Chapter 102: OS (3)
102 – OS (3)
Lin Xun fell asleep while still angry.
But because he slept well, he wasn’t very angry when he woke up.
Since Dong Jun had to go out today for some matters, he happily helped pick out clothes for him. His aesthetic sense might have undergone a qualitative leap these days—everything Dong Jun wore looked pleasing to his eyes. Of course, it could also be because Dong Jun looked good in anything.
The only slight regret was that Dong Jun mostly wore formal attire. Though it looked good, there wasn’t much room for creativity. After observing Dong Jun’s wardrobe, he realized this person actually had a wide variety of clothes—just no opportunity to wear them.
If his sister saw this, she would probably faint on the spot from playing too many dress-up games.
While holding Zhi Zhen and seeing Dong Jun off, he gently tugged at Dong Jun’s sleeve.
“I want to go back to Chaoyang District today to work with Jia Gou on revising the PPT.”
Dong Jun didn’t forbid it: “Be careful.”
Lin Xun: “Okay.”
Dong Jun: “I’ve given you all the permissions. Feel free to drive any car.”
Lin Xun: “Okay.”
“Forget it,” Dong Jun said, “I’ll take you there first.”
Lin Xun: “…Okay.”
And so, he and Zhi Zhen were packed up and delivered to the entrance of Chaoyang District.
As soon as the door opened, Zhao Jiagou and Wang Anquan welcomed them on both sides.
Wang Anquan: “So you still remember to come back.”
Zhao Jiagou: “Honestly, I’m already pleasantly surprised that he knows his way back.”
Lin Xun: “You wrote too much false information in the PPT. I’m here today to deal with you.”
“Deal with me, go ahead. I’ll make the bed for you right now,” Zhao Jiagou said. “Come on, Xiao Jiang, let’s welcome Lord Xun.”
Lin Xun: “Get lost.”
Zhao Jiagou: “Why are you still so bad-tempered? Didn’t Dong Jun teach you better?”
Lin Xun: “You know I have double standards.”
Zhao Jiagou: “Fine.”
He opened his laptop and pulled up the PPT: “Let’s get started.”
And so, they spent four hours on it. The four of them made do with takeout and didn’t finish checking everything until 1 p.m.
Lin Xun felt somewhat weak and slumped on the sofa. Jia Gou opened a carton of milk, shoved the straw toward him, saved the file, and said, “I’ll polish it up tonight, and then we can send it to the exhibition organizers.”
“You can polish the appearance,” Lin Xun said, “but don’t fabricate things.”
Jia Gou: “I always stick to the facts.”
Lin Xun: “I believe you.”
Jia Gou stretched lazily.
Lin Xun wanted to sleep.
When writing algorithms and programming, although some parts were difficult, they were still interesting. But things like writing papers, reports, and making PPTs were utterly nauseating. Fortunately, Jia Gou had different preferences—he found joy in making PPTs and writing reports. This was something Lin Xun couldn’t match. Thanks to Jia Gou taking on various reports, his university life and current life had been quite happy.
Wang Anquan collapsed onto the sofa: “So I’m on vacation now?”
“Mhm,” Lin Xun said. “We’re all on vacation. I’ll distribute the salaries.”
Wang Anquan: “What about Brother Jiang?”
Lin Xun also looked at Jiang Lian.
The month’s work was done, and Jiang Lian could return to his hometown to get married.
Jiang Lian said, “Let’s wait a bit longer, until the exhibition results come out.”
Anquan said, “Marriage is important.”
Jiang Lian said earnestly, “I don’t have a partner. I’d have to go on blind dates first when I go back.”
Jia Gou: “That’s important too.”
“Bro,” Anquan said, “if you stay here, once we win first place and officially become a company, we won’t let you leave, you know.”
Jiang Lian just smiled.
After a moment, he said, “I think we’re doing pretty well.”
Wang Anquan whistled. “Deal.”
Lin Xun applauded.
Jiang Lian raised his cola can. “May we keep getting better.”
Lin Xun clinked his milk carton against it, and Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou joined in.
With that toast, regardless of the final outcome, this summer felt complete.
In a summer that felt complete, the only meaning left in life was gaming.
After losing five consecutive matches with Zhao Jiagou, Lin Xun finally reached his breaking point.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “Goodbye. Play well.”
“You’re partly to blame too,” Jiagou replied. “We both need practice.”
“I don’t think you’ll ever improve.” Lin Xun pulled open the door.
“No, stay. Let’s talk this through. We’ll win.”
Lin Xun turned and stared at him. “Stop expecting to win from now on. Try finding joy in the game itself.”
“Impossible,” Jiagou said, starting another match. “The point of gaming is to win.”
Lin Xun raised an eyebrow, picked up his cat carrier in one hand and a few packed clothes in the other, and returned to Jiagou’s side. “Show me you can win one.”
“Then you should just go,” Jiagou said. “You’ve already given up. When will we meet next?”
Lin Xun replied, “The preliminaries. Soon.”
Zhao Jiagou clicked his tongue.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Hurry up and leave.”
