Chapter 90: Stealing Fire from the Nucleus

The bright sun shone down upon a vast expanse of wind-swept sand.

It was a place made for poetry—for writing great poetry. And at this very moment, a grand poem had been forged here: thirteen mushroom clouds erupted into the stratosphere, towering like ancient demons over the desolate, uninhabited desert, staring down at the earth with a gaze of cold, desperate death.

To these mushroom clouds, the humans in hazmat suits a hundred kilometers away were not even ants; they were smaller than bacteria, so insignificant they could be ignored.

Thirteen mushroom clouds.

They varied in size. The largest had already pierced the troposphere, its secondary expansion sprouting a new cap from the summit of the white plume to probe deep into the stratosphere. The smallest, like a stunted infant, had been deformed by the violent shockwaves and crushing pressure of its larger siblings, its once-black pillar now twisted into a crooked column of soot.

This was a nuclear test.

A nuclear test prepared solely for the sake of Lan Yi.

"Northern Demon Sect Daoist Art: The Great Ivan 9,999... an impossible art to master, yet Lan Yi is currently engaged in a spectacular challenge to achieve it." Ji Ning lowered his binoculars, his face weary. After running around for Lan Yi these past few days without time to groom himself, his image as a sharp bureaucrat had long since vanished. But after today, this grueling errand-running should finally be over.

"He isn't going to die, is it?" asked a short-haired, busty tomboy.

Li Wanzhou was not a transmigrator, but a psionic cultivator. In her previous life, she had led a team in Tianhai City to hunt down the "Old Demon Lan" who had reached the Great Completion of Qi Refining. Because she had miscalculated the upper limits of a psionic cultivator, she was held hostage and killed by Lan Yi, who had unleashed a martial arts explosion. She possessed significant martial talent and fortune; her death had cost the River Civilization a powerful martial artist in its early stages.

It was also because of her that subsequent psionic hunters sent to track Lan Yi were switched to those specializing in Daoist arts, avoiding any further close-quarters combat with him.

While this reduced the casualties of precious psionic cultivators, it also left Lan Yi, who was rampaging through various coastal cities, without any constraints. Especially after he entered the Spirit Refining stage and mastered electromagnetic Daoist arts, his enemies were left helpless against him. It wasn't until Lan Yi, who had been desperately learning Daoist knowledge from the internet, began his ferocious retaliation that the shift from defense to offense was fully realized.

"A mere nuclear bomb won't kill him. From tactical to strategic nukes, once the power and distance reach a certain threshold, the nature of the threat remains the same—it lacks concentration. There are too many ways to survive."

The Xinghan had already declared that they were initiating these nuclear tests.

But such a grandiose display...

It didn't matter! Who cared?

The Oceanic Civilization certainly didn't care, as they were detonating nuclear bombs under various pretexts of their own. By now, the radiation levels in the atmosphere had exceeded safe limits by an unknown magnitude. It was only thanks to the fact that the entire world's population had been baptized by psionic energy that cancer rates hadn't surged; in fact, there were even some minor benefits.

"There he is!" Li Wanzhou’s eyes sharpened. She quickly spotted Lan Yi through the various EMP-shielded observation devices.

A blue-white rainbow shimmered above the thirteen mushroom clouds.

The tomboy felt nothing toward the "Old Demon Lan" who had supposedly killed her in a past life. In fact, when they first met, she had nonchalantly tried to pat him on the shoulder, finding this cold, cool guy rather interesting. Fortunately, Ji Ning had stopped her in time.

"What is he doing? Like a little kid who can't wait to set off firecrackers the moment he gets his hands on them?" Li Wanzhou was curious about what Lan Yi was practicing.

"Cultivation."

"Martial arts or Daoist arts?"

"It should be Daoist arts, or perhaps a Daoist space related to geomagnetic field control."

"Then..."

"Don't ask. You were recruited to be Lan Yi’s secretary, not to torture my ears." Ji Ning couldn't help but cut off the inquisitive girl.

Li Wanzhou let out an "oh" and pouted.

According to Lan Yi's personal files—specifically his browser history and the records from a certain pink app on his phone—the research team had finally reached a conclusion after analyzing keywords and images.

Old Demon Lan absolutely loved tomboys.

Second to that were mature, elegant, "wife-material" older women.

Ji Ning scoffed at this. Was this the result of burning millions? Didn't every man have two dreams? One was to fight bloody battles alongside a tomboy, dying in a tragic, earth-shattering campaign that would be recorded in history. The other was to be held in the arms of a mature, gentle older sister who would comfort him and say, "It's okay, you can cry if you want."

