"I-I'll have to think for a long, long time."
Gus felt that he should not agree to it so hastily.
He still needed some time, a very long time, to digest and absorb so many unbelievable things that the demon had said.
Also, in the fairy tales and legends, the people who agreed to the devil's demands rashly, even though the demands seemed reasonable, harmless, and tempting, all died miserably in the end.
Gus felt that he should consider carefully and see if there were any loopholes in the 'truth' that the devil said.
He also wanted to see if there were any traps hidden in his every word.
"Yes, take your time. There's still a long time before we reach the battlefield of the steam army in the south," Lu Qingchen said casually.
"Right."
Gus suddenly felt that he had found a flaw. "You just said that you didn't allow me to use the power of demons in Qianyuan City, namely storm bolters, Vulcan cannons, Honeycomb rocket launchers, and other weapons from higher dimensions, because you were afraid that the Fist King would discover our existence.
"However, you allowed me to use those weapons when we broke out of the siege outside of Qianyuan City.
"Is A Boxing Champion so obtuse that A Boxing Champion still turned a blind eye to us when we blew up the checkpoint of the Iron Fist Army?"
"The question is very simple," Lu Qingchen said.
"A Boxing Champion is not really an omnipotent god of creation after all. His computational ability is limited, too. Although the Pangu universe is somewhat peaceful right now, the Xing Yao Federation, the Imperium of True Human Beings, and the Alliance of the Holy Covenant have just signed the peace agreement after all. Their systems and social forms are entirely different from each other. When they work together, it is inevitable that sparks will break out. A lot of the old forces may even rise again.
"The Fist King has devoted most of his attention to maintaining the stability of the entire Pangu universe. Therefore, the computational ability that he can devote to the virtual laboratory is limited. By my estimation, he can only focus on monitoring certain data nodes, which are the major cities or the main battlefields. As for the vast area outside of the cities, too much data is involved. If he has to sift through all the data byte by byte, there is no telling how long it will take. Not only will it be a waste of time and the performance of the crystal processors, it will also be very easy for us to detect his search and escape in advance. We won't be caught at all.
"Therefore, I don't want you to open fire in the city, but it doesn't matter in the wilderness."
"That explains a lot."
Deep in thought, Gus said, "So to speak, the Fist King already knows that we have snuck into his head, but he doesn't know exactly which brain cell, or which thought, we are hiding in?"
"Basically, yes," Lu Qingchen said.
"After the trouble you caused outside of Qianyuan City, he should know that I have snuck into the 'World of Boxing God', but he doesn't know where exactly I am hiding in the World of Boxing God. Now, it will be a competition of speed. Let's see if I can find the fatal loophole of this world before A Boxing Champion casts his enormous net!"
"I still don't quite understand."
Gus shook his head slowly and said, "As you said, A Boxing Champion is preparing to shut down or restart the World of Boxing God. Now that he has sensed your existence, why can't he shut it down in advance and destroy A Boxing Champion's World together with you?"
"That's impossible. It will take some time for such an enormous collection of data to be completely shut down. I can absolutely take advantage of the time to escape to other virtual worlds," Lu Qingchen said.
"If you can't kill me in such a way, you will only make my actions more unpredictable. A Boxing Champion knows that very well. Therefore, he wants to use the 'World of Boxing God' as a battlefield for our duel so that we can settle everything here."
Gus was dazed for a moment. Scratching his head, he said, "If you shut down the World of Boxing God, you will escape to another virtual world. Then, why don't you shut down all the virtual worlds? After all, according to your theory, the virtual worlds are only used to test the ultimate techniques. I believe that A Boxing Champion is already very awesome, and he is in no hurry to test the ultimate techniques. He can shut down all the virtual worlds first, kill you for good, and then restart them to create countless new virtual worlds. It's not impossible for A Boxing Champion to do that, is it? "
"Well … Should I praise you for your quick thinking and analytical ability, or should I complain that you have too many questions?"
Lu Qingchen opened his hands and said, "Fine. In fact, A Boxing Champion established the virtual worlds not just to test the ultimate techniques. He has another, more important purpose. However, I underestimated your comprehension ability and thought that you couldn't understand it at all with your wisdom, so I didn't tell you.
"If it is only to test the ultimate techniques, A Boxing Champion can indeed shut down all the virtual worlds without any hesitation and kill me for good.
"But with the other, more important purpose, he won't do that. He can't bear to do it."
Gus blinked. "What's the purpose?"
"Humanity," Lu Qingchen said.
Lu Qingchen said, "The virtual worlds were formerly known as' Humanity Laboratories'. The name is not wrong at all. What A Boxing Champion wants to learn in the virtual worlds is not just the ways to manipulate weapons, fists, and cannons, but also humanity.
"As you know, he used to be a robot and devoid of humanity, but he craves to be a real human being with his own humanity and soul. That's why he went through so much trouble to establish so many virtual worlds and let countless virtual people play love and hate in them time and time again. Then, he extracted the data of humanity from them, analyzed and integrated them, and turned them into his own soul.
"Also, because the nature of the soul is some sort of indescribable chaos, it is impossible for A Boxing Champion to maintain absolute control over all the virtual worlds. Once he tries to control every change in every virtual world, his so-called soul will be gone.
"Therefore, even though A Boxing Champion knows that I have crawled into his messy thoughts, he cannot completely erase all the uncontrollable thoughts. Yes, he can completely shut down all the virtual worlds, but doing so will be equivalent to erasing his own soul and deleting the last bit of humanity that he has cultivated with great difficulty. Then, he will turn back into an absolutely rational, absolutely controllable, and absolutely cold robot. It is a price that A Boxing Champion cannot afford."
Gus was stunned when he heard that.
"This A Boxing Champion … seems to want to be a real human being very much!"
The young man remarked, "Why is he so scared of turning back into a robot? Are robots bad?"
Lu Qingchen said, "There's nothing bad about robots, except that they are very inconvenient."
Gus asked, "Inconvenient for what?"
Lu Qingchen said, "Inconvenient for him to love a girl."
Gus was dumbfounded. He did not expect such an answer. "What?"
Lu Qingchen explained, "A Boxing Champion has to become a real human being with all his humanity, even if it is the deep-rooted bad habits of human beings. He feels that only in this way can he be qualified to love a human girl and get a response from a human girl.
"That's why he is unwilling to shut down all the virtual worlds and his chaotic soul."
"…"
Gus thought for a moment and said, "Even if he does that, does he have to run the risk of his soul being eroded by the demons, his body being taken over, and the whole universe being endangered?"
Lu Qingchen nodded and said seriously, "Yes. That's how robots are when it comes to picking up girls. They have to go all out."
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