141: Divine essence condensed, data processing core born

The lingering traces of the miracle in the time acceleration zone had not yet fully dissipated, and Lin Zhou's consciousness was completely immersed in exploring the most core change within himself—the pale gold crystal born in the divine fire, suspended in the center of his Soul.

The Godhead.

This is one of the most essential characteristics that distinguishes a True God from a demigod. It is the eternal burning pedestal of the divine fire, the intersection of rules and will, and moreover... an unprecedented, transcendent core for data processing and rule analysis.

During his time as a demigod, Lin Zhou relied on his own Soul strength and the assistance of the Temple of Civilization to handle Divine Domain affairs, analyze rules, and respond to prayers. It was like using an old mechanical computer to process complex 3D modeling—slow, inefficient, error-prone, and difficult to run in parallel threads.

But at this moment, when his "attention" truly focused on this newborn Godhead crystal, an unprecedented sense of "clarity" and "control" surged like a tide.

The crystal was about the size of a thumb's fingernail, with a standard polyhedral structure, but every edge was smooth and natural, as if polished over billions of years. The entire crystal was pale gold, the base color of the Fire of Civilization, but its interior was not uniform. Instead, like the finest amber, it contained countless minute, flowing shadows of light.

Most striking were the profound patterns naturally emerging and slowly circulating on the crystal's surface. They were not carved later but were Innate Inscriptions naturally manifested from the essence of the Hundred Schools of Thought carried by Lin Zhou as the Godhead condensed!

Lin Zhou focused his gaze, and those inscriptions were as fine as hair, yet incredibly clear:

There were five ancient Seal script variants representing the Confucian "Benevolence, Righteousness, Propriety, Wisdom, and Trust," emitting a warm white glow and connecting with each other to form a stable triangular support structure.

There were sharp runes representing the Legalist "Law, Method, and Authority," appearing in cyan-gold, like a rigorous grid embedded into the crystal's framework.

The Mohist patterns of "Compass and Square" and interlocking gears were precisely outlined with black lines, responsible for optimizing the pipes and nodes for the crystal's energy flow.

The simplified Yin and Yang fish patterns of Taoism flowed endlessly in black and white, regulating the dynamic balance within the crystal.

The sword and banner symbols of the School of Military, crimson as blood, lurked on specific facets, faintly emitting a chilling aura.

In addition, there were seedlings of the School of Agriculture, silver needles of the School of Medicine, dialectics of the School of Names, chains of the School of Diplomacy... the representative imagery or symbols of each school were embedded in the crystal's various positions in their most refined forms, echoing each other and forming a harmonious and profound whole.

These inscriptions of the hundred schools were not static but were slowly flowing and changing, as if they were alive. Along with their circulation, within the crystal, there were countless extremely fine points of light—these were highly compressed and processed information flows, traveling, colliding, and reorganizing at unimaginable speeds, forming brilliant data streams that flickered in the depths of the crystal, as if a miniature, resplendent galaxy was sealed within.

"This is my Godhead... the Foundation of Civilization." Lin Zhou understood in his heart. The form and characteristics of a Godhead are closely related to a deity's path. His Godhead used the Hundred Schools of Thought as natural inscriptions, destined to have potential far exceeding True Gods of the same Rank in information processing, rule analysis, and multi-threaded parallel computing.

He tried to probe a sliver of consciousness into the Godhead crystal.

Instantly—

"Boom!"

It was as if he had leaped from a narrow canoe onto the bridge of an interstellar warship! His vision, perception, and thinking speed underwent an earth-shattering, explosive growth!

First, his "perception" of the Divine Domain was infinitely refined, deepened, and real-time.

With a slight thought, the entire hundred-square-kilometer territory of the Divine Domain was instantly projected onto his consciousness "screen" like the most exquisite 3D sandbox. This "screen" could be zoomed, rotated, and cross-sectioned at will.

He "saw":

In the newly expanded area of the Jixia Academy, a recently evolved young Confucian Scholar Elf (LV36) was attempting to draw a complex [Clear Heart Talisman] rune. Spiritual light flowed from the brush tip, but it was slightly sluggish at the third turn. The Godhead instantly marked the millisecond-level deviation in Spiritual Qi injection and simultaneously compared it with seventeen successful cases of similar turns in the Academy's rune library, providing three optimization suggestions (which could be instantly transmitted to the elf's consciousness by consuming Divine Power).

