Chapter 227: The Victor is Decided in the Third Stage
During the video-watching interlude, Huang Zichou, trying to prevent an awkward silence, started making conversation. “When you two get to university and have bionics implanted or purchase flying swords and magical treasures, you must pay attention to similar issues.”
“Before going out each day, check if your equipment has enough balance, if your services have been renewed, if all ads have been cleared, and if your installment payments are up to date…”
Huang Zichou listed the warnings as if they were precious heirlooms, “In the various annual university exams, you always find students who run into problems like these on test day. A moment of carelessness leads to poor performance, which ultimately affects their university grade point average.”
“Consider today’s events a lesson learned in advance…”
Zhang Yu thought to himself, It’s certainly a lesson. I’ll remember this for the rest of my life. Once I’m in university, I’ll definitely double- and triple-check everything before every exam.
Ye Lingxiao, on the other hand, thought, Isn’t everything on auto-renew and auto-debit? What’s there to check… Oh, right, poor people might have insufficient funds, I suppose. How tragic for them.
About a minute later, Sword Mound finally returned to normal, moving once more under Zhang Yu’s and Ye Lingxiao’s control.
But the feeling of clumsiness in Zhang Yu’s mind never faded; in fact, the discomfort in his eyes seemed to have worsened.
At the same time, with the connection to Sword Mound, the synchronization rates above their heads changed again.
Zhang Yu 90%
Ye Lingxiao 95%
This number represented their overall synchronization rate with all the bionics they were connected to. Evidently, after linking to Sword Mound’s neural signals, both of their rates had declined.
Zhang Yu frowned. The gap has widened again…
Meanwhile, on the righteous gods’ internal network, Mu Guiyin said, “Aside from their foundations, the biggest difference between them lies in their Dao hearts.”
“Ye Lingxiao’s Dao heart reached level 10 last year, while Zhang Yu’s is currently only at level 8.”
“Although this exam is a test of the physical body, the Dao heart is the very foundation of a cultivator’s entire being. Its influence is felt in every aspect, so how could it possibly not affect the physical body?”
“The disparity in their Dao hearts determines that Zhang Yu has no chance of winning this stage.”
Another righteous god sighed, “After all, Ye Lingxiao has had a level-10 Dao heart for a long time, allowing him to maintain perfect control over his body daily. His body’s adaptability to change was cultivated under the enhancement of a level-10 Dao heart.”
“Only through such day-in, day-out adaptation, by continuously probing the body’s limits in subsequent training, can one rapidly adjust when the body undergoes new changes.”
Huang Zichou did not voice his agreement, but inwardly he had to admit Mu Guiyin was right. Zhang Yu’s Dao heart level was a significant handicap, and he had simply not been cultivating for long enough.
He thought, Zhang Yu has had one year less of cultivation than Ye Lingxiao, after all. It’s already remarkable that his physical body can match Ye Lingxiao’s. A gap in their Dao hearts is only to be expected.
Traditionally, the body tempering arts track in the Foundation Establishment examination has always been a contest of physical strength and potential among contestants with level-10 Dao hearts, 100 magic power, and level-10 physical strength.
Heh, who would have thought a kid like this would show up this year, reaching the final round of the Foundation Establishment examination with a level-8 Dao heart.
His thoughts did not interfere with his duty of hosting the examination. With a sweep of his divine power, he brought out the third and final bionic for this stage.
It was a spine that glowed with an eerie, bloody light. It swam and coiled around Huang Zichou in mid-air like a white flood dragon, as if it were a living creature.
Huang Zichou introduced it, “This is an enterprise-grade bionic manufactured by Dragon Soul Workshop, named the Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot.”
“As a veteran manufacturer specializing in dragon-type bionics, one that has used various draconic materials to produce bionics for years, Dragon Soul Workshop’s Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot is a classic among spinal bionics.”
“Once the Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot is implanted, the dragon tendons extending from it can vastly improve a cultivator’s physical performance. The effect at the Foundation Establishment stage is roughly equivalent to a +1 level in physical strength.”
“Sealed within the Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot is a draconic Daoist art called Dragon’s Might. Once activated, it can stun the spirit, making it difficult for any cultivator within a hundred-meter radius with a Dao heart level below 20 to circulate their heart art…”
Hearing this, Zhang Yu’s heart tightened. Damn, an anti-magic field? No, an anti-heart art field.
This was the first time Zhang Yu had ever witnessed the effect of a Daoist art. In high school, the so-called Daoist art class was really just a talisman class; he had never encountered a true Daoist art.
What followed was the same as before. Zhang Yu felt the neural connection between his spine and his brain being severed.
The impact this time was far greater than the previous two. The spine, after all, was connected to movement throughout the entire body. The moment he lost the connection, Zhang Yu went limp on the surgical table. He felt utterly paralyzed, and an inexplicable tightness gripped his heart.
