SSS-Rank 10x Reward System: Accepting Disciples to Live Forever-Chapter 201: Forged Reality (II)

Compared to the silent accumulation of his Infinite Record, the worship of the masses felt like background noise.

That said, not everyone was indifferent.

The noble families of the city experienced a golden age overnight. Trade routes multiplied. Inns overflowed. Spirit herbs doubled in price. Artifacts were auctioned like vegetables.

No one benefitted more than the Song Family.

Thanks to their early closeness with the dojo, their status skyrocketed. Song Po moved decisively. He expanded their businesses, secured supply chains, bought out failing competitors, and positioned the family at the center of the city’s booming economy.

Other major families were swallowed whole in the process. Mergers disguised as alliances. Acquisitions masked as cooperation.

Only the Fang Family remained intact, though reduced to a quiet corner of influence.

Song Po knew where the invisible line was.

Push too far, and Wang Chen might take offense.

And no one in their right mind wished to anger the man who could casually speak about transcending the Eternal Flame Core.

Especially when the young miss of the Fang Family was under the dojo’s tutelage.

Politics and profit danced in the city.

Meanwhile, Wang Chen lived as if none of it existed.

His days passed leisurely.

Tea in the morning. Poems in the afternoon. Sometimes he would recline beneath the eaves, watching clouds drift across the sky, looking every bit the idle immortal that rumors claimed him to be.

When boredom struck, he would summon the Fang sisters.

He introduced them to "yoga," adjusting their postures with exaggerated seriousness. When that became too mundane, he unveiled something grander.

Tai Chi.

He demonstrated the slow, circular movements with deliberate grace, palms flowing like water, weight shifting with almost imperceptible precision.

To ordinary cultivators, it looked like an obscure body tempering technique.

To those with insight, it was something else entirely.

On one such occasion, both Demon Queen Zi Han and Ming Yao happened to be present.

Wang Chen, naturally, did not miss the opportunity to "aura farm."

Every movement of Tai Chi resonated faintly with Heaven and Earth. His mastery over multiple Authorities subtly infused the gestures. Even when he appeared casual, the Dao leaked through his motions.

Zi Han’s pupils tightened. Ming Yao unconsciously held her breath.

Harvest achieved.

While he was at it, he casually drifted into topics that had absolutely no business existing in this cultivation world.

Artificial Intelligence.

Quantum reality.

He spoke about probabilistic states. About how observation collapses possibility. About how consciousness might not generate thought, but instead navigate through an ocean of already existing outcomes.

He only stopped when he noticed the sky subtly darkening.

That was his cue.

He pretended it was because tea time had ended.

In truth, he understood there were limits.

So he continued doing what appeared to be pointless things.

Waiting.

Waiting for either the All-Seeing Immortal or Zi Han to approach him formally about exploring the Dragon Race Inheritance Ground.

Patience was a form of cultivation too.

His attention often drifted toward the Bodhi Tree within the courtyard.

Compared to before, the tree no longer looked entirely dead. A few fragile green leaves had sprouted from its branches, trembling in the wind like newborn thoughts.

After the Original Demon’s possession incident, something had changed.

He no longer heard the faint voice that once whispered from within the tree.

There was a possibility that whatever primitive consensus or nascent consciousness the tree had developed had been erased.

If so, the Original Demon had not merely possessed.

It had overwritten.

Wang Chen felt no regret.

Silence was simpler.

...

Under the Bodhi Tree’s shade sat Ming Yao and Zi Han.

For reasons neither of them fully understood, their relationship had grown closer in recent days. Shared confusion tends to forge bonds.

Ming Yao wore a white gown whose hem flickered faintly with spiritual light. Her long hair flowed freely down her back. In the soft shade, she looked less like a cultivator and more like a celestial descended to the mortal realm.

Zi Han’s attire was plain by comparison. A simple robe. No excessive adornment.

Yet her charm was undeniable.

She lifted a teacup, her gaze drifting into the distance. A faint grimness clouded her eyes.

"It has been no more than a day," she murmured, "yet I have already forgotten most of what Fellow Daoist Wang Chen said."

The understanding she had briefly grasped regarding "quantum mechanics" was dissolving.

Like smoke scattered by wind.

Ming Yao hesitated, then finally asked, "Senior Sister Zi Han... what do you think of Daoist Wang Chen’s words? Can they truly be believed?"

"What words?" Zi Han responded reflexively, her thoughts still tangled in the sudden erosion of insight.

Ming Yao paused.

"It makes no sense," she said slowly. "Is it truly possible that our mind does not think... but merely searches? That past, present, and future exist simultaneously? That what could happen has already happened?"

As she spoke, something strange occurred.

The next sentence she intended to say vanished.

Not faded.

Vanished.

Her mouth opened slightly. No words emerged.

A cold sensation crept down her spine.

Zi Han immediately noticed the shift in her expression.

"It seems Fellow Daoist Yao has also realized it," Zi Han said quietly. "Daoist Wang Chen may have revealed something that should not be spoken openly."

Ming Yao nodded, her complexion darkening.

A heavy silence settled between them.

Unseen.

Unacknowledged.

But real.

This conversation did not escape Wang Chen.

He was listening.

Not overtly. Not through divine sense extended like a net. Simply through subtle awareness.

For a brief instant, he had seen something strange.

A faint, almost imperceptible fog.

It did not envelop the entire courtyard. It clung to them. A thin veil brushing against their existence itself.

If not for his recent breakthroughs in the Formation Dao, he would never have noticed.

It was not spiritual energy.

Not karma.

Not destiny.

It felt... corrective.

So there is someone actively suppressing the spread of modern knowledge.

Wang Chen’s brows knit together slightly.

He replayed the sensation in his mind.

The fog had not attacked. It had not harmed. It had merely erased.

Selective erasure.

A terrible possibility surfaced in his thoughts.

They are not protecting ignorance.

They are manufacturing truth.

By obscuring the real one.

If you cannot eliminate the source entirely, you make alternative paths collapse on their own. You allow concepts to surface briefly, then ensure they fade. In time, no one questions why they cannot remember.

Control the boundaries of what can be retained.

And you control reality.

But why?

Who benefits from preventing this world from understanding probability? From comprehending that time might not be linear? From realizing that thought itself could be navigation rather than creation?

Wang Chen’s gaze shifted toward the sky.

The clouds drifted peacefully.

The city hummed with faith.

The Bodhi Tree’s leaves trembled softly.

Everything looked normal.

Which only made it more unsettling.