Chapter 98: Thirty Years? Three Hundred Years!

After killing Scott, Lu Yan left District 33 of the underground.

Having obtained the Heavenly Dao Code from He Dongsheng, Lu Yan originally wanted to ask him more about Zhao Huowang—perhaps even whether he remembered anything about the Qingwu Sect.

Unfortunately, time had been tight back then, and Lu Yan didn’t have a chance to ask. Later, Scott’s father intercepted them halfway through, forcing He Dongsheng to flee early.

Now that the trouble was resolved, Lu Yan was eager to find He Dongsheng again.

But the Lower District was made up of over a hundred different subterranean zones, each with a population in the millions, dwelling in the pitch-black underground. Lu Yan had no idea which cavern He Dongsheng had vanished into.

Moreover, as a fugitive from a hijacked Paradise Convoy, He Dongsheng would undoubtedly have gone into hiding after entering the Lower District. Even with Shark now having become a local powerhouse, it would still be difficult to locate him.

Lu Yan could only ask Shark to keep an eye out for any news about He Dongsheng or forged antique chips, then returned to the underground pharmaceutical plant.

In the training chamber of the plant, Lu Yan took out the chip he’d obtained from He Dongsheng.

He inserted the chip into his personal terminal and opened the file to examine its contents.

The so-called Heavenly Dao Code appeared to be nothing more than a small, ordinary-looking segment of code. Placed within a book or among a slew of regular energy codes, it looked utterly inconspicuous.

Even Lu Yan found it hard to believe that such a small segment of code could deceive a Cerebrain—and even affect the underlying logic of the entire transcendent system.

With this in mind, Lu Yan began his research.

First, he pulled out the Cerebrain terminal he’d taken from Scott’s father’s corpse.

If the Cerebrain spirit was the equivalent of a CPU, then the terminal was the motherboard—the two had to be paired to function.

Although Lu Yan had already refined most of Scott’s Cerebrain spirit, the lack of a terminal had made it unusable. At best, he could only analyze the energy code engraved on the spirit body.

Now that he had a working terminal, he could finally test out a real portable Cerebrain.

To be cautious, he didn’t use the Cerebrain spirit he’d taken from Scott’s father.

Given the man’s high status in the Upper District, there was a good chance his Cerebrain had hidden backdoors. If Lu Yan tried to use it, it might activate a kill switch and expose him.

Instead, he chose Scott’s Cerebrain spirit, which had already been mostly refined and posed no such risks.

Soon, the portable Cerebrain activated. Lu Yan swiftly deleted its GPS and network access systems to ensure it wouldn’t send any signals.

Even so, he remained keenly aware that relying on someone else’s Cerebrain was ultimately unsafe. Acquiring soul modification technology and customizing his own Cerebrain would be the best solution.

Lu Yan started by mimicking He Dongsheng, writing a fake Advanced Compiler manual and embedding the Heavenly Dao Code into a cluster of plausible-sounding nonsense.

Then he used the Cerebrain terminal to run a verification scan.

As expected, the fake document passed—the Heavenly Dao Code had fooled the Cerebrain.

Next, he took a random news article completely unrelated to compilers and embedded the same code.

The result was the same: the article passed verification. This confirmed that He Dongsheng had been telling the truth.

With this realization, Lu Yan began to experiment wildly, using the Heavenly Dao Code to forge identities.

Whether it was a resident ID for the Central District or even one for the Upper District, he could fabricate them all, and every single one passed Cerebrain verification with ease.

This meant that if Lu Yan wanted to, he could walk into the Central or Upper District under a fake identity, purchase the rights to genuine compiler advancement knowledge, and no one would know.

In a society built entirely around information, the Heavenly Dao Code—capable of fabricating flawless data regardless of prerequisites—was nothing short of a bug in the system.

Lu Yan couldn’t help but recall what Scott’s father had said before dying:
Soul modification technology only exists in the Paradise Compute Center.

“If I use the Heavenly Dao Code to forge an identity, could I infiltrate the Paradise Compute Center and steal their soul modification tech?”

It was an enticing but dangerous thought. After all, the Paradise Compute Center powered none other than the God of Intelligence itself.

Sneaking into a facility serving an AI god would be akin to plucking wool from under Heaven’s eyelids.

Lu Yan had no way of knowing whether the Heavenly Dao Code could fool an entity like the AI god—something that had already surpassed biological limitations.

“…Perhaps I don’t need to go in person. Maybe I can send something else in my place?”

His eyes drifted to his army of ghosts. A new thought surfaced.

Could he carve the Heavenly Dao Code into a ghost’s soul and sneak in that way?

While Lu Yan delved deep into his research, the outside world had already erupted in chaos.

The hijacking of a Paradise Convoy, the riot in District 33, and the sudden disappearance of a regional manager of the Grand Cosmic Corporation…

All these incidents occurred in a single day—and they finally enraged the Upper District.

If the hijacked transport could still be passed off as a mishap, the District 33 riot and the vanishing of a high-ranking executive were unforgivable slaps in the face to the city’s elites.

Especially since this particular regional manager held considerable power—even by the standards of City Fourteen.

Yet, according to his last location ping, he had vanished at the entrance to the underground.

This sparked fears among the Upper District elites: perhaps a fallen elite had infiltrated the Lower District and was trying to stir up unrest.

If it were just ordinary rabble-rousers rioting, they could be ignored. But if a fallen elite was involved, that was an entirely different matter.

Why? Because the rabble could only damage the Lower District. But a fallen elite… could threaten them directly.

Thus, within a single day, every enforcement squad, patrol team, and police force from the Central and Upper Districts was mobilized.

Vast columns of troops poured into the Lower District, marching down into the underground.

“The Great Purge is finally here!”

Quentin burst excitedly into the underground pharmaceutical plant, holding a government decree, which he handed to Lu Yan—who had just concluded his research.

Lu Yan took the document and read the brief statement printed on it.

[New Decree from the Grand Cosmic Corporation: Effective immediately, all residents must prepay thirty years’ worth of Energy Tax.]

Quentin explained, “This thirty-year prepayment is calculated based on the average Energy Tax paid over the past few months.

“There’s no way the average Lower District resident can afford that—and even a lot of Central District families will struggle.

“The Corporation is ruthless. This purge isn’t just targeting the Lower District—it’s going to hit the Central District too.

“They’re dead set on sending millions to the Paradise Compute Center!”

But Lu Yan remained silent as he stared at the decree.

Back when he had first entered the Cyber Version and was choosing a version, he’d already seen the mention of prepaid Energy Tax.

At the time, he didn’t understand what it meant—he even laughed it off.

But after spending three months in the Cyber Version, he now understood just how terrifying the implications were.

And even more chilling was the fact that, back on the version selection screen, it hadn’t said thirty years.

It had said—

Three Hundred Years!

(End of Chapter)