At the new site of the Tian Gong Institute, the foundation of the [Divine Fire Forge] was being poured with a special spiritual concrete mixed with [Star Sand]. The Godhead monitored the temperature, Spiritual Pressure, and material Fusion of three hundred and twenty-seven pouring points in real-time. Eleven points were 0.5 degrees too low, and four points had Spiritual Pressure fluctuations exceeding the standard value by three-thousandths. Warnings were sent instantly, and twelve nearby Mohist Dwarves were simultaneously directed to make adjustments.

A Law Official Murloc patrol was scouting the newly expanded southern hills. Through the Net of Law nodes, the Godhead simultaneously received data from the seventeen [Order Detection Compasses] they carried. The compasses showed a weak, non-native abnormal fluctuation of rules about fifteen meters underground at coordinates (X-47, Y-89), suspected to be a small residual void wormhole or mineral radiation. Risk level assessment: extremely low. Suggestion: Mark for subsequent processing by the exploration team.

In the spiritual plant experimental fields, seventeen sets of data, including Spiritual Qi content, microbial activity, and trace element proportions of the [Jade Marrow Rice] root soil, which had just undergone a time-accelerated harvest, were being refreshed hundreds of times per second. This formed a long-term growth model to optimize the next round of planting.

Inside the Hall of Heroes, data such as the spiritual body stability, energy saturation, and response efficiency to external faith for forty-seven Heroes were clearly displayed in his consciousness like forty-seven smooth curves. Three recently sacrificed young Heroes (stability 89%, 91%, 87%) were marked, with a suggestion for a three-day "Moonlight Nourishment" (requiring coordination with Su Yueyao's Divine Power).

All this information—from the minute deviations of individuals to the macro resource flows of the entire domain, and real-time data refreshes every second—was presented in Lin Zhou's consciousness with unprecedented clarity and extreme speed, yet it didn't feel cluttered or burdensome at all. The Godhead crystal acted like the most efficient parallel processor, categorizing, prioritizing, and performing preliminary analysis on the massive amount of information before "pushing" it to Lin Zhou's main consciousness for decision-making in the most intuitive and easy-to-understand way.

This meant that Lin Zhou could now truly handle thousands of tasks occurring within the Divine Domain "simultaneously"! During his demigod period, he could only focus on a few major events, while the rest relied on the heroes of his God-kin and building rules to operate on their own, which was inefficient and easily lost control.

"Thinking speed increased a hundredfold... no, perhaps far more." Lin Zhou tried a simple multi-threading test.

He simultaneously performed the following operations:

Guiding the Spiritual Qi in the core area of the Divine Domain to fluctuate at a specific frequency, attempting to resonate with the residual virtue starlight from the "Seven Stars Alignment" to see if he could extract and store a sliver of "hope" or "courage" intent for future God-kin motivation or special forging (an Advanced operation requiring fine regulation).

Distracting himself to analyze seventeen design conflict reports for the [Floating Bombardment Platform] prototype's power core sent from the Tian Gong Institute, and calling upon the computing power of the Mohist inscriptions within the Godhead to perform 3D simulation deductions to find the optimal solution.

Simultaneously listening to prayers or inner voices from over three thousand different locations and different God-kin within the Divine Domain (not prying into privacy, but perceiving group emotions and needs through faith links), quickly filtering out seventeen valid requests involving resource shortages, technical difficulties, or personal confusion.

Maintaining open faith channels with the heroes Elwin, Bronzebeard, and Snik, ready to receive their reports or issue commands at any time.

Before the birth of the Godhead crystal, performing any one of these four tasks would have required his full concentration. Now, all four tasks were running in parallel without conflict!

It was as if four clear "windows" had opened in his consciousness:

Window 1: Spiritual Qi fluctuation control interface, showing real-time fluctuation frequency, starlight responsiveness, and energy extraction efficiency curves.

Window 2: 3D design diagrams with highlighted conflict points, next to three sets of modification plans deduced by the Godhead and their estimated effect data.

Window 3: A scrolling list of prayers/inner voices, with key items automatically marked and categorized (requests for help, knowledge, guidance, etc.).

Window 4: Three stable communication channel indicators showing hero status (online/busy).

Lin Zhou's main consciousness was like a brilliant commander, only needing to cast a casual "glance" at the four windows to instantly understand the situation and make a judgment or issue fine-tuning commands. Most of the trivial information processing and preliminary plan generation had already been efficiently completed by the Godhead crystal.

[Godhead · Multi-threaded Processing Capability Test Results]:

Number of parallel tasks: 4 (including Advanced rule operations, complex technical analysis, large-scale information filtering, and real-time communication maintenance)

Task completion/efficiency:

Task 1 (Starlight Resonance): 37% progress, energy extraction efficiency being optimized.

Task 2 (Design Conflict): Three sets of plans generated; the optimal plan is expected to increase power core stability by 23%.

