Galactic Dark Net

The necklace that his mother had left behind again let off bright lights, filling the sky with stars.

There was no set time for this chess game so Han stopped his game and observed.

Without a question, this was a star map.

It almost seemed like anything that came out of this weird necklace would always appear in the form of star maps. The last time this necklace activated, it allowed Han and his friend to find a place to settle down in the Cursed Zone near the blue lake that allowed them to level up quickly. They probably wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else that was more suitable for settling down.

But this time, it was nearing the end of Han’s chess game. If he won, then he would receive the Golden Tome, but if he lost, then his soul would be destroyed. This was definitely more important than finding a place to practice.

"If it is activated now, then there is probably some special meaning to it." Han murmured to himself.

He started to ignore what was happening on the chess board and started observing the star map.

It was like the stars in the universe, the sky was moving. If you observe carefully, you would notice the complex patterns that the stars moved in. The numerous stars were like a big river that continued to flow…

...

Unsure about how long had pa.s.sed, Han finally was able to refocus. He let out a sigh and said, "Oh, I get it."

Following Han’s sigh, the star map disappeared and Han closed his eyes and stopped looking at the chessboard.

Han randomly took off a chess piece from the chess board with his fingers, "I’ve been wrong all along, the chess board is like the sky. My biggest mistake was to try to predict it with normal logic. The only reason that the universe still exists is that everything was random and no one can predict their future."

Han stood up after he said that, and picked off a chess piece randomly again from the chessboard.

"If following this logic, then this chess challenge isn’t to test my chess talent or decision abilities, but rather me as a person."

Shoosh

He moved his fingers, and a third chess piece disappeared.

Han stopped obeying the so-called rules, those were all made up by himself. When this chess game had begun, n.o.body said there were any rules, Han was just supposed to play.

This was a cla.s.sic knowledge trap.

If a normal person saw the chessboard, regardless of whether he actually understood, he would always think that the chess board had rules because all chess games had rules.

But this chess board was like the universe. Did the universe have any set rules?

Han almost lost again, but luckily for him, the necklace appeared and gave him a very important hint.

Now Han understood. This chess game was not a test of his abilities but of his person. If he cared about whether he was going to lose, then he would really lose.

Shoosh~

Shoosh~

Shoosh~

Han increased his speed and started taking off all the chess pieces one by one. His eyes were closed and he picked chess pieces randomly.

Han started laughing. His heart was relaxed, and he played freely.

Shoosh~

When Han took off the last chess piece, this chess board that bothered him for a long time finally collapsed, like it never existed.

This challenge was simple in nature. Whoever could tell that it had no rules could win. Whoever could challenge the normal logic, could receive the Golden Tome!

Kach~

A golden bolt of lightning flashed in front of his eyes, shattering the original world, showing Han a new piece of land.

On the green plateau, there was a big tree, a tree that was even taller and stronger than the Tree G.o.d.

The tree waved its branches to welcome Han and said in an ancient and cool voice, "Congratulations, you now have the qualifications to inherit this Golden Tome."

Han smiled and said, "I almost lost to you, Galactic Chess my a.s.s! This stupid chess game was so reversed, losing was winning and winning was also losing! Your lies confused me so much!"

The tree said, "Not lies."

"Then what is it?" Han asked.

"It is a test." The tree explained, "The soul is a super power. It evolved from regular energy, and the Golden Tome can help obtain a super level soul power."

"If it was just to enhance my normal soul power then fine, but a super level soul power requires an out of the box att.i.tude. If you can’t jump out of the chess board’s limitation, then how do you prove that you can go above and beyond and break all the rules?"

"The strongest souls are never restricted by anything."

Han pressed his lips together, "This makes sense. You are looking for the heir of the Golden Tome, and you need a person who is different from everyone else. More courageous and not restricted by any rules. But the last person to have this Golden Tome, Sky Howling Wolf, was like that? From what I know, he was very easy to get along with."

