by <unknown>
"Excuse us."
Grabbing Li Jialing in one hand, Li Yao apologized to the brawny man who was bleeding and nearly strangled politely, "My little brother is a little bit cranky. Try not to piss him off, fellow Cultivators."
The many Immortal Cultivators looked at the brawny man who fell to the ground and was not back to himself yet, and then at the raging Li Jialing and the polite Li Yao, and eventually their captain, Tu Zhengdao, who was pale and sweating. They all swallowed hard.
They couldn't help but feel the utmost admiration for Li Linghai again.
Her Grace was truly immeasurable and had too many extraordinary subordinates under her command. The two brutal men that she had recruited were even more merciless than the seasoned warriors of the First Assault Team of the Deep Sea Legion!
Holding Li Jialing's neck and picking him back to Li Linghai, Li Yao asked in a low voice, "Are you satisfied?"
Li Linghai smiled and waved her hands. "Let's go back to the 'Deep Sea Palace'!"
…
Near the splendid halo of the seventh planet at the periphery of the Sand Primitive Sector, more than twenty small assault warships were slowly sailing to a gargantuan mothership more than ten kilometers long. It was a super space base with the functions of communication, commanding, maintenance, and supplies!
The magnetic fields of the two parties attracted one another until all the small assault warships were attached to the shell of the mothership tightly, and the supply transmission channels, the short-distance teleportation arrays, and the Spiritual Nexus system were connected. They were like the barnacles attached to a whale or a giant ship.
Following Li Linghai, Li Yao and Li Jialing walked into the bridge of "Dragon Abyss", the mothership, and felt that they were melted in the sea of stars.
The shimmers from the super crystal processors were like glittering stars. The spiritual energy of the wholehearted crew members was also spreading out non stop as they worked hard and congregated into an immeasurable ocean of spiritual energy. A vague feeling of graveness could be sensed.
Li Yao was deeply awed by the enormity of the bridge and the professionalism of the commanders.
He once visited the bridge of "Burning Prairie", the most advanced main-force warship of the federation, but it did not seem as good as this place.
It was quite easy to build a legion where everybody was equipped with a crystal suit, which required only ten years at most. But the space warships, especially a command center of such a level that equated to the "brain" of a fleet, were definitely not something that could be produced with enough money and people. Hundreds of years of profound experience was a prerequisite.
Even if Li Linghai had truly found the Supreme Emperor's treasures, it was still rather amazing that she had built such a "Deep Sea Fleet" in only decades.
Also, Li Yao noticed that the enormous light beam at the center of the bridge was displaying not just the intelligence of the small fleet but also the intelligence from every part of the Imperium, including some Sectors at the borderland of the Imperium.
Li Linghai must boast an overwhelming, penetrative intelligence network. What was she up to exactly? Purely power?
Li Yao focused his eyes on the military uniforms of the crew members.
Through Di Feiwen, Li Yao had profound studies on the military uniforms of the Imperium's army in different environments. He knew the different combat clothes, working clothes, normal clothes, and courtesy clothes, which could be used in the scorching environment hundreds of degrees, the freezing environment covered in snow, or a stormy planet frequented by blowing wind and stones.
What was strange was that, while the crew members were wearing the standard uniforms of the Imperium's army, it was not the latest model but the regular uniforms on the warships of the Imperium of True Human Beings about nine hundred years ago.
Under the illumination of the crystal processors, they were like a bunch of ghosts from a thousand years ago.
A great question mark popped up on Li Yao's head.
Li Linghai sensed his confusion very keenly.
Now that she had decided to bring Li Yao and Li Jialing with him, Li Linghai did not keep too many things a secret from them.
Li Yao was not wrong about one thing.
Not just a Divinity Transformation Stage expert, even someone in the Nascent Soul Stage was a very important, strategic treasure. Unless it was absolutely necessary, no ambitious person would destroy someone in the Nascent Soul Stage or the Divinity Transformation Stage easily but would try their best to recruit the talents.
It was especially so for Li Yao, a Divinity Transformation Stage expert who was both good at fighting and refining, who brought a Colossus with him, and who was deeply associated with Li Linghai in a certain way. He was almost a gift of the heavens for Li Linghai's ambitions.
Naturally, such an expert of the Divinity Transformation Stage could not be treated as a common "subordinate" but some sort of ally or partner.
Therefore, no matter how antagonistic they were at the beginning, after Li Linghai decided to recruit Li Yao, she would have to change her attitude and try to transform him into a "real Immortal Cultivator".
"You seem to have a lot of questions regarding my warships and soldiers?"
While operating on the crystal processor quickly and handling the intelligence delivered from everywhere in the Imperium, Li Linghai asked casually.
"Indeed. I did not expect the queen's force to be so strong. The soldiers of yours are almost as good as the elite soldiers on Firefly."
Li Yao said frankly, "However, what baffles me more is why Your Grace established such a secret fleet at great risks. Was it really just for power, as Li Lingfeng said?
