Night had deepened into a hush.
Even the spirit beasts in the nearby mountain forest had quieted, their song of wild qi dimming as starlight filtered through illusionary clouds.
Jiang Fan sat alone beneath a lacquered pavilion behind the academy's library—a rarely visited place where the silence was less hostile and the wind felt less watched.
He had taken to these nightly retreats with increasing regularity. Away from curious glances. Away from unspoken judgment. Away from young cultivators trying to glimpse the strange boy who birthed a world of steel.
The jade lamp above flickered once, then steadied.
That was his cue.
With a flick of thought, Jiang Fan activated his mental uplink to the planetary system. A soft pulse echoed through his mind, then the stars above seemed to dim as his interface unfolded across his vision.
He wasn't just in Star Origin Academy anymore.
He was home.
[Planetary System – Neural Access Point Established]
Cycle: 03.04Energy Efficiency: 114% (Optimal Threshold Surpassed)Civilian AI Nodes Active: 4,182Military Subroutine Access: LockedResearch Queues: 18Priority: Weaponized Drone Intelligence (Phase Alpha)Status: 8% Completed
Jiang Fan's gaze narrowed slightly.
Only eight percent.
The constraints here were more stifling than he'd anticipated. Even a fully self-replicating technological civilization required delicate calibration during its early evolution. Resources were still finite. Computing arrays were limited by atmospheric ionization and orbital decay cycles.
But the real limit…
...was him.
He couldn't channel true origin energy the way cultivators could. His "planet" wasn't empowered by flowing qi, divine invocations, or prayer offerings.
It was empowered by design.
By algorithms. By feedback loops. By evolutionary self-repair.
He was feeding it information slowly—carefully curating what seeds of thought and function he allowed to sprout within the AI cores.
Too fast, and it would spiral into instability.
Too slow, and he would fall behind.
Especially now, with Lin Ye watching.
Jiang Fan exhaled, his fingers twitching subtly in a rhythm older than this world—a code-tap gesture used by engineers in his past life to transmit silent commands.
Initiate Protocol RAZORSEED-17.Expand research matrix to include subatomic lattice destabilization theory.Redirect microfusion outputs from hydroponics to core armament labs.
[Command Received – Reprioritizing Energy Distribution][Warning: Civilian Growth Efficiency Reduced by 11.4%][Proceed?]
"Yes," he whispered aloud. "Proceed."
There could be no civilization without defense.
And no survival without teeth.
The Next Day: Minor Hostilities
Jiang Fan noticed the change almost immediately.
His meditation mat had been moved—ever so slightly—outside the line of spiritual convergence. The flow of qi here was still, like dead air, while the other students basked in gentle waves of vitality.
A petty sabotage.
He adjusted his posture without complaint, closing his eyes and breathing slow.
He didn't need their qi.
He had electricity.
When he returned to his dormitory, he found one of his simulation stones cracked. Another had been scribbled over with spiritual ink—likely meant to disrupt the rune-inscribed logic nodes within.
Another child's trick.
He didn't report it.
He didn't retaliate.
He simply… adapted.
Simulation interface rerouted to hidden node cluster beneath bed frame.Backup power crystals realigned into shielding lattice.Emergency uplink re-coded to quantum resonance bandwidth.
Let them sabotage stones and disrupt ink.
He was already building beyond that.
Evening Lecture – The Elder's Challenge
Elder Mu had not taken notice of Jiang Fan before.
But now he did.
Perhaps it was pressure from the upper sects. Perhaps it was Lin Ye's subtle whispers. Or perhaps it was simple curiosity—the kind that festered in the hearts of men who had only ever known one kind of power.
That night, during the public lecture on planetary synchronization rituals, Elder Mu paused his speech and fixed his eyes on Jiang Fan.
"You. The one with the mechanical world."
Dozens of heads turned.
Jiang Fan rose slowly, his hands still tucked in his sleeves, his gaze calm.
"Elder."
"Do you understand what you've made?" the old man asked, voice clear and laced with quiet disdain. "Do you know the consequence of denying the Dao of Life?"
A ripple of murmurs moved through the audience.
Jiang Fan answered without blinking. "Life is not confined to flesh and spirit. It is found in purpose. In growth. In memory."
Elder Mu's eyes narrowed. "You walk a cold path. One that ends in ruin. We've seen civilizations like yours before. They burn hot. Fast. Then fall."
"I'm not walking their path," Jiang Fan said.
A pause.
"I'm making a new one."
The elder smiled without warmth. "We shall see. Your planet will be evaluated again during the Inter-Academy Trials. If it cannot withstand pressure—if it cannot evolve under fire—it will be deemed unstable."
The implication was clear.
Fail, and your path is closed.
Fall, and your planet dies.
Jiang Fan bowed once, then sat back down.
He heard the laughter of students behind him. Heard the whispers, the scoffs.
But he didn't feel fear.
He felt pressure.
And pressure, to a system like his, meant fuel.
Planet Core: Restricted Lab Zone
That night, Jiang Fan initiated access to a deeper sector of his planet.
[Accessing Sector VERMILLION – Warning: Protocol Integrity at 71%][Containment Lattice Nominal][Enter Alpha-Class Research Vault?]
"Yes."
The vault opened virtually—a network of simulated tunnels, magnetic fields, and zero-gravity thought spaces designed to house the most volatile computations.
Inside, a single artifact rotated in place—a prototype.
No, an idea.
A concept pulled from his past life's bleeding-edge weapon theory: a particle-folding torpedo with localized gravity-well implosion, designed to erase small-scale matter targets.
In his world, it was banned.
Here?
Here, it could be salvation.
[Weapon Codename: TWO-WAY FOIL (Stage Zero)]Progress: 1.2%Stability: UnknownRecommended Test: Planetary Micro-Moon Core (Uninhabited)
Jiang Fan didn't activate the test.
Not yet.
But he knew the time would come.
The world of cultivation revered destruction that came from fiery breath or falling swords from the sky.
They had not yet seen what precision meant.
They had not yet met a civilization that would stare down a dragon and fire a rail-cannon through its skull.