9: Chapter 9 The Exile of the Talisman System

The main gate of the Zhongzhou Cultivation Academy was more than three orders of magnitude taller than the vermilion-painted gates of the Zhenbei Marquis Mansion.

Lin Xu stood beneath the archway carved from a single piece of celadon jade, looking up at the flowing runes above—prohibitions that appeared as clear code structures in his eyes. The gate's detection array scanned his entire body, and three seconds later, a line of pale golden system prompts appeared above his head:

[Detection Object: Lin Xu, Authority Level: Golden Core (VIP), Source: Recommended by the Zhenbei Marquis Mansion, Temporary Student Status at the Alchemist Guild. Status: No abnormal flags. Admission Permit: Granted.]

"It seems Zhao Tianba's 'error report' has indeed taken effect." Lin Xu's lips curled slightly. The Imperial City Guard spy he had planted with a logic bomb must be in some corner right now, feeling smug as he evaluated data for a completely wrong target.

Walking through the gate, the interior of the Zhongzhou Cultivation Academy was even more... industrialized than Lin Xu had imagined.

Instead of the traditional pavilions and towers, there were massive building complexes arranged according to functional zones. The Alchemist Guild's alchemy building emitted seven-colored pill mist, the Sword Cultivation Department's sword-testing arena echoed with rhythmic explosions, and the Array Department's experimental zone was divided by translucent barriers into countless small squares, each playing out different versions of "spiritual energy control accidents."

And Lin Xu's destination was located at the very edge of the academy—the Talisman Department.

"Auditing student Lin Xu?" The person receiving him was a weary-looking middle-aged cultivator whose badge read "Talisman Department Administrative Assistant Ma Baoguo." "Your dormitory is in District C, number 17. Go check the bulletin board for the class schedule. Regarding your mentor assignment..."

Ma Baoguo swiped a few times on a jade slip, his expression becoming somewhat subtle. "Supervisor Zhou Bapi. Report to the 'Waste Paper Recycling Station' tomorrow at the hour of the snake—oh, that's just the nickname students gave to the Talisman Department's main building."

"Why is it called the Waste Paper Recycling Station?" Lin Xu asked.

"Because ninety percent of the talismans produced there are trash." Ma Baoguo lowered his voice, as if sharing some dark secret. "The Talisman Department has been at the bottom of the academy's grand competition for thirty consecutive years. Last year, the Dean proposed abolishing the department, and it was only saved because Supervisor Zhou threatened to die for it."

He gave Lin Xu a sympathetic look. "You are the only auditing student assigned to the Talisman Department this year. To be precise, you were the last one left over—no other department wanted you, and the Talisman Department was forced to take you."

Lin Xu nodded, his face devoid of any expression.

Exile. Marginalization. Deliberate suppression.

This aligned perfectly with his understanding of the "authority system." A concubine-born son with no background but possessing Golden Core strength was both a threat and a nuisance to those factions reliant on lineage and relationship networks. Throwing him into the most hopeless Talisman Department allowed them to monitor and control him while gradually grinding away his sharpness.

But what they didn't know was—Lin Xu looked at the gray building in the distance known as the "Waste Paper Recycling Station," and his Source Text Vision activated automatically—the essence of talismans was the closest thing in this world to "programming."

The District C, number 17 dormitory was even more dilapidated than Lin Xu had expected.

A room less than ten square meters, a hard bed, a spiritual gathering array interface (with spiritual energy concentration at only 30% of the standard value), and a rickety desk. On the desk lay a jade slip, which was the "Talisman Department Freshman Guide."

Lin Xu didn't read it immediately; instead, he activated his Source Text Vision to scan the entire room.

[Scan Results: Standard student dormitory, Prohibition Level: Foundation Establishment, 3 monitoring nodes present, 1 spiritual energy flow limiter. No lethal traps, no special markings.]

"Even less surveillance than the Marquis Mansion." Lin Xu was somewhat surprised. It seemed the Talisman Department was indeed marginalized, to the point where even surveillance resources were insufficient.

He sat on the bed and began to read the jade slip.

The content of the "Talisman Department Freshman Guide" almost made him laugh out loud.

"The way of talismans lies in the unity of mind and spirit, using spiritual energy as ink, talisman paper as the medium, to invoke the power of heaven and earth..."

Standard metaphysical jargon. But in Lin Xu's Source Text Vision, the "talisman samples" stored inside the jade slip presented a completely different appearance—they were segments of structured spiritual energy circuits, with input parameters, processing logic, output interfaces, and even exception handling mechanisms.

"Isn't this just a function call?" Lin Xu muttered to himself.

He took out the "Principles of Primitive Talisman Compilation" he had obtained from Gu Yuan's legacy and compared it with the content in the jade slip. The gap immediately became apparent—the talismans taught by the academy were like... handwritten assembly language, while the theories left by Gu Yuan were at least an object-oriented high-level language.

