Chen Feng picked up a brush and gently dabbed something onto Ai Qinglan's face. The fine-haired brush was experimental equipment, and the ink Chen Feng used was a rare, non-toxic dye from his Empirical Department—especially the kind that's difficult to wash off.

Then, he saw the calculator flicker. Following the original plan, he quickly threw the dye into the waste bin and returned to his own experiment table.

After that, he was blocked by a wraith-like figure in a teal long robe.

Chen Feng looked up, startled, "You are... Mr. Wo Shen, the elder..."

This person was second only to Heavenly Selection God Monarch and the most significant figure on Tianling Ridge! Even his own teacher couldn't quite match up to him!

"You're the lad that girl is planning to marry, huh." Mr. Wo Shen glanced at Ai Qinglan's face, then controlled his facial expression and gave Chen Feng a discreet thumbs-up where Ai Qinglan couldn't see, "Chen Feng? I remember you, the one from Yangshen Pavilion? Just like the girl said, a lovely young man indeed!"

"Teacher, don't joke with Xiao Feng; he's rather stiff and gets nervous easily," Ai Qinglan, oblivious to the dye on her face, urged, "Weren't you going to look at the things I've made?"

Mr. Wo Shen walked past Chen Feng and approached Ai Qinglan's experiment table. He leaned over and picked up a petri dish.

Chen Feng looked on curiously but couldn't make out what kind of fungi Ai Qinglan was cultivating. The distribution of the fungal colonies in the petri dish was odd, part of it piled up into dark red cones, while another part grew into silvery white straight lines. Chen Feng could tell there was a special pattern in the petri dish, but his Mathematics knowledge wasn't enough to decipher it.

Was he seeing it wrong, or was the distribution pattern complex?

Mr. Wo Shen frowned slightly, "Girl, I remember... the sample Universe Armor Nine Nine One Eight Seven One is a Spirit Plant, right?"

"Dissolving the cell wall, removing the chlorophyll, these two uses of the reverse transcription virus are quite mature, right?" Ai Qinglan blinked, puzzled.

Her expression matched with the dye on her face offered a peculiar sense of humor. But it seemed Mr. Wo Shen was seriously pondering, "The known viruses that can actually be effective... Which two reverse transcription viruses did you use?"

"Dry—Jiazi Two, Wither—Jiaxin Seven," Ai Qinglan finally caught on to something amiss, "Known viruses'? 'Actually'? The difference between the Cave Heaven Relic Species and the Shenzhou species... shouldn't be that big, right?"

"It's that big, girl," Mr. Wo Shen tapped his lips, shook his head, and indicated to keep it secret.

Ai Qinglan was dissatisfied, "Teacher, what exactly is going on?"

"Let's look at your results first, then we'll talk about the rest," Mr. Wo Shen interrupted Ai Qinglan's questions with a limited patience, "Tell me, what's the principle behind this little 'calculator'?"

Chen Feng was shocked, "Calculator?"

Without using Mana, purely cultivating an Innate Calculator from the blood of Life Beings?

Ai Qinglan nodded proudly, "Exactly, based on the theory of another disciple from Wanfa Sect I know, this could be classified as a 'Spirit Rhinoceros Flow Structure Calculator.'"

"Spirit Rhinoceros Flow" was one of the few theories published by Wang Qi that no one paid attention to. On Earth, non-Von Structures emerged to break through the limitations of Von Structures. But because the physical rules were different here, Von Structures were far from reaching their limit. In the end, only a few close friends were aware that Wang Qi had achieved such results.

Mr. Wo Shen searched through Wang Qi's early works, then exclaimed in surprise, "He's talented, helpful in constructing Innate Calculators... damn, did this kid pull off such a disgraceful stunt?"

Chen Feng diplomatically expressed his opinion, "Wang Qi is doing very well at Wanfa Sect."

"Thank goodness, that calamity is just to the liking of those Wanfa Sect chaps who turn a deaf ear to the world and, in the end, end up without Daoist couples. The Shame of Dao Seed..."

Chen Feng was embarrassed, "Elder... such talk is fine between us, but if it gets out..."

Mr. Wo Shen waved his hand dismissively, "I'm used to it. Let's take a look at this special... little gadget. The issue between cellular channels, how did you resolve that?"

How to accomplish inter-cellular information transmission? As far as it seems, it's still a mystery. Research lacks clues after eliminating the interference of Spiritual Energy background.

Ai Qinglan said, "A system."

"A system?"

"It should be... the Divine Tao System or something similar?" Ai Qinglan said uncertainly, "I'm not sure what to call it. My man has been fiddling with that Divine Tao Theory a few days ago, the powerful system generated by human clusters... in fact, this system can also be undertaken by simple Life Beings..."

Chen Feng immediately objected, "Impossible. If, as you just said, there's only one type of cell sample in this petri dish, right? It simply cannot achieve that level of differentiation. Wang Qi and I have done the calculations..."

"A minimum of three humans, right?" Ai Qinglan said.

"Yes," Ai Qinglan said. "But there are more than three types of cells in here. To be precise, there's only one 'Bloodline Root,' which I induced to differentiate, and it was highly differentiated."

The brain cells and blood cells of the same person are indeed two types of cells. However, their genetic information is exactly the same; it's just that their expressions differ during the differentiation process.

