56: After the first year of college, high-intensity study can really make people lose their minds.

When immersed in study, time always flies.

Three months passed in a flash.

Classroom 000, after three months, the 50 students of Class 2 returned here.

After this period of study, all students, including Lin Chen, had shed the immaturity of high school students and gained some unique university student-like weariness.

The experience of being tormented by knowledge to the point of near death, and having their brains tempered repeatedly, made them unconsciously weary.

The knowledge they learned affected every aspect of their soul, mind, and body. One wrong move and they would be hit, feeling the weight of knowledge and deeply understanding how terrifying the power of knowledge could be.

Including Lin Chen, merely studying cosmic knowledge for three months led to no less than ten dangerous encounters.

Unforeseen distortions, inexplicable annihilation of consciousness, and uncontrollable degradation could occur at any time.

Even if it was Lin Chen's Copy Bodys who were studying this knowledge, his main body would still be affected in various ways.

Fortunately, whenever a problem arose, a mentor would intervene, using their rich experience to perfectly handle the situation and protect the students' safety.

Over three hundred thousand years, the Academy had accumulated countless experiences and had seen every kind of situation.

Relying solely on the Qi Luck Soul Garment to protect oneself was far from enough; one also needed to further enhance one's resistance to the cosmos to further understand its profundity and secrets, and to freely traverse the cosmic alien realms in the future.

The instructor Yu Ziqi did not appear; the course on establishing the Cognitive Barrier was taught by a gentle female teacher.

The course would continue until all students had established their Cognitive Barrier, which usually only took 5 to 15 days.

"Students, calm your minds, sink your consciousness into your sea of consciousness, follow my guidance, connect with the Qi Luck Soul Garment, extract knowledge patterns, and establish your Cognitive Barrier with these knowledge patterns as the foundation."

The mentors of the Sixth Academy do not like to casually tell others their names. A name is a designation for a person, a code name for a person in the current world, and it is used in many aspects.

There are normal applications, and naturally there are abnormal applications. The methods of killing by name are countless, and the underlying mechanisms are very complex, not something that can be explained in a few sentences.

Therefore, any existence whose cultivation is above the Tenth Order will instinctively conceal their true name, often introducing themselves to the outside world with a Daoist title or code name.

Even when revealing their true name, they will impose numerous transmission restrictions on the name so that it does not become a weakness for enemies to exploit. At most, they will add cognitive interference, making it knowable yet unknowable.

The mentor teaching the class did not waste words. Once the students were in place and the teaching environment was sealed, they immediately began lecturing. Students only needed to follow the mentor's guidance and not have too many other thoughts; just do it.

Under the mentor's guidance, the consciousness of the 50 students sank into their sea of consciousness, once again sensing the Qi Luck Soul Garment. Through the Qi Luck Soul Garment, the knowledge they had learned in the past was materialized, and then from this materialized knowledge, the knowledge patterns used to construct the Cognitive Barrier were extracted.

For three hundred thousand years, the Academy had already perfected the process of constructing the Cognitive Barrier to an extreme. One only needed to extract ten knowledge patterns to construct the simplest Cognitive Barrier.

The Cognitive Barrier specifically targets "Outer God" type cosmic disasters and allows for correct recognition of "Old God" type cosmic disasters.

Its greatest function is to protect the soul, maintain human cognition, combat madness through rationality, and resist assimilation and corruption through identity recognition.

The dangers of the cosmos are broadly divided into four categories.

The first category is "Outer Gods," invaders from beyond This Universe.

The rules they carry are incompatible with the fundamental rules of This Universe. The practical manifestation is that their knowledge is poisonous, assimilating all living beings and matter that come into contact with them, transforming them into "Outer God" dependents.

The second category is "Old Gods," deities born before the current era of This Universe.

They are the embodiment of cosmic rules, both guardians and destroyers of the universe, divided into chaotic good and chaotic evil factions. They do not care about other living beings or matter besides themselves, operating and growing according to established rules.

The third category is "Ten Thousand Races," ethnic groups from This Universe and other universes.

Any race, as long as its population reaches the billion-level scale, will eventually choose to become a cosmic disaster, targeting everything in the cosmos with the greatest malice, and also bearing all the malice within the cosmos.

Fighting evil with evil.

The fourth category is "Daoization," where living beings from This Universe or other universes are assimilated by heaven and earth, becoming Daoized Apostles of the chaotic neutral faction.

They take it upon themselves to maintain the operation of the universe, striking down all actions that harm the universe. For example, humanity's expansion and attempts to unify the universe are, in their eyes, also actions that harm the universe.

They treat everyone equally; in a sense, they can be considered enemies of the world.

"Daoized" Apostles were originally cosmic scavengers, but they overdid it and became like rats that everyone wanted to beat, being besieged whenever they appeared.

