Try restarting the Merit System in Chapter 4.
After the two finished their conversation, Chu Jue had a general understanding of the situation. Her earlier guess was almost correct—
She arrived in an era of spiritual revival.
The so-called spiritual energy revival... Fang Zhiyi told her this: She didn't know how many years ago the spiritual energy suddenly revived, and the world underwent a dramatic change.
Teacher Fang, who was answering questions, had a perfunctory look in his dog-like eyes: "The spiritual energy has been revived, so what else could change? Of course, the world is filled with 'spiritual energy'."
Reiki can be referred to as "spiritual energy".
The resurgence of psionic energy has affected not only humans, but all living things.
However, the number of humans capable of spiritual cultivation is not large; most people remain ordinary.
Therefore, humanity was reclassified into different classes: a very small number of people who were affected by the revival of spiritual energy and were able to absorb spiritual energy for their own use, embarking on the path of spiritual cultivation and gaining "superpowers"; a small number of people who were able to absorb spiritual energy and have improved their physique, but were unable to use the spiritual energy for their own use; and the majority of people who could not absorb spiritual energy and could only maintain the status quo.
In other words, spiritual cultivators are more "noble" than ordinary people.
Higher-ranking spiritual cultivators are also considered more "noble" than lower-ranking ones.
This is an unspoken rule among humans.
However, this is only an internal ranking among humans. In the eyes of humans, those at an even lower level than ordinary people are the spirit beasts that have gained intelligence due to the revival of spiritual energy.
This was the most detailed part that Fang Zhiyi knew, after all, it was about herself.
Spiritual energy is not something that only humans can sense and absorb; it loves all things equally. However, humans are incredibly arrogant, always believing that they are the sole masters of Earth.
Therefore, humans became unhappy after realizing they were no longer the only "higher animals".
Beasts also have distinctions between those that can cultivate their spirit and those that cannot. Beasts capable of cultivating their spirit can speak human language after reaching a certain stage, and there are even rumors that high-level spirit beasts can mimic humans.
But for humans, even if a spirit beast masters a foreign language or gets a new skin, it is still not "human".
Humans fear these beast races, who are already superior to humans in all aspects of physical ability. Although they don't mention it openly and maintain a facade of harmonious coexistence, they tacitly understand the situation. Rejecting spirit beasts seems to be a tacit agreement among all humans.
This is yet another set of unspoken rules for humanity.
However, there are only a few creatures capable of cultivating spirit, and the probability of them transforming into human form is even smaller. Most beasts remain ordinary beasts.
Fang Zhiyi pouted: "When I go out, I'll just be a normal dog. My mom said I should be careful when I'm out and about and try not to bite anyone."
It's easy to accidentally fall into that hierarchy of contempt.
She hadn't intended to bite anyone, but after hearing those words, she felt she should take a few bites.
Chu Jue's thoughts were much the same as hers, and he even gave her advice: "Even if it's just an ordinary dog, as long as you can bite a person to death, the person won't know that you can bite."
In other words, if a body is not discovered, it is as if the body was never created.
These words were like a tongue twister, and it took Fang Zhiyi a long time to understand them. Then his eyes lit up: "So this is what reasoning is all about. You humans are so treacherous and cunning."
"I didn't expect you to be so unique, my disciple." Fang Zhiyi muttered to herself. It was the first time she had ever complained about humans in a conversation and actually received agreement. It was a truly magical feeling.
She liked Chu Jue even more now. Chu Jue was tall and powerful, inspiring awe in dogs. Although he had a strange habit of touching dead people, it wasn't a big problem.
It's just a dead person, so I can touch it.
Fang Zhiyi coughed twice, his beard trembling, his dog-like eyes showing seriousness as he began to "teach":
"If you want to cultivate your spirit, as I said before—whether you can cultivate your spirit is determined by your innate nature, and I have no way to explain that to you."
"Although I don't know the criteria for spiritual energy's preference, based on my own observation, spiritual energy should favor powerful individuals, such as myself."
“From the moment I developed intelligence, I have had a ‘spirit’.”
"Although we are different races, the process should be quite similar, right? Let me think... Have you felt any kind of spiritual awareness or anything like that within yourself? Hmm?"
So, spiritual energy actually has its biases?
However, listening to Fang Zhiyi's description, Chu Jue felt that there was still a significant difference between humans and beasts cultivating spirits...
As for her mention of "intelligence," that was completely unheard of. I wonder if it means that anyone who isn't mentally challenged is considered to have intelligence.
Seeing Chu Jue remain silent, Fang Zhiyi thought she had inadvertently touched a nerve, and hurriedly tried to think of something, offering dry words of comfort:
“It’s not that it’s impossible if you don’t have it… The reason you didn’t have those spiritual senses before might be because the spiritual energy outside wasn’t sufficient. After all, spiritual energy isn’t everywhere. Abundant spiritual energy can double the benefits of spiritual cultivation, but places with ‘spirits’ are still very rare.”
“If you keep cultivating in a place with weak spiritual energy, it will be useful, but the efficiency will definitely not be very high. Oh well. Now that I’ve brought you to my spiritual realm, you should try to experience it more.”
She felt that someone as powerful as Chu Jue would definitely not be someone who wasn't chosen by spiritual energy.
