Chapter 110: 110. Chapter 110: Variable Control (Requesting Monthly Votes)

110. Chapter 110: Variable Control (Requesting Monthly Votes)

“Go!”

Liu Wei felt his adrenaline surge.

?￠o

Near the park, there were many other operatives like him, but not all were as lucky as he was.

Boom!

He turned his head slightly and saw a truck struck by a laser cannon mounted on the mech’s shoulder, instantly exploding into a massive fireball.

All the rebel operatives waiting outside the cultivation pods in the truck were reduced to charred corpses.

Liu Wei clenched his teeth.

On this battlefield, non-professionals had no right to even interfere!

The large truck roared away from the battlefield, its color, paint, and even license plate continuously shifting.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

“Genius’s” voice was frantic: “I can only hack the city’s surveillance for less than three minutes… you must reach the designated location and use the underground passage to transport the cargo out!”

“Sixty seconds left!”

“Thirty seconds!”

“Ten, nine, eight…”

“Genius’s” voice was like a death’s whip, forcing Liu Wei to grit his teeth; he occasionally took over the autonomous driving to dodge obstacles, barely squeezing into the underground garage.

He jumped off the truck, opened the container, and found three massive cultivation pods inside.

Several rebel members were already waiting there.

One of them he actually recognized—it was the same guy who had provoked him before.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

They lifted the cubic-meter-sized pods and prepared to move them through the adjacent passage directly into the sewer.

The main sewer pipe was thick enough, half-submerged in sewage, and with inflatable rafts, it was sufficient for transport.

Just as Liu Wei exhaled in relief, an unexpected change occurred!

Bang!

A laser shot flashed past—the very same guy who had provoked him moments ago lost his head.

Thud-thud!

With heavy metallic footsteps, a black-clad figure in an exoskeleton armor slowly entered the underground parking lot: "Well... what have we here? A few little rebel mice..."

Zip!

Liu Wei’s muscles rippled like flowing water, his sense of danger reaching its peak.

Even so, he could only catch a blur.

The black-clad man, controlling his mech, summoned a blade of light that slashed across two rebel operatives.

The two rebels still wore expressions of shock as their upper and lower bodies split apart automatically.

Although the black-clad man’s exoskeleton armor was the most basic model, granting only the strength equivalent to a fourth-stage martial artist, its weapon modules were all genuine.

This turned him into a machine for harvesting lives.

If Zhong Yuxiu had been allowed to equip weapon modules during last year’s Hundred Star Exam, her score would never have been so low—she might have even had a chance at first place!

This was the power of technology and external tools.

Bang!

A set of specialized handcuffs was thrown onto the ground.

The black-clad man stared at Liu Wei and smirked: “Put them on yourself…”

He seemed to want a live capture.

“Damn it… Genius, what the hell are you doing?”

Liu Wei felt engulfed by boundless despair.

In his earpiece, “Genius’s” voice was also frantic: “I’m under attack… I’m trying to protect most people… Your location was compromised—I can’t help it!”

“Shit!”

If “Genius” were right in front of him, Liu Wei swore he’d make the bastard understand why he was so red!

Hiss!

He’d barely cursed when he felt a hot wind brush past his ear—his head felt like it had been stung by a hornet, warm liquid trickling down…

Liu Wei touched his head and found it covered in blood—his right ear was gone.

“Little mouse, I gave you a chance.”

The black-clad man remained calm, savoring the pleasure of a cat toying with its prey.

Liu Wei’s heart sank further.

He didn’t know if today’s rebel operation had succeeded, but he was eighty percent sure he’d be going to prison.

“Fucking hell… my dream was to get into college, not prison…”

Liu Wei clenched his fists, preparing for a final, desperate fight.

Suddenly!

The black-clad man’s face changed drastically—he clutched his chest: “You…”

His pupils dilated, and he collapsed straight to the ground.

“This…”

Liu Wei instantly recognized it—he’d been struck by martial will.

But if martial will had been used, how could he have felt nothing at all?

Martial will was the core of a martial artist; once experienced, it could never be mistaken.

He reacted instantly, his muscles rippling as he lunged forward, stomping his foot onto the black-clad man’s skull with all his strength.

