The Eternal Joy VR Center was a monument to the contradictions of the new era.
Built of polished steel and glowing spirit-glass, it occupied a corner of Qinghe City's central park, nestled between ancient willow trees and modern kinetic sculptures. Inside, children—both mortal and cultivator—donned sleek headsets, their bodies reclining on ergonomic chairs while their minds soared through digital landscapes.
Wei Jin walked the park paths as the sun began to set, the twin suns painting the sky in a bruised purple and orange. He wore the simple robes of a scholar, his terrifying cultivation presence retracted so deep within his core that he registered as nothing more than a healthy mortal.
He liked watching the children.
In the VR center, a group of ten-year-olds were fighting a simulated dragon. Their movements were clumsy, their strategies chaotic, but their laughter rang clear through the open windows. They were learning cooperation, courage, and tactics without the risk of death. It was exactly what he had envisioned decades ago.
He paused near a stone bridge that arched over a koi pond. The water reflected the neon lights of the city—a shimmer of artificial blue and pink dancing on the surface.
There was an old man sitting on the bridge railing.
At first glance, he was unremarkable. He wore tattered gray robes stained with wine, a gourd hanging from his belt. His hair was a wild, white mane, his beard unkempt. His face was flushed with intoxication, his eyes crinkled in perpetual amusement as he watched the children in the VR center.
But there was a problem.
He wasn't sitting on the railing. He was hovering three inches above it.
Wei Jin stopped. His Iron Mind fortress slammed its gates shut. His perception, sharpened by the Late-Stage Nascent Soul realm, swept over the figure.
Nothing.
No spiritual pressure. No cultivation base. No heartbeat. No breath.
To Wei Jin's senses, the space above the railing was empty. The old man didn't exist.
And yet, there he was, taking a swig from his gourd and burping contentedly.
Wei Jin approached slowly. He didn't activate his combat techniques—instinct told him that against this entity, a Fire Slash would be as effective as a stern look.
"Good evening, elder," Wei Jin said, his voice polite.
The old man turned. His eyes were black pools, deeper than the night sky, filled with spinning stars. For a second, Wei Jin felt vertigo, as if he were falling into a gravity well. Then the stars vanished, replaced by the bloodshot, merry eyes of a drunkard.
"Evening!" the old man crowed, his voice slurring. "Lovely evening. Great view. Those kids… ha! Did you see the little one in the red shirt? Tried to bite the dragon's tail. Reminds me of… well, never mind."
"You seem to be enjoying yourself," Wei Jin observed.
"I am! I am." The old man took another swig. "This city… Qinghe, right? It's a marvel. Haven't seen a place like this in… oh, forty thousand years? Maybe fifty? The tea is terrible, but the entertainment? Top tier."
Forty thousand years.
The number hung in the air like a blade.
"You know who I am?" Wei Jin asked quietly.
The drunkard laughed, a sound like cracking stone. "Wei Jin! The Architect. The Devil Doctor. The man who looked at the ceiling of the world and said, 'I think I'll install a skylight.'" He pointed a gnarled finger at Wei Jin. "You certainly know how to enjoy life, boy. Most people at your level are boring. Sitting in caves, cultivating dust. You? You build arcades."
"You know me."
"Everybody in our circle knows you," the drunkard said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "You're the topic of the century. 'Will he break it? Won't he? Is he mad? Is he genius?'" He leaned forward, defying gravity, floating horizontally for a moment before righting himself. "And given your progress… I guess you will soon join us. If you don't blow yourself up first."
Wei Jin's heart rate didn't change—he had manually regulated it—but his soul trembled.
"Join you?" Wei Jin asked. "Who are you?"
"Us?" The old man waved a hand vaguely at the sky. " The old farts. The ones who got bored of dying. The ones who looked at the rules and decided they were more like… suggestions."
He was a Spirit Severing cultivator. Or perhaps Divine Transformation. A being from the realm Wei Jin was trying to reach. A survivor of the Ancient War? Or something else?
"This old drunkard is unusual," Wei Jin said, testing the waters.
"Unusual? I'm unique!" The man hiccupped. "Just like you. That panel of yours… nifty trick. Where did you find it? Or did it find you? Never mind, don't answer. Mysteries are the spice of life."
He knew about the panel.
Wei Jin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air. For one hundred seventy years, the panel had been his deepest secret. His wife knew. His children knew. But a stranger?
"May I ask what brought you here?" Wei Jin asked, his tone respectful but firm.
The old man looked at him. The drunkenness vanished for a second, revealing a clarity that was terrifying in its intensity. It was the look of a scientist observing a particularly interesting bacterium.
