Then all my cultivation as an immortal has been for nothing?

Chapter 19 Demonic Cultivation and Science & Technology

The morning's basic exercises session ended quickly.

After leaving the training machine, Wang Yi used his new senses to "look" at himself and, sure enough, saw that the energy on his body no longer had a double image.

Currently, only the externally operated skill set is available.

Wang Yi turned to Elsa and saw that she was scrolling through her phone, so he asked, "What are you looking at?"

"Stupid short video." Elsa turned off the short video app on her phone, stood up, and stretched. "How was it?"

"That's interesting. I've grasped a little of the trick."

At this moment, the old man I met yesterday came over: "Among their demon race, the great demons who can naturally evolve intelligence skip many parts, such as how to sense qi. She can't give you any advice on that."

"As for me, I have exceptionally rich experience in this area! You just need to submit a report, and you can be transferred to my team—"

Wang Yi glanced at the old man's wrinkled face, then at Elsa's flawless skin and bluish-white hair, and decisively interrupted the old man: "No need, I think Elsa is teaching quite well."

"Hmph." The old man shook his head. "Lust is a knife above one's head. If a cultivator's six senses are not pure, he will most likely fall into demonic cultivation."

Elsa: "I think you're more likely to become a demonic cultivator. You haven't taught any powerful disciples in a long time, have you? Can you still afford the Longevity Pill? Because you can't afford the Longevity Pill, you've turned to evil—this kind of thing is quite common among old cultivators."

"You don't need to worry, I have plenty of reserves!"

"Hey, you haven't taught any outstanding students in so long, yet you have so much knowledge. You wouldn't happen to be selling things on the black market of the demonic cultivators, would you?"

Wang Yi: "Can demonic cultivators really organize a black market in the human dimension?"

“Of course it can.” Elsa shrugged. “Powerful demonic cultivators are easy to detect, while weak demonic cultivators are hard to find as long as they don’t do anything outrageous. The Nine Cauldrons Barrier can also protect them because the barrier will erase all memories of ordinary people witnessing demonic cultivators and eradicate all the influence they left behind.”

Elsa used her phone to bring up the company's internal news page and showed it to Wang Yi.

Wang Yi had also seen that page; it was full of reports on the pursuit of demonic cultivators, looking just like news reports.

Elsa selected a news article and explained, "Look at this demonic cultivator. He raises a few chickens in a remote area and slowly absorbs their souls. After a few days, once the Nine Cauldrons have repaired themselves, he continues to absorb. Apart from the gradual breakdown of that person's personality, you can't really tell anything."

"It was only after people visiting the countryside to help alleviate poverty that they discovered something was wrong and reported it that the Social Affairs Department of the Field Affairs Bureau took notice and sent special agents to investigate for two weeks before they located the demonic cultivator and killed him."

Wang Yi made an "Eh" sound.

Elsa didn't forget her original purpose. After explaining, she turned to the old man and said, "Hmph, maybe you've already become a demonic cultivator, just hiding it well! I suggest we rush to search your lair right now and see if there are any longevity pills that don't match the company's exchange records!"

Old man: "Hmph, let the company search if they want. I've done nothing wrong, so I have nothing to fear! Even if I die of old age, I'll die a natural death. Disciple, let's go!"

With that, the old man left with his apprentice.

Elsa looked at Wang Yi: "Disciple, let's go too!"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

That afternoon, Wang Yi's lesson plan was on basic physical skills.

The class was held in the company gym.

Wang Yi was stunned when he saw his teacher: "Old Shi?"

Yes, the vanguard of the Nightingale Squad, the little giant "Old Stone".

Old Shi glanced at Wang Yi, but didn't speak to him alone. Instead, he said to everyone, "Hello, some of you may have already heard from Master that I was originally a field agent in the field department, but during the attack the day before yesterday, one of my companions was possessed by a demonic cultivator and turned into a monster."

"The human resources department believed that my mental state was no longer suitable for me to continue working in the field department, so they transferred me here to be a physical training instructor."

Pang Jianming raised his hand.

"Pang Jianming, what do you want to ask?" Old Shi had clearly done his homework and recognized everyone's face.

Pang Jianming: "Is it true that physical skills are not important when cultivating immortality by transferring psychologically traumatized field agents to teach physical techniques?"

Wang Yi was observing the internal energy circulating in Lao Shi's body when he heard Pang Jianming say this, so he looked at Lao Shi's face.

The little giant wasn't angry: "You could say that. After all, the production of pills like the 'Power Pill' is very high now. People with stable Dao hearts can develop a very strong physique by eating these pills. This is one of the many benefits of modern industry for cultivating immortality."

"However, physical training is also a part of cultivating one's Dao heart, and it cannot be completely abandoned. Pang Jianming, in order to make you understand this point, your afternoon class is to stand on plum blossom stakes for an afternoon to cleanse your mind and experience the effect of physical training on the Dao heart. After that, write a 500-word reflection report."

Wow, you can't tell from his appearance, could he actually be super angry?
At this moment, Lao Shi looked at Wang Yi.

"There are some familiar faces among the classmates. Come on, Wang Yi, you've faced danger before. Do you think physical skills are useful?"

Wang Yi said confidently, "It's extremely useful. If my body hadn't been well-trained, I would never have been able to survive the monster!"