No, the gap was even larger.

The talismans taught at the academy were "copy-paste" style—students memorized various talisman patterns, and the angle, force, and rhythm of spiritual energy injection all relied on muscle memory. In contrast, Gu Yuan's theories revealed the "underlying logic"—why could this circuit trigger flames? Because spiritual energy resonates with the fire element at specific frequencies. How to optimize? Adjust frequency parameters and change the circuit topology.

"At least ten generations behind." Lin Xu made his judgment.

This was no exaggeration. If talisman technology were compared to the history of computer development, the academy's teaching was equivalent to the punched tape era, while Gu Yuan's theories had reached the stage of high-level programming languages. This generational gap could not be bridged by hard work; it was a paradigm-level crushing.

And Lin Xu, possessing the experience of an Architect from his previous life, combined with Gu Yuan's complete legacy, was in this field... a dimensionality-reduction strike.

The next day at the hour of the snake, Lin Xu arrived at the "Waste Paper Recycling Station" on time.

The building's exterior certainly lived up to its nickname. The gray outer walls were covered in some kind of moss-like spiritual plant, half of the spiritual gathering array on the roof had failed, and leaking spiritual energy formed eerie vortexes in the air. One of the stone lions at the entrance was missing an ear, and the other ear was covered in student graffiti like "I was here."

"The new one?"

A short, stout old man wearing greasy Taoist robes emerged from the shadows. His face looked like a crumpled and unfolded piece of talisman paper, full of the traces of time, but his eyes were startlingly bright—a brightness not from vigor, but from... greed.

"Supervisor Zhou Bapi?" Lin Xu confirmed.

"It's Supervisor Zhou! Supervisor Zhou!" the old man corrected, his voice shrill. "The only full professor in the Talisman Department, honorary member of the Zhongzhou Talisman Association, recipient of the 'Thousand Talisman Hand' title—though that was thirty years ago—are you that Lin Xu who's been kicked around by every department?"

"It's me."

"Golden Core cultivation, temporary student status at the Alchemist Guild, born as a concubine's son of the Marquis Mansion." Zhou Bapi circled Lin Xu, as if evaluating a piece of merchandise. "I've checked your file. You were doing some 'Open Source Family' thing at the Marquis Mansion, some 'patching to cure the plague' in the marketplace, and you even modified the illusion resolution in public... You're quite the troublemaker."

"I just proposed some optimization schemes," Lin Xu said calmly.

"Optimization?" Zhou Bapi suddenly laughed, his smile devoid of warmth. "Young man, do you know why the Talisman Department has fallen? It's not because of backward technology; it's because..." He lowered his voice. "We refuse to optimize. Optimization means change, change means uncertainty, and uncertainty means... risk."

He patted Lin Xu on the shoulder with surprising force. "But I'm very interested in your 'optimization.' Especially that ability of yours... to see through the essence of talismans. How about it? Become my direct disciple? I'll teach you the true way of talismans, and you help me... optimize some things."

Lin Xu looked into Zhou Bapi's eyes, and his Source Text Vision automatically analyzed the other party's status.

[Target: Zhou Bapi, Authority Level: Nascent Soul (Administrator), Status: Multiple abnormalities in spiritual energy circuits, suspected long-term use of some forbidden drug to maintain cultivation. Core Motivation: Obtain technology related to the "Source Text Editor" to increase his own influence in the academy.]

"Your code standards are terrible," Lin Xu said.

"What?"

"I said, your code standards are terrible," Lin Xu repeated. "Just now when you patted my shoulder, I took the opportunity to scan your spiritual energy circuits. Your 'Thousand Talisman Hand' is achieved by forcibly overdrawing your meridians, right? The writing of your talisman circuits is full of magic numbers and hard-coding, with no documentation, no comments, and extremely high maintenance costs. It's very difficult for me to accept this kind of inheritance."

Zhou Bapi's expression froze.

"You... you can see through my spiritual energy circuits?" His voice trembled, not with anger, but with fear. "This is impossible, unless you are..."

"Unless I am what?" Lin Xu retorted.

Zhou Bapi didn't answer. His eyes shifted rapidly, with greed, fear, and calculation flashing in turn. Finally, he recovered his greasy smile. "Interesting. Very interesting. Lin Xu, you are not a direct disciple for now—you are the Talisman Department's 'special observation subject.' Go report to the public classroom; let me see what kind of waves you, this 'optimization expert,' can stir up in the Talisman Department."

He turned and left, his back looking somewhat flustered.

Lin Xu watched his retreating figure, knowing that his days in the Talisman Department wouldn't be boring.

The public classroom was even more dilapidated than the main building.

Thirty or so students were crammed into a hall that should have held a hundred, making it look empty. On the podium, a young lecturer was explaining the "standard drawing process for a Fireball Talisman," while most of the students below were dozing off or secretly practicing other cultivation techniques.

