Fantasy cultivation novels often feature a particular archetype of character: The son of an elder from a prestigious sect, born with mediocre innate talent. His cultivation level is artificially inflated through elixirs and energy transfers from his elders, resulting in weak actual combat prowess and very limited potential for future growth. Such characters typically don't last more than three rounds in a fight against the protagonist. WeChat, the chosen successor of Tencent's previous generation, is the most capable and sensible disciple within the sect. Its supreme cultivation realm was achieved through over a decade of arduous training, and its formidable reputation in the martial world was earned through countless life-and-death battles. Yuanbao, the new chosen successor of Tencent's current generation, is the most valued and resource-supported entity within the group. Its selection isn't due to being any elder's son, but simply because, among this generation of disciples, it is the only one training in the divine AI technique. Martial world rumors suggest: Once the divine AI technique is mastered, it will overpower all other methods, determining the future of every sect. Therefore, before the Spring Festival cultivation tournament, the Sect Leader arranged for the senior disciple, WeChat, to personally tutor the junior disciple, Yuanbao, hoping Yuanbao's cultivation level and combat strength would rapidly improve so as not to embarrass Tencent during the competition. However, after a few days of mentoring, the senior disciple discovered that Junior Disciple Yuanbao's approach to cultivation seemed rather misguided... Mortals who cultivate seek to understand the heavenly and martial paths, and train to master techniques and skills; only then can their cultivation level and combat strength advance in tandem. But Junior Disciple Yuanbao showed little interest in these steady, solid cultivation methods, being wholly preoccupied with one thought: Senior Brother, just transfer more of your energy to me, more, and still more.

Three days later, Senior Disciple WeChat could no longer contain itself and delivered a stern warning to Junior Disciple Yuanbao: If you cultivate like this, you will inevitably ruin yourself! Although abruptly stopping the mentoring might be difficult to explain to the Sect Leader, WeChat, as the senior disciple, still possesses a degree of autonomy. More crucially, after infusing Yuanbao with energy for several days, while its cultivation level had risen somewhat, its actual combat strength showed little improvement. Wasn't this just a waste of time? That's the essence of the story, and the real-world sequence of events is now public. On February 4th, WeChat issued an announcement, determining that Yuanbao's method of sharing and grabbing red packets harassed users and violated platform norms, and would be blocked effective immediately.

External observers interpreted this as a conflict between the senior and junior disciples. In reality, the cultivation realms of WeChat and Yuanbao are vastly different, and their cultivation paths are entirely distinct; there is no possibility of Yuanbao's growth threatening the senior disciple's status. Furthermore, WeChat, as the most capable senior disciple in the sect, earns its own cultivation resources and requires no support from the sect itself, making talk of resource competition completely unfounded. WeChat is willing to mentor Junior Disciple Yuanbao, provided that Yuanbao's cultivation follows the orthodox path. As the senior disciple, seeing the junior disciple obsessed with shortcut cultivation methods, and finding patient persuasion ineffective, it had no choice but to assert some authority and issue a stern rebuke. WeChat could have alternatively chosen to privately request leave from the Sect Leader, claiming it had already transferred sufficient energy to the junior disciple, who now needed to retreat and absorb it. This would have avoided public embarrassment but would have forfeited the opportunity to jolt Yuanbao into reflection and could potentially have corrupted the entire sect's ethos. Years from now, if Yuanbao truly reaches the pinnacle of martial arts through mastering the divine AI technique, it will surely be grateful for the stern warning WeChat delivered just before the Spring Festival of 2026. Yuanbao's deviation from the right path actually began a year ago with its integration of DeepSeek.

