Data-Driven Cultivation: I Defy Heaven and Overthrow Interstellar Domestication

"What's wrong? All talk and no action?"

Seeing Xie Yanchen standing motionless at the door, Zhou Cheng assumed he was just being stubborn and had a guilty conscience. His mockery deepened, and the corners of his mouth almost curled up to his ears.

"Weren't you quite capable when you were talking so confidently in front of the sect leader? Why did you chicken out when it came to real combat?" He took a step forward, his arms still crossed, his chin held high, glancing at Xie Yanchen out of the corner of his eye. "I knew it. What real skills could someone with mixed spiritual roots have? He's just relying on a few lousy books to talk his way out of things and cheat people."

The inner disciples behind him started making a fuss.

"Exactly! If you're so capable, then show us!"

"Why are you standing there pretending to be calm? Your palms are sweaty, aren't they?"

"Those who are only from the outer sect will always be seen as incompetent once they step onto the stage!"

There were about thirty people, the lowest cultivation level being the fourth level of Qi Refining, while the leaders were all at the fifth level of Qi Refining. If this force were placed in the outer sect, let alone fighting, just their presence alone would be enough to crush a large number of people. They had already calculated in their minds that today, they didn't need to use all their members; just three or five of them would be enough to utterly defeat Xie Yanchen.

The ending? The ending was already decided the moment they stepped into the outer sect territory.

The outer disciples surrounding the perimeter turned pale. Some clenched their fists, their palms sweating, some bit their lips, unsure whether to step forward and speak up, and some quietly took a half-step back but then felt bad for Xie Yanchen, so they braced themselves and stood back.

"Thirty-odd people attacking one, those inner disciples are shameless..."

"Keep your voice down! If you're heard, I'll deal with you too."

"Junior Brother Xie just refuted the elder a few days ago, so his comprehension is certainly sufficient. But comprehension and actual combat are two different things! These people are at the fifth level of Qi Refining, they've really trained hard. What can Junior Brother Xie use to stop them?"

The buzzing of discussion in the crowd was impossible to suppress; no one was optimistic about this duel.

Zhou Cheng took another step forward, less than three steps away from Xie Yanchen. This distance was already on the verge of a fight; any closer and it would be over. He deliberately stood loosely, his tone carrying a hint of condescension: "Don't say I'm not giving you a way out. Admit your mistake in front of everyone, admit you're unworthy of your title, and voluntarily hand over the access to the library, and we'll let this matter drop. I won't make things difficult for someone from such a humble background, after all—"

He paused, a veiled sarcasm in his smile: "After all, even a piece of trash has its difficulties, I understand."

As soon as he finished speaking, the inner disciples behind him burst into laughter.

Xie Yanchen finally looked up at him.

His gaze was indifferent, as indifferent as if he were looking at an insignificant object placed on the roadside. There was no anger, no embarrassment from being humiliated, not even impatience. Just indifference, tinged with a hint of coldness.

He saw this group of people very clearly. They had been pampered since childhood, possessing excellent natural talents, abundant resources, and smooth sailing in life. They treated their platform as their skill and their birth as their talent. They couldn't bear to see those from the bottom rise, nor could they tolerate others turning their lives around. Ultimately, they weren't bad, they were just stupid. Stupid enough to believe that all the good things in the world should rightfully belong to them.

"Steps," Xie Yanchen said, his voice not loud, but clearly heard by everyone present, "I'll give them to you."

He took a step forward, stepped down from the threshold, and stood on the compacted earthen ground in the middle of the courtyard. The morning light shone from behind him, casting a long shadow that stretched all the way to Zhou Cheng's feet.

"Let's all go at once," he said, his tone as casual as if he were remarking on the weather. "Don't waste time; I have other things to do after this."

Six words, simple and unremarkable.

The courtyard was quiet for about two breaths.

Then it exploded.

"What did he say? To send over thirty inner disciples at once?!"

"This is insane! Junior Brother Xie, have you been overworking your brain a few days ago and haven't recovered yet?"

  

"This is outrageous... utterly outrageous! A mere Qi Refining cultivator yelling at over thirty people to attack together? Isn't that just courting death?"

The inner sect was in complete uproar. Several hot-tempered disciples turned pale on the spot, their fists clenching so tightly they cracked. For a useless outer sect disciple to order them to "come at me all at once" in front of the entire sect was even worse than swearing at someone.

"act recklessly!"

Zhou Cheng's smile vanished completely, replaced by a grimace. He had originally planned a one-on-one crushing victory, a public humiliation that would make him appear magnanimous and powerful. But Xie Yanchen's words had ripped the script apart—"Didn't you bring a whole bunch of people? Then come at us all at once, saves the trouble of dealing with them one by one."

