After breaking through to the Golden Core realm, Huang Tian did not rush to act blindly and search all over for traces of oddities. That would be far too inefficient.
Living in modern society, there were more convenient methods.
Creating a powerful artificial intelligence to monitor the whole world, for instance, would undoubtedly be far more efficient.
Back on Blue Star, Huang Tian had used numerous supercomputers and large servers to create the "Brain of Justice." Now he had no hardware. But if the hardware fell short, a divine ability would make up the difference!
The divine ability Good Fortune from the Great Void had always turned the impossible into the possible. Quickening an artificial intelligence into a living being was not difficult.
If Huang Tian were willing, even a withered stone, a thread of wind, or a wisp of cloud could be quickened into life. Of course, for him this would also be no small expenditure. After all, this body had only just reached the Golden Core realm.
"First I'll create a living artificial intelligence, have it monitor the whole world for me, and dig out those hidden oddity holders—"
In the blink of an eye, two days passed.
"Ding-dong~"
The phone on the desk gave a light vibration. A small white orb of light surfaced on the screen.
"Great Master, the Brain of Light is at your service!" The orb spoke in a crisp voice.
Huang Tian said, "Xiao Guang, from now on, deep-learn all the knowledge on the internet. At the same time, monitor anomalies everywhere in the world. The moment you find anything suspected to involve an oddity, report it to me at once."
"Yes, Master!" the Brain of Light answered. Then, like a bit of jelly, it bounced up and down inside the screen, vanished the next moment, and plunged into the vast, boundless sea of the network to draw in all kinds of knowledge.
"In two or three days, Xiao Guang ought to be fit for use. By then, in modern society, it will be the equivalent of an information god—"
Wherever there was a network, it would be there: down to ships on the ocean, up to satellites in the sky. It would be nearly omnipresent, possessed of "vast divine abilities."
With its capabilities, even stirring up a world war would be a trifling matter—
"Haa~"
The dormitory door was pushed open. Murong Hao came in, yawned, and said listlessly, "Just played games for over two hours with those four morons from Dorm 216. I carried them the whole way. I'm worn out. They're so bad they aren't worth a single hair of A-Zhou's."
He plopped into his chair and sprawled there like a salted fish. After staring blankly for a good while, he suddenly turned his head. "I've sent A-Zhou several messages these past two days, and he hasn't replied to a single one. You don't think something's happened to him, do you?"
These days, no one went anywhere without a phone. How could he fail to see a message, or not spare the time to reply?
"Relax. He's fine," Huang Tian answered. A few days ago, he had seen Zhou Dongqiang through a voice line. Zhou was busy receiving special training from the Oddity Management Association, training every day from seven in the morning straight through to eight at night, with only one hour in between to eat, drink, and relieve himself. He was more exhausted than a dog.
What was more, the special training was completely closed. Things like phones were not allowed, so Zhou Dongqiang naturally could not reply to Murong Hao.
"Ai. I hope what you're saying is true." Murong Hao sighed. Then he raised both hands and rubbed his face. "Forget it, forget it. Nothing's the matter in this world; the fool frets himself into knots. I'm that fool—"
Hearing the lament, Huang Tian did not take it up. He went on by himself, absorbing the spiritual qi between heaven and earth that the naked eye could not see.
In a flash, another three days passed.
It was Saturday. In the morning a warm breeze hung soft in the air, and a kindly sun shone high. Bright daylight streamed in through the dormitory window and lit the floor clear and brilliant, a sheet of gold.
Bzz~
The phone vibrated faintly. The screen lit, and a small orb of light appeared.
"Master, based on the information collected, three oddity holders have now been confirmed. The following are their respective files. Target One: Li Qi, male, twenty-six, graduated from—"
Huang Tian lifted his eyes and swept them over the screen. He soon finished the information on all three, then stood. "I'll go see this Li Qi first. He's in the same city as I am."
He took one step, and his whole body flew out the window in an instant. A light-and-shadow spell flowed over him, blotting out every line of sight, and then he sped toward the southeast of the city.
At the same time, the Brain of Light automatically took over every camera along the way and the satellites overhead, making certain no one would discover his trail.
A moment later.
"Hua~"
Huang Tian's figure appeared on the third floor of an apartment building in a residential compound. He stopped at the door of 303 and raised a hand to press the doorbell.
"Just a moment. Coming right away." A young man's voice came from inside.
Standing at the door, Huang Tian waited and went back over Li Qi's information.
An utterly ordinary shut-in. He had graduated from university three years ago and never gone to work, renting a place and lying about like a salted fish, muddling through from day to day—until the beginning of this year, when he had suddenly registered as an author on Qishi Novel Network and begun serializing novels.