Lin Xu found a corner to sit in and began to self-study "Principles of Primitive Talisman Compilation."

"Are you the new one?" a voice beside him sounded.

Lin Xu looked up and saw a young girl with twin tails, looking at him with curious eyes. The girl's cultivation was only at the Qi Refining stage, but her eyes were very bright—the kind of brightness that... hadn't been worn down by this world yet.

"Su Xiaoman?" Lin Xu recognized her. According to the records in Gu Yuan's notes, this exiled princess of a mortal kingdom would become an important companion on his path of open source. But he hadn't expected to meet her here ahead of time.

"You know me?" The girl opened her mouth in surprise. "I'm just a mortal auditing student, without spiritual roots..."

"I do now," Lin Xu said. "Why did you come to the Talisman Department?"

"Because no other department wanted me," Su Xiaoman said matter-of-factly. "I don't have spiritual roots and can't cultivate, so I can only try my luck in the Talisman Department—talismans are one of the few powers that can be used without spiritual roots. Although the success rate is only... one percent."

She smiled embarrassedly. "I've already drawn three thousand talismans, and only thirty have succeeded. But Supervisor Zhou said that as long as I'm willing to 'pay tribute' to him, he can teach me the 'secret method.'"

"Did you pay the tribute?"

"Of course not!" Su Xiaoman lowered her voice. "I used all my money to buy talisman paper. I think the failure isn't because I wasn't 'respectful' enough, but because... the talismans I draw have problems themselves."

Lin Xu looked at her and suddenly smiled.

This mortal princess without spiritual roots had touched upon the truth through intuition. The Talisman Department's teaching indeed had problems, and they were fundamental, paradigm-level problems.

"Do you want to learn the true way of talismans?" he asked.

"I do! But..."

"No 'buts'." Lin Xu took out a piece of blank talisman paper. "Watch."

He activated his Source Text Vision, looking directly at the underlying structure of the talisman paper. In the eyes of ordinary people, the talisman paper was just yellow paper; but in Lin Xu's eyes, it was a storage medium waiting to be written to, with a fixed spiritual energy capacity, a specific resonant frequency, and optimal circuit topology.

"The essence of a Fireball Talisman is not 'unity of mind and spirit,' nor is it 'invoking the power of heaven and earth.'" Lin Xu's voice was not loud, but it was enough for the students around him to hear. "It is a function; the input is spiritual energy, the processing is frequency conversion, and the output is thermal energy release. The standard academy textbook teaches you to use a combination of 'Li Fire Pattern' and 'Gathering Array,' which is inefficient—"

His fingers slid across the talisman paper, spiritual energy flowing with his fingertips to form a pattern completely different from the textbook.

"—because the resonant frequency of the Li Fire Pattern is 127.5 Hz, while the optimal response frequency for the fire element in the air is 128 Hz. This 0.5 deviation results in an energy conversion rate of only 67%."

The pattern on the talisman paper was complete. It was a circuit so simple it was almost elegant, with no superfluous decorations, no metaphysical runes, only a purely functional structure.

"What... what kind of talisman is this?" Su Xiaoman's eyes widened.

"An optimized Fireball Talisman. I call it 'Fireball_v2.0'." Lin Xu said. "Try activating it."

Su Xiaoman carefully took the talisman and injected her weak spiritual energy.

Boom!

A fireball with a diameter of half a meter exploded in the center of the classroom, the heat wave overturning the desks in the front row. The students who were dozing off jumped up in alarm, and the young lecturer on the podium turned pale—the power of this fireball was comparable to a casual strike from a Golden Core stage cultivator.

And the amount of spiritual energy Lin Xu had used was only one-third of a standard Fireball Talisman.

"This... this is impossible..." the young lecturer said, trembling. "What sorcery did you use?"

"It's not sorcery; it's compilation principles." Lin Xu stood up, facing the stunned crowd. "Talismans are not art; they are technology. They are not metaphysics; they are engineering. What you have learned all these years is the superstition of the pre-industrial era; what I am going to teach is the science of the information age."

He looked at Su Xiaoman and then at the other students. "Starting tomorrow, every day at noon, at the abandoned martial arts arena behind the mountain. I will teach 'Basic Compilation Principles.' It will be free, open, and anyone can come. It's not to overthrow the Heavenly Dao, but to let everyone understand the Heavenly Dao."

The classroom was silent.

Then, Su Xiaoman was the first to applaud. The applause was sparse, but firm.

Lin Xu knew that the spark of open source had been quietly ignited in the most marginal corner of the Zhongzhou Cultivation Academy.

And in a dark room in the "Waste Paper Recycling Station," Zhou Bapi watched all of this through a surveillance array, the expression on his face flickering uncertainly.

"Source Text Editor..." he muttered to himself, "I must get my hands on it... at any cost..."