Task 3 (Prayer Processing): 11 simple requests filtered and automatically replied to (via Divine Domain rule feedback or nearby hero processing); 6 complex requests marked for later processing.

Task 4 (Hero Communication): Clear, no emergency calls.

Main consciousness load: Approximately 35% (easy, with plenty of room to spare)

Godhead computing power usage: Approximately 62% (core computing power is abundant, can support more or more complex tasks)

"Incredible..." Lin Zhou was shocked. This was only the most basic application of the Godhead! As the Godhead's Rank increased, his understanding of the Hundred Schools of Thought deepened, and with other rules he might acquire in the future, the potential of this "Foundation of Civilization" Godhead was simply immeasurable.

He tried to focus more attention on the Godhead crystal itself, exploring its deeper functions.

Soon, he discovered another core capability of the Godhead—rule analysis and simulation.

The hundred school inscriptions on the surface of the Godhead crystal were not just decorations or symbols of characteristics; they were the solidification and sublimation of Lin Zhou's understanding of the corresponding "principles." When Lin Zhou's will focused on a particular inscription, rule information related to it would surge like a tide.

For example, he concentrated his consciousness on the cyan-gold inscription representing the Legalist "Law."

Instantly, a vast amount of rule information regarding concepts like "Law," "Order," "Contract," "Judgment," and "Punishment," as well as all of Lin Zhou's experience data in establishing a legal system, using the Net of Law, and casting Legalist divine arts within the Divine Domain, were rapidly retrieved, integrated, and analyzed by the Godhead.

In his consciousness, a simplified model of the "Law" rule, built based on existing data, began to form. This model could simulate the effective range, intensity, and cost of the power of Law under different conditions (such as facing enemies with different levels of chaos, God-kin with different loyalty levels, and rule conflicts of different intensities).

He could even conduct "deduction experiments"—virtualizing a scenario within the model: Suppose a small demon army (approximately 1000 units, average LV40) with strong "Chaos" attributes invaded the borders of the Divine Domain. How much Divine Power would be required to suppress, judge, and purify them using the existing Net of Law? What would be the success rate? How much short-term load would it place on the Divine Domain's rules?

The Legalist inscription on the surface of the Godhead crystal glowed slightly, and the internal data light flickered wildly. A few seconds later, a detailed deduction report was generated:

Estimated Divine Power consumption: 85-120 units (fluctuating based on the strength of the demon commander).

Suppression success rate: 99.7% (assuming the opponent has no corresponding high-level order resistance).

Short-term Divine Domain rule load: Approximately 8%, lasting for 15 minutes.

Additional effects: Successful purification can yield a small amount of "essence of order" (a rare material) and slightly strengthen the border's rule barrier.

"This is simply a strategic-level deduction capability!" Lin Zhou marveled. Although the deduction was based on existing data and models and could not be 100% accurate, especially when facing unknown enemies, it would undoubtedly greatly enhance his foresight and decision-making abilities, reducing surprises and losses in actual combat.

Similarly, he could focus on the Confucian inscriptions to deduce the impact of enlightenment plans on different types of God-kin; focus on the Mohist inscriptions to optimize machine designs or production processes; focus on the Taoist inscriptions to simulate the long-term impact of environmental changes on the Divine Domain's ecology... The Godhead allowed Lin Zhou to transform from a "manager" who needed to do everything himself and feel his way forward into a "Dominator of Civilization" capable of macro-planning, micro-regulation, and risk foresight.

Just as Lin Zhou was immersed in the new vision and capabilities brought by the Godhead, a faint but persistent silver-white point of light deep within the crystal caught his attention—it was the Moonlight Mark left by Su Yueyao. At this moment, the mark was pulsing slightly, transmitting a clear stream of information. It wasn't words, but a rule fluctuation carrying a sense of inquiry and concern, as if asking, "Is everything alright?"

A sense of warmth rose in Lin Zhou's heart. With a slight thought, he gently transmitted back a piece of conscious information encoded by the Godhead, containing a demonstration snippet of his multi-threaded processing (non-core secrets) and a hint of excitement over his new Godhead capabilities, through the channel of the Moonlight Mark.

At the same time, he also "heard" a faint, tired yet satisfied mental response from the other end of the mark.

With this initially condensed Godhead crystal, inscribed with the hundred schools and based on civilization, Lin Zhou knew that his "core processor" for handling the complex affairs of the Divine Domain and facing more challenges in the future was now in place.

The road ahead was still long, but at least now, he had the... eyes and brain to see the path ahead while taking every step well.

(End of Chapter)