Heifeng Jiansui seemed to be lost in thought, staring into nothingness while his three disciples watched, wondering if he had some profound insight. Then suddenly, he smiled. “We should get out of here now.”

“Sect Master…?” The plum-scented Fu Ying looked at her master, unable to understand his mysterious words. Just then, the apocalyptic landscape around them began to slowly transform, as life seemed to spontaneously form from the desolation.

Langyu saw wondrously as a wave of green swept through the icy tundra and fiery lava that she suffered through in her ‘limit training’ and various wondrous trees, herbs, bushes and the like sprang into existence. The sounds of animals crying out could be heard through the land.

“The Yin-Yang Couple have began their cultivation. This apocalyptic landscape will become the equivalent of two Supreme Worlds in a few thousand years… Perhaps it might even become something more…” Seeing Heifeng Jiansui say this, the girls seemed a bit mystified.

“The two Perpetual Emperors have secluded themselves for a thousand years?” Fu Li who seemed to have cherry blossoms fall around her asked.

“It isn’t seclusion, the two old bastards haven’t shut themselves in separate rooms like in a marriage spat. They are indulging in dual cultivation…” Heifeng Jiansui mysteriously felt the desire to correct her.

At his statement, the two Immortal Kings couldn’t help but blush red. But Langyu who didn’t have much knowledge of cultivation terms curiously asked. “What dual cultivation?”

“Dragon and Phoenix becoming One… Wait, you can call it the 69 posture as well.” Heifeng Jiansui saw the incomprehension in his new disciple’s expression before changing terms. Hearing this, her face turned red to match up with the two girls.

“Anyway, your training is done for now and living in this transforming world will only traumatize you. Since it is so, let’s take you to the Sect.” Saying this, he drew his sword and slashed open a void in space. The tear in spacetime immediately swallowed its creator.

The three immediately followed, swallowing their fear of the unknown with loud gulps before walking in. And so, they didn’t witness the mysteries of Yin and Yang coming together and the eternal fate of death and rebirth and the life genesis of existences that surpassed human cognition and comprehension …

+++

Arriving at a vast space that was only unending whiteness, the three felt a deep-seated fear slowly surface within their hearts. Their master was nowhere to be seen, there was unending whiteness everywhere and there were no shadows.

The three girls could not see each other, only blank whiteness.

Trying to open their mouths, they couldn’t speak. Trying to walk, they could not move. Only a dull chant could be heard, like the ominous requiem of the world at its end. Their eyes which could only see whiteness slowly began seeing other colors that were indiscernible, indescribable, incomprehensible…

“Let there be darkness!” The voice was like a God commanding the world to obey, and natural law changed. The stark white world disappeared, and suddenly a room came into being. Heifeng Jiansui stood beside a silver sheath, the Nineprime Sword held within.

“It’s been a while… This is the Sect Master’s private room, formed in the absolute centre of the Ninelight Stellar Circuit. The natural laws nearly collapsed and I had to use Nineprime to uphold them…” Heifeng Jiansui’s explanation was not something the girls could understand. They could only nod and look around.

The room… looked quite small. Yet it wasn’t due to the room’s size but the hundreds of millions of papers scattered about. They completely dotted the floor and covered the sky. There wasn’t even a slight feeling of mystery and power in them, they flew about like trash yet to be thrown out.

“0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and A, B, C, D, E and F… Is this some kind of secret code?” As a transmigrator from Earth, Langyu realized that this was a code, a computer code of some sort to be exact.

“Hexadecimal code, Base-16. You remember my earlier story about the Demon SYSTEM and a powerful programmer’s ability to break out of its control and turn it into his personal tool, right?” Langyu nodded at him.

“Well, I found all this out after meeting a bro programmer who achieved this all. Nearly on the level of a Chaos Sovereign but a really chill person. Even taught me coding.” Heifeng Jiansui smiled at the memory.

“…Sect Master, didn’t you say that you were not a programmer?” Langyu asked with a frown, regretting not learning it when she could.

“Ah, that’s correct. I am simply a coder, not a programmer. I reached base-2 in 2485 years, base-4 in 20,000 years, base-8 in 560,000 years and base-16 in 1,999,640 years…” Langyu could see a wry smile on the Sect Master’s face as he stared at the paper tokens as if he could burn them with his eyes.

“Well, a random programmer from Earth could reach this level in 3 years of training or so, with geniuses capable of doing this in months. The entire system of programming was created in a century or so. When programmer friend bro told me this, I hanged myself with ramen noodles and beat myself to death with low-fat tofu.” Heifeng Jiansui’s smile as he recounted this was a bit disconcerting.

“…What do you mean?” Langyu was weirded out by the strangeness of the answer.

“Well, as you might have noticed, I am not really interested in killing myself. And well, if you have eternal life, might as well waste some of it. After I reach Perennial King, I’ll shut myself in when I have the free time and try to enter base-32, the level of a Home Computer.” Hearing Heifeng Jiansui’s casual words, Langyu felt like hanging herself with noodles herself. What was so good about coding in the first place?

“As I was saying, chill programmer bro taught me coding for a long time. After I reached base-16, that guy left me a chip and told me to reach base-64, breakthrough the encryptions on it and formulate a communication link.” Heifeng Jiansui flashed a white computer chip before the girl.

“But that isn’t the only thing! Another heritage of Earth was left for me to study as well!” Heifeng Jiansui’s voice was really excited as he said this.

‘A nuke? A spaceship? Death Star?’ Fanciful thoughts filled Langyu’s head, but the answer was…

Heifeng Jiansui called out to the twins. “Hey girls, come here!” The twins immediately stood by his side. Langyu even felt their tongues flash for a moment, like dogs eager to have a stick thrown to fetch.

“The Yin-Yang Couple and Battle Emperor liked to play with me, but since they are not here, you three will have to do! Remember to learn quickly, this thing’s learning curve is steep!” Saying this, Heifeng Jiansui waved his palm and a familiar game system arrived before Langyu’s eyes, with four controllers, some wiring and power cords and some game cartridges accompanying.

SNES. Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Vague memories of it being the best 16-bit game system in the ‘90’s resurfaced.

“I needed to fiddle with the code for a long time to make it enjoyable even for my friends with their high cultivation. And the controllers needed to be reinforced as well. In the end, making it that the machine could take in 4 players was the easiest…” Hearing Heifeng Jiansui brag, Langyu felt a smile appear on her face.

“Anyway, let’s play Super Mario Kart! I personally modified the cartridge for 4 players!” The wires and cords were connected, controllers were passed around, the cartridge inserted and seeing the grainy pixels of Mario and company racing with SUPER MARIO KART – 1992 NINTENDO flashing, Langyu felt extremely surreal.

The twins seemed interested in the spectacle as expected, while the Sect Master himself seemed like a true grandmaster even as he sat holding the controller and explaining their functions to the girls.

And finally, the explanation ended.

Before beginning, the Sect Master realized something and asked her with concern. “Langyu, do you want to sit this out? This system is modified for high-level cultivators to use, you’ll just lose every match.”

“I am in this for the experience.” What a joke, this was a retro game from her childhood. Losing repeatedly won’t kill her.

“OK, try to have fun. Let’s begin our first match!”