Don't ask Ji Ning how he knew that so clearly!

Clearly, after realizing how brutally and inhumanely Old Demon Lan treated his enemies, the experts who were trying to reawaken his humanity had engaged in intense discussions, struggles, and debates. Li Wanzhou had become the most suitable candidate to act as his secretary and liaison.

This lively, outgoing tomboy with a somewhat chaotic sense of morality had a chance of keeping Lan Yi from losing his humanity entirely.

Most importantly, before the transmigration, after Lan Yi killed Li Wanzhou, he had sent her body back. Something must have happened between them. The other women he had slaughtered hadn't received such treatment. Combining this with the fact that Old Demon Lan’s later courtship rituals involved starting with Daoist arts, following up with brutal martial arts, and only those who survived were qualified to be "cherished," the experts speculated that Lan Yi's twisted view on romance stemmed from him having killed his own sister.

If Lan Yi were here, he would surely applaud and say: *Bravo.jpg*

But Lan Yi was not here. At this moment, he was darting through the violent electromagnetic罡煞 (Gangshen), swimming amidst terrifying shockwaves, pushing his life-clusters to their absolute limit within the nuclear explosions! He allowed billions of particles to bombard him, infusing his own psionic energy with various nuclear attributes!

If someone were following him closely, they would see that Lan Yi wasn't just manifesting his "Thunder Soldier Domain" or repeatedly using electromagnetic clones. Bright, piercing lines covered his entire body. Aside from [Canghua], all his other life-clusters were illuminated due to psionic overload and overheating, reaching an unprecedented state of hypersensitive overcharge.

In this state, Lan Yi’s synchronization with the Magnetic Shaman reached a new level. His body and life-clusters developed a highly sensitive touch for nuclear forces—specifically the unique rhythm of a nuclear bomb from the moment the reaction began, through the critical point, until the reaction blossomed like a flood.

One of the reasons he was risking his life like this was that in Lan Yi's Daoist space, the transmigrators who held power were doing everything they could to satisfy his demand for nuclear weapons, provided it didn't affect domestic defense or counter-attacks. Keeping these things around required maintenance, and they had no strategic use anyway; trading them for development quotas was a good deal.

Getting the nukes wasn't just about throwing them away. If he did that, any psionic cultivator with even a slight understanding of such matters could survive in such an extreme environment of pure heat, kinetic blast, and particle collision.

This was where the advantage of an electromagnetic psionic cultivator shone. Using the magnetic煞 (Sha) as a cage, capturing the罡气 (Gangqi) as a guide, opening the Thunder Soldier Domain map, and synchronizing his electromagnetic clones, Lan Yi gained the ability to capture the fire of the sun.

This was extremely dangerous! Even with his connection to the geomagnetism and罡风 (Gang wind/outer space particle streams), and the aid of various Daoist arts, attempting to control a chain or fusion reaction was lethal. He needed real-world experience, and he had to do it for every type of nuclear weapon. One slip-up wouldn't just mean injury—it would mean a gruesome, instantaneous death.

Even for a psionic cultivator, if his life-clusters and congenital energy were destroyed by a violent psionic tsunami, he would be no different from a cripple. Lan Yi’s actions were equivalent to stealing fire from the lightning; it all depended on whether he could extract that key spark from each detonated bomb to ignite the nuclear weapons within his own Daoist space.

It was an extravagant, even insane, endeavor. This was where the benefit of having a "universal wish-granting machine" became apparent. Otherwise, even if he were born into the royalty of the Great Food Empire, he couldn't buy this many nuclear weapons with all the gold and oil in the world, not to mention the logistical and technological requirements that would bankrupt any nation with insufficient national strength.

The thirteen mushroom clouds stood like ancient demons, and Lan Yi, weaving through them as a rainbow and commanding the lightning, was a fearless warrior.

Amidst the tense and orderly activity of the ground personnel, they collected a massive amount of data. Using AI assistance, they created a real-time model. In this vast simulation, Lan Yi was like a small boat in a tsunami, nimbly and resiliently leaping through the hellscape of the nuclear blast. Every disturbance Lan Yi applied to a nuclear bomb model was recorded in the complex chaotic system, all in the pursuit of successfully obtaining that "controllable fire."