This is no longer a provocation; it's stomping on Zhou Cheng's face.

"Fine, you asked for it." Zhou Cheng gritted his teeth, squeezing out a few words, then suddenly raised his hand. "Did you all hear that? He told us to attack together! Let's grant his wish! Let him know just how big the difference is between the inner and outer sects!"

Before the words were even finished, more than thirty streams of spiritual energy exploded simultaneously.

The aura of the fourth and fifth levels of Qi Refining was released without reservation, and the dust at the courtyard gate was swirled up by the strong wind and scattered in all directions. Several outer disciples who were standing too close were pushed back several steps by the shockwave, their faces turning pale.

Fists, palms, fingers, claws—a variety of attacks surged in from all directions, so dense that there were almost no gaps. Some threw punches straight at the face, some swept kicks at the knees from the side, some circled around to strike the back of the heart with a palm strike, and several others formed hand seals on the periphery, sending low-level fireballs and wind blades flying between the fists and feet, carrying scorching and sharp energy.

It was overwhelming, sealing off all escape routes.

To outsiders, this was a tightly closed pocket, and Xie Yanchen was the prey inside, just waiting to be caught like a turtle in a jar.

The disciples watching were on the edge of their seats, and some of them turned their heads away, unable to bear it any longer.

But Xie Yanchen made a move.

It's not hiding, it's leaving.

His body, like a leaf blown by the wind, drifted half a step to the left. A punch coming straight at him whistled past his ear, the shockwave ruffling a few stray hairs at his temple. Without stopping, he leaned back, a blade of wind slicing across his nose and striking the earthen wall behind him, leaving a shallow dent.

There were no big movements, no fancy footwork, just walking, shifting, sidestepping, and turning. The range of each movement was so small that it couldn't be smaller, yet each time it was just right—the distance seemed to have been measured with a ruler, the tip of the attack just barely missed him, by an inch, half an inch, sometimes only the thickness of a finger.

Terminal Zero unfolded the trajectories of all thirty-odd attacks, like a transparent blueprint covered with lines superimposed on his field of vision. Whose punch was weak, whose spiritual energy circulation had a slight pause midway, whose upper body was powerful but whose lower body was unstable, whose defense left a fist-sized gap under their left armpit—all this information was sifted, sorted, and marked in an instant, clear and obvious at a glance.

But he doesn't need to deliberately "see" these things.

The three years he endured with his spiritual root destroyed weren't for nothing. During those three years, he couldn't fight tough battles or really fight; he could only watch, think, and ponder. While others were battling it out on the arena, he would squat in a corner and watch, memorizing everyone's fighting habits, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. You might not see anything in a day or two, but after three years, the world he saw was completely different from everyone else's.

The newly generated spiritual energy in his dantian was now circulating steadily, neither turbid nor astringent, like freshly melted snow water in a mountain stream, flowing along his meridians with a cool and comfortable sensation wherever it went. After the transformation of his spiritual root, his reaction, speed, and perception had all improved significantly. Weaknesses that he could see but couldn't reach before, he could now perceive.

He raised his hand.

The movements were slow, even appearing somewhat casual.

He struck the shoulder and neck of the inner disciple at the front with his palm. That was the point where the opponent's fist was about to end, and where the spiritual energy was transitioning between old and new. The protective spiritual power had not yet had time to cover him, like a door that was half closed, revealing a crack. Xie Yanchen's knuckles struck that crack precisely, with little force, but enough to cut off the flow of spiritual energy.

The disciple felt a numbness in his shoulder, and the strength in half of his body seemed to have been completely released as if a plug had been pulled. His fist technique collapsed on the spot, and he staggered and fell sideways, rolling twice on the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.

Almost simultaneously, two men attacked from the left and right. One swept a leg to the lower body, while the other threw a punch to block the upper body; their coordination wasn't bad. However, they forgot their positioning—they were too close together, and their attacks interfered with each other's balance. Xie Yanchen didn't even block; he merely took a half-step to the right. The two men's attacks collided due to their loss of balance, their knees hitting each other, causing them to grimace in pain. Xie Yanchen casually slapped each of them on the lower back—not hard, but the placement was tricky. The two men groaned and collapsed to the ground as if their bones had been removed.

The battle that followed, though seemingly long, was actually so fast that it took almost no time to blink.

One person rushed forward, then fell. Two more surrounded him, and he fell too. Xie Yanchen's figure weaved through the crowd, his pace unhurried, as if strolling in his own backyard. He didn't use any profound secret techniques, nor did he unleash any astonishing phenomena; from beginning to end, he used only the most basic fist, palm, finger, and footwork—the things every outer disciple practices in their first year.

