Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  "Exactly the same as me?" Long Yangjun touched her face subconsciously.

  "To be more precise, exactly the same as 'her'," Li Yao said coldly. "Exactly the same as 'her', the woman who left her hair, blood, fingernail, or some other bodily material hundreds of thousands of years ago."

  "I got it now." Long Yangjun's hands were shaking. "Are you saying that, hundreds of thousands of years ago, someone on the Nuwa warship left her hair, blood, or fingernail and refined it into a… fetus, and hundreds of thousands of years later, the fetus has grown into a 'clone'?"

  Chapter 1482: Truth About the Mysterious Signal! |

  "If that is the case, it will be easy to explain why you passed the identification tests on the Nuwa warship," Li Yao said. "As for exactly why a 'clone' has the memories of the 'original body', I have no idea. Perhaps the Nuwa Clan boasted a certain 'memory injection' technique, just like 'possession', except that they were simply possessing themselves!"

  "They possessed themselves?" Long Yangjun scratched her face so hard that steam was almost popping up. "Are you saying that they created a clone by means of the so-called 'genome duplication' and then injected their soul into the clone?"

  "Yes. General possession often has the problem that the soul does not match the body. It is also possible for the soul to be swallowed by the previous owner of the body," Li Yao said. "But if one possesses their own clone, I assume that the obstacle will be significantly weakened, and the speed of integration will be higher. There will be barely any adverse effects."

  Long Yangjun stared at Li Yao without blinking. She was in such a trance that she looked like a lost ghost. "In your world, is the 'genome duplication' technology already highly-developed?"

  "We are not able to accomplish such an incredible thing yet." Li Yao opened his hands and frankly admitted the truth. "However, that is not necessarily so for the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan. To ensure the continuity of their civilization, there is a good chance that they went through all the trouble to create many mysterious if not horrifying techniques!"

  Long Yangjun paced back and forth anxiously. At a loss, she asked, "Why was I launched a hundred years ago but not any other point?"

  Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "Assuming that the iron shell that you were in was indeed an escape capsule, it is possible that the Nuwa warship sensed the invasion of certain dangers and automatically ejected you.

  "Normally speaking, if someone on the Nuwa warship left a fetus by means of 'reverse growth' or 'genome duplication' hundreds of thousands of years ago, hoping that it would be revived in a suitable environment, there would be no reason for you to be launched into the wilderness tens of thousands of kilometers away. The dangers and unexpected factors out there were too many.

  "'Unfreezing' and 'incubating' you directly on the Nuwa warship, protecting your safety with the Nuwa warship, and restoring your memories and reminding you of your destiny through a certain automatic educational tool—that would be the most sensible choice!

  "Unless, of course, certain great changes that took place on the Nuwa warship made the system reach the conclusion that it was no longer safe for you to stay on the warship as a fetus, in which case you were put into a special escape capsule and launched somewhere far, far away!

  "You see, although the Nuwa warship has been in the hibernation state for hundreds of thousands of years, part of the facilities, including the gates to the bridge, are still functioning normally. I believe that the alarm system and the escape system didn't completely hibernate but were placed in a certain half-active state. It would definitely have been possible for the warship to launch an escape capsule!"

  Long Yangjun wanted to speak but hesitated. She was caught in a long silence. The brilliance inside her eyes seemed to be mixing with the spots of light that were shining on the crystal pillars around. It was as if she was being drowned in the bridge.

  Having finished the analysis, Li Yao contemplated on his own issues in silence, too.

  "Are you considering our own origins?" The mental devil surfaced inside his brain again, with the rarely-seen graveness on its face.

  "Yes…" Li Yao sighed gloomily.

  The reason that he could come up with two relatively plausible possibilities from the few clues that Long Yangjun had offered in such a short period of time was naturally because he had been thinking about these questions since a long, long time ago, when his self-consciousness just popped up to the surface of the water from the prolonged chaos.

  Who am I?

  Where did I come from?

  Where am I going?

  When he broke free from the creepy, unpredictable dreams at night with headaches and sweat all over his body and looked at the dim, yellow sky that was entirely different from his memories, the questions always tightened him up hard like invisible boas until his soul was shivering and he could barely catch his breath.

  Long Yangjun was like another version of himself. Or rather, she was like an 'abridged version' of a certain being.

  The two of them were both lost outside of their real homes. They both recalled part of the experiences in a different time and space under the stimulation of uncanny dreams. They were both determined to find out who they were and what kind of destiny they shouldered at all costs.

  They were the same type of person, lost wanderers in the wilderness.

  However, Long Yangjun was more fortunate than him. She had only been thrown tens of thousands of meters away from her origin, which was still on the same planet as she was. Also, after a hundred years of hard work, she had finally returned to the place of her origin and figured out what kind of being she was exactly.

  Either it was reverse growth or genome duplication, and despite the possible flaws in the details, Li Yao believed that his speculation was not too far off the truth.

  But what about himself?

  His origin was probably on the other side of the universe across billions of stars. The method that delivered him to the Heaven's Origin Sector at the edge of the cosmos was definitely a hundred times more sophisticated than 'reverse growth' or 'genome duplication'!

