Investiture of the Gods: Childhood Sweetheart Daji, Starting with Quasi-Saint Cultivation

The moment the Dao Ancestor raised his hand, the entire database began to collapse inward.

The floating plot lights, the flowing spiritual energy channels, and the distant server arrays were all distorted and deformed, pulled towards the center by an invisible force—towards that giant "eye".

This isn't an attack, it's formatting.

The area storing abnormal data, along with the three "viruses" within it, must be completely erased and rewritten.

"Retreat!" Su Yunbai roared, unleashing the full power of the Law of Emotion, forcibly tearing open a gap amidst the collapse.

King Zhou seized Wen Zhong, transforming into golden light that shot into the crevice. Su Yunbai followed closely behind, his silver light condensing into a shield behind him to block the surging data turbulence.

The three rushed back to the altar entrance and returned to the data barrier three thousand feet underground in Chaoge.

Behind them, the entrance was closing at a visible speed. At the edge of the closing, the figure of Hongjun's incarnation could be faintly seen—it did not pursue them, but merely watched them escape indifferently, as if watching a few insects escape from a cage.

The gap was completely closed.

Darkness returned to silence.

Only the heavy breathing of the three echoed.

"It...isn't chasing us?" Wen Zhong asked incredulously.

"Because it doesn't need to be chased." King Zhou's face was deathly pale as he looked down at his hands—the marks of the data chains still lingered on his wrists, now faintly glowing red. "We've already been marked. It doesn't matter where we escape to."

Su Yunbai silently examined the mark on King Zhou's wrist. It wasn't a curse or a seal, but a **tracking protocol**. The mark was connected to King Zhou's life data; as long as he was "online," the system could locate him at any time.

"Can it be removed?" Wen Zhong asked.

Su Yunbai attempted to envelop the mark with the Law of Emotion, and the silver light seeped in, but was immediately repelled. The mark contained layers of nested access locks, and with his current understanding of the system code, forcibly breaking through would only trigger a more severe countermeasure.

"Not for now." He withdrew his hand. "But the mark itself also reveals a piece of information: the system attaches great importance to 'Experiment-0001,' so much so that it is unwilling to directly eliminate it, but instead chooses to track and monitor it."

King Zhou smiled wryly: "Perhaps it's because I was the earliest test subject, and my data is the most valuable for reference."

"Or..." Su Yunbai looked up, "you have a clue to the 'exit'."

The atmosphere became tense.

Wen Zhong suddenly remembered something and pulled out a broken jade slip from his pocket—he had picked it up from the edge of the altar before entering the database. The jade slip still retained a very faint aura of Nuwa.

"This belongs to Lady Daji." Wen Zhong handed the jade slip to King Zhou.

King Zhou took it and probed it with his divine sense.

The jade slip contained only two incomplete pieces of information:

The first segment is a fragment of memory—the moment when Daji saw the "Deep Cleanup Protocol" warning at the Taiyin Star Observatory.

The second part consists of the last two characters she carved: "Shenqing".

And a vague coordinate mark: 115° East longitude, 40° North latitude.

"This is..." King Zhou's pupils contracted.

"The coordinates of Blue Star." Su Yunbai recognized them. "Near Beijing."

"How would Daji know the coordinates of Blue Star?" Wen Zhong asked, puzzled.

"Because she may have also 'awakened'," Su Yunbai analyzed. "The divine office of the Taiyin Star Lord allows her to access stellar data, and within that stellar data... there may be star chart reference systems from the real world mixed in."

King Zhou gripped the jade slip tightly: "Is this coordinate a clue, or a trap?"

"We'll find out when we get there." Su Yunbai looked up. "But before that, we have to deal with the crisis at hand—the Dao Ancestor's incarnation has been activated, and it won't let us continue our investigation."

Before the words were even finished, the ground began to shake.

It wasn't an earthquake; the entire city of Chaoge was trembling. Buildings shook, and people cried out in alarm, but strangely—not a single house collapsed, and no one was injured. The intensity of the tremors was precisely controlled within a range that would "cause panic but not actual damage."

The three rushed out of the underground and returned to the study of Wen Zhong's residence.

Outside the window, the sky had turned dark red. It wasn't a sunset; the entire sky was shrouded in a blood-red aura. Dense runes flowed across the aura—system code.

Chaoge City has been "isolated".

---

East China Sea, Three Immortal Islands.