A dozen or so seconds later, Zhang Yu felt the presence of a spine again, but the sensation was even stranger this time. This spine couldn’t move his body; it merely bent back and forth in response to his will.
At the same time, Zhang Yu felt as though his consciousness was being pulled into the spine, that he was controlling this Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot, soaring through the heavens as if transformed into a white dragon…
The next moment, Zhang Yu snapped back to his senses. That was a close call, he thought, realizing that the Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot had influenced his mind, causing him to hallucinate.
Zhang Yu mused, This isn’t even a real implantation, just connecting the neural signals is already like this. It seems the burden of implanting various bionics after Foundation Establishment is even greater than I imagined.
So why not just forego implanting other bionics in the future, apart from the eye bionic?
He could just use magical treasures. Why was it necessary to implant bionics?
Zhang Yu had wondered about this before, and Fu Ji had provided the answer.
The answer was simple: using both magical treasures and implanted bionics was simply stronger than only using magical treasures.
Zhang Yu still remembered Fu Ji’s words.
“Bionics were invented by the artifact refiners in the first place to launch a dimension-level strike against the magical treasure market and trigger an industrial revolution.”
“If you want to climb higher in Kunxu, you have to be better than others, get better grades. As more and more people use bionics to enhance their performance and thereby increase the power of their magical treasures, you’ll have to use them too if you want to keep up.”
While Zhang Yu was struggling to adapt to the Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot, the Husky Head in the audience section remarked, “This Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot looks pretty good.”
The Cat Head next to him frowned upon hearing this. “You’re interested? Then I advise you not to buy it.”
The Husky Head asked curiously, “You have inside information?”
He knew that people from the finance department all had deep foundations and extensive networks; they were always well-informed.
The Cat Head replied nonchalantly, “You don’t need inside information. Didn’t he say it himself? ‘Specializing in dragon-type bionics’ means they’re not skilled with other materials. ‘A classic’ means this Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot is already outdated.”
“Also, Dragon Soul Workshop was exposed for shady practices before. The draconic material content in their bionics was less than 5%, and it was all bone powder.”
“For a spinal bionic at this price… I’d bet most of it is made from demonic beast materials. If it has even 3% from a dragon, that would be remarkable, and it’s probably from a farmed, mixed-blood flood dragon.”
“After all, what kind of quality materials can you expect from something mass-produced? If you have money, you should get a custom-made bionic.”
Listening to the Cat Head’s analysis, the Husky Head thought, But I don’t have the money.
However, his interest in the Flood Dragon Spirit Pivot had vanished. He sighed, “These bionics nowadays are always cutting corners and using false advertising. You’ll get scammed if you don’t do thorough research before buying…”
Just then, the synchronization data for Zhang Yu and Ye Lingxiao updated once again.
Zhang Yu 79%
Ye Lingxiao 86%
Zhang Yu thought, Did I lose?
He wasn’t too surprised by the final result of this stage.
It’s probably because of my Dao heart, right?.
Although his Dao heart had held him back and cost him this round, Zhang Yu didn’t dwell on it. Over the past year, he had used every means at his disposal to push himself to his absolute limit.
Right now, his only thought was to prepare for the next stage, to fight his opponent with everything he had, and to seize the final Foundation Establishment qualification certificate.
Meanwhile, on the righteous gods’ internal network, Mu Guiyin was discoursing eloquently, “There are two paths forward for bionics. The first is to refine different parts of one’s own body into bionics. The stronger the body, the stronger the resulting bionic, and it is inherently the most compatible.”
“But this path is exceedingly difficult, and personalized bionic customization is incredibly expensive—a prohibitive cost for the vast majority of cultivators.”
“Therefore, most can only choose the second path.”
“That is, as their cultivation level rises, they enhance their strength by continually replacing external bionics with stronger ones and slowly assimilating them as part of themselves.”
“In this process, if one fails to adapt to a newly implanted bionic, their cultivation will regress instead of advancing.”
“And these are just humanoid bionics. I hear the higher-ups are already experimenting with non-humanoid ones.”
A minor god interjected, “That stuff is formidable in same-level competitions, but after implantation, you lose your basic human form, and the compatibility with various Immortal Dao cultivation techniques is too low. You can’t cultivate after getting one, which completely defeats the purpose.”
Mu Guiyin steered the conversation back on topic. “In short, this Zhang Yu’s body is too strong, and his Dao heart is too weak. He can’t even fully control his original body yet, so how could he possibly adapt to a new one?”
“In contrast, judging from Ye Lingxiao’s performance, he will clearly adapt to bionics much faster after Foundation Establishment and has a more promising future in that stage.”
With the conclusion of the second stage and Ye Lingxiao’s victory, Huang Zichou began to announce the details of the third stage.
The outcome of this round would ultimately decide who would be awarded the Foundation Establishment qualification certificate.