manynovel Chapter 219 The Completely Folded Cultivation Class
Chapter 219 The Completely Folded Cultivation Class
At the end of the third year of the Alliance Era, in winter.
Shanghai Fortress City. This once world-renowned Oriental Pearl Tower, after experiencing disaster and reconstruction, now presents an almost absolute and suffocating "folded" state on both physical and social levels.
Looking up, the sky is no longer the blue sky and white clouds of the old days.
A massive, semi-transparent light curtain, woven from countless complex [Spirit Gathering Arrays], [Suspension Arrays], and [Defense Barriers], resembled an insurmountable dome ceiling, splitting the entire giant city, which covered an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers, into two levels.
Above the base lies the "Floating Inner City," which captures the pure sunlight and spiritual energy that transforms into rain from the high heavens. There, cranes soar in unison, spiritual plants abound, and the jade-paved streets are spotless. It is a paradise for cultivators and a very few high-level array scientists.
Beneath the base lies the "Lower Town," a place perpetually shrouded in darkness, illuminated only by flashing neon lights and psionic streetlights.
"Sizzle—"
A massive, heavily loaded psionic freight train, laden with unrefined, crude alloy sword blanks, roared through the air above the lower city. The friction between the wheels and the maglev tracks produced a deafening roar and sparks of blue light, briefly illuminating the muddy, crowded streets below.
At the street corner, Old Ding, leaning on his cobbled-together low-level rune mechanical prosthetic leg, silently wrapped his faded, oil-stained work clothes tighter around his body, and struggled to move forward amidst the crowded throng.
He had just finished his early shift at the Third Ordnance Factory. Ten consecutive hours of high-intensity assembly line work had caused his calloused hands to tremble slightly.
Old Ding is an ordinary person, an ordinary person without spiritual roots. In this vast population that makes up 80 percent of the world's total population, he is like an insignificant worker ant.
He walked to the official distribution station at the street corner and handed over the two [Spirit Crystal Coupons] stained with engine oil that he was holding in his hand.
"Ten catties of Crimson Blood Spirit Rice, plus two vials of low-grade nutrient solution," Old Ding said in a hoarse voice.
The ration station staff mechanically scanned the receipts and tossed out a heavy bag of red rice and two vials of green liquid.
By the end of the third year of the Alliance Era, famine had long become a thing of the past. The spirit rice cultivated in the Kunlun Spirit Plant Garden, although coarse in taste, had an enormous yield, enough to feed billions of mortals in the lower city every day, and even strengthen their bodies, making them rarely sick.
With ample food and clothing, by the standards of the old era, this should have been a perfect and prosperous age.
However, being able to eat one's fill does not equate to happiness, much less dignity.
Old Ding hoisted the rice sack onto his shoulder and glanced up at the cold, arrayed ceiling above him. Through the semi-transparent light barrier, he could vaguely see the dazzling sword lights weaving through the clouds above.
He knew that the people up there ate real mythical birds and beasts and drank from spiritual springs that could prolong life. As for them, the mortals living in the lower city, their only value was to maintain the operation of the lowest level of this enormous cultivation machine.
Class has been completely folded and welded shut.
In this cyber-cultivation era, there is no violent bloodshed or the whips and shackles of slavery. The way cultivators rule over mortals is a form of exploitation that is both extremely civilized and brutally cruel.
Mortal technology cannot analyze spiritual energy, and mortal factories can only use high-precision CNC machine tools to polish the physical shell of magical artifacts.
The Third Arsenal, where Lao Ding works, produces tens of thousands of "Black Steel Flying Swords" every day. All the workers exhaust their blood and sweat to cut these alloys, which are harder than diamonds, into perfect streamlined shapes before sending them to the Upper City.
Upon arriving in the Upper City, even a cultivator at the third level of Qi Refining only needs to take a cinnabar pen and casually draw a [Wind Control Array] and an [Armor-Piercing Array] on the sword blank, and the iron piece will instantly transform into a magical artifact capable of cutting through iron like mud and killing people from a thousand miles away.
Mortals create 99% of the physical labor, while cultivators take away 100% of the value and profit of this magical artifact with only 1% of "spiritual consecration".
Do you think it's unfair?
However, without that formation, even the most basic protective aura cannot be pierced by a flying sword created by an ordinary person.
An absolute power disparity led to an absolute monopoly on resources.
"Old Ding, look up there! Another 'immortal' has descended to earth!"
A fellow worker with a face covered in soot suddenly tugged at Lao Ding's sleeve, his tone filled with barely suppressed awe and excitement.
Old Ding stopped and looked in the direction his coworker pointed.
In the central square of the lower city, the originally crowded mortals seemed to part the sea as Moses did, and they consciously moved to both sides, creating a large open space.
A ripple appeared on the ceiling light screen, and a young cultivator who looked to be no more than twenty years old, wearing a blue Taoist robe from the outer sect of Kunlun, slowly landed on the muddy square, riding a flying sword that exuded a chilling sword aura.
A faint protective aura circulated around the young cultivator, completely isolating him from the pungent smell of engine oil and the stench of the lower city.
Before the young monk knelt an old man with a full head of white hair, dressed in an extremely elegant old-fashioned custom-made suit.
Old Ding knew that old man.
That was Martin Rockefeller, the tycoon who once wielded immense power on Wall Street.