  When would he be able to find his origin and the real significance of his life like Long Yangjun?

  Li Yao took a deep breath and pinched his thigh hard, forcing himself to get away from the random thoughts that were of no help.

  Long Yangjun had figured out her origin, but there was no telling what her stance and attitude were yet.

  In the meantime, thousands of Cultivators who had been corrupted by greed and might go out of control at any moment were still wandering outside.

  'Emperor Phoenix' Zhu Zongyou, a mysterious person that was a headache even for Long Yangjun, and the immeasurable mysterious force behind him were also lurking somewhere in the darkness.

  Besides, it was not the time to play the thoughtful philosopher yet. He might as well focus his attention on figuring out the truth in front of his eyes. If his speculation was right and Long Yangjun had been tossed out by the Nuwa warship through an escape capsule because of the arrival of certain dangers, then—

  Li Yao's body was suddenly stiff as if he had an electric shock. The blood all over his body was flowing into his head and raising a tsunami there!

  "I have a brand-new assumption about the mysterious signal that was launched to the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector!" Li Yao roared excitedly inside his head.

  "Oh? Tell me about it!" The mental devil grew interested, too, with its two small ears flapping.

  "The whole time, we have believed that the mysterious signal was launched intentionally by an unknown force that could be either friendly or hostile. That is why we came to the Ancient Sages Sector after such a long journey in search of the force, right?

  "But what if we have been wrong since the very beginning? The signal might not have been sent on purpose by someone or some force but was triggered in a passive state. Or rather, the signal was activated when the triggering conditions that were set a long
time ago were met!"

  "Triggered in a passive state?" The mental devil was confused. "Triggered by what?"

  "I assume that it was a 'distress signal' or an 'alarm signal'!"

  The more Li Yao spoke, the faster his tongue became, and the brighter his eyes were.

  "If we accept that Long Yangjun was launched by the Nuwa warship when it decided that the inside of the warship was no longer safe because of certain new dangers, it is quite easy to understand the signal! It is a distress and alarm signal that the Nuwa warship sent to the sea of stars, partly to remind the allies nearby that there were enemies here, and partly to ask the allies to help search for and rescue Long Yangjun!"

  The mental scratched its hair hard. "Allies? Hundreds of thousands of years have passed, and both the Pangu civilization and the Nuwa civilization are gone. Where are the allies or enemies?"

  "Yes. We know that very clearly, but when the Nuwa warship crashed in the Land of Eternal Night, the God-Sealing War was still raging. Who could've expected that the two primeval civilizations that once dominated the entire universe would perish with each other? Even the creator and the pilot of the Nuwa warship wouldn't have been able to see that coming, would they?

  "Look, Kunlun is not far away from the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector. Traces of the Nuwa Clan and human soldiers at the early phase of the war have already been detected there. In the meantime, the Ancient Sages Sector was well-hidden in the depths of the dark nebula. It was possibly a war base with enormous firepower and a regional military center!

  "Can you make a reasonable assumption that the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector were already occupied by the Nuwa Clan in the early years of the God-Sealing War and became the rear bases for the Nuwa Clan, whereas the Ancient Sages Sector was not attacked by the Nuwa Clan until the last years of the war?"

  The mental devil pondered for a moment and said, "It seems to be a justifiable assumption."

  Li Yao clapped his hands and said, "It is even possible that this very Nuwa warship took either the Heaven's Origin Sector or the Flying Star Sector as the mother port and the other world as a supply base. It took off from our hometown and flew all the way to the Ancient Sages Sector for an assault!

  "If such an assumption is true, it is not strange at all that the Nuwa warship boasted certain techniques allowing it to communicate with the mother port and the supply base instantly!

  "I don't know what exactly happened when the Nuwa warship crashed, but it had probably stored a distress and alarm signal inside the mainframe crystal processor and set the signal to be sent to the mother port, the supply base, and the possible allies in the entire universe on certain conditions!

  "Or maybe the Nuwa warship meant to send the signal at that time, but because of the exhaustion of spiritual energy or the chaotic magnetic field caused by the battle, it went into its hibernation state before the signal was launched successfully!

  "About a hundred years ago, the Nuwa warship finally collected enough spiritual energy after the hibernation of hundreds of thousands of years, which allowed it to recover the most fundamental functions. At that time, something that made the Nuwa warship believe that it was no longer safe to keep a 'fetus' such as Long Yangjun inside the warship occurred!

  "When it launched Long Yangjun out through an escape capsule, it dutifully carried out another mission, which was to send a distress or an alarm signal that contained tremendous encrypted information to the places that it believed to be the mother port or allies in the vast universe!"

  Chapter 1483: How Losers Play the Game |

  The mental devil bulged its eyes and shrieked, "That's right! If that's the case, everything makes perfect sense! It also explains why Long Yangjun does not remember anything from her 'previous life'!

  "Perhaps, according to the standard procedure, after the fetus is developed, a lot of memories will be injected into her head to form a clear self-consciousness and sophisticated knowledge system of the Nuwa Clan. However, because of the unexpected crisis, she was launched in a hurry. Therefore, the work was only half done, and she was just implanted with certain fuzzy memory pieces!"