Crack!

A sharp bone-snapping sound erupted from the man’s neck; blood and even brain matter spurted from his orifices—he was dead.

“I… actually killed a mech pilot?”

Liu Wei couldn’t believe it, but he gritted his teeth and prepared to carry out the original plan—move the cultivation pods.

At that moment, he saw something that made his hair stand on end:

Inside the truck’s container, the three cultivation pods had somehow become two.

“Go!”

Liu Wei shuddered violently, shoved the pods into the sewer, and dove in after them…

…

Inside the villa.

Fang Xing sat cross-legged, forming a hand seal.

A semi-transparent shadow flew in through the window—its head crowned with a lotus, its face exquisitely beautiful, like a celestial being, its body pure white and faintly translucent: the Great Golden Vajra Twin Guardian!

“This guardian spirit can enter the mind-sea, similar to a spiritual attack… even more covert than martial will.”

Just now, it was Fang Xing’s use of this technique that saved Liu Wei’s life.

Now, in the hands of this guardian spirit was a bronze ring.

Fang Xing took it, swept his spiritual force over it, and saw one cultivation pod and a large quantity of nutrient fluid—he smiled slightly.

“For this operation, I even broke my own principles and brought along this space treasure—the Storage Ring…”

“Still, better safe than sorry…”

A flash of silver light—Fang Xing’s figure vanished.

Several seconds later, he reappeared in the same spot.

“All the contraband has been dumped into the cultivation world—even if the pods had tracking devices, it won’t matter…”

“Wait… once inside a space treasure, they can’t be tracked at all, right?”

“Besides, the rebels must have already taken precautions against this…”

Fang Xing pondered for a moment, then stepped out of the meditation chamber.

“Fang classmate…”

Not long after, Lan Fei walked over.

“What happened outside? Why is it so chaotic?”

Fang Xing frowned, clearly displeased.

“I heard it was the rebels—they dared to attack a transport vehicle from the cultivation center… has it been suppressed yet?”

Lan Fei sighed.

A battle in the city meant heavy casualties.

Now, the entire Yuan Yu City was nearly paralyzed.

“But I don’t want to stay in this chaos anymore… I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Fang Xing sighed.

Since the contraband had already been sent to another world, he was now completely at ease—unafraid of any inspection…

[Report: Yuan Yu City was attacked; 12 civilians dead, 739 injured… Yuan Yu City Mayor strongly condemned…]

[Vulture Star’s orbital cannon in outer space showed anomalous activity; Space Institute ruled out malfunction…]

[The new round of college entrance exams is about to begin; let us wish all the students success…]

[…]

Maple City, Happy Home Community.

Fang Xing, using the college entrance exams as an excuse, claimed he needed to focus on closed-door cultivation and casually sent Lan Fei away.

Instead, he sat here watching TV.

Gazing at the devastation on the screen’s background, he fell silent.

“Rebels?”

According to some secret intelligence, this rebel operation was not a success, but neither was it a failure.

They not only seized a large number of growth pods, but also withdrew successfully.

It is said the movements of the space cannons and space forces were linked to the rebels’ spacecraft.

Even high-grade forces from the other side reportedly intervened in this incident…

“But all this is no longer my concern…”

“I’ll just focus on my college entrance exams and become a glorious university student.”

Fang Xing entered a quiet chamber and stuck a talisman on the wall.

A flash of silver light—and his figure vanished instantly.

[…]

Cultivation world, underground cavern.

“So this is… a growth pod?”

Fang Xing held a bronze ring, causing several cubic meters’ worth of growth pods to slowly descend to the ground.

This growth pod was entirely silver-white, radiating a sci-fi aesthetic, its front face a large pane of glass allowing clear visibility of the interior.

Outside the pod were several silver boxes—premium nutrient solution specially designed for the pod.

“I get the feeling the rebels didn’t come for new blood—they came for the pods themselves… They might even have stockpiled a whole army of clones.”

Fang Xing powered on the pod’s computer, checked its status, and nodded in satisfaction: “Good… all basic functions are intact.”

As for power?