But at this moment, this once-powerful capital tycoon was like a dying old dog, kneeling without dignity in the cold, dirty mud, his hands tightly clutching the young cultivator's boots.
"Immortal Master... I beg you, have mercy..."
Old Martin's voice was hoarse, like a broken bellows, and he trembled as he pulled a thick stack of transfer agreements from his pocket, stamped with the league's highest official seal.
"This is the ownership of the only thirteen heavy metal smelters I have left in North America, all to you! All to Kunlun! I only ask that you... grant me a 'Longevity Pill'!"
Old Martin's face was covered with age spots, a sign of death. He was too old; mortal medical technology could no longer stop his organs from failing. He possessed mountains of gold and silver, yet he couldn't buy even a single day of his life.
The young cultivator frowned slightly, a hint of undisguised disgust flashing in his eyes. With a light tap of his finger, a burst of true energy sent Old Martin flying half a meter away, preventing those filthy hands from soiling his Daoist robe.
"Thirteen smelting plants? A pile of mundane scrap metal, do you think they're worthy of being exchanged for my Kunlun orthodox elixirs?"
The young cultivator's voice was clear and cold, echoing throughout the entire square, "However, considering that your Rockefeller family has been doing hard work for my Kunlun base by mining spiritual veins these past few years, this pill is yours."
The young cultivator casually took out a jade bottle from his storage bag and, like feeding a dog, tossed a black pill emitting a faint medicinal fragrance into the muddy water on the ground.
"This is just a Lesser Rejuvenation Pill, which can extend your life by five years. After you take the medicine, send those agreements to the Outer Sect's Hall of Affairs."
Having said that, the young cultivator didn't even bother to look again. He pointed his sword and transformed into a streak of azure light, instantly soaring into the sky and piercing through the array's light barrier once more, returning to the high and mighty floating city.
In the square, Old Martin not only did not feel the slightest humiliation, but instead burst into an extremely fervent ecstasy.
He clutched the pill tightly in his palm, trembling with excitement. He suddenly looked up at the sky, his voice hoarse and feverish:
"Thank you, Immortal Master, for bestowing this medicine! Thank you, Kunlun, for your divine grace!!"
This scene was like an invisible hammer, striking the hearts of tens of thousands of ordinary onlookers.
Capital is worthless in the face of absolute immortality and power.
Wealth can be accumulated, power can be acquired, but spiritual roots are an insurmountable chasm for mortals. In this world, if you are born without spiritual roots, you are destined to kneel in the mud and gaze at the stars.
Old Ding silently withdrew his gaze and tossed the bag of Crimson Blood Spirit Rice on his shoulder upwards. His simple mechanical prosthetic limb emitted a faint grinding sound from the bearings in the cold air.
"Let's go, there's nothing to see."
Old Ding patted his coworker, who was still in a daze, his voice filled with a bottomless weariness and deathly stillness. "Gods have their way of living, and we ants have our way of dying. We still have to report to the workshop tomorrow."
Yes, lacking spiritual roots is the original sin.
In this cyberpunk cultivation era, the mortals of the lower city have long been thoroughly tamed by this hopeless social structure. They work, eat, and sleep in a routine manner, watching themselves slowly grow old while the high and mighty cultivators remain eternally youthful.
They couldn't even muster the thought of resistance. Because mortal gunpowder weapons couldn't even break through the most basic protective qi of a Qi Refining cultivator; mortal protests were as laughable as a baby's cry in the face of those extraordinary powers that could fly on swords and move mountains and seas.
The world appears prosperous on the surface, but inside it is stagnant. A poison called "peace of despair" is corrupting the souls of eighty percent of the planet's population.
Old Ding walked through the crowded streets and arrived at the huge and dilapidated rail transit hub in the downtown area.
This place is always crowded with ordinary people rushing about. On the enormous holographic projection screen, glaring red text flashes:
[Seven years remain until the ten-year deadline! All Alliance citizens are urged to remain at their posts and provide ample supplies to the frontline cultivation legions!]
Old Ding merely glanced at the warning hanging over humanity's heads with a numb expression.
A great calamity? That's something for the gods to worry about. Even if the sky really did collapse, the first to be crushed would be the big shots in the floating city. These mortals living in the gutter are already worthless; what do they have to fear?
"Beep—Identity verified. Please proceed to platform 3. The G32 psionic train is about to arrive."
A synthesized electronic voice rang in Lao Ding's ears.
He dragged his weary body down the rusty steel staircase. Today, he had brought with him the spirit crystal vouchers he had been saving for a long time, intending to take this intercity train to the black market in the neighboring satellite city to try his luck and see if he could buy some discarded herbal dregs from cultivators.
The platform was bitterly cold.
Old Ding stood outside the cordon, staring blankly at the straight track engraved with the acceleration array.
"Ugh—!!!"
From the dark tunnel in the distance came an extremely deep, terrifying roar, like that of an ancient behemoth.
Immediately afterwards, a strong wind arose.
A massive, silver-black steel behemoth, with a streamlined body that exudes an oppressive aura and covered in dense, dark blue runes, tore through the darkness of the earth and hurtled toward the platform with suffocating kinetic energy!
This is the G32 psionic train.
It is the pinnacle of the distorted combination of technology and cultivation, and also the most realistic microcosm of this completely folded era. As its doors slowly open, Old Ding will step into a cramped space with a class division so distinct that it is nauseating.