Swallowing the Stars: Starting with the Battle of Geniuses

Chapter 39 Plan

The story begins several months ago when Hunzhen first obtained the Flame Realm Pearl in a simulation.

For Hunzhen, which possesses an analog system, if there is one, there will be two.

After the simulator has succeeded once, as long as we follow the established path and reduce the error between reality and simulation, we will eventually be able to get our hands on the Flame Realm Bead.

But Hunzhen was not satisfied with this.

First, according to the records of that simulation, the first four years of the simulated human, while not entirely wasted, were far less efficient than when refining the Fire Spirit Heavenly Heart.

At present, the improvement brought by refining the Flame Beast Crystal is gradually decreasing as his understanding of the True Fire Law increases. It is expected that when his Flowing Blade Fire reaches the seventh level, the Flame Beast Crystal will have no effect at all.

Secondly, he did not intend to stay here for such a long time, at least he did not want to have to spare his consciousness to guard the Fiery Hell Realm while the Genius Battle was taking place.

Therefore, in order to escape from the Realm of Inferno as soon as possible, obtaining the Inferno Pearl at the earliest is an inevitable choice.

The reason he planned to wait for Yan Yu to take over his body was quite simple...

The Flame Realm Bead can be large or small; it can be large enough to create a world, or small enough to become a speck of dust. It can also travel between different spatial rings.

Even if there's only one spatial ring nearby, it's practically impossible to find it using telekinesis.

Even if the Flame Realm Bead is found, as long as this guy hides inside it and doesn't leave on his own, no outsider can pry it open and pull him out.

In order to obtain the Flame Realm Pearl, one will be possessed and a portion of one's consciousness will be tied up in a battle between souls for a year.

Therefore, if he wants to maintain his full strength to participate in the Genius Battle, he must lure Yan Yu into possessing his body a year before the Genius Battle begins, and then spend another year completely erasing Yan Yu's soul through a tug-of-war between their souls, thus severing the connection between the Flame Realm Pearl and the Flame Hell Realm.

Without the replenishment of the Fire Spirit Heavenly Heart energy within the Flame Realm Pearl, the barrier naturally weakens significantly—which is why such changes occur every time an opportunity is taken away.

Achieving the goal of "being possessed" within six months is the latest time limit that Hunzhen has set for himself.

Following this, based on the strategy of proceeding from effect to cause, Hunzhen began a long simulation process.

In fact, the first successful capture of Yan Yu involved a certain degree of luck.

In the next simulation, the simulator lost sight of its target, allowing Yan Yu, who had already possessed the body, to escape.

This is a reasonable outcome.

Before this, the simulator had only guided Yan Yu to the buffer zone and determined his approximate location. The fact that he was able to catch someone in his personally designated H zone was pure luck.

With the advanced knowledge of "successfully seizing the opportunity" and "knowing the true nature of the opportunity," the actions of the simulated humans will naturally change.

From Hunzhen's perspective, he only knows what the simulator did, but he is not very clear about the details.

The Sims operate in the same way as their predecessors, so it is difficult to completely replicate this kind of simulation where "the conditions for achieving the goal are unknown, and only the result is sought to be consistent".

Fortunately, unlike before when they were completely clueless about the truth of the opportunity based on pure guesswork, the Sims now have a goal, which greatly improves their efficiency.

After more than a month and about forty simulations, the simulator found and confirmed the target in Yan Yu's possession by making two core decisions: "not interfering with the development of the buffer zone" and "infiltrating alone to find the possessed person".

Don't think this takes a long time. You should know that the simulated recording and transmission of intelligence is only in text form, and it can't convey the target's appearance or life force. As for the name... it's obvious that in order to smoothly get through the approximately one year of possession, Yan Yu, who is muddling through the human population, will naturally not have only one name.

Of these forty simulations, more than half were inefficient because they failed to capture Yan Yu. However, by focusing the opportunity on an individual, it was ensured that the simulated person would not miss the opportunity in any future simulations.

However, this only guarantees that Hunzhen can obtain the Flame Realm Pearl at most one year earlier.

Even so, this is far from achieving Hunzhen's goal—to be, within six months, not a simulated human, but Yan Yu whom he personally encountered before he began the possession.

