by <unknown>
"Although you are young, you are definitely a smart man. So, I won't beat around the bush with you." Li Jialing patted Li Jialing's shoulder heavily. "I brought you to Manjusaka partly to continue your treatment and remove the weird seal inside your head, and partly, if it succeeds, to turn you into a new hero."
"Turn me into a hero?" Li Jialing was truly somewhat stunned this time. "Me? A hero?"
"Yes. A hero, a star, and a super idol that will be popular among the teenage boys and girls in the entire Imperium, loved by both the hominoids and bottom-level Immortal Cultivators. After a series of operations, you can even become the spokesperson of the notion of slaughter streaming as the god for countless hominoids and low-level Immortal Cultivators!"
Li Lingfeng explained his plans incessantly while waving his hands.
"The war stream this time to annihilate 'Starlight' is of a reasonable scale and difficulty. It is the best opportunity for us. We do not even need to introduce your identity and origins or reveal your real appearance at first. All you need to do is arrive from the sky and go on a killing spree in a cool crystal suit when the Cultivators lose all hope and begin their final, futile resistance.
"Through the war stream of 'Dying Light', you will leave a deep impression on the hearts of countless people in the Imperium. After that, a series of soul-stirring and mind-boggling quests will be arranged for you so that you will soar into the sky and become a real superhero!"
Li Jialing looked at Li Lingfeng in disbelief.
"Is it so hard to accept?" Li Lingfeng smiled. "Speaking of heroes, you killed one just now, Li Yingxiong. His father is definitely not easy to deal with. After you return to the family, I fear that you will be faced with a medium crisis, but I will not help you directly."
"I've been thinking about how I can stuff you into the channel of ascension of the family, but the regular routes of elimination and upgrade are really too slow. The vetting and education that can take decades are too much for both you and me.
"Therefore, it is not a bad idea to simply bypass the plethora of screening procedures within the family and go down a new path. We will create a very charismatic superhero from the outside. Then, it will be easier for me to do a lot of things for you."
"Am I suitable for that?" Li Jialing asked after a brief silence.
"What, are you not confident in your strength?"
"I am not confident in my origins. Everybody within the family knows that I am the child of a pair of inferior warriors."
"That is what makes you perfect. We have decided to continue using that cover story," Li Lingfeng said. "Ever since the establishment of the Imperium of True Human Beings, the idea that anyone can be successful as long as they work hard regardless of their origins has always been promoted. Born in the bottom class but not giving in to fate and striving all the way until success—this is the image of the most standard Immortal Cultivator of the Imperium and the image of a most attractive hero."
Wuying Lan sighed added, "It is a shame the Imperium has endured a thousand years. When a tree is too huge, there will always be dry branches. After a thousand years, all kinds of conflicts and accumulated problems are gradually revealing themselves. The consolidation of social stratification is a very serious problem among them.
"I wonder, have you heard a popular joke among the Immortal Cultivators right now, Lord Li? If a father is in the Nascent Soul Stage, his son will arrive at the Nascent Soul Stage; if a father is in the Core Formation Stage, his son will be in the Core Formation Stage, too. The highest levels that most people can reach are exactly what their parents reached earlier.
"As a result, a lot of middle-level and bottom-level Immortal Cultivators who do not have resources and connections are restless. It is not entirely bad if they are too frustrated and give up trying, but I'm afraid that some of them may develop other nefarious intentions, which can be quite damaging.
"Hominoids are all mobsters. There is nothing to be scared of however many riots they launch. But the middle-level and the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators are the foundations of the Imperium. If even they cannot see any hope and are filled with grudges, the problem is truly rather grave."
"I couldn't agree with you more," Li Lingfeng said. "This is not the age of Blackstar the Great anymore, when everything flourished like a morning sun and everyone was full of ambition, ready to burn themselves for the civilization of mankind. The Immortal Cultivators today are no longer the Immortal Cultivators from a thousand years ago. Our society is decaying, and every generation is worse than the last. How many people can still prioritize talents over everything like me and worship the idea that whoever is strong and has enough potential is qualified to inherit my resources and strength regardless of whether or not they are my blood descendants?"
Li Lingfeng shook his head disapprovingly before he focused his eyes on Li Jialing again. "However, this only further highlights your preciousness. As a common descendant in the family with unattractive talents, you never gave up despite all the humiliation you suffered. Through your own hard work, you finally changed your fate miraculously and distinguished yourself in the boundless sea of stars… This is almost a perfect image.
"How about it? Would you like to give it a shot?"
The young man was caught in hesitation and silence.
Or rather, he seemed to be caught in hesitation and silence.
After a long silence, when he raised his head again, there was both desire and ambition in his eyes that had been raised by the persuasion of the two big shots and a little bit of wariness that came from his natural instincts.
Biting his lips, the young man hesitantly asked, "Can I ask you a question? What is your ultimate goal in fabricating such a hero with so much effort?"
[ol][li data-annotation-id="1636d83f-b6c6-4d15-9559-7f2532d232ad"]Yingxiong means 'hero'.[/ol]
Chapter 2084: The Last Preparations! |
Li Lingfeng was silent for a moment. Sighing softly, he said, "If I said that everything we have been doing is only meant for self-protection, would you believe me?"
