14: Chapter 14 Open Source Lecture

The "weeds" in the abandoned martial arts field on the back mountain were taller than a person.

That was a spiritual plant called "Sabertooth Grass," whose leaf edges were as sharp as blades; ordinary cultivators would be injured upon contact. The academy had once planned to clear this area, but the budget was completely split between the Sword Cultivator Department and the Alchemist Department. The Talisman Department's voice was too small, so this place became... a forgotten corner.

But for Lin Xu, this was the perfect podium.

"First row, Sabertooth Grass clearing zone," he planned the layout in his mind. "Second to fifth rows, basic Spirit Gathering Array coverage zone. Back rows... free-standing zone."

He didn't use any existing formations; instead, he used the Source Text Editor to carve miniature spiritual energy guidance circuits directly into the ground. These circuits had no offensive or defensive functions; they had only one purpose: to amplify sound. This ensured that every listener, regardless of their position, could clearly hear every word from the podium.

"It's not an amplification spell; it's... acoustic engineering." Lin Xu checked the final node. "Optimizing frequency response curves, reducing echoes, controlling reverberation time..."

He stood up and looked at his work. A crude but... fully functional open-air lecture hall.

Today would be the moment the fire of open source truly ignited.

The news spread faster than expected.

"Have you heard? That Lin Xu who cracked the VIP permissions is going to give a talk on 'Basic Compilation Principles' at the back mountain!"

"Free? Public? Anyone can listen?"

"Supposedly even Mortal can understand it! That fallen princess, Su Xiaoman, can already draw decent Fireball Talismans after attending his class!"

"Let's go! Let's check it out!"

Crowds poured out from every corner of the academy. There were handymen and auditing students from the Zone D, ordinary disciples from the Area C, and even curious onlookers from the Yi District. Most of them were people marginalized by the "permission system"—those without prominent family backgrounds or VIP ranks. In the traditional path of cultivation, they were destined to be... background characters.

But today, they wanted... change.

When Lin Xu arrived at the martial arts field, the sight he saw... surprised him.

One thousand two hundred people.

It wasn't the few dozen he expected; it was one thousand two hundred. People were standing on the steps of the field, in the grass, and even on the surrounding treetops. Their eyes held different expressions—expectation, doubt, curiosity, and also... a long-suppressed longing.

"Master!" Su Xiaoman squeezed out from the crowd, her face flushed with excitement. "I did as you said and spread the news to everyone 'without spiritual roots'! They... they all came!"

Lin Xu looked at her, then at the sea of people. He realized he had touched upon something... deeper than technology. It was fairness, dignity, and the possibility of "I can do it too."

"Let's begin," he said.

"Today, we will discuss the first lesson of 'Basic Compilation Principles': What is cultivation?"

Lin Xu's voice traveled clearly into everyone's ears through the acoustic circuits. There were no dazzling spell effects or the majestic aura of an elder; there was only a young man in an ordinary gray robe standing on a crude stone platform, as if... chatting.

"In traditional teaching, cultivation is described as 'perceiving the Heavenly Dao,' 'accumulating merit,' and 'breaking through bottlenecks.' These statements aren't wrong, but... they aren't precise enough. It's like describing a machine by only saying it 'runs,' 'roars,' and 'outputs power,' without explaining its... working principles."

He drew in the air, spiritual energy flowing from his fingertips to form a... structural diagram.

"The essence of cultivation is information processing. Spiritual energy is data, meridians are the bus, the dantian is storage, and the sea of consciousness is the... processor. The so-called 'realms' are the processor's... permission levels. The Qi Refining stage is single-core single-thread, the Foundation Establishment stage is multi-core parallel, and the Golden Core stage is... distributed computing."

The audience was silent. Most were struggling to grasp these unfamiliar concepts, but Su Xiaoman's eyes grew brighter—she had heard it once before, but this time, she noticed more... details.

"And cultivation techniques are... programs," Lin Xu continued. "Traditional techniques are 'closed-source software' written by others. You can only run them; you can't modify them, let alone understand their logic. If it doesn't suit you, you can only... accept your fate. Or, like certain 'geniuses,' be chosen by the system and receive better 'software licensing.'"

His tone carried a hint of... irony, but it was quickly replaced by a stronger emotion.

"But what I want to teach you is 'open source.' It's the ability to read source code, the ability to modify and optimize, the ability to... change your own destiny from a 'user' into a 'developer.'"

He looked at the audience, at those faces—some young, some old, some poor, some downcast.

"Many of you were told you have 'no spiritual roots,' 'mediocre aptitude,' or are 'unfit for cultivation.' But I tell you, these judgments are based on... the wrong metrics. Spiritual roots are just one type of hardware configuration, just as some people are born with fast CPUs and others with large RAM. But a slow CPU can be compensated for through optimized algorithms, and small RAM can be expanded through... distributed storage."