Prior to that, Yuanbao was cultivating Tencent's own Hunyuan divine technique. At that time, all major sects were exploring AI cultivation paths, each making some progress, but none yet truly formidable; relatively speaking, Tencent was somewhat behind. But despite lagging, Tencent remained the foremost major sect in the cultivation world, and no one dared underestimate the growth potential of the Hunyuan technique. Moreover, the path of cultivation is long and arduous, with technique innovation advancing rapidly; the small gap at the starting line was essentially insignificant. In early 2025, DeepSeek made a stunning debut and rapidly gained fame. Most temptingly, DeepSeek open-sourced its cultivation manual, allowing anyone to practice it. Yuanbao, being rather inexperienced, saw that progress with its own Hunyuan technique was slow and actually halted its Hunyuan training to switch to practicing DeepSeek, even boasting to others about its ample energy reserves enabling it to unleash DeepSeek's full combat potential. In contrast, major cultivation sects like Byte and Alibaba, while also dazzled by the brilliant DeepSeek, buckled down and worked even harder on cultivating their own Doubao and Qianwen techniques respectively. Byte and Alibaba's reasoning was pragmatic: DeepSeek is excellent, and if they could acquire both the people and the technique, it might be worth cultivating as a core asset. The problem is that although DeepSeek originated from a minor sect, it operates independently, proud and unyielding, with no intention of being acquired by a major sect. To use DeepSeek, one can only wait for its open-source releases version by version. If Tencent were a minor sect, that would be fine; DeepSeek is very useful and still improving. The key point is that Tencent is the number one orthodox sect in the cultivation world, striving for the Emperor realm. If the cultivation techniques of its disciples depend on the open-source output of a minor sect, then the timeline for reaching the Emperor realm is no longer under its own control, and the immense cultivation resources of the top sect cannot be leveraged effectively. Abandoning the Hunyuan technique in early 2025 to embrace DeepSeek was undoubtedly a strategic misstep for Tencent. By early 2026, seeing Byte's Doubao and Alibaba's Qianwen make significant strides, leveraging their top-sect strength to leave DeepSeek behind, Yuanbao—still attempting to cultivate both the Hunyuan technique and DeepSeek simultaneously—became so anxious it couldn't sleep: What to do? What to do? The annual Spring Festival tournament is approaching. If my technique is inferior and my energy accumulation is also lacking, how can I possibly compete? This led to the opening scene: the Sect Leader arranging for the senior disciple to transfer energy to Yuanbao, hoping to quickly boost its combat strength and avoid a humiliating defeat in the Spring Festival tournament. But Senior Disciple WeChat is famously calm and disciplined within the Tencent sect. While others might be temporarily blinded by anxiety, WeChat advanced step by step to the Emperor realm through its own cultivation and understands deeply the severe consequences of impatience and seeking quick results on the cultivation path. The stern warning was also a moment of sudden enlightenment: The path of cultivation is long. Diligently honing one's own techniques and improving practical combat strength is fundamental; stop obsessing over rapid level increases. For the Tencent Sect Leader, it's time for a decisive decision: Should Yuanbao continue its dual-path cultivation of Hunyuan and DeepSeek, or should it resolutely abandon the level-maintaining DeepSeek and focus solely on returning to cultivating its own Hunyuan technique? If it chooses the path of dual-technique cultivation coupled with resource infusion, Yuanbao might have a chance to rank in the top three in this year's Spring Festival tournament, but any hope of future attainment of the Emperor realm would be lost. Perhaps it would be necessary to start over by nurturing a promising young disciple, or maybe have Senior Disciple WeChat also begin training in AI techniques. If it chooses to focus solely on returning to the Hunyuan technique, then Yuanbao should not compete in this year's Spring Festival tournament. But in the long run, there might still be a chance to aspire to the Emperor realm. In reality, with Yao Shunyu's involvement, Tencent's own Hunyuan large model is already pursuing an all-out catch-up effort. However, given the significant initial lag, catching up still requires time. Considering the capital market's limited patience, using DeepSeek to make a showing in the tournament and gain some visibility could also be seen as a reasonable course of action. They just didn't anticipate that the usually calm and restrained, straightforward Senior Disciple WeChat would be the first to lose its temper... It remains to be seen whether WeChat's stern warning can cure Yuanbao's anxiety and insomnia.