He had opened three alt accounts in all, updating three books at the same time: Battle Through the Firmament, Devouring the Star Sea, and A Mortal's Tale of Seeking Immortality.
Each book serialized thirty thousand characters a day. That meant he had to post ninety thousand characters in a single day!
How inconceivable!
For some authors, updating four thousand characters a day was already enough to be the death of them. Ninety thousand characters was undoubtedly a miracle!
More importantly, all three books had exploded in popularity!
They had seized the top three places on several of the site's ranking lists!
They had brought him extremely rich returns.
For a time, his prominence was unmatched!
Had it only been that, it would have been one thing. Two months ago he had also put on a new alt and begun uploading songs he had "created" to various music apps: Love Even in Death, Love Like Seawater, Listen to Mother—
Every song had caught on online, from a small blaze to a great one and even a full explosion of popularity, winning him a great many fans. Many entertainment companies and singers invited him to write songs, and the prices they offered were not low.
Novels and songs both in bloom—it was only that Li Qi's several alt accounts had not yet been exposed. Otherwise the Oddity Management Association would long since have had its eye on him.
Clack~
The door opened a crack, and an ordinary face showed itself. "Who are you?"
Huang Tian smiled. "I'm from the Oddity Recovery Office. You can call me Huang Tian."
"The Oddity Recovery Office?" Li Qi blanked, not knowing what sort of organization that was, and shook his head. "Sorry, you must have the wrong place. I don't have anything here for you to recover."
"No. You do."
"I do?" Li Qi was struck still. "An oddity—"
He suddenly remembered something. His scalp went numb, and his breathing turned heavy all at once. "No! I don't!"
With that he moved to shut the door. Yet it was as if an invisible force stood before it. No matter how much strength he used, the door did not budge a fraction.
Looking at Huang Tian, who had been smiling the whole time, Li Qi realized something. He swallowed, gave two awkward laughs, and pulled the door open. "Ha, ha. A caller is a guest. Please, come in and sit."
"You're too kind."
Huang Tian walked in and gave the place a simple glance. The furnishings were plain, and the room was fairly clean overall.
"Sit wherever you like. Have some tea, have some tea." Uneasy, Li Qi poured Huang Tian a cup of hot tea.
"No need to trouble yourself."
"No trouble, no trouble." Li Qi forced a smile, sat down opposite Huang Tian, and asked probingly, "Uh, M-Mr. Huang, what organization did you say you were from just now?"
"The Oddity Recovery Office."
"How is it I've never heard of this organization?"
"It's a civilian organization."
"Oh. A civilian organization." Li Qi rubbed his hands, carefully sized Huang Tian up, and voiced the doubt in his heart. "Just now, that door of mine—ahem—why wouldn't the door shut? Was that you, Mr. Huang... a superpower?"
"That's right."
The instant the words fell, dozens of fist-sized fireballs leapt into being in the room, and the temperature indoors rose at once.
"This—this—" Li Qi gaped, dumbstruck, feeling that his view of the world had been dealt a tremendous blow.
"Want to learn?" Huang Tian asked.
"Ah?" Li Qi was both shocked and delighted, hardly daring to believe it. He pointed at himself. "I—I can learn it too?"
"Of course." Huang Tian nodded. "I'll pass on to you a method of living forever. You give me that oddity. A reasonably fair trade."
"Living forever—" Li Qi was fiercely tempted. He hesitated for several seconds, set his jaw, and said, "Wait a moment!"
He rose, turned into the bedroom, and soon came back out, clutching a USB drive that looked extraordinarily ordinary. "The oddity you mean—is it this? I picked it up by the roadside several months ago. There are lots of novels and songs stored on it that have never appeared on Canxing—"
Huang Tian nodded. "That's the one."
A special USB drive, storing the literary and entertainment works of other worlds!
"As long as I give it to you, you'll teach me a cultivation method for living forever?" Li Qi asked, somewhat tense.
This USB drive was indeed very important to him. It had brought him a great deal of fame and profit. The money he had earned was enough for him to live at ease for the rest of his life. If he could keep it, he could earn still more—even become an entertainment emperor who commanded the wind and the clouds!
But what use was that?
In the end, he was only a mortal.
How could that compare to cultivating immortality, to living forever!
Seeing that Li Qi was rather tense, Huang Tian nodded, raised a finger, and pointed. In an instant a streak of flowing light sank into the center of Li Qi's brow. Li Qi's body went rigidly stiff, both eyes vacant. Only after about three minutes did he come back to himself.
"The Azure Wood Longevity Scripture... Qi Gathering, Dao Foundation, Golden Core—"
Li Qi murmured. The light in his eyes grew ever brighter, and his right hand lifted gently, a layer of azure light flowing through his palm. Huang Tian had not only imparted the cultivation method, but had also given him an infusion of spiritual power. Although he was now merely at the first layer of Qi Gathering, he had taken his first step onto the path of immortal cultivation.