The thirty-six Heavenly Gates have advanced to the edge of the island. Heavenly soldier puppets surged against the Three Heavens Formation like a tidal wave, each wave dimming the formation's protective shield.

Li Jing hovered in mid-air, the pagoda in his hand spinning, shooting out golden light to bombard the nodes of the array. His eyes were still empty, but the frequency and accuracy of his attacks were frighteningly high—the system was directly controlling his combat module.

Sweat beaded on Yunxiao's forehead.

She maintained the grand formation with her zither music while simultaneously resisting the golden light of the pagoda. Bixiao and Qiongxiao slayed the approaching heavenly soldiers on the outside, but after the puppets were shattered, the data stream would return to the Heavenly Gate and recombine after a moment.

"They're wearing us down!" Bixiao shattered three puppets with a single sword strike, then retreated. "Big sister, we can't hold out much longer at this rate!"

The Frost Sword of Qiongxiao froze a section of the sea, temporarily halting the advance of the heavenly soldiers. She turned to look at the island's central formation—Yang Chan was protecting the two children with the Lotus Lantern, its light merging with the Three Talents Formation, barely maintaining a safe zone.

"How are the children?" Qiongxiao asked telepathically.

Yang Chan's voice was urgent: "Wutong and Nianqing... they're still drawing those runes. They just managed to piece together a complete sentence—"

She paused, her voice trembling:

"Exit is in the memory of the first."

My earliest memories?

Whose memory?

---

Chaoge City, atop the Star-Picking Tower.

Su Yunbai, King Zhou, and Wen Zhong stood side by side, gazing up at the blood-red sky.

The city was in complete chaos. The people were terrified, the soldiers were bewildered, and even the cultivators of the Humanity Academy were helpless—their cultivation seemed so powerless in the face of this "system isolation shield."

"It's forcing us to show ourselves," King Zhou said coldly, "using the entire city's inhabitants as hostages."

"Or it might be a screening process." Su Yunbai pointed to the sky. "Look at those runes; they're scanning everyone's emotional fluctuations. Those with abnormal fluctuations will be marked."

Sure enough, strange phenomena began to appear in certain corners of the city: several cultivators who were calming the people suddenly froze, their eyes flashed red, and then they collapsed to the ground—their souls had been forcibly extracted.

These are cultivators who had previously come into contact with Su Yunbai's Law of Emotion. Their emotional fluctuation thresholds are relatively high, and they have been judged by the system as "contamination risk".

Cleanup is accelerating.

"We can't wait any longer." Wen Zhong gritted his teeth. "Your Majesty, let this old minister lead the troops to break through the sky barrier and buy you some time—"

"It can't be broken." King Zhou shook his head. "This is a blockade at the level of authority, not something that can be broken by force."

He turned to Su Yunbai: "There's only one way. Use my 'Experiment Subject-0001' privileges to forcibly access the system and fight it at the data layer. You cover for me."

"Are you crazy?" Su Yunbai grabbed him. "You just witnessed the power of Hongjun's incarnation in the database. Connecting now is like offering yourself up for formatting!"

"That's why I need your cover." King Zhou tore open his robe, revealing his chest—where there was a pale gold mark, shaped like a Bagua (eight trigrams), but the trigrams were reversed. "This is my 'administrator backdoor.' It was implanted by the system when I transmigrated, originally intended to help observers control the experimental environment. I've never dared to use it, because using it would completely expose me."

He pressed it onto the mark.

Golden light shimmered.

"But this is the last chance. I'll access the system and disrupt its cleanup protocol. You take advantage of the chaos to go to those coordinates—the coordinates left by Daji. There must be a clue to the exit there."

Before Su Yunbai could say anything more, King Zhou had already slapped him on the shoulder.

The Emperor's aura, imbued with some kind of data authority, was forcibly injected into Su Yunbai's body. That was part of King Zhou's identity verification as "Experimental Subject-0001," which was now transferred to Su Yunbai.

"From now on, you will temporarily have 'observer' privileges." King Zhou's face paled rapidly. "Use it to deceive the system's tracking and find the exit. If the exit truly exists... take everyone with you."

"Your Majesty!" Wen Zhong knelt down.

King Zhou did not turn around. He leaped up and transformed into a golden light that shot straight into the sky.

The golden light struck the crimson barrier, but instead of exploding, it seeped into it like water droplets seeping into a sponge.

The next second, the entire sky shook violently.