The tree laughed loudly, "Of course, Sky Howling Wolf obviously could’ve taken over this Cursed Zone, but he chose to stay quiet and help the normal tribes to draw a star map that n.o.body else could’ve imagined. Isn’t this above and beyond? Isn’t this jumping away from the rules? If it was anyone else, if they had the power, why would they help others? Isn’t it better to conquer?

"Uh…" Han was suddenly at a loss for words, "I guess Sky Howling Wolf was pretty different."

The big tree continued, "Of course, every generation of heirs for the Golden Tome is different."

"Did you know that Sky Howling Wolf could’ve lived forever, but he chose to naturally die of age?"

"Sky Howling Wolf had incredible talents as a warrior, but he chose a life of reading instead of fighting and practicing."

"You probably understand now, Sky Howling Wolf is really different. He was very low key, if it was anyone else, they would’ve conquered the world, but he chose a normal life, to read, and die of old age like a normal person."

Han understood and said, "Wow, he is definitely odd! He has the ability to live forever but he let himself die? I would never do that, a wise man once said, to die beautifully is not any better than living lamely."

He smiled and asked the tree, "I haven’t asked, but who are you?"

The tree said, "I am the guardian of the Golden Tome, Jie. As for the Golden Tome, you should know by now that it is just a training dimension, and the s.p.a.ce is within me."

After Jie finished talking, he started slowly turning. On the other side of his big body was a hole. It was dark, and Han couldn’t see what was inside.

Han asked, "If I want to practice my soul energy, I need to enter your body?"

"Yes." Jie said, "I will practice with you and give you tips. It has always been like this."

"Who made this rule?" Han asked out of curiosity.

"The Golden Family," Jie answered.

"Golden Family? I heard that they are not exactly ‘benevolent’." Han said shockingly.

Jie said lightly, "The Golden Family is made up of various branches, including tens of thousands of branch types. They are all different, they are all from the Golden Family but they just all have different statuses."

"In the family, the people with the highest status are the Golden Spirits. Other than the fact that they have a golden bloodline, they also have turned into human forms through genetic modification or long periods of practicing."

"Based on what I know, the Golden Family has split into two. One of the branches thinks the Golden Family has the best bloodline on the reverse side of the universe, and they should control everything."

"But the people I work for is the other branch. They advise that all intelligent lives should keep the peace because the Golden Family only differs by bloodline from everyone else. That is only because we were evolved from different spores. Nothing too special."

Han smiled, "So there is the peaceful party and the aggressive party? I guess all intelligent life is the same, there are good people and bad people everywhere."

"It is exactly like this." Jie said, "You are someone who does not have the golden bloodline, but you can still inherit the Golden Tome. It is because our branch of the bloodline thinks everyone is the same. Just because your bloodline is red and different from us does not mean we will reject you."

"It looks like you really admire the Golden Family," Han said with a smile.

Jie shook his head, "I only admire the peaceful branch of the Golden Family because I am of the Clan of Spiritual Plants. We were born to love peace, so I will help whoever supports peace."

Han waved his hand and said, "Unfortunately, I don’t really support peace. If someone irritates me or annoys me, I definitely would fight back. Would I be called an Avenger?"

Jie said, "Yes, unfortunately, you are not a protector of peace, but I am only responsible for teaching you about your soul energy and take you to practice. I don’t care about anything else. Let us begin, this will be the first lesson. I will take you to learn what soul is. Come into my body."

Han nodded and walked into the dark tree hole with excitement.

As he was walking into the tree hole, he noticed that he could no longer find the entrance. In the dark, a lot of stars lit up. They formed star systems, star zones, star rivers. It was almost as if Jie’s body contained a whole universe.

In this big star river, a small white thing was evident. It was the spore that brought life to this world.

Rapidly, the first spore cracked into spores of different colors, and they kept on cracking and multiplying, spreading throughout the universe.

At the same time, Jie started talking.

