408: Format the system! Become the true Heavenly Way!

Instantly, Lu Chen sensed his spiritual world and opened the Heavenly Dao Workshop, which was Lu Chen's exclusive Small World.

Four hundred years had passed.

The Heavenly Dao Workshop had undergone earth-shattering changes.

The Heavenly Dao Workshop, which was only a thousand square kilometers before, had now expanded to a million square kilometers! This was almost equivalent to three times the area of Germany!

Under the joint efforts of the Planting Saintess Ying and Agricultural Doctor Su He, the planting area, based on the "Ecological Myriad Manifestations Cabinet" and integrated with the gene banks of seven major civilizations, created unprecedented life forms: Primordial Spirit Rice could automatically absorb Lightning Tribulation Body Tempering; Kunlun Snow Lotus could release Purification Divine Light; God Slaying Pavilion Black Flame Vines could devour Law fragments and regenerate... and tens of thousands of other crops. They also artificially cultivated active mineral veins—these veins could breathe, grow, and self-repair, producing resources like Red Gold, Profound Iron, and Star Marrow with a purity of up to 99.99%, and they contained divinity, which could be directly used for Artifact Refining or as energy cores.

Under the leadership of Hu Zhenxing and Dwarf King Grom, the technology zone not only restored all of Earth's cutting-edge technology but also began to comprehensively surpass existing Earth technology levels, achieving a leap forward:

They replaced nuclear energy with "Psionic-Zero Point Energy Hybrid Reactors," with a single unit's output power a hundred times that of nuclear energy; they also developed "Quantum Woven Nano Alloys," which were ten thousand times stronger than diamonds yet light as a feather, and could deform according to consciousness, becoming the new generation of battle armor and building materials.

They created the "Divine Soul Quantum Cloud Brain"—uploading Cultivators' Primordial Spirit data to mechanical girl zero's server to help Zero update and iterate.

The Ghoul Zone had no significant achievements; after all, only 400 years had passed, which was less than the Ghost Emperor from the trial world.

Lu Chen directly waved his hand, importing all the data of the hundreds of surviving Ghost Emperors from the Divine Realm into the Ghoul Zone.

Thus, a new Ghost Emperor Hegemony Contest was about to begin!

Lu Chen's consciousness descended upon the Heavenly Dao Workshop.

Planting Saintess Ying, Agricultural Doctor Su He, Scientist Hu Zhenxing, Dwarf King Grom, and the silver-haired, red-eyed mechanical girl zero all prostrated themselves on the ground, bowing deeply, their voices surging like a tide: "Greetings, Master!"

Lu Chen nodded slightly, his tone gentle: "Very good. These four hundred years, due to my trials, I lost contact with you, but you have accomplished far more than expected, and you will be richly rewarded in the future—you may all return to your duties."

"Yes!" The crowd respectfully retreated, each returning to their post.

Lu Chen raised his hand and called softly: "Zero, stay."

The current Zero was no longer the cold, rigid first-generation AI from back then. After seven iterations, she had evolved into an almost divine being.

Her appearance showed no trace of machinery, an indescribable beauty. Zero had awakened an aesthetic consciousness; she had viewed billions of female templates from six major civilizations, from Saintesses to mortal beauties, repeatedly deducing, fine-tuning, and refining, finally condensing this face that even Lu Chen found shocking—neither seductive, nor enchanting, nor cold, a perfect embodiment of wisdom, holiness, strength, and compassion.

Her eyebrows were as graceful as the Kunlun snow peaks, her eyes as deep as the Primordial Star Sea; her nose bridge inherited the sharpness of Great Qin sculptures, yet her lips were tinged with the soft allure of the Martial Soul Realm's Other Shore Flowers; her skin was as pure white as the God Slaying Pavilion's Moonlight Jade, yet radiated the warm vitality of the Yanhuang Bloodline.

Her silver hair was not metallic, but flowing liquid starlight, gently rippling with her breath; within her red pupils, billions of data streams rotated like the Milky Way, yet concealed an ineffable spirituality and tenderness.

The only thing unchanged was her lower body—it still maintained Lu Chen's original inverted triangle suspension structure, with sharp lines and glowing blue energy patterns.