Li Jialing blinked. "Self-protection?"
"The strength we talked about just now to manipulate people through the slaughter stream as a super platform is extremely fragile and can easily be completely demolished despite its magnificent power," Li Lingfeng said. "From the large-scale infrastructure across the Sectors, to the information connection to all the planets in a certain Sector, and even including the terminal devices that meet our demand… Too many uncertainties are involved in the project.
"A lot of people, whose minds are rigid and obsolete, fear new, unknown strength. They believe that said strength poses a threat to the old order that they have established with starships, chainswords, and electromagnetic whips. Therefore, they have made up their mind to destroy our cause without considering anything else.
"Some other people see the value and potential of the strength and want to steal it for themselves. They extend their blood-sucking tentacles to our cause like shameless parasites, draining every bit of the achievements that we have made after a hundred years of hard work.
"As the saying goes, the tallest tree catches the most wind. Wuying Lan and I have come this far while holding the concept of 'slaughter stream' just like going against a fiercely burning torrent. We must tread lightly with every step, and we are faced with the threat of countless storms and arrows every second. One moment of carelessness, and we will be shattered and mired in an eternal doom!
"In order to safeguard the cause that we have created through so much hard work, we have no choice except to continue moving forward and prove the strength of 'slaughter stream'. We will attract more capital and resources, gather greater connections, build images that are more vivid and impressive, and make a superhero that everybody in the entire Imperium knows… Only in such a way will those guys with ill intentions have to think carefully before they lay their fingers on us. Do you understand?"
Li Jialing's eyelids were slightly shiveri
ng. He asked in disbelief, "With your position in the Li family, and Lord Wuying running the game as a member of the royal family, are you still scared of other people's greed?"
"Royal family?" Wuying Lan said with a self-mocking smile. "In the Imperium of True Human Beings, the royal family is the cheapest of all things. After a thousand years of dispersion, there are at least a million people in the Imperium with a surname of 'Wuying', ninety-nine percent of whom are common workers and dealers. Even the branches that are close to the main bloodline like me are also too many to be counted. When the specific interests are concerned, nobody cares if you belong to the royal family!"
"The higher you climb a mountain, the colder you will become. Like I said to you before, the higher I reach within the family, the more people eyeing me in secret."
Pausing for a moment, Li Lingfeng glanced at Wuying Lan. "This is not much of a secret for Lord Wuying. Take Li Linghai, my good sister and the almighty queen of the Imperium, for example. She is an absolute conservative who feels natural disgust toward any mass information dissemination that involves the entire Imperium like 'slaughter stream'. She believes that such an approach eliminates the capital's authority and has always been thinking to take 'slaughter stream' away, or to destroy it once and for all if she can't!"
Narrowing his eyes, Wuying Lan added, "The queen is a tough one. Everybody in the Empyreal Terminus Sector knows that the brilliant and unstoppable emperor, who has just defeated the Covenant Alliance and is ambitious enough to be a second Blackstar the Great, is actually a piece of useless cr*p with more ambitions than talents. Had it not been for the manipulation of the queen, he could not even have launched a single battle!"
"Yes!" Li Lingfeng sighed. "Who could have thought that my sister, who purely focused on the advancement of personal strength, would grow into such a terrifying person someday? She is even coldhearted enough to show no warmth to me, a blood brother who shares the same parents with her. Now that she has set her eyes on us, what can we do except try our best to protect ourselves?
He patted the young man's shoulder again to sense the shivering muscles of the young man and grasp the subtle changes in his mind. "No matter how many misunderstandings you may have of me and Wuying Lan because of our doings in the past, I hope you can understand that it is for your own good.
"I would very much like you to join our cause. Whether or not you join us, you are one of my guys in the eyes of outsiders. Nothing can change that.
"If our cause collapses one day and Wuying Lan and I are both despised and doomed, there is no way that you can stay out of this business. A lot of people will catch you and slice you up to study, trying to figure out the Origin Plan and the secrets of your refinement in Manjusaka. Then, you will understand what hell really looks like.
"How about it? Do you need some more time to think about it?"
Li Jialing looked at the enormous light beams on the wall of the spherical palace he was in.
Inside the light beams were the pitiful wretches who were caged in transparent glass jars, which were darting at what they thought was light, only to crash into the transparent glass and bleed hard.
Time and time again, they never regretted even if they were killed.
"That will be unnecessary." Narrowing his eyes, the young man put on a mysterious smile. "It seems rather interesting to be a hero. However, can I spend some time in the beehive prison?"
"The beehive prison?"
Wuying Lan and Li Lingfeng looked at each other and asked curiously, "Why do you want to go there?"
"Didn't you say just now that you want me to arrive from the sky in the coolest crystal suit and go on a killing spree?" Li Jialing smiled. "Of course I need to prepare myself well in order to fully unleash the strength that has been suppressed for more than ten years. I want to select a few crystal suits and find a few tough prisoners in the beehive prison to enjoy myself with. Killing someone like Li Yingxiong felt like stomping on an ant, which was not fun at all!"
