123: Chapter 43: Network Meditation Room 123: Chapter 43: Network Meditation Room From a distance, Pine Eagle City even resembled a gigantic bonsai.

Yes, that’s right, a bonsai—a small pot containing a few tall plants, with the soil surface covered in a thick layer of moss.

Beyond that, there were no miscellaneous items.

There were only the “plants” and “moss,” with nothing existing as “plants in between.”

The entire Pine Eagle City had five superstructures over three thousand meters in height, each occupying more than one hundred thousand square meters.

Besides these, there were no buildings in the city over ten meters tall.

From afar, it seemed as though Pine Eagle City was comprised only of these five super-buildings.

And the things above ground were nothing more than heaps of rubbish.

Looking from a distance, Xiang Shan exclaimed, “Oh snap, so this is Pine Eagle City.”

From the memories of those government hounds, Xiang Shan had also roughly made sense of the composition of these five buildings.

One of these buildings belonged to the Great Knight Commander of the Scientific Knight Order.

Its nominal owner was Morgan Rebeschind, a Holy Knight of the Galapagos Sanctuary.

Although this Holy Knight had never once glanced over here, many laboratories under his name were situated within that type of building.

The remaining four buildings were nominally the private property of the local Lord, Amilcare Zhao.

More than one hundred floors of these buildings were for the Lord’s private use.

Within these buildings, there were vertical factories, gigantic fusion reactors, armories, barracks, and extensive personal living spaces.

The floors below one hundred were open for public use, which was also an act of the Lord’s generosity.

Within these four buildings, one had its ground floor used as the “government hall,” designated for dealing with various civil matters.

This essentially meant “distributing welfare goods,” “reporting someone for violating Dyson’s principle,” or “volunteering allegiance to the Lord,” and other matters related to the grassroots level.

After all, there were no real laws in this era.

The lower floors of the remaining three buildings had degenerated into slums for the common people.

The reason was very simple.

Even though the Lord had opened up the lower floors of these buildings, he essentially had no obligation to install electrical circuits, water pipes, and the like, not even elevators.

Of course, the residents of the lower floors could install these themselves, as long as they did not damage the structural integrity of the building.

But those people did not necessarily have the technology to accomplish that task.

And the higher the floor, the more troublesome it became to ascend or descend, increasing the cost of transporting goods.

It could be said that below the twentieth floor, ordinary residents still lived.

But from the twentieth floor upwards, the higher you went, the poorer it got.

Only those who had no other options outside would think of seeking a living here.

Unfortunately, in this era, such people often belonged to the “low modification rate” group, or even “Natural Persons.”

And those with lower modification rates had a fatal flaw compared to the Cybernetically Enhanced People with higher modification rates—they excreted a lot of metabolic waste.

And the sewage pipes of the floors…

might have been useful decades ago.

So, the higher it got, the more dreadful it became.

Until after the ninetieth floor.

In Zhang Xianchong’s memory, it was vaguely mentioned that from the ninetieth to the hundredth floors of the three buildings, many gang bosses and civilian martial arts stars resided.

These individuals had high modification rates, requiring few resources besides electricity.

And living close to the “Protector” gave them a sense of boundless honor.

But these floors maintained only a façade of “order.” Inside, it was a mishmash of chaos, with conditions far worse than the super slums of the fiftieth or sixtieth floors.

“Gangs, huh…” Xiang Shan shook his head, severing Zhang Xianchong’s “emotions.”

As a seeker of “order,” Zhang Xianchong harbored intense hatred for these people.

Xiang Shan even found it hard to discern how much of his own disdain for these lower-level gangs was due to his own Old Era viewpoints or to Zhang Xianchong’s “arrogance.”

To Xiang Shan, Zhang Xianchong’s “order” was nothing more than a longing for the strong—a primal brain’s instinctive yearning for powerful heroes.

His views on the chaos and evil of the lower levels were possibly fraught with biases that persisted from the primordial times to the present day.

Xiang Shan often reminded himself that this was the wrong mindset.

Such thoughts were not correct.

After all, morality could be defined by the strong.

When “poverty” was regarded as a “virtue,” the powerful would even willingly adopt the label of the “impoverished”—after all, Scientific Knights were considered symbols of “upholding poverty as a virtue.”

“After all, now the strong physically hold control over the weak’s mouths…” Xiang Shan murmured softly.

Cui Hai asked, “Senior, what are you saying?

Do you have any instructions?”

Xiang Shan shook his head, “No.

Stick to the original plan, you guys head towards the Pine Eagle Building area…

I’m going to step away for a bit.”

As he said this, Xiang Shan parted ways with the others.

Entering the city wasn’t difficult at all.

There were no city walls nor guard posts, only a few patrolling Martial Artists.