"The person who made the Golden Tome added this video for a reason. He firmly believed that all life came from the same spore. Thus why everyone should be treated as equals. Regardless of whether it was a person, a beast, or a plant, they all came from the same spore. He hoped that everyone who learned from the Golden Tome will remember this rule and avoid any unnecessary conflicts and violence when possible. Regardless of whether the life is strong or weak, it adds value to the universe."

Jie continued to talk and explain how life was born into the world. The green spores turned into plants, the red spores turned into humans, the black spores turned to beings with dark power, and the golden spores made the golden bloodline.

This was the beginning of a movie. Even though Han was paying attention, he wasn’t that engaged.

Han was the type of person to not care about what people were. Even robots who didn’t have life were befriended by him and almost became his brothers.

Han cared about his friends. Even if it was a blade of gra.s.s, it could become Han’s friend too. Han wouldn’t discriminate them. If they needed Han, Han would give it his all to help, even risking his life.

Han had already formed his values. Jie thought watching a video about the beginning of life would change his mind and convince Han to love everyone? That was impossible! In Han’s eyes, enemies were enemies, friends were friends, they must be kept separate.

The video finished playing quickly, and then Jie started to explain to Han what a soul was.

All in all, the soul was a power of the mind. When intelligence had reached a certain level, people would have obsessions.

Even if a person focused on being a foodie, if his pa.s.sion for eating was strong enough, then it would turn into a formless energy, and become his soul.

This explanation allowed Han to understand how determination turned into a soul. There was nothing other than just being determined.

Mental power was of a low level. If there was a person whose wife was killed, he would become very angry, his heart would be filled with hatred. When people walked by him, they would clearly feel his anger and murderous thoughts. This would be the beginner level of mental power.

Under the influence of anger and hatred, this man might go seek revenge. At this time, he would be filled with an unexplainable energy. If an enemy hit him, he might not feel pain and would have no thoughts other than revenge. This is what mental power could bring him in a battle.

Han had experienced similar scenarios. A lot of times when his life depended on one thing, was the only thing that kept him alive his source energy?

No, it was his determination, his determination made him stronger and more powerful, and that was why he lived.

From this, you could see that mental power was extremely scary. It could make a person disregard life and death.

Mental power was very different from source energy. Source energy took shape and could be detected by machines. A person’s level of source energy will determine how many stars he has, and what level of warrior he is.

However, mental power could not be detected because it didn’t take shape, and because it was an undetectable energy, it improved a warrior’s abilities dramatically.

While in a fight, even if the warriors were disadvantaged but still had a lot of mental energy, they could still win. This was a phenomenon that could not be explained by any computer system. The weaker side laughed till the end even though they didn’t have the skills or weapons.

After explaining the power of mental energy, Jie said, "Your mental power is naturally powerful since you were selected to inherit the Golden Tome, but this isn’t the power of your soul. I need to teach you step by step how you can upgrade your mental power into your soul power."

Han was excited, "I had a friend. He is dead physically but he was preserved through a weird mental power, so my other friend placed his mental power into a fiber body and he was revived! Is that soul power?"

Jie said, "From your descriptions, this was definitely soul power. Your friend must be really incredible. His soul is at a point where it cannot die and it cannot be destroyed."

"When we usually talk about eternity, we are usually saying that if your source energy is high enough, then your cells can continue to replace themselves and stay active forever. Even if you do age, you won’t ever die. The dandruff on your head was an example of cell replacement. New cells replace old cells, and old cells get disposed of outside the body."

"But eternal life has a huge flaw! It is that one could be destroyed, maybe killed by another skillful master, or blown up by a laser cannon."

"But your soul won’t. Your soul is not physical, you can’t see it, you can’t touch it, but it is still so powerful!"

"There are two big advantages to soul power. One is that your ability to attack will be dramatically improved. The other is that you would achieve eternal life! Even if your body dies, your soul would still exist. In tens of millions of years, your soul can still find your enemy and avenge yourself. It would never ever disappear."

"And this is soul power!"

"What I am about to teach is soul power, but you can also view it as eternal life!"