Yet these basic moves, in his hands, seemed to have been given a new set of strength. A punch was thrown at the moment when the opponent's old strength had just been exhausted and new strength had not yet been generated; a palm strike was at the point when the opponent's center of gravity shifted and their defense collapsed; a step was taken to create the biggest blind spot in the opponent's offensive.

There was no excess energy, no fancy moves; every movement was just right, not a bit more, not a bit less.

The inner disciples on the outer perimeter, who were making hand seals, panicked and frantically activated their spells, hurling fireballs and wind blades at him like they were free. But no matter how powerful the spells were, they were useless if they couldn't hit their target. Xie Yanchen didn't even turn his head; he merely swayed a few times, and the spells grazed past his clothes, striking the courtyard and the earthen walls, blasting out several small craters and raising clouds of dust.

Some panicked and began to make random moves, revealing more and more flaws. Some wanted to retreat, but their escape route was blocked by those behind them, leaving them unable to advance or retreat. More than thirty people were crammed into a small courtyard, and their numerical advantage became a burden—people were packed together, hands were touching, their spiritual energy interfered with each other, and their moves hindered each other, making it impossible to execute their moves effectively.

Xie Yanchen moved among them like a fish swimming among water plants, unhurried and at ease.

In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the last remaining inner disciple also collapsed.

Thirty or so people lay sprawled across the courtyard, some clutching their arms and gasping for breath, some curled up like shrimp with their stomachs in their hands, and some simply lying on their backs, panting heavily, their faces showing expressions of utter disbelief. Their spiritual energy was completely out of control, thrown into disarray by Xie Yanchen's precise acupoint strikes and meridian blockages, leaving them unable to get up for the time being.

Outside the courtyard, all was silent.

All the outer sect disciples watching seemed frozen in place, mouths agape, eyes wide, their minds blank. They had seen what had just happened clearly, yet they simply couldn't believe their eyes. More than thirty inner sect prodigies, ganging up on an outer sect disciple, had been completely routed like children, without even managing to touch a single hem of his robe?

Who would believe that if I told them?

Xie Yanchen stood in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by people lying haphazardly on the ground. His clothes remained perfectly in place, and his breathing was as steady as if he had just stood up from a chair. He looked down at the back of his hand, which had a speck of dust on it, seemingly from someone's collar, and casually wiped it on his trousers.

Then he raised his head, his gaze passing over the pile of disheveled inner disciples on the ground, and landing on Zhou Cheng.

Zhou Cheng was still standing, but his face was as white as paper. It wasn't that he didn't want to move, but that he dared not. He had witnessed the entire chaotic battle, and the more he watched, the colder his heart became—this Xie Yanchen was not the easily manipulated trash they had imagined. Every movement, every judgment, every strike he made was so precise that it was beyond the capabilities of a Qi Refining stage cultivator.

The feeling is like groping in the dark for a long time, and then suddenly looking up and finding that there is a mountain standing in front of you.

Xie Yanchen glanced at him and spoke. His voice was flat, without pride, sarcasm, or even any emotion, as if he were stating a perfectly ordinary fact.

"The division between inner and outer sects was originally based on spiritual roots, not on people." He paused, his tone indifferent. "You treat this line as an inviolable rule, locking yourselves inside and keeping others out. Let's leave today's matter at hand, but in the future—don't come to the outer sect to cause trouble again."

After saying that, he turned around and walked towards his low house. After taking two steps, he paused, didn't turn back, and added a sentence in a voice that was neither loud nor soft.

"Those on the ground, once they've recovered, they can walk on their own. No need to help close the gate."

The wooden door closed with a slight creak.

The courtyard remained silent for several breaths before the first person struggled to his feet, his face flushed, not even bothering to brush the dirt off his clothes. He walked out silently with his head down. Then came the second, the third, and more than thirty people who gradually got up, each one dejected and slinking out of the courtyard, not daring to even glance at the outer disciples who had gathered to watch.

The crowd automatically parted to make way, watching as these usually arrogant inner sect prodigies scurried away like wilted eggplants. No one laughed, and no one spoke.

Only after the last inner disciple had walked far away did an outer disciple swallow hard, his voice dry.

Am I dreaming?

No one answered him. Because everyone was asking themselves the same question.

The old, crooked locust tree outside the courtyard gate rustled in the morning breeze, and a few withered leaves swirled and fell to the muddy ground. Sunlight streamed over the courtyard wall, illuminating the messy footprints and signs of a struggle, and making the tightly closed wooden door appear exceptionally quiet.

This battle, without alarming the elders or the sect leader, was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, its ripples destined to spread outwards in circles, reaching every corner of the Qingyun Sect.

The person who threw the stone was sitting in the house at a broken table with three legs propped up by bricks, pouring himself a glass of cold water and slowly drinking it.

He looked perfectly normal, as if he had just gone out to sweep the floor.