After all, Chu Jue's methods of killing seemed even more sophisticated than hers, though she wouldn't tell Chu Jue that.
If Chu Jue is unable to cultivate his spirit, then something must have gone wrong.
Fang Zhiyi didn't expect it to turn out this way.
To encourage Chu Jue before he could "sensory" the spiritual energy, Fang Zhiyi pointed her front paw towards the door and said to Chu Jue:
"It's getting late, my disciple. Don't move around here. I'll go get you some food. After we eat, I'll personally guide you to experience the spiritual energy. Don't rush."
This time it was Chu Jue's turn to be surprised: "You can cook?"
Fang Zhiyi shook her head mysteriously: "Just wait and see."
Chu Jue: ...Okay.
I can't cook, but I have food to eat.
Teacher Dog's actions are truly worrying for no reason.
Watching Fang Zhiyi wag her tail and leave, Chu Jue sat down nearby to wait, sorting through the various pieces of information he had gathered during this time.
I also tried to sense the mental energy of someone who had gone offline.
The situation in her mental sea is quite delicate now. Chu Jue can sense the existence of that part of her mental power, but he finds it difficult to mobilize. This is not entirely the same as the mental power that he tried to eliminate in the past.
It was a new situation that she herself did not know how to explain.
Were they injured while passing through the wormhole, or did something happen after they arrived here?
Her mental energy and the designer's were both in a closed state. Could this be related to her being from another world? Could the wormhole also have the function of sealing away things related to the Empire?
These contents were difficult to explain, and there was too little information about spiritual power, so Chu Jue turned to study the spiritual power he had just come to know.
Just as she had guessed, the "spiritual energy-like forces" she had sensed earlier that were trying to get close to her were indeed the spiritual energy that Fang Zhiyi had mentioned.
But she's familiar with spiritual energy? That shouldn't be the case.
While he was brainstorming, Chu Jue heard the "auditory hallucination" from not long ago reappear, with a series of random clanging sounds, like a jumble of garbled code popping up all at once.
A whole host of “delayed” messages piled up and floated in her mind as text.
[Target activated, successfully bound to ds￥k*& system.]
[Successfully achieved #@*&]
[Congratulations, host...]
System? What system?
What is the ds￥k*& system?
[Successful...]
[Congratulations, host...]
[Congratulations, host...]
What does it mean when it freezes immediately after activation? There's only forward movement, no backward movement; is it so laggy it can't display anything?
This last bit of gibberish was so obviously nonsensical that Chu Jue's emotions were complicated.
Immediately afterwards, these prompts were erased as if during initialization, and a blank snowflake appeared in her mind.
The immersive "transition animation" made Chu Jue frown.
After a long silence, as if the garbled code she had seen earlier had never existed, a very familiar mechanical female voice appeared in her mind:
[Successfully linked to the Merit System.]
[A main quest has been issued for you. This quest is mandatory.]
Main quest accepted: Accumulate Merit.
[Quest Completion Reward: Return to the Empire]
[A side quest has been posted for you. Please select whether to accept it.]
[Side Quest to be Accepted: Become the Number One in the Spirit Realm]
[Reward for completing the task: Satisfaction of ambition]
That voice... belonged to the mecha that had been with her for many years—"The Designer".
Chu made a firm decision.
Didn't the designer lose contact with her? Why does this inexplicably appearing system have the same voice as the designer?
She stared silently at the list of reward details at the bottom.
[Reward for completing the task: Satisfaction of ambition]
...This kind of useless but unexpectedly pleasing nonsense literature is also very designer-like.
Could it be her? How did her good comrade become some kind of "system"? Does this even exist in the career planning of mechs?
Just as the "system" appeared in her mind, Chu Jue asked the same question in his mind:
"Merit system? Designer? Mech pilot? The unscrupulous royal family pointed fingers and demanded that I create a colorful black, so I submitted a haphazard design and angrily named it 'Designer'?"
But after trying several different ways of addressing her, she still received no response.
Could it be that voice alone is insufficient to activate it? This system, which resembles that of a designer, suddenly appeared in her mind. Could it be like the initial, less intelligent version of the designer, requiring her to establish a connection within her mental space?
As usual, Chu Jue activated his mental power and tried to learn more about the so-called "accumulating merit to return to the empire" mission, but he found that the system seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep again, and was unresponsive as if it had crashed.
After Chu Jue waited patiently, the so-called "system" simply disappeared.
Chu Jue: ...
What is this? Is the signal so bad here?
This system is a bit high-risk.
However, she could still sense a faint connection between the system and herself, which meant that the unknown "it" still existed.
Chu Jue called out a few more times, but unsurprisingly, no one answered.
Okay.
The "Merit System" is temporarily unavailable. At first, it seemed to have crashed, and then it disconnected completely.
Only one main quest and one side quest remained, but these "quests" also disappeared when the system went offline.
She hadn't even received it yet.
It seems there's only one way to resolve this, Chu Jue thought.
Try restarting.
A note from the author:
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I forgot to mention this in the author's notes: before I even started writing, I saw some sisters on the Hongshu app recommending it to me [cat head emoji]. The mysterious power of big data, thank you so much!
Thank you to the sisters who supported the bankrupt Silver Element! [doge emoji with rose in hand]
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