Forging the Spirit Manual (《铸灵诀》)
Memory-expanding items were even more bizarre than physical enhancers. As usual, the Allworlds Marketplace showed Li Chuan three options, along with a note:
“Due to the rarity of neural domain expansion items, some displayed items exceed user Li Chuan’s purchasing power and are for display only.”
In other words, the system mocked his poverty again.
Li Chuan was about to get mad, but after seeing the prices, he had to admit—it was right.
Item 1: Neuro-Nebula Diffusion Fluid
- Price: 1,000,000 Allworld Coins
- Origin: A now-extinct high-dimensional world
- Use: A brain surgery-injected mist that spreads invisible nano-neurons like a galactic nebula, eventually filling the universe and letting the user control any connected being.
- Side Effect: Leads to extinction of all life and ultimately starves the user alone in a dead world.
- Note: Originally worth over 100 million, discounted due to extreme side effects.
Li Chuan: “…”
He suddenly understood how that high-dimensional world went extinct.
No way was he buying that—even if it were free.
The other two items were affordable, but problematic.
Item 2: Queen Bee Consciousness Assimilator
- Price: 5,000 Coins
- Origin: Mech-Bee World
- Use: Honey-like injection that turns the brain into a hive structure, expanding mental space via worker bee consciousness nodes.
- Side Effect: Makes users feel like they should serve the queen. With a strong enough mind, you could overthrow her and become the new Mech-Bee King.
Li Chuan: “Who buys this stuff?!”
He understood why other worlds might sell this junk—but not why anyone would buy it.
Then came the third option:
Item 3: Forging the Spirit Manual – Fragment One (Copy)
- Price: 3,000 Coins
- Origin: Seeker World
- Use: A damaged bamboo-scroll mind technique said to expand the sea of consciousness. The marketplace could translate it, but not restore the missing words.
- Note: No proven side effects, but none of the three prior buyers could cultivate it. It might be a fake—buyer beware.
Despite the warning, Li Chuan’s heart leapt. He had read many such novels in his past life—this was worth a gamble.
Thanks to his recently exchanged IQ points, his brain was running like a freshly cleared CPU. Fast and smooth.
While there were many physical enhancer items available at his budget, neural expansion items were rare—so rare they had to show a million-coin item just to fill the shelf.
His choice was clear:
- Do nothing, and be forever capped at 150 IQ. Surpass it, and risk death.
- Or spend 3,300 coins (including a 10% transaction fee) and take the risk.
If it didn’t work, he still had enough IQ points to trade for 12,500 coins—more than enough to buy the “Earth Dragon Marrow Fluid” he’d wanted. He could afford the gamble.
He first exchanged all his irrelevant knowledge—physics, chemistry, biology, and computer languages—for 5,000 coins.
“Knowledge really is money,” Li Chuan marveled.
He spent 3,300 on the manual, receiving both the original and a translated version.
The translated copy, in the universal Allworld tongue, was a mess: bad grammar, missing words, completely incomprehensible. No wonder no one could train with it.
But to his shock, the original was written in Traditional Chinese from his past life!
His unique background meant only he could understand the scroll. Even better, thanks to Daoist texts he’d read in his last life, he could guess the missing characters.
As he read, something stirred deep in his soul. Mysterious characters awakened ancient memories, guiding his thoughts like rivers in flood. He entered a state of mental flow and completed one full circulation of the technique.
When he came to, his head felt lighter, less swollen and clumsy than before. His IQ hadn’t changed, but the physical tension from hormonal expansion was easing.
He asked the system for a mirror.
System: “Available in prices ranging from 100 to 10 million coins. Which would you like?”
Li Chuan: “Free.”
System: “None available.”
Li Chuan: “Was your algorithm written by capitalist overlords?”
He decided to wait until he reached the human city to find a normal mirror.
More importantly, his postnatal knowledge IQ had increased from 78 to 130—a 52-point gain!
He had hoped for some increase, but this was way beyond expectations. The 52 points could be exchanged for 5,200 coins—more than the manual cost!
Li Chuan: “Why? How can a 3,000-coin manual give me 5,200 coins’ worth of IQ?”
System: “IQ gain doesn’t depend on what you learn, but what you understand. The same manual could give someone else 0, or 100+ points.”
Li Chuan understood. Like math, some grasp it deeply, others struggle with homework. The value isn’t the knowledge, it’s the insight.
His personal interpretation of Forging the Spirit Manual was far more valuable than its literal content.
And now, he realized why his knowledge points were so sought-after in the Allworlds system. To buy someone’s IQ was to inherit their insight—not just facts.
Flush with points, he planned to finally buy the “Earth Dragon Marrow Fluid”… but first, he needed to back up his memory.
Some knowledge—like computer science—he couldn’t relearn in this world.
Li Chuan: “Can I buy back the knowledge I sold? Like computer programming?”
System: “Yes. Basic knowledge backup costs 20,000 coins. Your personal version? 100,000 coins.”
Li Chuan: “…Aren’t you overcharging? That’s 30x the price!”
System: “As energy, your IQ is worth little. As knowledge, especially knowledge from beyond Allworlds, it’s priceless.”
“We price energy fairly. But buyers pay based on value.”
“Allworlds Marketplace is fair, transparent, and just. No hidden fees.”
Li Chuan: “If I get rich later, can I buy it and stop you from reselling it?”
System: “Buyout cost: 200,000 coins.”
Li Chuan rolled his eyes.
“So black-hearted. All platforms are the same.”
Still, no matter the cost, he had to back up his memories. He wasn’t letting the system profit off his intellect again.