The energy core is inside the pod—if undamaged, it should last tens of thousands of hours…

“Thankfully I studied programming…”

After some operations, Fang Xing pulled out a test tube.

Inside the tube was the blood he had collected earlier.

“If cloning were done in the main universe, environmental factors might interfere… but here, in the cultivation world, the spiritual root quality should be identical, right?”

He dropped a single drop of blood into the pod and watched intently.

Through the glass, he saw a tiny embryo had already formed inside.

At first no larger than a pinprick, now it had grown to the size of a sesame seed…

And the nutrient solution was being consumed at an astonishing rate.

“Accelerate maturation…”

Fang Xing programmed another sequence.

To develop properly, the clone should be removed from the pod as an infant and raised in society.

But Fang Xing clearly had no intention of doing so.

He added more nutrient solution and set the pod to direct “accelerated maturation”—a rapid growth mode.

In this mode, the infant grew at an incredible speed inside the pod.

In just a few days, it would resemble the teenage boy.

Of course, such an accelerated body would be merely a hollow shell—without soul, mindless…

Fortunately, that was exactly what Fang Xing wanted!

If a soul and consciousness had already formed, it would be undesirable.

After all, he intended to possess it.

“A person’s soul is the sum total of all postnatal influences…”

“A hastily accelerated body has no soul—far easier to possess…”

“If there truly were a clone army, perhaps consciousness injection would be needed to reach peak effectiveness… but that would crush potential, rendering it largely useless anyway?”

Although the Federation had long voiced calls to build a clone army, the demand was never strong and quickly faded.

Precisely because the cost-benefit ratio was too low!

Not only did clone troops consume massive resources.

Once accelerated, they crushed the innate spiritual quality of life, drastically reducing the probability of later breakthroughs into Martial Saint, Martial God, or other high-rank professions.

Fang Xing waited silently, watching the embryo in the pod gradually develop—from sesame seed to pearl-sized, then orange-sized, apple-sized…

A tiny infant appeared, curled into a ball, immersed in nutrient solution.

Then he began growing again!

One year, two years… until around sixteen, growth finally halted.

"I took as much nutrient solution as I could... I never expected these supplies would only allow me to clone nine more..."

Fang Xing checked the consumption and his expression darkened.

The pod’s nutrient solution was specially formulated; he had taken a generous amount this time.

After all, the bronze ring still had spare space after storing one pod.

“Then… let’s begin!”

Fang Xing reached out and touched the pod, finally making his decision.

He chanted the “Great Sun Tathagata Mantra,” and in his mind’s sea, the Great Golden Ox-Headed Vidyaraja appeared.

The Heavenly Mother Vidyarani manifested, now transformed into the Great Golden Twin Protective Deities.

“Possession!”

Fang Xing willed it—and the celestial protective deity smiled faintly, like a soul entering a vessel, passing through the thick glass and merging with the teenager inside the pod.

“So this is… possession? What an extraordinary sensation…”

Because the protective deity was perfectly attuned to his original self, Fang Xing now felt it too—the clone’s resistance was nonexistent… the deity had effortlessly completed the possession.

After all, it had just been born—what thoughts or will could it possibly have?

Screech!

Not long after, the pod opened.

A youth with sharp eyebrows and starlit eyes stepped out, dressed in the ancient robe already prepared.

“Is this what it feels like to be an external incarnation?”

Fang Xing carefully sensed this novel sensation—as if he now had an extra perspective.

“This body has been tested with a Spiritual Root Detection Talisman—it possesses a Metal Heavenly Spiritual Root…”

“Since everything occurred within the cultivation world, all variables are controlled—the outcome shouldn’t differ much.”

He did not examine his incarnation in detail; instead, he willed it.

Three seconds later—a flash of silver light.

Fang Xing’s original body vanished.

Happy Home Community.

Fang Xing’s form materialized out of thin air; he touched his forehead.

Thanks to the protective deity’s perfect attunement, he could still see his incarnation adjusting the pod, cloning a second, then a third spiritual-genius…

“Good… now I don’t need to shuttle back and forth between worlds—too risky, too likely to expose me.”

“Now my original body stays in the main universe, while my cultivation incarnation handles affairs in the cultivation world—much more convenient…”