"By introducing plague toxins into a segment of Bloodline Root rousing, I promoted the synthesis of topoisomerase and gyrases, which liberated the Bloodline Root's structure. Then, I believe I studied around the clock for about five days, guiding mutations, inserting new segments, and finally exporting a result," Ai Qinglan explained. "Since this wasn't an official project in the beginning, I planned to recruit a few assistants and design an easy project to get them started, so I catalyzed it with the Life Flame without much care."

The standard experimental process was to first exclude the variable of Spiritual Energy, then to take it into consideration. Ai Qinglan's approach was unconventional. But at the beginning, she just intended it as a relaxing, practice project.

"Next, I induced an evolution," Ai Qinglan continued. "These little creatures are no longer of the same species as the sample Yuzi Tianjia Nine Nine One Eight Seven One. They belong to the same family and genus."

"The ecology among cellular colonies is actually a lot more complex than you and I think. It was only after I reintroduced a section of the reverse plague toxin that I regulated some special factors so they wouldn't disappear with genetic iteration — this plague toxin and the 'Spirit Plant' have achieved a perfect symbiotic relationship. The Spirit Plant won't develop resistance, and the plague toxin won't cause disease. This is a secret key, a 'communication protocol'..."

Chen Feng was already beginning to feel a headache. Zhan Woshen was from Mysterious Palace, having moved to Tianling Ridge after reaching the Golden Core. His Mathematics was top-notch. Ai Qinglan was slightly weaker, but at least she was someone who could converse with Wang Qi. He was only a little surprised by the "perfectly symbiotic" plague toxin. However, Ai Qinglan had fished out who knows how much technology from the Immortal Alliance's secret vault a year ago, so it wasn't strange for her to have this level of expertise.

Mr. Wo Shen shook his head, "I suddenly feel that the difference between it and the sample Yuzi Tianjia Nine Nine One Eight Seven One has already exceeded the 'realm.' Shouldn't this be considered part of the True Nucleus Realm rather than the Plant Kingdom?"

"The distinct characteristics of the Plant Kingdom are still there!" Ai Qinglan objected. "Don't interrupt, I was getting to the crucial part. I differentiated it into a sufficient number of types and then got them to operate in an orderly fashion, catalyzing with the Life Flame..."

Chen Feng frowned, "Shouldn't that have resulted in a demonized mushroom?"

"Generally, yes. But under my deliberate guidance, they developed in a different direction. Their colony attracted a bit of Spiritual Energy, transforming it into the Spirit Rhinoceros Bridge for constructing a new system..."

Zhan Woshen asked, "These conical objects... are they all Yin Yang Yao?"

"No. They're 'documents,' to be precise, they're Spirit Rhinoceros Clusters. These linear Spirit Rhinoceros Flows are Belief channels. The Base Pairs are responsible for the Yin Yang Yao."

A conical object represented a single file. According to Ai Qinglan, the storage capacity of these conical objects, after excluding the portion needed for their inherent genetic factors, could reach up to terabytes in size. And for Ai Qinglan to increase the number of these Spirit Rhinoceros Clusters, she just needed to throw in a few sugar cubes.

In other words, her single petri dish was equivalent to a mid-sized calculator. And no refinement was needed; sugar, carbon dioxide, and sunlight were enough.

"So you're saying, with just a sugarcane field now, you can mass-produce calculators?"

Ai Qinglan nodded and then shook her head, "It's a pity, though; these contraptions operate on quaternary numeration, which doesn't conform to the mainstream of the Immortal Alliance..."

Frankly speaking, for Mathematicians, any one numeral within the decimal system makes no difference. But for computers, the natural logarithm base e is the most efficient numeral system. e is an irrational number lying between 2 and 3; hence binary and ternary are theoretically optimal.

Developing a quaternary language isn't difficult. It's just unnecessary. The Immortal Alliance's binary has already reached a highly advanced stage; no one bothers with quaternary. It's not cost-effective.

"No no, girl... there's something you don't understand..." Zhan Woshen shook his head. "Although you, as a genius, will inevitably touch on this aspect sooner or later, it's quite soon..."

"Teacher, what are you talking about?"

Mr. Wo Shen asked, "First, tell me, how much do you understand about the inside story of the Divine Capital's battle from a year ago?"

Ai Qinglan replied, "Junior Brother Wang did keep something from us?"

Ai Qinglan and Chen Feng each shared the parts they were aware of, which was the part relayed by Wang Qi. Mr. Wo Shen nodded, "I thought that Wang Qi was an utterly unscrupulous scoundrel. I didn't expect him to still retain a bit of humanity... Girl."

"Hmm?"

"That 'Relic Species,' besides the cellular samples, we also obtained living individuals, and they are friendly towards our Human Clan. There aren't many living samples. Are you interested in competing for one?"

Ai Qinglan blinked, "Teacher?"

Zhan Woshen gestured, "I'll give you three days. After three days, Tianling Ridge's upper echelons will discuss the allocation of this living sample. You should prepare a report. Additionally, I will send a special Cargo Flying Sword to pick up a sample."

"If you manage to secure a research material this time, you can gain access to the core secrets of our Immortal Alliance."

Ai Qinglan nodded dumbfoundedly.

Zhan Woshen's figure gradually faded, leaving only a sentence, "Remember to wipe your face clean; this is serious business."

A few seconds later, from the Empirical Department, Ai Qinglan's annoyed voice could be heard: "Xiao Feng!" (To be continued. If you like this work, please head over to qidian.com to cast your recommendations and monthly votes. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com.)