The runes began to malfunction, twist, and overlap. A phantom image of King Zhou emerged from the crimson light—he was fighting against the system in the data layer, forcibly modifying the priority of the cleanup protocol with his own authority.

In the city, the marked cultivators stopped their stiffness and awoke in a daze.

The isolation barrier showed signs of loosening.

"Let's go!" Wen Zhong pulled Su Yunbai up.

Su Yunbai took one last look at the fading phantom of King Zhou in the sky, gritted his teeth, and turned away.

Enveloped in silver light, he transformed into a streak of light and sped toward the coordinates recorded in Daji's jade slip.

---

Three Immortal Islands.

The heavenly puppets' offensive suddenly halted.

The red light in Li Jing's eyes flickered wildly. He raised his hand to his forehead, seemingly resisting some kind of command. The pagoda stopped rotating, and the Heavenly Gate began to twist and deform.

"The system... has been... interfered with..." Li Jing said haltingly, "Cleanup protocol... suspended..."

The pressure on the formation decreased sharply.

Yunxiao seized the opportunity, her zither music transforming into a piercing shriek that instantly shattered three heavenly gates. Bixiao and Qiongxiao took the chance to counterattack, their swords sweeping across the area and clearing out the nearby puppets.

"It's His Majesty!" Qiongxiao sensed the authority fluctuations coming from the direction of Chaoge. "He's buying us time!"

Yang Chan, carrying her two children, rushed out of the formation: "The children have made another discovery!"

Wutong and Nianqing held hands, their blue pupils reflecting each other. In the air before them floated a map made of green runes.

In the center of the map is Chaoge City, with a dotted line extending from the city, the end of which points to a coordinate point—the very coordinate left by Daji.

Next to the coordinates, there was a line of small text:

"Initial memory backup storage. Access code: Trial-0001's first emotion."

(Initial memory backup storage point. Access password: Subject-0001's first-generation emotions.)

First-generation emotions?

What were King Zhou's initial feelings?

---

Three hundred miles outside Chaoge City lies a desolate mountain.

Su Yunbai arrived at the location according to the coordinates. Before him was an ordinary valley, with nothing unusual about it.

He activated the "observer privileges" granted by King Zhou's transfer, and a data view appeared in his eyes—a simplified version of the system's backend interface.

In the field of vision, a semi-transparent "access portal" appeared in the center of the valley. A permission verification prompt floated above the portal:

Please enter the access password:

"Hint: The password is the initial emotional sample of Subject-0001, which needs to be injected in the form of emotional energy."

Su Yunbai was stunned.

An early sample of emotions? How did he know what King Zhou's initial emotions were?

He tried inputting a few possibilities: the time traveler's confusion? A thirst for power? Nostalgia for Earth?

Completely wrong.

Permission verification warning: "Number of errors: 3/5. Exceeding five errors will trigger the self-destruct protocol."

Time is tight.

Su Yunbai forced himself to calm down, recalling every moment since he met King Zhou. That soul, also from Earth, struggled, fought, and ultimately chose to sacrifice itself in this illusory world…

and many more.

sacrifice.

When King Zhou transferred the authority to him, there was no hesitation in his eyes, only determination. It wasn't a momentary impulse, but a choice he had long been prepared for.

So, was his initial emotion... not "for himself" at all?

Su Yunbai closed his eyes, and the Law of Emotion was activated at full power. He was not simulating King Zhou's emotions, but rather tracing back—tracing back to what was deep in King Zhou's eyes when they first met.

The image appears:

Eighteen years ago, at the Marquis of Jizhou's residence.

The young King Zhou (then a prince) was traveling incognito when he stumbled upon Su Yunbai practicing swordsmanship in the courtyard. Their eyes met, and King Zhou's eyes flashed with shock, elation, and… **the resonance of meeting an old friend in a foreign land**.

It's not power, it's not ambition.

It is loneliness.

It is the almost instinctive identification and connection one feels when discovering another "real person" in this false world.

That is one of the most primal human emotions: a sense of belonging.

Su Yunbai opened his eyes, and the Law of Emotion condensed into a warm, gentle, and slightly melancholic silver light, which he then poured into the access portal.

The verification prompt flashed for a moment.

Then it turns green:

"Password verification successful."

"Welcome to the Initial Memory Backup Library."

In the center of the valley, the earth cracked open.

A staircase leading underground slowly emerged.

From deep within the staircase, the low hum of machinery could be heard.

And... a very soft sound, as if from a distant reality:

"Tick-tock".