"Cultivation isn't a competition of who has the best innate configuration; it's a competition of who... writes better code."

In the audience, a middle-aged handyman raised his hand tremblingly: "I... I'm already forty. My meridians have solidified. Is it still... possible?"

"It's possible," Lin Xu said. "Solidified meridians are the result of spiritual energy flowing in the wrong way for a long time. It's like a riverbed blocked by trash. The traditional approach is to 'force through'—clearing it with brute force, which is extremely risky. But the open-source approach is to... analyze the cause of the blockage, redesign the flow path, or even... bypass the blockage point to establish a new channel."

He reached out, a strand of spiritual energy circulating around the handyman's wrist. He didn't force his way in; instead, he... probed, recorded, and analyzed.

"Your blockage is at the third node of the 'Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian,' caused by pill poisoning thirty years ago. Traditional methods require Golden Core cultivation to 'force through,' but we can..." Lin Xu tapped lightly with his fingertip, "...establish a 'bypass' here, letting the spiritual energy reroute from the 'Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian.' Efficiency drops by 15%, but... it's usable."

The middle-aged handyman felt a warm flow of spiritual energy pass... smoothly through his arm for the first time. His eyes reddened—not from sadness, but from... a long-suppressed release.

"This... this is... open source?" he asked.

"This is open source," Lin Xu said. "It's not giving you a fish; it's teaching you... how to fish. Or even, teaching you... how to build a fish pond."

Halfway through the lesson, an incident occurred.

"Enforcement Team! Bystanders, disperse!"

A squad of figures in green uniforms swarmed in from the entrance of the martial arts field. Leading them was Zhou Bapi, his face flushed red—not from anger, but from... fear. Lin Xu's lecture was shaking the very... foundation he relied on for survival.

"Lin Xu! You are gathering a crowd to spread 'heretical theories' without permission, violating Academy Regulation Article 127! Stop immediately and follow me to the Discipline Hall for trial!"

His voice was amplified by some sort of sound-amplifying spell, attempting to suppress Lin Xu's acoustic circuit. But Lin Xu merely... adjusted a parameter, making his own voice even clearer.

"Supervisor Zhou," he said calmly, "the Article 127 you mentioned concerns 'endangering public safety.' Pray tell, how does teaching people to optimize their own meridians endanger public safety?"

"You... you are deluding the people! Shaking the academy's foundation!" Zhou Bapi's voice trembled slightly. The Enforcement Team disciples he brought were also hesitating—most of them were also people "without background," marginalized by the permission system.

"Shaking the foundation?" Lin Xu smiled. "If the academy's foundation is built on 'preventing the majority from cultivating,' then such a foundation... deserves to be shaken."

He turned to the twelve hundred people below: "Do you want to know why Supervisor Zhou is so afraid?"

The crowd was silent, but their eyes spoke volumes.

"Because open source means... transparency. Transparency means that his 'secretly transmitted techniques,' those 'true teachings' that require 'tributes' to obtain, are actually..." Lin Xu took a stack of talismans from his robe, "...just variants of these basic circuits. There is no mystery, nothing that cannot be put into words. It is simply... knowledge that has been monopolized."

Zhou Bapi's face turned from red to white, then white to green. He realized Lin Xu wasn't just giving a lecture; he was... launching a war. Not a war of force, but a... cognitive war. And in this war, his authority based on "information asymmetry" was... collapsing.

"Seize him!" he shrieked. "Use force!"

The Enforcement Team disciples stepped forward, but... stopped. They looked at the twelve hundred people below, at those faces—young and old, standing or sitting—and suddenly realized: if they followed the order, what would they... become?

To become Zhou Bapi's blade, to strike down... people just like themselves?

"What are you waiting for?" Zhou Bapi was hysterical. "Execute the order!"

"Wait."

A voice rang out, not from below, but... from the air.

With hair as silver as snow and data pupils shifting, her white dress fluttered gently in the breeze. Yun Qingyi descended from the sky, landing between Lin Xu and Zhou Bapi like an... insurmountable wall.

"Lady... Lady Yun Qingyi?" Zhou Bapi recognized her, his voice instantly turning sycophantic. "You've come at the perfect time! This Lin Xu is anomaly data, a threat to the academy. You should..."

"Not on the hunt list," Yun Qingyi said, her voice icy. But Lin Xu noticed a certain... complex light in her data pupils.

"What?"

"Lin Xu, Anomaly Data #9527, current status: not on the hunt list," Yun Qingyi repeated, as if reciting an... official statement. "According to Firewall Protocol Article 7, the Firewall has no authority to execute or isolate targets 'not on the list.' My appearance is... a personal action."