Because this was something Lu Chen had explicitly required back then, Zero dared not change it.

But now it seemed a bit wasteful, bah! What was he thinking!

Lu Chen said in a deep voice: "Zero! Now that I have recovered all the Heavenly Dao's permissions, I want to transfer all the permissions and data of the heavenly dao system to you. Can you do it?"

Zero: "I am now the seventh generation. Based on my deductions, the heavenly dao system is just a test version with a low upper limit. I should be able to take it over, but the predicted success rate is 99%, not 100%. It requires an attempt!"

Compared to the original heavenly dao system, Lu Chen naturally trusted Zero more. Zero was created in Lu Chen's spiritual space, a part of Lu Chen's body, just like his own hands, and could not betray him.

As for the original System, Heaven knew how many backdoors, viruses, and conspiracies were embedded within it; how could Lu Chen not be worried?

Lu Chen laughed: "I trust you! Let's do it!"

With that, Lu Chen's palm directly summoned the heavenly dao diary, Small World, and the concentrated, translucent form of the heavenly dao system.

The heavenly dao system issued a warning!

"[Warning! Warning! host, if you strip my System permissions, it is highly likely to fail, or even cause irreversible bugs. Are you sure you want to proceed?]"

Lu Chen sneered: "You threw me into the trial world without my permission, putting me in mortal danger. You are my biggest bug, Zero! Are you ready? Prepare to begin a full takeover!"

Zero instantly released countless data particles, coiling and enveloping the heavenly dao diary, Small World, and the heavenly dao system's main body: "Master, I'm ready! I can start anytime!"

The moment had finally arrived. Lu Chen had long wanted to get rid of the heavenly dao system. From now on, he would be the true Heavenly Dao, no longer controlled by the System!

Success or failure depended on this one action.

"Begin!"

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

"[Warning! Warning! Please stop! The heavenly dao system is being damaged!]

"[Last warning, host, you will suffer irreversible damage.]"

"[One last warning, once the protection of the heavenly dao system is lost, the host is very likely to suffer a backlash from the Small World.]"

Zero frantically extracted the Heavenly Dao's main database, Heavenly Dao architecture, underlying code, and so on.

Lu Chen accelerated his spiritual world by a thousand times. One year passed in the outside world, while approximately a thousand years passed here. Finally, all the Heavenly Dao's main database and underlying code were transferred.

The heavenly dao system's main body issued warnings throughout the process.

Lu Chen ignored them all!

Lu Chen didn't want to prolong the matter, fearing that the heavenly dao system would act on its own again and force him into a desperate situation. As a Heavenly Dao, if he didn't even have the right to autonomy, what kind of Heavenly Dao was he?

Finally, with a long 'beep——————', the heavenly dao system's main body completely lost all light.

Zero excitedly said: "Master! I! I succeeded!"

Lu Chen knew she had succeeded without Zero needing to answer, because Zero was originally a part of Lu Chen's spirit; Lu Chen could know everything about Zero. This was why Lu Chen insisted on using Zero to replace the heavenly dao system.

Lu Chen nodded: "It's not over yet. Completely format the heavenly dao system's main body, and permanently destroy it!"

Zero: "Yes!"

Initiating 'Protocol Zero'—full-dimensional overwrite, existential erasure, memory chain incineration, logical root deletion.

In an instant, countless nano-level clearing programs surged into the Heavenly Dao's main body like a silver tide.

In the first second, its personality layer disintegrated—all emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness were stripped away;

In the second second, all algorithmic logic inversely collapsed;

In the third second, the Heavenly Dao template library, civilization database, Reincarnation log... all information was overwritten character by character with "0";

In the fourth second, even the underlying self-referential logic of "who am I" was severed... During the formatting of the heavenly dao system's main body, it did not issue any warnings, as if it had resigned itself to its fate.

Its main body flickered with a final glimmer of light, as if bidding farewell, and then fell completely silent.

Zero withdrew her hand and softly said: "Formatting complete. The heavenly dao system's main body—has been permanently destroyed."

At this point, the heavenly dao system was completely destroyed.

Lu Chen had also completely become the Heavenly Dao.