inside Li Yao’s soul. “Am I really clear?”

The mental devil also hesitated. “Is he mistaking us for an artificial intelligence because we have absorbed too many pieces of tenebrum energy from the extraterrestrial devils and Professor Mo Xuan’s legacy, which led to messy mutations of the soul?”

“P—Probably?” Li Yao’s soul rippled somewhat rigidly. He recalled the data of his brainwaves that were gone in the collapsed ‘Virtual Spirits Sector’ in the Star Glory Federation, as well as the two ‘Ultra Spirits’, No. 17 and No. 18, which had gone missing from the world.

Calming himself down, Li Yao managed a smile. “Is it because you thought that I was your own kind that you hid us inside ‘Great Iron City’?”

“Yes.” The Fist King sighed. “It’s been a long time since I last found an undamaged member of my own kind who also boasts magnificent thinking and logical abilities. I was planning to chat with you properly after Liberty City was taken and exchange our data, but I didn’t know that the sky’s control over the ground was so powerful that they did not want me to win this war at all!”

Li Yao’s interest was aroused. “Do you know the secrets of the sky?”

“Very little.” The Fist King sighed dejectedly. “At the bottom level of my database, some information seems to have been hidden. It makes me know that I am a product of a certain experiment and a participant of a certain project, and the whole world I’m in is part of the laboratory.

“But as for what exactly the so-called ‘project’ is about, who my creator is, and how many secrets are hidden in the City in the Sky, I do not know the first thing about it, which is also the reason I want to exchange databases with you. Perhaps we can share some of the critical information and try to reassemble the broken puzzle.

“It is a shame that the formidability of the sky far exceeded my expectation, and I was left with no opportunity at all.”

“Our world is part of a laboratory?” Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other in bewilderment.

Over the past month, the two little fellows had been growing very fast. One might even say that they had been completely reborn. They had somewhat sensed part of the truth of the Land of Sins.

But when they heard the Fist King say the word ‘laboratory’, their heads still went blank. Then, they were both upset and infuriated.

“W-what exactly has been going on?” Breathing rapidly, Han Te said, “Master Fist King, please tell us everything you know!”

“Your emotion simulation system is truly remarkable!” Li Yao was more interested in the Fist King himself. “Your tone when you speak, the subtle changes of your feelings, and your magnificent declarations and speeches on the battlefield are truly as impressive as those made by real human beings.”

“All of them are simulated.” The Fist King suddenly changed into a tranquil, cold tone. “I do not have feelings, self-awareness, or a soul; I am only a lifeless puppet. All my behavior is the simulation of somebody else.”

“Somebody else?” Liu Li asked curiously. “Who might that be?”

“The real Lei Zonglie,” the Fist King replied.

“Huh?” Liu Li blinked quickly and nodded. “That’s right. Lei Zonglie at the beginning was naturally a human being of flesh and blood instead of a spiritual puppet. Then, how did he become today’s Master Fist King?”

“It is an utter mess up there,” Li Yao said. “I am secretly scanning the detailed structure of the whole of Liberty City and the enemy’s distribution of troops, trying to figure out an escape route from the siege. We have about… twenty minutes. Come on. Tell us your story!”

The Fist King was silent for a moment. The crystal processor that was embedded below the iron shield hummed quickly as massive data were retrieved and sorted at a high speed. He said slowly, “My earliest data includes the blowing wind, the blast of air turbulence, and the picture of the entire planet from the high sky. I fell from the sky after being projected to the Land of Sins from beyond the atmosphere.

“At that time, my database was empty. Except for the fundamental architecture, the basic operational logics, and a fuzzy instruction, there was nothing.

“My ultimate instruction was to be the strongest, whatever the cost and means!

“It was truly an instruction that was beyond the abilities of my analysis, calculation, and logical thinking.

“What did it mean by ignoring the cost and the means? And most critically of all, what does it mean to be the strongest?

“With the questions, I wandered in the wilderness and the bloody battlefields, watching the people in the Land of Sins shooting and killing each other with all kinds of weapons, as well as the look of the so-called ‘experts’ and ‘dominators’.

“Sometimes, I was discovered by them and enlisted into their army, participating in the gory battles.

“I was shattered and almost destroyed in the wars, but I also upgraded voluntarily and involuntarily time and time again, gradually turning into a slaughter machine. I also slowly understood the definition of ‘strength’ for the people here.

“I encountered countless members of my own kind, and I destroyed, dismantled, studied, and used them to strengthen myself without any mercy. Swallowing my own kind could make me strong. That’s what I thought at that time.

“If I’d run into you at that time, I certainly would not have decided to exchange data with you but would have directly destroyed you or been destroyed by you.”

Li Yao, Han Te, and Liu Li listened to the Fist King talking about his story attentively.

The two little fellows were fascinated. They seemed to truly see a lonely spiritual puppet wandering, searching, and contemplating among the broken limbs and the dried blood of the dead soldiers on the battlefields that were full of remnants like a metal skeleton.

“It was more than a hundred and fifty years ago. I wandered through the Land of Sins for fifty years in total and destroyed 1,422 members of my own kind, which were all spiritual puppets that boasted automatic learning and upgrading functions like myself. I absorbed all their data into my own database, upgrading and strengthening my combat abilities to make myself evolve incessantly.”

Unlike his arrogance and dominance the previous night, the Fist King could not have been calmer at this moment, as if he were describing something utterly irrelevant to himself. It seemed that this was his real style. “However, I met my doom eventually.

“In the overwhelming, protracted war that I was involved in, I was pierced by powerful electricity. Half of my core crystal processor was burnt. My iron body was also destroyed by a destructive bomb. Whatever was left of me fell into the debris of a city. All the buildings above me collapsed, burying me in the deepest part of the sunless ruins.

“The timing function was completely wrecked, and I do not know how long I hibernated in the ruins. I managed to repair part of my body, but I was unable to move the city ruins above my head. Then, accidentally, I noticed that there was a gap below me.

“I crawled for a long time through the gap. The channel was zigzagging and as twisting as a maze. A lot of places were also completely blocked by rocks and mud, and I had to dig through carefully.

“Thankfully, I had unlimited time. My highest instruction did not predicate a deadline.

“Eventually, I found a secret room that was buried deep below the ground, a sanctuary that had been sealed for a long time, or more exactly speaking, a library dating back to a long, long time ago.”

“A library from a long, long time ago? How old was it exactly?” Li Yao asked.

“It was founded before ‘Judgment Day’, when the Land of Sins was still known as the ‘Martial Meritocrats Sector’,” the Fist King replied.