"To be honest, despite the tragedies on Firefly, which almost shook my belief, after everything on the Land of Sins, I held on to the ideology of the Cultivators and have refocused my almost broken belief, thereby advancing into the Divinity Transformation Stage!
"So, it will be quite disappointing if the queen's purpose is just power."
Li Linghai smiled and said, "Are you saying that you hope that I can have some lofty ideals whether I'm righteous or I'm evil?"
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "You can say that. Or rather, I do not believe that you could gather such an enormous force just with the allurement of power and without the encouragement of a lofty ideal.
"To be honest, despite our different stances, the vigor and exuberance that I sensed after I boarded on your starship are exactly the same from what I felt from some of the firmest Cultivators.
"It's been a long time since I last saw such a young army!"
"Give me a break about the clichés of the Cultivators."
Li Linghai said unemotionally, "The path of the Cultivators are just the naïve, inconsistent, and ungrounded ideas when new human beings that are different from ordinary people were just born and still restrained by the ethics and morals of the old times. They are not of any value to provide guidance for reality or to resolve any problem.
"Yes, the logic of the Cultivator is very correct and pleasant to hear. Until they run into serious, actual problems, everybody can claim to be a Cultivator, but when they do run into irresolvable difficulties where devastating sacrifices must be made, the Cultivators' theories will be entirely useless. They have to place their hope on 'heroes' or 'miracles', but heroes and miracles do not happen very often. The civilization of mankind, on the other hand, must live on even in the harshest environment, with or without heroes and miracles!
"Forget it. You are too deeply poisoned to be convinced by a few words. You are not wrong about at least one thing. We are indeed from the Immortal Cultivators you saw on the Land of Sins. Or rather, those people were fake Immortal Cultivators, while we are the real Immortal Cultivators and the hope of humanity!"
Li Yao blinked his eyes. "What are 'fake Immortal Cultivators' and what are 'real Cultivators'? Do the 'real Immortal Cultivators' not oppress ordinary people?"
Li Linghai smiled in disdain. "Why, in your eyes, the most oppressed class in the Imperium of True Human Beings are hominoids, and the most fundamental conflict is the conflict between true human beings and hominoids?"
Li Yao was dazed. "Isn't it so?"
"Let me put it this way."
Pondering for a moment, Li Linghai said, "Let's simplify the model of the society in the Imperium into a mine. The owner of the mine with whips and sabers, a young and heaty miner, and a skinny, low-intelligent monkey who can more or less do the mining.
"Who do you think is the most oppressed among the three?
"Or rather, if you are the mine owner with whips and sabers and you want the most ores and minerals to be excavated, who will you exploit mainly, the young and healthy miner or the skinny monkey?"
Li Yao was stunned for a long time before he mumbled, "I'm afraid that it will be the young and healthy miner, but…"
"That's right."
The queen of the Imperium said coldly, "In the eyes of the high-level Immortal Cultivators, the hominoids whose spiritual roots are not awakened are like skinny monkeys and do not boast much value to be exploited. The ones with the greatest value to be exploited are the 'young and healthy miners', or to wit, the vast population of middle- and low-level Immortal Cultivators, those in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage, who are largest in number.
"Therefore, the major contradiction in the Imperium right now is not that between true human beings and hominoids as you have imagined at all, but the contradiction between the upper-class true human beings and the lower-class ones, namely the high-level Immortal Cultivators in the Nascent Soul Stage and the Divinity Transformation Stage who are strong but small in number and the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage who are the largest in number. The most exploited, oppressed, harmed, and those who live the most painful lives are the Immortal Cultivators living at the bottom level!"
Chapter 2157: The Immortal Cultivators of Different Classes |
The queen's astonishing conclusion stunned Li Yao for a long time. He finally shook his head and said, "I fear that you cannot draw the comparison so simply. Even though the strength of one ordinary person is weak, like a…'skinny monkey', the ordinary people take up most of the population after all. Do they not have the greatest value to be exploited when considering them as a whole?"
"Theoretically, yes, but you have overlooked one point, which is that even 'exploitation' comes with a cost."
Li Linghai said, "When the cost of management far exceeds the value that can possibly be exploited, such exploitation will not be a fair deal. It is like human beings are capable of building skinny monkeys into muscular and ferocious biochemical beasts through various kinds of secret techniques, but no mines or armies in reality would ever do that because it is simply too cost-ineffective."
Li Yao said, "Human beings are no monkeys after all. The gap between the so-called 'hominoids' and 'true human beings' is smaller than you think. I'm aware that the Imperium has countless most cruel techniques, which can transform humans into abnormal, ugly appearances, or even replace their organs with artificial ones, just in order to change the ordinary people into a form that is more suitable for exploitation. Do you want to deny it, Your Grace?"
Li Linghai said casually, "Do you think that it is really 'exploitation'?"
Li Yao asked back, "Is it not?"
Li Linghai replied, "Even if it is, that is for the sake of the hominoids. You should know that the Imperium's spiritual puppet industry is already highly developed, making it possible to produce various sorts of puppets in a large bulk at a reasonable cost. If the hominoids do not transform them into hideous but highly-efficient shapes, they will only lose the cruel competitions and starve to death in the end—not just themselves, but their families too.