Elsa: "Look at your frail arms before you say that."

I want you to take care of it!
Old Shi: "Your master is right. Judging from your appearance, you probably haven't taken the 'power pill' yet, right? In order to reduce the consumption of painkillers when you take the 'power pill' in the future, I'm going to give you a stronger dose."

No!
Wang Yi looked at Lao Shi walking towards him and subconsciously took a step back.

Elsa, standing nearby, scoffed indifferently, "Judging from your reaction, they just want to train you, not punish you. What are you afraid of? Even if you were punished, we immortals have plenty of methods more effective than Ma Yinglong!"

Sorry, I'm only 23 years old, not old enough to understand how amazing Ma Yinglong is!
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Wang Chengyan began her afternoon work as usual. Just then, her good friend Liu Chun from the next department quietly slipped to her workstation: "Ayan~"

As she spoke, Liu Chun grabbed Wang Chengyan's neck from behind, pretending to choke him: "You traitor, you found the meal ticket and didn't tell the sisters!"

Many people in the department turned to look. The women all had expressions of curiosity, while the men's expressions were much more complicated, and they all tried their best to avoid looking over.

Wang Chengyan: "What meal ticket? My upstairs neighbor, a recent college graduate, paid for both of my meals."

The gentlemen all turned their heads away.

—Wang Chengyan is so good-looking, he's actually paying me to be his goddess. Could it be that a goddess is right next to me?

Liu Chun: "Got it, play the long game to catch the big fish! Tell me, did the background check reveal that he's a rich kid here to experience life? I saw the photos you posted yesterday, the one peeking out from the corner, it's definitely a tri-fold fold! What young person would use that? It must be the taste of the 'emperor' in the rich kid's family."

Wang Chengyan was shocked: "Huh? You took a picture? I only wanted to take a picture of the scenery, after all, the view from that rooftop is quite nice."

"I took a picture of it; it's in the reflection of the wine glass!"

"Huh? You can do that?" Wang Chengyan was greatly shocked.

"Hmph, confess honestly!"

“I don’t know much about his family situation, but I know that he bought that tri-fold folded jacket with a credit card,” Wang Chengyan said with a smile. “It seems he went to a good company this time, so he bought it on a whim.”

Liu Chun frowned: "That's unreliable? Well... I get it, he's super handsome, isn't he?"

Wang Chengyan thought for a moment: "It's alright, it is quite interesting. But he and I are really just neighbors. Can't I, as someone who's been through it all, express some goodwill to my neighbor who's just entered the melting pot of society? Can't we be less calculating?"

Just then, the company's CEO walked past the glass wall of the office area.

"It's over!" Liu Chun immediately stood up, picked up a document from the table at random, and said, "I'll give it to you later."

After saying that, she pretended to have finished the coordination work and turned to leave the office.

Wang Chengyan sighed and continued to worry about today's work.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The demonic cultivator "Boss Qian" gave a final check on the configured web crawler and filtering AI.

In the past, when demonic cultivators wanted to investigate something, they always had to use all sorts of evil methods, which often resulted in attracting righteous cultivators instead of finding the truth.

Now, web crawlers combined with AI filtering can complete the most basic intelligence gathering.

Most importantly, the powerful figures among the demonic cultivators basically don't use this kind of advanced modern technology.

Because demonic cultivators practice their techniques and consume too many things they shouldn't, most of them are somewhat mentally unstable, and mentally unstable people generally can't handle modern technology.

In the future, there may be cultivators familiar with modern technology who become powerful demonic cultivators, but that is a matter for the future.

After completing the final check, Mr. Qian pressed Enter.

The "host" next to him, assembled from 20 graphics cards, immediately ran at full power, and the air blown out by the cooling fan noticeably increased in temperature.

The intelligent cooling system increased the operating speed of all the fans, filling the entire room with a buzzing noise.

A large amount of information was crawled out one by one and then analyzed by AI.

One minute later, the results began to be output one by one to Mr. Qian's main screen.

The first ten messages were mostly useless junk information, so it seems there's room for improvement in the AI.

Just then, a photo on social media caught Mr. Qian's attention.

He zoomed in on the secondary screen to enlarge the photo.

It was a photo of a girl drinking on a rooftop; she was wearing pajamas and looked quite relaxed.

But Mr. Qian's attention was entirely focused on the corner of the photo.

He asked the AI, "Are there any signs of photo editing in the corners of this picture?"

AI: "There are slight signs of photo editing."

Generally speaking, cameras cannot capture supernatural things, but sometimes the Nine Cauldrons Barrier fluctuates.

The lackeys of the Imperial Observatory would monitor these photos. In the past, they usually used communication techniques to cover them up, such as producing a program called "Approaching Science" to warn the public.

The Imperial Observatory now also uses AI to monitor these photos and modify them the moment they are released.

Mr. Qian: "Decompile and deduce what the unmodified photo looks like."

AI: "Execute immediately."

Of course, even if the Nine Cauldrons fluctuate, not every supernatural event can be captured.

The phenomenon that can be captured on camera must be an extremely powerful supernatural phenomenon.

For example, a powerful demon that has lost its demon core.

The AI ​​output a decompiled image, showing a rather large white cat crouching next to the woman on the rooftop railing.

　The new book ranking algorithm has changed; monthly votes are more important now. I'm asking for your monthly votes!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)