At the singularity where the primordial myths collide with an information explosion, a soul from the twenty-first century plunges into the chaotic age before the War of the Liches, carrying the ultimate spark of the “internet.” The embers of the first Dragon and Han calamity have yet to cool, and the Dao Ancestor has not yet begun preaching in the Purple Cloud Palace. But Lin Yi, the protagonist, has become the last human, barely alive beneath Mount Buzhou.
He has no heaven-defying constitution, no treasure born alongside him, only a “Chaos server” in his mind that is about to crash, and a faint divine consciousness claiming to come from Pangu.
“Want to stay alive?” the consciousness whispers. “Use your ‘network’ to cover this primordial world.”
And so, a distinctly unconventional “Primordial Internet 1.0” quietly goes online. No need to travel to the Purple Cloud Palace to discuss the Dao: listen to Hongjun in a jade slip livestream. No need to rely on fate to find spiritual treasures: the “Taotian Pavilion” marketplace for all races is now open. A conflict between the Liches? Head to the “Baleful Energy Showdown” forum and duke it out!
While the great powers of the myriad heavens are still calculating the secrets of fate, Lin Yi is already using “big data” to predict the calamity. While the sages scheme to control destiny, he is binding the myriad races with “user experience.” He builds base stations atop Mount Buzhou, lays fiber-optic cables through the four seas and the netherworld, using chaos as the cloud and the Heavenly Dao as the endpoint.
Then one day, Dao Ancestor Hongjun watches the comment feed in the Purple Cloud Palace flood with “Fellow Daoist, 666!” and falls into deep thought. The Demon Emperor Di Jun discovers that the operational core of the Zhou Tian Star Formation is being hosted by something called “StarNet”...
Lin Yi gazes at the torrent of chaotic data flowing across his palm and smiles faintly. This time, he will write the script for the calamity. And “getting online” is the path to enlightenment.