"Such examples are not rare in the history of the Imperium. Some mine owners were too kind to perform modifications on the hominoid miners in their mines, which kept the cost of mining at a high level. Unable to be used in the cruel commercial competition, the mines went bankrupt and were merged by other people as a whole.
"Then, after such mines were merged, a large batch of spiritual puppets would often be sent over in replacement of the human miners. How do you think the human miners who were replaced by machines would end?
"So, it was exactly for the survival of the bottom-level hominoids that the specialists and scholars of the Imperium came up with all kinds of body-building and mechanical modification technologies with all the wisdom, granting hominoids the ability to compete with spiritual puppets with unique abilities that the spiritual puppets did not have. Today, most of the hominoids have managed to keep their jobs and live on.
"In many cases, moral code and a kind heart will not solve any actual problem. Increasing the minimum wage and the working environment recklessly with no consideration of reality will only worsen the living conditions of the folks at the bottom level. I don't believe that you do not understand such a simple logic as someone in the Divinity Transformation Stage."
"Of course I do."
Li Yao gnashed his teeth. "But that does not justify your decision to transform a living human into an iron spider. Anything has a line, and the Imperium's action in pushing all the bottom-level people into cruel competitions irresponsibly has certainly crossed the line!"
The queen's eyes flashed, and she took a step back. "Perhaps you are right. The Imperium is indeed greatly responsible for the bottom-level people. But things can only be changed on one prerequisite—a powerful central government that is capable of influencing the policies of every Sector, every resource plant, every family, and every sect directly. If the policies are only effective in the capital, nothing can be changed however you preach on your ideas and hopes.
"All in all, this is not the key of our discussion today. The key is that, compared to the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators, hominoids are just skinny monkeys in the eyes of the high-level Immortal Cultivators, who are not very interested in directly exploiting them.
"On the other hand, the Imperium of True Human Beings has governed the universe for a thousand years, and the true path of immortality has entered everyone's heart. Even the hominoids also worship the theory of 'survival of the fittest' and consider the true path of immortality a law of nature.
"In such a state, the hominoids in fact do not have many complaints about their fate. Who else can they blame for their weakness? After they are used to their weakness, they will not have too many hopes. Most of the hominoids have submitted to their fate.
"The happiness of mankind depends on not materials but the mind most of the time. Believe it or not, many highly-developed Sectors in the Imperium have very mature and stable rules for the operation of society. The sample investigation on the hominoids there suggested that their happiness index was not low at all.
"Most of the hominoids felt that they should be content with their lives, which were much better than during the age of the ancient Cultivators, the Great Dark Age when the demons reigned, or the miseries when they were under the governance of the Alliance of the Holy Covenant. That is why Starlight never raised much trouble after stirring for hundreds of years.
"Of course, you may think that it is a result of the Imperium's long-term brainwashing. I do not want to argue with you but only am telling you a fact.
"The fact is that the hominoids are not the class that is most dissatisfied about the situation in the Imperium and wants to change their fate most. The people who truly suffer the heaviest oppression, who are aware of the fact that 'we are being oppressed', and who have enough wisdom, courage, and combat ability to change the current situation, are the middle- and low-level Immortal Cultivators in the Refinement Stage, the Building Foundation Stage, and partly in the Core Formation Stage!
"The logic is rather easy to understand, isn't it?
"If you are a hominoid miner, the gravest 'exploitation' t
hat you may encounter is lifelong work in the sunless mines. Unless you come across accidents such as mine explosions, you can always keep your life. Nobody will ask you to go to the battlefield unless it is absolutely necessary. Those 'skinny monkeys' will be burdens even if they are driven to the battlefield.
"Also, you are unlikely to have a chance to receive enough education that will make you recognize your fate and your pain clearly. In many cases, there will be no pain if you cannot recognize the pain, right?
"But the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators are different.
"The 'exploitation' that they bear can possibly be a fight against a monster that will not show up even in their nightmares in a certain world fragment. They may be swallowed by the monster at any moment and slowly digested by the acids in the stomach of the monster in a span of a year and a half before you finally die in the last month.
"Yes. Safety is quite a problem in many unconventional small mines in many remote worlds of the Imperium, and accidents happen all the time. But however high the death rate of the miners is, it will not be higher than the death rate of the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators on the battlefield.
"On the other hand, even the Immortal Cultivators at the bottommost level, who have just awakened their spiritual root and are at the first level of the Refinement Stage, have enough wisdom to think about the society they live in, their future, and the entire world!
"You know that 'Immortal Cultivators' are regarded as the highest dominators of the country and the civilization in the traditional education of the Imperium. All the middle- and low-level Immortal Cultivators have high hopes for themselves. They are full of hot blood and ambitions. Do you expect such Immortal Cultivators to take it casually after realizing that they are just tools being exploited?"
Li Yao was deeply attracted by what Li Linghai said.
He used to consider the Immortal Cultivators as a whole piece in the same interest group, and he had never examined the issue from such a perspective.