"Of course you can!" Overjoyed, Wuying Lan nodded quickly. "You have just cracked your seal. It is indeed necessary for you to do some adaptive training in order to activate your full potential in the shortest amount of time possible. I can help you create an independent training area down there and capture a batch of the toughest experts from the beehive prison for you. You can play with them however you want."
"That is too troublesome. I think I'll simply go to the beehive prison and look for agreeable targets on my own." Li Jialing licked his lips ravenously. "I vaguely have a feeling that a couple of experts are far from enough to fill my stomach. I wonder, will Lord Wuying's experiment plans be affected if too many prisoners are damaged by me?"
"Hahaha!" Wuying Lan laughed and waved his hands. "Just rest assured and play however you want. After the battle, we will have a copious supply of test subjects. Alright. If Lord Li has no objection, I'll have someone lead you to the beehive prison. It will be your playground!"
Looking at Li Jialing, Li Lingfeng said with a smile, "I have no objection at all. Ah Ling, I know that you have always been a very smart kid. Besides, even the most idiotic fool would've known what choice was in his best interests after so many years of edification by us!
"You can do whatever you see fit in regard to training. If you come across any questions, feel free to ask me. But you won't have too much time. In two days at most, the most splendid scene of our epic quest will begin. By then, we will choose the most soul-stirring and blood-freezing moment for you to cut in."
"Then, I'll be off now." Li Jialing nodded. Then, as if he suddenly recalled something, he said, "Right. There's still something insignificant that bothers me. Both of you claim that the ideas of the Cultivators are both stupid and dangerous, and I, for one, believe that only fools and idiots will believe in such things. But why have so many people put their faith in them despite all the examples in the past thousand years?"
"Well, about that…" Looking at the young man's eyes that were filled with curiosity, Li Lingfeng replied somewhat helplessly after a brief silence, "Perhaps it is because there are simply too many fools in the universe!"
…
At the ninth dock in the peripheral space port of the City in the Sky, a ragged carrier was floating in the void. All the cargo and crew had been cleared. The starship was ready for a full maintenance and upgrade.
However, dozens of starships were waiting in line for maintenance and examination. It wouldn't be the unattractive carrier's turn for at least a couple of days.
Therefore, nobody knew that an infuriated expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage was squatting in the most inconspicuous part of the carrier!
"Killing both the body and the mind, the Immortal Cultivators are too outrageous!" Furious, Li Yao slapped his thigh hard. "Not only are they going to destroy the Cultivators physically, they are also going to tarnish our spirit and our soul! What a bunch of sordid, shameless, filthy, inhumane, animalistic scumbags!"
"Not exactly," the mental devil said solemnly. "I feel that the methods through which the Immortal Cultivators are dealing with the Cultivators share a lot of similarities with how the Cultivators dealt with the Immortal Cultivators in the Star Glory Federation in the old days. At that time, the federation also focused more on destroying the ideas and the spirit of the Immortal Cultivators than on destroying their physical bodies."
"Is that so?"
"Of course. Instead of sentencing Su Changfa, an Immortal Cultivator, to death, the federation appointed him as a professor in a major college. The man was caged and kept like a rare, endangered species for the criticism of other people. Wasn't it exactly like what Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan are doing today? As I recall, you were the one who came up with the idea. You said similar things such as 'ideas can never be killed', didn't you?"
"…Did I? I don't remember any of those things now."
"That's fine," the mental devil said. "Why don't I retrieve the sound and picture from your brain and help you refresh your
memories?"
Chapter 2085: Dying Together with the World! |
"That will be unnecessary," Li Yao said. "I remember everything now."
"That sounds more like it," the mental devil said. "You thought that everything was under your control, and the Immortal Cultivator Su Changfa was nothing more than a turtle caged in a tank, unable to cause any trouble again. Therefore, you wanted to turn him into a 'living textbook' and use his insignificance and ugliness to highlight your own magnificence and brightness. But little did you know that you would screw everything up in the end, and the freak 'Lu Qingchen' was raised. You almost did not have a chance to rectify the horrible mistakes that you made, right?"
"Thank you for your reminder," Li Yao said. "I have completely recalled everything. But our focus this time seems to be the sordid, shameless tricks of the Immortal Cultivators. I don't think we need to mention the past. Let's try to concentrate on the game here and now!"
"The key is still on the little monster, Li Jialing," the mental devil said. "Just like you absolutely couldn't have seen the arrival of the little monster 'Lu Qingchen', who smacked your face hard. In the end, if you were not lucky enough to have a large batch of experts including myself wiping your ass for you, you would've been kicked to your hometown selling salty eggs. Li Jialing today is exactly the same. He can certainly grow into a person like Lu Qingchen as a key to crack the trap!
"Also, Wuying Lan and Li Lingfeng look rather weaselly and unblessed. I don't think that they will have your luck, and not so many unexpected experts will jump out to wipe their asses for them. But I do believe that many will come to take advantage of their trouble!"
"…Can we stop talking about Lu Qingchen?"
…
On a floating disc, Li Jialing followed three managers of the beehive prison and moved slowly down the metal pathway that led to the prison.