  "Then, our target now is very clear." Deep in thought, Li Yao said, "Now that the first puzzle has been solved, we only need to figure out what exactly happened on the Nuwa warship a hundred years ago, which will also prove or disprove the veracity of our hypothesis!"

  "It was definitely not as simple as the invasion of two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators!"

  The mental devil thought for a moment and said, "The tales about the Nuwa warship have been passed on in the Ancient Sages Sector for tens of thousands of years. It is regarded by the locals of this world as the Divine Palace, who also created magical equipment such as the 'Thousand Stars Tray' and the 'map core'. It is evident enough that somebody entered the Nuwa warship a long time ago.

  "Yet, none of the reactions were triggered at that time, which suggests that, by the Nuwa warship's criteria, it is not a big deal if some locals trespass on the Nuwa warship, and they will not be a threat to the safety of the warship itself and the fetus. Just like the round, silver ball, which must be part of the automatic defense system. Didn't it abort the attack after determining that you are a real human being?

  "If the Nuwa warship did not wish to be infiltrated, it could've switched to a different Grand Illusionary Land to test if you were one of the original crew members, and it would barrage and kill you instantly as long as you were not one of them!"

  Li Yao was suddenly alarmed.

  The mental devil did have a point.

  It seemed that Emperor Phoenix was not the only target whom he should be wary of. There might be something seriously wrong with the Nuwa warship itself. What had happened a hundred years ago was certainly much more complicated than the invasion of two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators!

  Then, what should he do next?

  The mysteries about Long Yangjun's birth and her motivations of planning everything had basically been figured out. Although she must have kept something to herself, what she had confessed seemed rather trustworthy.

  Was there any chance for him to cooperate with Long Yangjun?

  "I still feel that something is wrong with her," the mental devil said worriedly. "It is quite odd. My intuition tells me that everything she said just now is probably true without much distortion, but my intuition also tells me that she is dangerous. Extremely dangerous!"

  "Why?" Li Yao thought hard for a moment. "If Long Yangjun is truly a clone or a reversely-grown version of a core crew member on the Nuwa warship hundreds of thousands of years ago, she should be standing on our side. Didn't the Nuwa Clan help human beings against the tyranny of the Pangu Clan?

  "Also, I can tell that Long Yangjun's physique is greatly different from the tall, strong members of the Nuwa Clan who had human heads but serpent bodies. She probably still falls into the category of human beings. Although she can secrete a weird crystal suit from inside her body and transform between sexes freely, it is probably because she belonged to a special unit that had received the genetic modification of the Nuwa Clan, just like the Thunder Striker Legion that we found on Kunlun. All in all, she is still a human being, one of our own!

  "The purpose of our journey is to look for allies to fight against the Imperium of True Human Beings together. If Long Yangjun is truly a reborn human soldier who was modified and edified by the Nuwa Clan personally hundreds of thousands of years ago, she will be a priceless treasure for the federation!

  "Also, the bridge of this Nuwa warship is too weird for us to activate and manipulate purely on our own. She is going to be the key to our current dilemma. How are we going to get the warship if we don't cooperate with her?

  "Lastly, what can I do even if I refuse to cooperate with her? I can't kill her at all. Should we just confront each other here at an impasse until we die of old age?"

  Li Yao's words were not entirely unreasonable. However, the menta
l devil ignored them and suddenly widened its eyes. "I know why I felt ill at ease just now! Even if your speculations are all right, Long Yangjun is truly an elite warrior raised by the Nuwa Clan, and the Nuwa Clan did stand on the human beings' side and sincerely helped us to overthrow the tyranny of the Pangu Clan, it still doesn't mean that Long Yangjun has to cooperate with the federation."

  "The key problem is this. Who is 'us'?"

  Li Yao was dazed. "Who is us?"

  "Exactly! If we classify the attitudes of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan according to a simple and straightforward criterion, which is whether or not they support human beings to have independent emotions and self-awareness, the Pangu Clan will be the guys who regard human beings as puppets and tools and restrain them with the 'three fundamental laws', and all the human beings with independent emotions and self-awareness will be regarded as the allies of the Nuwa Clan. They are all 'us', right?"

  Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "Probably. So what?"

  "So what? You still don't understand what's going on here?" The mental devil raised its voice. "If that's the case, Long Yangjun, as an elite warrior raised by the Nuwa Clan, will certain detest the Alliance of the Holy Covenant and cooperate with us to resist the Covenant Alliance and the Pangu Clan together self-willingly, but why does she have to choose the federation? The Immortal Cultivators of the Imperium of True Human Beings also boast independent feelings and self-awareness! Even for the humblest slaves in the Imperium, their bodies may be tortured, and their lives may be reaped, but their feelings and self-awareness will never be deprived!"

  Li Yao was utterly dumbfounded.

  "Therefore, the Star Glory Federation and the Imperium of True Human Beings are in fact both 'us'. We are all the rightful heirs to the spirit of the Nuwa Clan."