"Curiosity, of course," he said softly. "We wanted to see the man who reinvented the wheel. You see, Wei Jin… the suppression wasn't just to stop weapons. It was to stop mistakes. The last time someone tried to mix cultivation and technology this thoroughly… well, let's just say the moon used to be bigger."
He grinned, the drunkard mask sliding back into place.
"But hey! New era, new mistakes. Keep up the good work. We are entertained."
"We?"
"The Watchers. The Sleepers. The Circle. Whatever you want to call us." The old man stood up—or rather, floated upright. He patted Wei Jin on the shoulder. Wei Jin didn't feel a hand; he felt a mountain resting on his clavicle for a fleeting instant.
"Don't rush the Spirit Severing," the old man advised. "It's tricky. You have to cut the right thread. Cut the wrong one, and you just become a very powerful ghost. And we have enough of those."
He winked.
"See you around, kid."
And then he blinked out of existence.
No displacement of air. No flash of light. No fluctuation of space. He was simply… gone. As if the universe had decided he was no longer a necessary variable in this location.
Wei Jin stood on the bridge for a long time. The children in the VR center were still laughing. The neon lights still reflected in the pond.
But the world felt smaller. Or perhaps, Wei Jin had just realized how much larger the cage really was.
He returned to his quarters in a daze. He walked past the guards, past the formations, past the layers of defense that suddenly felt as flimsy as paper.
He went straight to his cultivation chamber.
He sat down. He activated the panel.
[SPIRIT SEVERING METHOD - DEDUCTION PROGRESS: 52%]
Five years had passed since the deduction began. It was halfway there.
"He knew," Wei Jin whispered. "He knew about the panel. He knew about the breakthrough."
The Watchers weren't just observing from afar. They were walking the streets. They were checking the progress.
"We are entertained."
Wei Jin's eyes narrowed. The shock faded, replaced by the cold, hard anger that had fueled him for nearly two centuries.
They treated him like a show. Like a gladiator in an arena.
"Fine," he hissed. "Be entertained."
He focused on the simulation. He needed to accelerate. He needed more data. He needed to understand what the old man meant by "cutting the right thread."
He dove into the virtual world.
—————
The Way of Hundred Free Clones
The simulation chamber formed around him.
Wei Jin didn't summon an opponent this time. He summoned himself.
Or rather, a version of himself.
In the past five years, alongside the Spirit Severing deduction, Wei Jin had been working on a sub-project. A technique derived from his understanding of Artificial Souls and his need for multitasking.
He called it The Way of Hundred Free Clones.
Traditional clone techniques in the cultivation world were flawed. They required splitting the soul (painful, damaging) or using external materials (puppets, limited autonomy). They were extensions of the user's will, requiring constant attention.
Wei Jin wanted true autonomy.
He wanted clones that could think, learn, cultivate, and govern independently, yet remain linked to his prime consciousness through the system's network. He wanted a hive mind where he was the Queen and the Soldier.
In the simulation, ten figures stood in a circle. They all looked like Wei Jin.
"Report," Wei Jin Prime ordered.
"Clone 1: Analyzing the atomic structure of Spirit Iron alloys. Progress: 80%," said the first.
"Clone 2: Simulating the political fallout of the Imperial succession. Probability of civil war: 40%," said the second.
"Clone 3: Practicing the Azure Soul Refining Method. Soul density increase: 0.01%," said the third.
Wei Jin nodded. In the simulation, he could maintain ten. In reality, with his current Soul Force, he could maintain maybe three for extended periods.
But the Spirit Severing breakthrough required more.
The old man had said: "Cut the right thread."
What thread?
Wei Jin looked at his clones. They were him, but not him. They were threads of his consciousness, spun out and given form.
"Spirit Severing," he mused. "Severing the spirit from… what? The body? The world? Karma?"
Standard texts said Spirit Severing was about separating the soul from the mortal coil, allowing it to exist independently of the body. It was the step toward true immortality.
But Wei Jin suspected it was more.
"The suppression," he realized. "The thread connecting us to the managed confusion. The thread connecting us to the rules of this world."
To advance, he didn't just need to leave his body. He needed to cut the strings that the Watchers used to control the puppets.
He looked at his clones again.
"If I cut the thread," he asked Clone 1, "what happens to you?"
"I become free," Clone 1 said. "Or I dissipate."
"Test it."
Wei Jin Prime extended a hand. He visualized the connection between himself and Clone 1—a silver cord of Soul Force.
He summoned a blade of pure mental energy.
He cut.
Clone 1 didn't dissipate. It gasped. Its eyes widened.
"I… I am," Clone 1 whispered. The voice was different. Deeper. Resonant.
Then Clone 1 exploded.
The feedback slammed into Wei Jin Prime, throwing him out of the simulation.
Wei Jin woke up on his meditation mat, vomiting blood. His head felt like it had been split open with an axe.