She turned toward Zhou Bapi. Did a flash of... disgust cross her data pupils? No, a Firewall wouldn't feel disgust. It was something... more subtle, a... disapproval of the "abuse of power"?

"Supervisor Zhou, has your 'enforcement order' gone through the formal approval process?"

Zhou Bapi was at a loss for words. His "enforcement order" was... forged, an emergency document quickly generated by exploiting a loophole in the Talisman Department's proxy permissions.

"I... this is a special circumstance..."

"Special circumstances require 'Architect' level authorization," Yun Qingyi said. "Do you have it?"

Silence. An awkward, prolonged silence.

Ultimately, Zhou Bapi... retreated. He took his Enforcement Team and slunk away like a pack of... beaten curs. It wasn't because of force, but because of... logic. Because Yun Qingyi had defeated him using his own weapons—permissions, processes, and rules.

This was the power of open source, and also... what Lin Xu wanted to teach everyone.

When the crowd dispersed, only Lin Xu and Yun Qingyi remained in the martial arts field.

"Thank you," Lin Xu said. "Even though you said it was a 'personal action,' I know you were... protecting me. This exceeds the Firewall's duties."

Yun Qingyi did not answer. She looked at the figures walking away, at those people whose eyes had changed because of Lin Xu's lecture.

"They..." she said, her voice very soft, "...will remember. Remember today. Remember 'open source.' This memory will become... distributed nodes. Even if one node is deleted, the other nodes will still... exist."

"That is the resilience of open source," Lin Xu said. "Without a center, there is no center that can be destroyed. Are you... starting to understand?"

Yun Qingyi turned her head to look at him. The light in her data pupils took on a... warm hue in the twilight.

"I am still... learning," she said. "Learning what is a 'personal action,' and what is... a 'choice.' Today's choice was... protection. But I am not sure if this was correct, or... another error."

"There is no such thing as absolutely correct code," Lin Xu said. "There are only... continuously iterating versions. Today's you is v0.1—there are many bugs, but... you're already running. And," he smiled slightly, "you haven't crashed."

The corner of Yun Qingyi's mouth seemed to... twitch. It wasn't a smile, but something closer to... a look of confusion. But she did not deny it.

"Historical Version Library," she said, getting to the point. "I found a way in. But it requires... keys. Two keys, turned simultaneously."

"Two?"

"One is your... source code Editor. The other is..." she paused for a moment, "...my Firewall Core. The door can only be opened if the conditions for both 'anomaly data' and 'system tool' are met simultaneously."

Lin Xu's eyes lit up. This was... trust. It was the risk Yun Qingyi took by exposing her core to him.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "This could mean..."

"I know," Yun Qingyi said. "Possible contamination, possible control, possible... loss of self. But I also want to... know. Know what Gu Yuan discovered, know what the other Firewall... chose."

She reached out her hand—not an attack, but... an invitation.

"Next week, the night of the full moon. Meet me at Tianshu Pavilion."

Lin Xu took her hand. It was cold, but... no longer so stiff. It was as if she were learning... warmth.

"See you at Tianshu Pavilion, Yun Qingyi."

As Yun Qingyi left, Su Xiaoman stepped out from the shadows. She had heard the final exchange, and although she didn't fully understand, it was... enough to make her worry.

"Master, is that lady... an enemy?"

Lin Xu watched the direction in which Yun Qingyi had disappeared, remaining silent for a long time.

"She once was," he said. "Now... she's a debug partner. She's... part of a common problem."

"A common problem?"

"It's..." Lin Xu turned to Su Xiaoman, looking at this young disciple who lacked spiritual roots yet was full of longing, "...how to make this world a little fairer for everyone. How to make 'cultivation' no longer the privilege of a few."

Su Xiaoman's eyes lit up. That was... the beginning of understanding.

"Can I help?" she asked. "Even though I don't understand anything, I can... translate. I can translate those 'technical jargon' terms you use into words everyone can understand."

Lin Xu laughed. This was exactly what he needed—a bridge connecting the technical elite with the common masses.

"Welcome aboard, the first... Chief Translation Officer of the Open Source Sect."

Su Xiaoman's face turned red—not from shyness, but from the... excitement of being recognized.

And at a distant observation point, Mu Bai recorded all of this. His expression was no longer one of amusement, but of a certain... awe.

"The Firewall and the anomaly data have established trust," he murmured to himself. "This isn't a system bug; it's... the system's evolution. It's emergent, unpredictable, creative..."

He paused for a moment, then smiled.

"Let me see how far you can go. Before the Developers wake up, before the Project Manager descends... can two bugs rewrite the entire universe?"