Lin Xun said, “Then I’m not leaving.”
He set his things on the sofa, turned, and went back to his room. Closing his eyes, he let his consciousness sink into the System Space. Since breaking his leg and having his time taken over by Dong Jun and work, he hadn’t been here for days.
The System Space remained unchanged. There was no use hoarding Spiritual Power, so Lin Xun exchanged everything he could based on his familiarity with various languages, then headed to the mission area.
He glanced around the space. The central screen stood solemnly, and the language tree had grown increasingly lush as his Spiritual Power accumulated.
“System,” he asked aloud, “with such a well-developed setup, don’t you think it’s a waste to let me play with it?”
The System remained silent.
Lin Xun smiled and approached the mission area.
The main quest for the Golden Core stage was complete, and the next main quest was to reach the Nascent Soul stage.
This System was clearly a leveling system. It had main quests, side quests, skill trees and skill books, magical artifacts of varying grades, and even a variety of item rewards.
With his limited linguistic knowledge, Lin Xun recalled a saying: “From one spot, you can infer the whole leopard.” Based on the System functions he had encountered so far, this System must have an extensive and intricate leveling and reward system.
What a pity.
What a pity it was him playing.
If it were a beginner in programming, starting from “Hello World,” familiarizing themselves with the basics of coding, then leveling up their skills, unlocking various languages along the way, and finally undergoing Tribulation Transcendence to ascend, they could likely become a master in the programming world—and the journey would be incredibly engaging.
However, when this system came to him, its playability became somewhat limited, as he was no longer a novice. He was well-versed in numerous program structures and had countless usable files at his disposal, leaving him with neither the time nor the need to manually code programs for upgrades. At the same time, his progression was remarkably fast, allowing him to easily push through the main storyline at a pace that was almost unacceptable to the people of the Cultivation world.
Nevertheless, he still harbored a great desire to reach the Tribulation Transcendence stage. As Jia Gou had said, the point of playing a game was to win.
He steadied his mind and began recalling the description of the Nascent Soul stage in The Long Path of Immortality.
This world was a physical world, and people were physical beings. Because both existed as the same kind of substance, they could interact—for instance, people could breathe air, drink water, eat food, and move about in this world.
However, the world in the context of Cultivation differed from the mundane mortal realm. It was composed of a mixture of Heavenly and Earthly Gang Qi and Heavenly and Earthly Spiritual Qi. The Spiritual Power of those below the Golden Core stage was merely a crude absorption and utilization of Spiritual Power, incapable of being harnessed at a higher level. To achieve higher-level utilization, one needed to resonate or harmonize with the world formed by Spiritual Qi and Gang Qi.
To resonate with Spiritual Qi and Gang Qi, one had to be of the same kind as them.
Hence, the concept of the “Nascent Soul” emerged. The Nascent Soul was a “Dao Embryo” or “Dharma Body” nurtured by a cultivator within their Dantian. It was entirely composed of Spiritual Power, yet intimately connected to the person themselves. As an aggregate of Spiritual Qi, the Nascent Soul could communicate upward with the Heavenly and Earthly Spiritual Power, while the person could control the Nascent Soul through their Dantian. In this way, the Nascent Soul acted as a converter, allowing the person to indirectly access the Heavenly and Earthly Spiritual Qi and attain a higher level of Spiritual Power.
To some extent, the Nascent Soul was an evolved version of the Golden Core. However, the Golden Core was overly rigid, merely a compressed form of Spiritual Power, whereas the Nascent Soul took on a humanoid shape—a reflection of the living person in the world of Spiritual Power.
After understanding the theoretical intricacies, Lin Xun began to recall, within the fields he was familiar with, something that served a similar function. After pondering for a while, he found no answer. The conversion between the mystical and the scientific was truly difficult, and this upgrade system was not particularly friendly to him either.
He aimlessly browsed through folders. Many projects from his student days were quite interesting; some things, if attempted by his present self, might not be achievable.
He drifted into a daze.
What if… he didn’t think from a mystical perspective?
In his previous Cultivation, he had already mastered various foundational algorithms and data structures. What should he learn next?
Or rather, what should a programmer learn after mastering algorithms and data structures?
Lin Xun was well aware that it was time for him to learn how to become a qualified programmer. A qualified programmer must possess the ability to develop independently and begin engaging with user needs. He needed to understand how to transform programming languages, which only computers could comprehend, into software that users could download and use—presenting the various functions of the program within this software. Code would no longer be tens of thousands of lines of esoteric text only programmers could decipher, but tools, games, or other applications that anyone could use with minimal learning.
If Cultivators faced the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and the Heavenly Dao, then what programmers faced, of course, were users—or perhaps product managers.
Ultimately, it still boiled down to object-oriented programming.
To achieve this, the required skills were straightforward: encapsulation and packaging, which bore a striking resemblance to the Golden Core stage—something he had already accomplished. The key lay in the difference between the Nascent Soul and Golden Core stages—that fully functional “Dao Embryo” or “Dharma Body.”
Lin Xun pondered that the system likely intended for him to develop an operating system.
Alright, he would write it.