276: Chapter 277 Moral Character Shattered, System's Makeshift Team

The third day.

The temperature in the karst cave was significantly higher than outside. With the geothermal heat and the energy radiation from the essence, it felt like it was in the low thirties.

Lin Qi sat cross-legged on the bluestone platform, motionless.

It had been three days.

In the first two days, he had pushed his physical condition to its limit. The efficiency of his internal organs' Five Elements circulation had improved by a whole level compared to before he entered the cave.

This was thanks to the high concentration of primitive source matter in the surroundings. Outside, he needed to actively "search" for essence to absorb, but here, the essence would automatically surge toward him.

It was like soaking in a hot spring; you don't need to consciously drink water, as your skin will absorb moisture on its own.

But starting from the third day, a problem arose.

He attempted to use the Five Elements Law to deconstruct the essential structure of the primitive source matter.

He failed.

It wasn't just one failure; he had failed thirty-seven times in a row.

Every time he tried to use internal True Qi to "touch" the core structure of the primitive source matter, that unprocessed clump of energy would resist violently, like an untamed mustang that refused to let you saddle it.

"This thing is wilder than I thought. It's like a pile of ancestral legacy spaghetti code with no comments or documentation that's been running for who knows how many years; one touch and it throws thousands of errors on the spot."

Lin Qi opened his eyes and stretched his neck.

He looked down at his hands. There were several faint bloodstains on the backs of his hands—caused by the backlash of the essence. Every time deconstruction failed, that savage energy would rampage through his Meridians. Though the injuries weren't severe, they were annoying.

"I didn't encounter this problem in my previous life."

Because in the game in his previous life, essence was a standardized product processed by the System; he only needed to absorb it normally.

Now, he was facing the "original version."

The sentence from Zheng Wujiang's notebook surfaced in his mind once more.

"The status panel, Rank, skills—all digitized things are essentially essence processed by the System."

The System processed essence into standardized data and then distributed it to everyone.

What exactly did this processing involve?

Lin Qi pulled the notebook from his backpack and reread it.

Zheng Wujiang's records regarding essence weren't extensive, but one passage was crucial.

"In an underground rift within the Northern Border Forbidden Zone, I encountered primitive source matter for the first time.

When that thing entered my body, my status panel twitched briefly. Although I'm a Blank Slate and no numerical changes would show, the panel itself flickered.

Later, through repeated experiments, I discovered the reason for the flickering: when primitive source matter enters the human body, the System automatically attempts to 'format' it.

For normal Awakened, this process is seamless. The System converts the essence into experience points, the numbers on the panel increase, and that's it.

But for a Blank Slate, the System cannot find a corresponding 'interface' to process this essence, so the panel flickers. That's the System reporting an error."

Lin Qi paused, his finger stopping on the paper.

Reporting an error.

The System was reporting an error.

It turned out that this high-and-mighty System was just a ragtag crew when it encountered underlying logic it couldn't parse, relying on a set of universal wrappers to force-format everything. Its main focus was 'as long as it runs.'

He put down the notebook, closed his eyes, and once again mobilized the Five Elements True Qi within his body.

This time, he didn't try to touch the core structure of the essence directly. Instead, he first constructed a miniature Five Elements circulation array within his Meridians—arranging the five Laws of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth according to the cycle of generation and overcoming, forming a closed loop.

Then, he introduced a sliver of primitive source matter into this loop.

The essence entered.

It began to resist as usual.

But this time, the Five Elements circulation array didn't try to "deconstruct" it, but instead allowed it to flow freely within the loop.

Metal generates Water; it flowed through.

Water generates Wood; it flowed through.

Wood generates Fire; it flowed through.

Fire generates Earth—

It got stuck.

The essence produced a violent vibration at the "Fire generates Earth" node.

Lin Qi didn't force it through but carefully felt the vibration.

It was very subtle.

The essence wasn't resisting the "Fire generates Earth" Law itself, but rather the "way of connection" between the Laws.

It was as if... this essence inherently carried some unalterable "underlying protocol," and this protocol conflicted with his Five Elements Law. It felt like trying to flash an Android kernel onto an iOS System; it would be a miracle if it didn't crash.

"primitive source matter is not disordered."

Lin Qi's breathing quickened slightly.

"It has its own order. It's just that this order is different from the System's order and not exactly the same as my Five Elements Law."

This discovery was very important.

Zheng Wujiang said the potential of primitive source matter was limitless because it hadn't been defined.

He was wrong.

It wasn't that it hadn't been defined.

It was that it had its own definition, but no one had ever understood it.

The System couldn't understand it, so it simply and crudely "formatted" it into standard data.

If he couldn't understand it, he would suffer its backlash.

To master primitive source matter, one shouldn't try to forcibly overwrite its rules, but rather—

"Understand it, gain Root access, and perform a hardcore crack."

Lin Qi opened his eyes.

This was the threshold of the Tongshen Realm.

It wasn't about brute force or technique; it was about understanding.

Understanding essence, understanding the underlying language of the world.

In the game of his previous life, the Tongshen Realm required one to "communicate with heaven and earth through the Physical Body," which essentially required players to understand the game's underlying rules and gain supreme access.

In this world, this requirement hadn't changed.

It was just that the "underlying rules" had changed.

He didn't know the specifics of the change yet.

But he had a direction.

"Don't be in a hurry to break through yet." Lin Qi stood up, walked to the core compass, and placed his palm on it, guiding a thicker stream of essence into his body.

This time, he didn't absorb it. He just let the essence flow through his body, as if reading a book written in an unknown language.

It didn't matter if he couldn't understand it.

As long as the code still runs, don't mess with it. Get familiar with it first.