"Too early," he wheezed, wiping his mouth. "Soul density insufficient. Structure unstable."
But he had seen it. For a fraction of a second, Clone 1 had been truly independent. It had existed outside of Wei Jin's control.
He healed himself with a thought, the Golden Flow circulating instantly to repair the damage.
He checked the panel.
[SPIRIT SEVERING METHOD - DEDUCTION PROGRESS: 52% -> 53%]
A jump. The failed experiment had provided data.
The Way of Hundred Free Clones wasn't just a utility technique. It was the training wheel for the breakthrough.
If he could sustain a clone after severing the connection, he would prove that his soul could exist without its origin point. He would prove he could exist without the world.
—————
The Domestic Front
Days later, Wei Jin emerged from his seclusion.
He found Shen Ruyi in the nursery.
Their son, Wei Long, was three years old.
He was… terrifying.
The boy sat on the floor, surrounded by wooden blocks. But he wasn't building towers. He was arranging them in complex geometric patterns that mimicked formation arrays.
Ruyi sat nearby, watching him with a mixture of pride and apprehension.
"He levitated the cat yesterday," she said without looking up.
"The cat is fine?" Wei Jin asked.
"The cat is confused. But unhurt." Ruyi looked at Wei Jin. "You look pale. Did the simulation kill you again?"
"Only a little." Wei Jin sat beside her. "I met one of them."
Ruyi went still. "One of whom?"
"The Watchers. An old man. Drunk. Floating."
Ruyi's face lost all color. "The Drunken Immortal. Li Bai."
"You know him?"
"He is a myth from before my time. Before my husband's time. They say he drank the wine of the gods and forgot how to die." Ruyi gripped Wei Jin's arm. "Wei Jin, if he is here… if he spoke to you…"
"He said they are entertained."
Ruyi let out a breath. "That is good. Entertainment implies they won't destroy us yet. Boredom is what kills civilizations."
She looked at their son. Wei Long knocked over his blocks with a wave of his hand—a small pulse of telekinetic force.
"He has your eyes," Ruyi said softly. "And my temper."
"And a talent that scares me," Wei Jin admitted. "He is born of two Nascent Souls. His starting point is higher than my endpoint was at his age."
"We need to teach him control. Before he hurts someone."
"I will take him into the simulation," Wei Jin decided. "A sandbox mode. Where he can break things without consequence."
Ruyi nodded. "Good idea. Just… don't let him fight the dragons yet."
—————
The Progress of the World
While Wei Jin wrestled with gods and simulations, the world continued to turn.
The Concord of Nations was holding, barely. The threat of atomic fire had created a Cold War. Spies replaced armies. Economic sanctions replaced sieges.
Qinghe City was the neutral ground. The Switzerland of the Empire.
Merchants from the west brought steam engines. Scholars from the south brought new theories of biology. The internet—now accessible via screens in public squares—buzzed with debate, art, and commerce.
Wei Tianming, the Imperial Consort, sent a coded message from the capital.
The Emperor is dying. The succession is contested. The Crown Prince favors the traditionalists—the isolationists. He wants to ban the 'foreign sciences' and return to pure cultivation rule. The Second Prince, my brother-in-law, favors integration. We need to pick a side.
Wei Jin read the message on his slate.
"If the traditionalists win, they will purge Qinghe," he reasoned. "They fear what they cannot control."
He typed a reply.
Support the Second Prince. But do not commit troops. Use information. Use the economy. Make the traditionalists look obsolete, not dangerous.
He turned to his virtual assistant, Zero.
"Initiate Protocol: Soft Power."
Within days, the news networks—subtly influenced by Wei shell companies—began running stories about the failings of traditional governance. Stories about famine in the conservative provinces, contrasted with the bumper crops in the technological zones. Stories about corruption among the old guard.
It was a war of narratives. And Wei Jin controlled the printing press.
—————
The 55th Year
[SPIRIT SEVERING METHOD - DEDUCTION PROGRESS: 55%]
Three years after the encounter with the Drunkard.
Wei Jin sat in his garden. The cherry blossoms were falling.
He was one hundred seventy-five years old.
He looked young, a man in his prime, but his eyes held the depth of the void.
He had mastered the Way of Hundred Free Clones to the point where he could sustain five independent consciousnesses for an hour. He used them to multitask—one managing the business, one teaching the family, one monitoring the political situation, one refining pills, and the Prime Wei Jin focusing on the deduction.
He felt the gaze of the Watchers sometimes. A prickle on the back of his neck.
They were waiting for the show.
"Soon," he promised them. "Soon I will show you something new."
He closed his eyes.
The 52% became 55%.
The path was clearing. The thread was becoming visible.
He reached for the scissors of his will.
—————
End of Chapter Six, Book Four