The real security forces were all placed at the “private area boundaries” of the Lord and Holy Knight.

Carrying weapons wasn’t a big deal either, because Dyson’s principle didn’t prohibit anyone from possessing anything—as long as it wasn’t stolen or snatched from others.

These people experienced no inconvenience in their activities within the city.

Xiang Shan was no babysitter; it wasn’t his job to cover every base.

Cui Hai nodded and said, “Alright, Senior, we’ll take care of Yuki Junior and this little girl for now.”

Xiang Shan waved them off, but then remembered something and spoke up, “There’s one more thing, if you can find a place, a house that might… take in this child, write it down.”

Cui Hai looked troubled, “But… Senior, we’re not locals, it’s very difficult to find such a place on short notice.”

“Just try your best,” Xiang Shan waved his hand again.

To tell the truth, he was quite conflicted.

The little girl’s brain damage indeed might require a rehabilitation method that originated from Inner Strength.

However, Xiang Shan wasn’t sure if such rehabilitation methods were still legally practiced in this era.

Because it’s hard to differentiate this kind of therapy from “Cultivation of Inner Strength”—the difference lies entirely in the mental activities the brain undergoes after drug injections.

And cultivating Inner Strength is almost synonymous with “becoming a Hero” and “renouncing protection.”

Yet Xiang Shan was not keen on taking a clueless child along with him on heroic quests.

This was for the sake of the little girl as well as for his own.

If one hadn’t deeply contemplated their own situation and the world’s before mindlessly remaining in the Jianghu, an encounter with a loudmouth could easily shake their resolve.

Zhang Xianchong was one such example.

This was indeed a big problem.

Luckily, it wasn’t something that needed to be solved immediately.

“Ah, one more thing, if you notice a large-scale mobilization of government forces, or if I haven’t arrived after three days, don’t wait any longer,” Xiang Shan waved his hand and walked alone through the city.

Xiang Shan was now walking in the shadow of a super skyscraper.

The building’s shadow covered the entire block, stretching out to the outskirts of the city.

Meanwhile, Xiang Shan lowered the priority of his vision to sense the ubiquitous signals within the city.

These signals could be civilian, but they could also belong to the military forces of the Lords.

The ubiquity of signal stations was meant to form a massive Military Formation composed of the city’s soldiers and Martial Artists to hunt down Heroes in necessary moments.

When required, Protectors could issue a Command, paralyzing most of the civilians’ Prosthetic Bodies to ensure operations against powerful individuals didn’t inadvertently harm others.

All civilians could potentially become the eyes and ears of the government.

Xiang Shan’s will surged.

A flood of data was written into his chip, resetting the registry, forging MAC addresses.

His consciousness sank into a space he imagined.

In this Virtual Space, network information would materialize in a tangible form.

Network Meditation Room, let’s begin.

He was in deep meditation, altering his thinking pattern, shifting a corner of his thoughts into a hypertext format, becoming a part of the network, stuffing the “abstract” sensations into the network supported by Boolean calculations.

This is the “World Wide Web Meditation Technique”—a cultivation technique more advanced than HTML meditation.

During the exchange of information with the world, a Cultivator’s consciousness transforms more rapidly, nearer to the form required by hackers.

The “Network Meditation Room” could be seen as an auxiliary program for conducting World Wide Web meditation, offering a certain level of protection.

But Xiang Shan worried that the version of the network chat room he remembered may belong to the “completely outdated” category.

These cultivation techniques were definitely not “older is stronger.” The more ancient the “Network Meditation Room,” the easier it was to determine its characteristics, making it more vulnerable to being cracked.

Xiang Shan even fretted that if he launched the Network Meditation Room, the Lords might immediately pinpoint his exact location.

Therefore, he had to try it alone when fully prepared.

Xiang Shan felt his mind gradually quicken.

The Soth Divine Realm that had been silent for so long was reactivated.

More techniques related to Inner Strength bubbled up from his memory.

But in the next instant, he felt an indescribable sensation in his consciousness.

It was as if an “invisible hand” was obstructing the transmission of his signals.

Then, a cluster of information was sent his way.

The people around Xiang Shan trembled simultaneously and then shrieked as they ran away.

Xiang Shan blended into the crowd.

Because just a moment ago, everyone had the same experience.

An idea popped into their minds out of nowhere.

“Why are you still using such an ancient version of the Network Meditation Room?

Listen up, if it weren’t for me being here, you would have been finished!”

This matter could be known to the government very soon.

He must be cautious.

Xiang Shan wanted to respond but wasn’t sure if this was a “bait”—if he responded, would he be further pinpointed?

From what had just happened, the other party hadn’t sent the information cluster directly into his Prosthetic Body.

But in the end, Xiang Shan still replied cautiously, “Who are you?”