Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The cruel battle was finally over.

Zuo Jingyun submerged the broken ‘Cloud Penetrator’ into a natural underground chamber and moved forward along a dry underground river. Since the drill was no longer needed, the noise would be reduced to the minimum.

The Cultivators of Starlight with the best hearing stuck magical equipment that looked like metal ears against the crags in all directions, but they did not hear any noise of drilling for a long time.

The Immortal Cultivators must have lost them.

They were temporarily safe.

The Cultivators were finally able to take a breath in relief and seized every second to maintain the earthly dragon and tend to their wounds.

The Fist King, as the greatest contributor of the battle, left the crowd and hid in a dark corner of the empty underground chamber. He asked Han Te and Liu Li to help him carry the maintenance tools and the backup components to repair his broken body.

Everybody knew the might of ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie. They had seen his tough and unparalleled performances in the two great battles with their own eyes. Seeing that he was apparently in no mood to talk to strangers, they did not dare to disturb him.

“The third cooling pad.”

The Fist King observed his twisted body through four crystal cameras that were floating before his face and spoke to Liu Li while pondering the maintenance plan.

Liu Li hurried to find out what the Fist King needed from the box of backup components and brought it over with both hands.

Looking at the Fist King’s wounded body and recalling the sacrifices he had made for her and He Tan and his reassuring words, Liu Li felt her heart warm up, and she could not help but touch the Fist King’s broken body. She said sincerely, “Thank you, Master Fist King.”

Seeing the girl extending her soft hand over, the Fist King’s man-made eyes constricted quickly. But he did not dodge and simply said coldly, “There’s no need to thank me. You know that this is just a deal. I have made the seemingly optimal choice from the database for the purpose of getting stronger.

“Besides, I am not a human being. Although I can simulate all the feelings of human beings, it will be nothing more than a pile of data. Even if you do thank me sincerely, I will not be touched at all.”

“Huh. Is that so?” Liu Li blushed and said somewhat in embarrassment, “But when you invited us to dinner that day at the top floor of Great Iron City…”

“It was just a disguise and a simulation of the character of ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie,” the Fist King said casually. “If needed, I can simulate hundreds of different personalities. Calm, brutal, cunning, temperamental, enraged, the list goes on. Such simulations can help me better melt into the battlefield environment and may be in favor of the accomplishment of my target. But it will consume part of my computational ability and slow down my central database. It will also result in a certain degree of instability.

“So, now that the two of you have learned my real identity, and I need to summon all my computational ability on the consideration of the maintenance plan, there is no need for me to keep the simulation of personalities. As a result, the efficiency of my maintenance has been improved by more than seven percent.”

In fact, the Fist King had said the same thing to Li Yao before, but Liu Li always found it hard to understand. “It is very perplexing. Are you suggesting that the nonchalance right now is the Fist King’s real personality?”

“There is no such thing as ‘real personality’. There is not even a real Master Fist King,” the Fist King said coldly. “Personality, feelings or self-will are exclusive for human beings. I am not a human being. I do not have any self-awareness. I am just a puppet, an object, and a machine that will move in a certain direction. Have you never used a spiritual puppet before?”

“Of course I have.” Liu Li thought for a moment and shook his head. “But Master Fist King, you’re different from those spiritual puppets. Those things are all very silly and will only respond to specific commands or questions that are proposed to them. They often spurt out sparks and fall silent.”

“There is no essential difference,” the Fist King said expressionlessly. “The low-level spiritual puppets look stupid because of their poor databases and policy groups, which limit their choices. They do not have the ability to study and upgrade themselves.

“My database and policy group are thousands of times more abundant than theirs. Naturally, I seem to be very fluent in answering all your questions.

“But essentially speaking, I am no different from those things. We are all puppets and machines. When you raise a question, I will choose the most appropriate information from the database after computation and analysis and respond by means of voice to make us closer to each other. That way, it will be easier for me to realize the purpose to protect you. There’s nothing more to it. Multipurpose wrench, please.”

Liu Li handed over the multipurpose wrench and stuck out her tongue. Then she said with a smile, “So, Master Fist King, you can say ‘please’, too. Didn’t you say that such formalities are meaningless?”

“For me, ‘please’ does not mean anything. But for you human beings, it is a way to express appreciation,” the Fist King said. “By my calculation, if I behave in a friendlier way, your efficiency in picking and screening the backup components will increase, and the odds of your errors will drop. That is the reason I thanked you.”

