Chapter 271: Dao-Comprehension Mat

He silently spread out his divine sense.

He instantly probed several hundred meters deep into the junkyard, into the discarded spiritual qi crystals and mechanical prosthetics that remained intact, squeezed deep down and not yet uncovered by scavengers.

Although he was not skilled in artifact refining.

But though there are three thousand great Dao, Gu Yuan's grasp of them, while not strong, was enough to analyze this lowly structure.

The result made his brows furrow slightly.

These so-called spiritual qi crystals stored qi that was not only extremely impure, but also mixed with various chaotic substances.

What's worse, hidden in the core pattern of each crystal was a backdoor linking to the conglomerate's Spirit Gathering Matrix.

The conglomerate could not only cut off the qi supply at any time, but also remotely detonate the crystals.

Combining that with the state of the slums observed via his divine sense, and the withered meridians and degenerated flesh of A Qi before him, Gu Yuan reached a speechless conclusion.

In this world, everyone's physique is ruined.

Prolonged qi depletion and pathological dependence on mechanical prosthetics caused humanity on this planet to completely lose their innate Dao bodies, with their genes thoroughly contaminated through subtle influence.

This means that even if Gu Yuan struck now, slaughtering the four conglomerates' patriarchs and smashing the Spirit Gathering Arrays across the sky to release qi, these people whose Dao foundations had been castrated could not possibly cultivate on their own.

Although A Qi might be the particularly bad one among them.

This shows that even a slight understanding...

Even if the heavenly and earthly qi were restored, the people of this world wanting to return to an era of universal cultivation would still need at least tens of thousands of years.

Destruction is easy, but rebuilding often takes many times longer.

Thus, the system's ultimate mission to utterly shatter monopolies, reshape the cultivation order, and let the Heavenly Dao return to nature is fundamentally impossible to complete. Without cultivators who can cultivate, where would a cultivation order come from?

Gu Yuan suddenly had an epiphany.

Well done, you system, digging a big pit here waiting for me.

This is hardly a vacation; it's clearly about having to act as a nanny, setting right this deformed world!

But……

Gu Yuan curled the corner of his mouth into a sly smile and said lightly.

"Xiao Ai, do you think I look like someone who would be a nanny for others?"

"Actually I have a permanent solution; do you want to hear it?"

Xiao Ai: 【……】

"Whether you want to hear it or not, you say: if I killed everyone in this world, then found some cultivators from the Primeval Immortal Realm to take root here, spent a few hundred years waiting for heaven and earth to breed a batch of beings with intact innate Dao bodies, the new humanity would naturally walk the orthodox path of cultivation, wouldn't the order be reshaped? How do you like my plan?"

Upon hearing this world-destroying demon-like speech, the system's cold mechanical tone rarely carried a tremor, pleadingly echoing in Gu Yuan's mind.

【Detected host possesses extreme extermination tendencies; please reconsider! This system advocates peaceful vacation, all things have spirits, do not casually slaughter worlds!】

Gu Yuan listened to the system's flustered response and couldn't help but chuckle.

"Rest assured, I, Gu, have always been kind-hearted; certainly not the kind of demon who slaughters the world at the drop of a hat."

He paused, shifted his tone, and revealed a capitalist's fangs.

"However, having me painstakingly rebuild the Dao foundations of these mortals and guide them onto the right path—this task's difficulty far surpasses killing, don't you agree?"

【……】

"Cough cough, I won't say more; this job is too exhausting… I need extra pay."

The system fell into a brief silence, as if performing intense underlying logic calculations.

Gu Yuan also did not urge him.

Looking at the sky pouring acid rain, he felt his mood improve.

After a while, it finally relented.

【As long as the host uses gentle means to guide this world's cultivation civilization onto the proper path, the system can, in addition to the ultimate mission reward, provide an extra special artifact.】

"Oh?"

【Dao-Comprehension Mat: a mat left by some ancient colossus in legend; sitting on it enables a state of unity between heaven and humanity, filling the final missing sliver of insight that a Half-Step Colossus has long lacked.】

Upon hearing this reward, Gu Yuan's eyes lit up sharply.

Filling the final missing sliver of insight for a Half-Step Colossus?

This is practically a supreme treasure tailor-made for my grandfather Gu Cangsheng!

With this, my grandfather's breakthrough to a true Colossus Immortal King will face no further obstacles!

Gu Yuan could no longer suppress the smile at the corner of his mouth, and bluntly uttered a single word.

"Good, sensible!"

Just as Gu Yuan was pondering how to set this world right,

A Qi suddenly opened his eyes, a sharp gleam flashing in the depths of his pupils.

He clenched his fists, feeling the power surging within his body.

Qi Refining First Layer!

Without removing any organs or installing any neural interface, he actually broke through!

"Immortal… you really are an immortal!"

He rose to his feet and, aiming at the wreckage of a discarded industrial crane nearby, threw a fierce punch.

The fist wind howled.

The rusted steel plate was dented with a shallow pit, the recoil making his finger bones faintly ache, yet he laughed brighter than ever.

"This power… is utterly unbelievable!"

A Qi looked at his own fist, his voice brimming with swollen confidence,

"I haven't even installed prosthetics now; relying solely on my flesh I can unleash this destructive power. If those two harvesters from earlier came again, I could definitely shatter their drive shafts with a single punch!"

Gu Yuan watched coldly, unsympathetically splashing a bucket of cold water: "Put away your ridiculous blind confidence; you've only just entered the first realm, which is what you call Qi Refining Layer 1 here, and you can't even cast the most basic spells."

Those two harvesters may have relied on inferior crystals to forcibly raise their realm, but in a real fight you couldn't even withstand a single move of theirs.

Aqi's smile froze on his face.

He grudgingly withdrew his hand; that earlier feeling of invincibility was shattered.

However, your starting point is already higher than theirs.

In this world, breaking through bottlenecks in cultivation requires all kinds of crystals.

And these crystals almost all have backdoors.

This means that even if someone relies on these crystals to cultivate to an extremely high realm, as long as the underlying logic isn't broken, the people here can only struggle within the rules set by the conglomerate.

"Immortal, what should I do next?"

Aqi's question interrupted Gu Yuan's thoughts.

The youth watched the sky; the rain curtain gradually darkened, and the neon signs in the slum began to flicker.

Today is about to pass.

"You need credit points; in this world, without credit points you can't move an inch."