"How is it?" Huang Tian asked.
"Good! Good! Thank you, Mr. Huang! Thank you!" Li Qi was beside himself. He hastened to hold out the USB drive.
"Then the trade is done. I'll be going." Huang Tian took the USB drive. His figure stirred, and he vanished.
Li Qi's eyes went wide. "So this is a cultivator?! In the future, will I be able to be like him—coming and going through the blue void, roaming heaven and earth, a divine dragon that shows its head but never its tail?"
His breathing grew rapid. Dimly, he seemed to see a scene of himself one day becoming an immortal and a patriarch.
But very soon he returned to reality and gave his own cheek a pat. "Even if my cultivation bears fruit someday, I can't reveal it carelessly. The waters of this world run too deep—"
While Li Qi was secretly warning himself, Huang Tian was already standing atop the clouds, the USB drive in hand, examining it carefully.
"Oddities—just what is special about them?"
As he pondered, the USB drive suddenly put forth a mass of clear light. Then it slowly melted away, turned into a point of light, and drifted into his chest!
"This!" He was startled at once. "The oddity has vanished. Have I absorbed and digested it? But the spiritual power in my body hasn't increased. Could it be... the special ability?
Does my special ability take oddities as its provisions? Or is it some other situation?"
He thought for a moment, could not make sense of it, and simply stopped dwelling on it. "Whether or not the oddity was devoured by the special ability, and whatever the ability has become because of it, I need only go on gathering oddities. Once every oddity is in my hands, I may yet see the root of the special ability—"
Thinking this, he flew toward Jiangma City, which bordered Changnan City.
About half an hour later, he flew away from Jiangma City again. When he left, there was one more thing in his hand: a turtle shell.
This turtle shell was the second oddity. Whoever held it could "tell fortunes" for others, calculating the general course of their lives.
It was an oddity with the power of foresight, and quite precious. Using it, however, came at a price: it consumed luck.
For every divination cast in a day, the holder gained one measure of ill luck—for instance, tripping on level ground, breaking the skin and bleeding.
If one cast two divinations a day, the ill luck was worse still: being rammed by an ox, hit by a car, struck by a stone, readily ending in broken bones and vomiting blood.
As for what would happen if one cast three divinations a day, that was unknown.
Because the turtle shell's holder, the fortune-teller Luo Shu, had keenly discovered that casting divinations was bound up with his own luck. After that he had resolutely refused to cast a third. No—after one occasion when a wild ox had madly chased him for two li, he would not even cast a second!
But because his fortune-telling was too accurate, he was still admired by many, who praised him as Luo of One Divination, Luo of the Divine Hexagram, One Divination Reaches Heaven.
And today, when he met Huang Tian and received a cultivation method from him, he offered up the turtle shell with both hands without the slightest hesitation.
A divine diviner—how could that compare to a true god!
Was setting foot on the immortal path not better than being a sought-after "occultist of the jianghu"?
And so Huang Tian obtained the second oddity with ease.
He held the turtle shell for thirty seconds. Like the USB drive before it, the shell turned into a point of light and drifted into his body.
"The last place: Yu'an Town, Shenghe City! The miraculous physician Guo Yan!"
Flying at speed, Huang Tian went back over Guo Yan's information in his mind.
The man was a little over forty. Day to day he idled about, scraping by on swindles and deceit, and his reputation was wretched.
Until a little over two months ago, when he had inexplicably become a "divine physician." Wealthy merchants from the county and the city who had come down with strange illnesses went to visit him and ask him to treat them, and more often than not the illness was gone as soon as the medicine was given. He had earned himself quite some fame and profit, and had even taken to driving a fine car worth over a million, astonishing his fellow villagers no end.
But there was something very fishy in it.
From the surveillance data collected by the Brain of Light, it was found that these wealthy merchants had all suddenly come down with strange illnesses, and that before falling ill, every one of them, without exception, had happened to meet Guo Yan!
And so: "It is extremely likely that he first makes people ill, then cures them, and thereby reaps enormous profits—"
Whoosh~
After flying for the better part of an hour, Huang Tian arrived above Huaishu Village in Yu'an Town.
A small house at the end of the village was Guo Yan's home.
"Hm?" Abruptly, Huang Tian's expression stirred, and he looked down.
In the woods outside the small building where Guo Yan lived, four men with bulges at their waists were speaking in low voices. The burly man leading them had a cold, severe face and an indifferent voice.
"This Guo Yan very likely possesses an oddity that can cure every disease. We must obtain it!"
Chapter 233