Liu Li was dazed for a long time. Blushing, she said, “No matter how you put it, Master Fist King, we haven’t thanked you properly yet. You’ve probably never heard it before, but you are actually a good guy!”

“Logical fallacy,” the Fist King observed. “You are very clear that I am neither good nor a ‘guy’. I only chose to protect you because the deal is in my best interests, and it serves to make me stronger.

“If there are other means that can make me stronger but I’m obliged to kill a lot of people, I will not hesitate to kill people, including the two of you. In fact, I have already killed a lot of people. Otherwise, how could I have become ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie?”

“But…” Liu Li summoned her courage and said, “At the very least, you did not savage and torture them to death, did you?”

After a brief silence, the Fist King said, “No.”

“That’s right,” Liu Li said. “Han Te and I grew up in a Desolate World, but we’ve seen a lot of tough bandits from the Bloody Worlds. Many of them are perverts, lunatics, and fiends! They kill the babies who are still being breastfed. They skin people alive and watch the bleeding victims dance. They throw the captives into the horde of mutated beasts and watch them get mauled and torn apart. They hang their enemies upside down in the sunlight until they die of heatstroke and dehydration a few days later. We have seen and heard too many things like that. Would you ever do any of those things, Master Fist King?”

“No.” The Fist King shook his head. “If I want to kill anyone, I will certainly choose the most efficient and convenient approach. I cannot understand the practice of torturing somebody for three days and three nights and mince him slowly until he dies, which will both be a waste of my own time and energy and increase the possibility of the enemy running away. It is truly… pointless.”

“That is exactly what I’m saying!” Liu Li smiled. “In a place like the Land of Sins, someone like you can already be counted as a good guy, just like my dad and Grandpa Yao.”

The Fist King was silent for a long time as he adjusted his joints and power rune arrays with his full attention. It was not until five minutes later that he finally opened his mouth and asked, “Are you not scared of me?”

Liu Li and Han Te looked at each other. “Should we be scared of you?”

“I don’t know, but some human beings used to be very scared of us, artificial intelligence,” the Fist King said. “You know that I’ve been to an underground sanctuary or library of the Martial Meritocrats Civilization. A lot of files of the civilization were left inside, including some of their entertainment and art.

“It is quite strange that, despite all the internal and external problems that the Martial Meritocrats Civilization was faced at that time, a lot of the entertainment and art regarded artificial intelligence as their future enemy.

“For some reason, some of the people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector seemed very scared of the artificial intelligence that could learn. They even believed that artificial intelligence would destroy their world someday.

“But as it turns out, it was human beings themselves who destroyed the Martial Meritocrats Civilization.

“I am not sure if human beings should fear artificial intelligence. But if ‘fear’ can be defined as the alert for unknown dangers, then I think I probably am more scared of human beings than you are of me.”

Liu Li and Han Te bulged their eyes. “Y-you are scared of us?”

“Yes. I am scared of you,” the Fist King said solemnly. “Some people among you are very terrifying.”

Liu Li tilted his head and thought for a long time. Not knowing how she should explain or comfort him, she suddenly took out the metal can that she treasured more than her own life from her pocket, grabbed a handful of golden seeds, and passed them over.

With a smiling face, the little girl said innocently, “They are the seeds of the Gold Barley. I’ve given it a lot of thought. The Land of Sins is too large a place for me to plant the Gold Barley all over it on my own. So, I have made a decision. From today on, whenever I meet a really good person, I will give them a handful of Gold Barley seeds and ask them to help me.

“Master Fist King, would you like to give me a hand? If you go to a place far, far away and find suitable soil, please spray a handful of Gold Barley seeds!”

The Fist King’s man-made eyes froze for a long time before he extended his metal arm and took the Gold Barley seeds rigidly. After observing them for a long time, he finally stored them into the storage space deep inside his chest.

“Alright. I’ll do my best,” he said in a low voice, with a voice not cold anymore but mixed with the ambition and fury to conquer the world.

“Huh?” Liu Li blinked in amazement. “Master Fist King, you’ve become what you were like when you invited us to dinner that day. Didn’t you say that such a simulation of personality will consume a lot of computational ability?”

“If it makes you feel more comfortable, it is not actually a lot,” the Fist King said in a deep voice. “After all, I’ve been playing the role of ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie for decades. I’m already used to it.”

“Great!” the little girl exclaimed. “If you are used to it, maybe you will turn into a real human being someday!”

“Human beings are really too complicated. I’m afraid that I can never upgrade into you.” Pausing for a moment, the Fist King stressed his tone and repeated himself. “I… am just a puppet, a machine.”