Chapter Sixty-Nine: Threads of Divine Mandate

Mouse holes often hold unexpected wonders.

Without psychic vision to detect traces of spatial arts, and lacking sufficient experience, one might easily overlook hidden rewards. This is precisely why, during treasure hunts in certain artificial divine realms, martial artists are eager to enlist a couple of certified Taoist adepts, whether they’re useful or not. Psychic vision is simply too practical—so essential, in fact, that it’s become a required skill for every cultivator.

At first glance, the peach grove appeared utterly unremarkable.

But within this isolated pocket of space, the density of spiritual force was overwhelming; to colorless eyes, it seemed layered like a thick carpet, meticulously woven over itself multiple times.

In terms of sheer quantity—

The continuous vigor of spiritual power here was staggering. To maintain such longevity, one would have to drain thirty martial artists of the Manifestation realm, with the assistance of an Illusory expert, just to replicate it.

Clearly, this was no proper laboratory or relic from a previous era. It likely lacked even a mechanical annihilation furnace or a bio-psionic reactor. Rather, it seemed some powerful figure, in a moment of inexplicable madness, had left behind a low-grade synthetic beast and a trace of power—perhaps for field observation.

Lan Yi obliterated the snake-man into dust.

Even if he ignored it,

The mouse hole here in Peach Blossom Village, without its regularly harvested synthetic beast, would probably disappear within a few years, erased by the natural order.

But before its dissolution,

Lan Yi could explore with impunity, as if lifting a lady’s dress—utterly unrestrained.

The path, confusing to ordinary folk and even martial artists, posed no challenge for Lan Yi. Though he appeared to wander in circles—three steps forward, five steps back, sometimes standing still, occasionally breaking into a sudden run—he traversed the space with ease.

Had an ordinary person followed Lan Yi,

They would have been astonished to find that the immortal master seemed to shrink or expand, near or far at will, before vanishing altogether at the end of a winding path.

It was as if he’d passed through a curtain of water.

Suddenly, the scenery of the peach grove transformed.

Unknown glowing orbs hung from bone pillars, and in the brightly lit center stood a pool for storing biomass, while nearby a control console, pulsing with a gory, biomechanical aesthetic, awaited.

“This must be the so-called tribute pearl,” Lan Yi murmured, plucking a glowing orb from its perch.

The saying goes, you don’t notice the radiation when you’re inside the core.

These quail-egg-sized pearls were products of bioengineering. Within them, synthesized high-energy titanium minerals radiated a gentle light, illuminating the surroundings as long as they avoided exposure to air. In the Daoist arts, they were called merman pearls. For certain psionicists who specialized in light and fire, they were fine materials, capable of amplifying specific spells—or serving as single-use flash grenades.

Unfortunately, for Lan Yi, who practiced electric and magnetic arts, they were of little use.

After harvesting a couple dozen, he stopped.

There was a drawback: if stockpiled in great numbers, they could trigger a chain explosion.

Next, Lan Yi examined the incubation pool.

Half the size of a sports field, it lay in lifeless silence. Below were two cultivation chambers; one contained something, though whatever was inside no longer showed signs of life, remaining inert even when zapped by [Canghua]. The empty chamber must have belonged to the deceased snake-man outside—equally worthless.

The core of this mouse hole struck Lan Yi as hastily assembled.

It felt as if someone had crash-landed in this artificial divine realm, erected a base in a rush, then departed just as quickly.

Along the periphery,

It was obvious the construction was unfinished, rough marks everywhere.

Its history and origins would remain a mystery. In artificial divine realms, countless such places existed. Unless they held critical information, few psionicists bothered to investigate—most only scavenged for useful spoils.

Lan Yi fiddled with the control console.

Though it still maintained some vital signs, time had worn away even bioelectric and natural responses from this grotesque, flesh-punk apparatus.

Fortunately, the item Lan Yi sought was still intact.

With [Canghua] slicing and dismantling the arched, coiled arm above the console, sparks flying all the while, Lan Yi finally—after sacrificing a good handful of hair—carefully extracted a triple-helix tube device.

Its interior was most peculiar:

A substance in perpetual transition between solid, liquid, and gas.

Biomaterial: Hyper-Proliferative Solution.

Purpose: To break through isolation, dismantle hydrogen bonds, and produce psionic effects.

Originally, the main world developed it to combat rampant plagues and curses—dismantling their origins flawlessly, then using psionics to reverse-engineer vaccines or counterspells. Later, it became the key to breaking reproductive barriers, enabling humans to forcibly crossbreed with nonhuman species, and even to conquer the Broodmother of the Swarm.

But the Hyper-Proliferative Solution was extremely dangerous.

Lan Yi recalled

One artificial divine realm he’d experienced was devastated by leakage of this and similar biotools, creating planetary-scale genetic contamination. All life—flora and fauna—became a grotesque amalgam, their forms warped and monstrous, a veritable biological apocalypse.

If Old Devil Lan’s hand slipped,

And he smashed this tube, then walked away,

Within a few years, Artificial Divine Realm 1909 would be hosting an unlimited cross-species battle royale.

“With this, the first wave of the great plague can be nipped in the bud, ninety-nine percent certain,” Lan Yi thought, wrapping the tube with [Canghua] and tucking it in his sleeve.

He planned to keep a little as an antidote, but the rest he’d trade to the world powers—perhaps for access to space laboratories, proton accelerators, priority Earth-Moon routes, various nuclear plants, or participation in outer space projects.

It was a deal with no downside.

In these turbulent times, Old Devil Lan was waving cash to harvest premium assets that only the five great powers could afford to build.

If other reincarnators were here,

They wouldn’t make things so easy—lest this doomsday madman feast alone.

But Lan Yi didn’t mind.

As long as one superpower agreed, it was a win. And if they tried to renege, he’d show all five how psionicists collect debts—his methods made the American IRS look tame. If they dared default, they’d best prepare for Old Devil Lan’s iron fist.

Merman pearls and the Hyper-Proliferative Solution, safely stowed.

Having collected the spoils of the mouse hole, Lan Yi wasted no time. He left the core area at once—no need to bother destroying it. With its energy supply gone, it would likely fade into the cracks of space-time before long.

Just as Lan Yi was hastening out of the peach grove,

A flash of insight burst across his mind—a warning honed by experience as a psionicist. He halted abruptly.

“Wait, this isn’t right.”

“The experiment logs are missing, but by standard protocol, any emergency landing site should have an anti-diffusion safeguard.”

“Where is the safeguard?”

“Could it be that the clue to the Divine Mandate’s tangled threads, confirmed by Jin, lies here…”