In the cosmic starry sky, the dangers ordinary people encounter mostly come from the "Ten Thousand Races," accounting for 80% of the total. With the Qi Luck Soul Garment, Cognitive Barrier, and one's own cultivation, one can generally pass through them unscathed.

Among the remaining dangers, those from "Outer Gods" account for 15% of the total probability, those from "Old Gods" account for 4% of the total probability, and those from "Daoization" only account for 1% of the total probability.

The probabilities of these three types of dangers seem acceptable, but cultivators generally have longer lifespans, and over a large time scale, any low-probability event becomes inevitable.

Getting back to the main topic.

In Classroom 0002, Lin Chen spent 15 hours extracting the first knowledge pattern. With the experience of the first extraction, there would be no problems with the subsequent nine knowledge patterns.

Time passed by the minute and second. Six days went by in a flash, and Lin Chen successfully extracted ten knowledge patterns.

With these ten knowledge patterns as a foundation, Lin Chen seemed to instinctively know how to combine them to construct a Cognitive Barrier that protected his soul.

Without any surprises, a Cognitive Barrier covered Lin Chen's entire sea of consciousness.

At this point, Lin Chen had a second means of combating cosmic disasters. Coupled with the Qi Luck Soul Garment, he could now traverse the cosmos and perceive its profundity and splendor.

The cosmos is beautiful; it should not be hidden from humanity.

After constructing the Cognitive Barrier, the thrilling and dangerous days became much calmer.

When Lin Chen studied cosmic knowledge again, accidents no longer frequently occurred. Countless pieces of knowledge flooded his mind, and knowledge patterns were extracted one by one, integrating into the Cognitive Barrier, further increasing its strength.

A basic Cognitive Barrier with ten units of strength could only defend against dangers below the Demigod rank, which was not very useful.

Lin Chen was only staying in the Almighty World, which was why he could isolate more than 99% of unexpected situations with a Cognitive Barrier of ten units of strength. Before entering the cosmos, he would need to raise his Cognitive Barrier to at least three hundred units of strength to be barely sufficient.

He had four Copy Bodys absorbing knowledge, so the speed at which his Cognitive Barrier's strength increased was not slow; it was strengthening at a rate of one unit per day.

The Qi Luck Soul Garment is a passive ability, difficult to improve, while the Cognitive Barrier is an active ability that can be actively improved.

As long as enough knowledge is learned, the Cognitive Barrier will be strong enough.

Therefore, even martial artists who do not follow a research path are still knowledgeable, though merely memorizing knowledge is one thing, and actual application is another.

Lin Chen completely used knowledge as a form of power, like qi and blood, as nourishment to enhance the Cognitive Barrier's strength, and did not deeply explore the true power of knowledge.

Of course, this did not hinder anything; as long as it worked, it was fine.

Everything was based on practicality.

Study time is always dry and boring, and the perception of time passing is also very vague.

Nine months passed in a blink of an eye.

Lin Chen's main body, who had been in seclusion for a long time, was interrupted by a pre-set schedule reminder.

"A year has passed just like that. Time really flies."

"It's time to participate in the freshman year-end assessment to test the results of this year's cultivation. Only by completing all objectives can I gain the qualification to leave the Academy and travel the cosmos."

Lin Chen's four Copy Bodys also did not attend class today; they were all lying around in the villa dormitory.

They had truly studied for an entire year, without a single day of interruption, filling their schedules tightly every day, studying twenty-four hours a day, year-round, which was quite miserable.

Even though Copy Bodys are not real living beings, they were still overwhelmed by a year of high-intensity study. Now that they could finally rest for a day, they genuinely did not want to move.

And the study habits they had developed over a year meant that even if they wanted to rest, as soon as they lay down, a sense of guilt would arise, feeling that not studying was a cardinal sin.

Essence Clone: Main body, quickly take me back into your body, I need to rest!

Qi Clone: I'm dying, scholarly aura is fake, only being unkempt is real.

Gods Avatar: The connection between spirituality and evil gods is... gibberish... gibberish...

Copy Body: Abba abba abba...

Lin Chen looked at the Essence Clone who was uncomfortable lying down, the Qi Clone who was lifeless, the Gods Avatar who was immersed in the sea of knowledge and on the verge of madness, and the Copy Body whose sanity had broken.

Without any hesitation, he immediately recalled them into his body, temporarily disbanding their consciousness and allowing them to fall into the deepest level of rest.

"High-intensity study can really drive one mad!"

"Fortunately, I only need to cultivate; studying still relies on the Copy Bodys. If I had to do it myself, I'd die."

Lin Chen paid his highest respects to the creators of all Copy Body-type cultivation techniques, especially the setting where Copy Bodys and the main body do not share status but only share cultivation and knowledge; it was truly excellent.

Lin Chen only needed to receive knowledge and extract knowledge patterns; the Copy Bodys had much more to consider.