Beyond Ji Ning and Li Wanzhou, there were nearly a thousand psionic cultivators urgently recruited from various theaters of war and research institutes. They were willing to be drafted largely because they had seen the combat footage of Lan Yi fighting the Evil God race. That formidable power was the very reason to call him King. With the assistance of the transmigrators, these extraordinary individuals—the best in power and wisdom the nation had to offer—were willing to contribute their strength to the leader of the River Civilization.

This tense and busy work lasted for a full six hours.

Over those six hours, under the gaze of sky satellites and remote sensing observations, Lan Yi performed over a thousand disturbances. He experienced the sub-critical, critical, initiation, and full energy release processes of every type of nuclear bomb. The data was so vast that even Lan Yi couldn't memorize it all with his current brain.

He had found a "feel" for it, but that alone was far from enough. Forget the Northern Demon Sect's Daoist arts; even the nukes stored in his Daoist space couldn't have their energy release effectively controlled yet.

Dragging his body, overloaded to the point of near-exhaustion, Lan Yi streaked back to the observation camp covered in nuclear dust and radiation. As soon as he returned, armed personnel in hazmat suits immediately swarmed him with cleaning agents. This was a rare, legitimate opportunity to spray "Old Demon Lan," and some of the transmigrators hidden among them were having the time of their lives, scrubbing even more vigorously, wishing they had extra hands to spray him with.

Cleaning away the radioactive dust was standard procedure. For a life form like Lan Yi, who was essentially a carbon-based nuclear power plant, a little radioactive dust meant nothing as long as his psionic energy and life-clusters were intact. The cleaning was for the sake of others—he couldn't exactly walk around populated areas as a giant radiation source.

After decontamination, a low-temperature arc passed over his body for a secondary cleaning. Lan Yi donned a lab coat and strode directly into the underground nuclear bunker.

"Did you succeed?" Ji Ning asked with concern as he entered.

Lan Yi gave a slight shake of his head.

"Detonating the bomb, precise operation, controlling the energy... without an auxiliary, it's truly too difficult at this stage..." Ji Ning sighed. He didn't know how much money this experiment had burned; you never know the cost of salt and oil until you run the household.

"When I said I didn't succeed, I meant I haven't fully grasped the Northern Demon Sect's Daoist art," Lan Yi glanced at Ji Ning strangely.

"Huh!?" So our definitions of success are different?

"There are still details to refine in actual combat." Lan Yi pointed to the rows of models currently being processed.

Several mathematical models still needed refinement. In the main world, nuclear models were already highly perfected due to their weaponization; Lan Yi had picked up a bargain by downloading this flower of industrial technology directly into his brain.

Soon, Lan Yi met the second "humanity maintenance" object prepared by the experts who were so concerned about his morality.

Si Lingluo.

"Junior, long time no see." Also wearing a lab coat and silver-rimmed glasses, the intellectually beautiful woman with a gentle temperament and a tall figure looked at Lan Yi, a faint bitterness about the impermanence of life on her pretty face.

Si Lingluo was a great beauty with a scholarly air; every movement was pleasing to the eye. She radiated a strong sense of maternal warmth. She and Lan Yi had attended the same university and studied the same major: nuclear engineering.

In her previous life, she and Lan Yi had no interaction. It was said that because of her tolerant, maternal personality, during a trial in an artificial god-realm related to nuclear war, she had bonded with the natives and stayed there to provide humanitarian aid, never to be heard from again.

How could this happen? This was absolutely unacceptable!

The experts were furious. Such a great candidate, don't waste her as a saint in the nuclear wasteland! Use your maternal compassion to reform your demonic junior! The main world is more worth saving!

Just like that, Si Lingluo, who had been a volunteer in the Northeast, was shoved here. It would be impossible to say she had no resentment, but she did know Lan Yi, and after seeing his tragic experiences in recent days and the future madness of his dark turn, her maternal instincts were indeed triggered. Of course, all the major losses and cruel acts caused by "Old Demon Lan" were quietly omitted or glossed over by the experts.

Li Wanzhou, following behind Lan Yi, guardedly sized up Si Lingluo. Her gaze swept up and down, then she subconsciously stood on her tiptoes and puffed out her chest.

*Good! It’s a tie!*

"Senior, long time no see," Lan Yi offered a polite greeting.

Although he roughly knew what was going on, Si Lingluo's gaze seemed inexplicable to Old Demon Lan. Since when did he not know he had been wronged?

"Wait a moment, Mr. Lan. There are several documents here that require your signature, concerning the worldwide plague," Ji Ning suddenly popped up.

Was he asking for death?