And so... Hunzhen began his long period of intervention.

In the simulation, the time when the container that Yan Yu had his eye on was possessed was estimated, and by tracing back along the timeline, Yan Yu's approximate range of activity was deduced. Then, the simulator was sent to deliver the container that Yan Yu wanted to Yan Yu in advance.

They used various methods to pinpoint the scope of Yan Yu's activities in earlier timelines.

By having simulated humans repeatedly create accidents in front of Yan Yu to prematurely kill the containers that Yan Yu has set his sights on, or the containers that have already been possessed, a similar method can be used to infer Yan Yu's personality and establish and complete his personality model.

After dozens of interventions, he finally succeeded in intervening in Yan Yu's possession operation.

By continuously pushing the timeline forward, they finally... locked onto the area where Yan Yu had recently appeared, specifically Ya Qi and A Yuan.

This is the starting point of the value "36".

Hunzhen originally thought that with the talent and combat power he had shown, even though Yan Yu was very "cunning", he was still very confident that he could catch Yan Yu by showing some flaws.

"We've finally reached this final step. After about three to five simulations, we should achieve our goal, right?"

That was indeed his initial thought.

Looking back now, it was indeed a bit hasty.

Even if the scenario is set up to be extremely reasonable, and Yan Yu pretends to be weak in a normal way, she will not be fooled at all.

Even when the simulated human attacked itself, creating real soul injuries, Yan Yu remained unmoved.

Even when the Sims created a scene of fighting the Tiger-Man Flame Beast and then suffering a relapse of injuries and falling into a coma, Yan Yu acted as if he hadn't seen it.

Yes, you heard right. The injuries that Hunzhen had when he first appeared in front of Ya and Qi... were injuries he inflicted himself.

The latest novel is first published here!

Suppressing the excess soul power during soul inheritance and preventing it from instinctively repairing its own soul injuries is a tough job.

Speaking of these soul powers, as long as Hunzhen does not actively induce an increase in his life level, these soul powers will always remain in a special state, suspended above the soul planet.

It is clearly a rootless water without any spirit, yet it always maintains a soul connection with Hunzhen. Even if it is not used to improve one's realm, it is the best option to use it directly as a backup soul energy source.

Back to the topic.

One failed seduction attempt did not break Hunzhen's confidence; what followed was a long optimization process.

However... the optimization process was much longer than Hunzhen had imagined.

In more than half of the 36 simulations, Yan Yu gave up the attempt to possess the human in a state of extreme weakness, just like the simulated human.

In most of the remaining half, Yan Yu tried to peek out, but ultimately retreated timidly back into the Flame Realm Pearl.

There were also some inexplicable and bizarre endings, such as Yan Yu abandoning the best-quality human simulators and choosing to possess other people.

35 times! A full 35 simulations!

This guy just wouldn't take the bait!

Until... the 36th time.

Hunzhen optimized the "reason" for the appearance of the Tiger-Man Flame Beast, solved the problem of "why did he dare to go on the road alone when he was clearly very weak" by taming a Rhinoceros Flame Beast, established the persona of "a warm-hearted uncle who cares about children", "invited" a "reasonable villain", and created a touching storyline of "even though he was weak, he still managed to hold on and not fall down" and then "this time he really couldn't hold on anymore".

There are many other "trivial" details that he perfected, which I won't list here...

As a result, his two attacks and two serious injuries, which should have been questioned, were all given a reasonable explanation.

The long journey was finally over, and Hunzhen revealed a smile of relief after working overtime for three days and three nights.

Everything went exactly as he planned.

"Human, don't be so smug! It's not necessarily over yet!"

Hunzhen seemed oblivious to Yan Yu's hysterical outbursts, immersed in bliss.

"As expected of me. I've really worked hard for the past six months. Hooray for the finale! I'm so touched."

My tenosynovitis has recurred, and the doctor said I'll have surgery next Monday. (Luckily, I had some drafts saved up, otherwise I would have been done for.) Updates for the next ten days will be posted regularly. Please point out any bugs or errors, and I'll fix them when I get back.

(End of this chapter)