Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  "'Saving' the civilization of mankind in such a way is more ludicrous than quenching thirst with poison. It is you who are the enemy of the civilization!"

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The brilliance of the telepathic thoughts collided again in such a powerful way that the whole mental battlefield seemed to be torn apart.

  The ripples of their collision also spread to the hundreds of thousands of Imperial Guards who were absolutely loyal to Wuying Qi.

  The marks on the heads of a lot of Imperial Guards began to loosen, which gradually gave them the realization that both the sweeping solar storm and the blast of "enlightenment" could've caused the most severe damage to their wives and children and a most destructive blow to the whole capital planet, their hometown.

  However, in the past, they somehow overlooked the consequences subconsciously!

  Was it really "subconscious", and not because they were manipulated by a certain force that made them turn a blind eye to the calamities?

  "What… What am I doing?"

  Countless Imperial Guards covered their heads tightly. Pictures of their memories of the past surged out of their brains like a flood. Most of the pictures were about their family members whom they loved most.

  Even the most coldhearted Immortal Cultivators who were devoted to training and competitions often had people they loved and certain things they strived for.

  His Majesty's tutelage was replaced by their wives' nagging and their children's laughter. Wuying Qi's invincible, glorious image gradually turned into their family members whom they lived with every day and the hometown where they were born and raised. However, the solar storm was still getting more and more powerful, ripping the atmosphere of the capital planet and leaving it with holes. The magnetic field of the whole planet was seriously affected too. If the Gold Crystal Pyramid's interferences on the sun continued and the intensity of the solar activities was improved to another level, nothing could possibly stop the destruction of their hometown and the demise of their families!

  Those pictures were different from the lascivious pictures just now.

  The pictures just now were only a brief stimulation. Everybody knew that it was the enemy's vilification.

  The Imperial Guards' loyalty to Wuying Qi was enough for them to refocus their absolute trust and support for the "Almighty Emperor" after passing the initial chaos.

  However, the pictures that originated from their memories, so real, so vivid, and so deeply mixed with love and pain, gradually shook their loyalty.

  When a sovereign asked his subject to die, his subject had to die.

  However, if a sovereign asked his subject's wife and children to die in the most miserable way and even destroyed his subject's hometown, was his subject really going to obey dutifully and even work as the executioner in person?

  "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

  The Imperial Guards howled and questioned their souls on a deeper level again!

  The universe in the mental battlefield was collapsing, showing the sign of collapse.

  Wuying Qi's soul, despite the enhancement of the star, could not support such a massive mental network any longer. Or rather, he was no longer able to control the people's brains that began to think independently.

  "What have you done?"

  Sensing the gradual collapse of his mental network, Wuying Qi was more infuriated than ever, and his fiery tentacles that were stabbed at Li Yao expanded twice as large. "Most individuals are shortsighted, selfish, and ignorant. It will only lead to a catastrophe for all human beings if their minds and desires spread out infinitely. The corruption and decline of the Imperium today is the best proof! Don't you agree with that too? Don't you find the filthy scumbags of the four Kurfürst families despicable too?

  "I can cut off the selfish and soiled ideas in most people's heads and transform them into the most excellent warriors who fight for the civilization. This is an evolution of all human beings. This is a gigantic leap. What's wrong with that? Why do you have to stop me?"

  "It's true that I don't like the behavior of the scumbags of the four Kurfürst families, and I also acknowledge that the weaknesses of humanity exist in everybody. No matter how we train ourselves, it is absolutely impossible to erase them 100%. However, it doesn't mean that I second your so-called 'evolution'."

  Li Yao's voice was louder and louder and more and more determined, raising thunderstorms that turned him into the most dazzling existence in the mental battlefield. "You don't know the true meaning of 'evolution' at all. Evolution is never about being higher, faster, stronger, or smarter. Rather, it is about constantly changing the genes and trying and exploring all the possibilities. Most importantly, until an evolution proves to be apt for the changing environment, nobody can declare that it is 'evolution' at all!

  "The environment changes on a tiny habitable planet were enough to let the dinosaurs, who were bigger and stronger, go extinct, but the seemingly unattractive weeds and ants survived. How many dominators of the old days have perished? Could they have foreseen the look of the dominators who replaced them? Furthermore, the grand universe that we are going to explore is bizarre and unpredictable. Who can tell what kind of dangers and opportunities we will encounter?

  "How are you certain that you represent the correct direction of evolution when you know nothing? How are you confident that you will never make mistakes? If the 'commander, master, and true god' commits a mistake, how are you going to remedy and answer for it?

  "If we have ten thousand ideas, even though 9,999 prove to be wrong, there will still be one that is correct. If we try ten thousand paths of evolution, some of them will definitely be able to help us cope with the new problems in the unknown universe. However, what you are doing is to wipe out the ten thousand ideas and paths of evolution and only preserve the one that you believe to be correct! If you are mistaken, hundreds of billions of people will also be mistaken. There won't be any chance to make corrections!"

  "I will not be mistaken."

  Wuying Qi roared, "I am never mistaken!"

  "Is that so?"

  Li Yao said casually, "Your words are hardly convincing for a listener who is watching you as you fight with eighteen men on the bed, Your Majesty!

  "All in all, I admit that there has to be one fish that leads his clan to march onto the continent and embrace the new life. The problem is, how do we know that you, as the leading fish, is directing us to the continent, instead of the deepest trench? This is nothing personal. All I'm saying is that all the vainglorious dictators and saviors in history, no matter how brilliant and correct their ideas, slogans, and beliefs sound, have led everybody into trenches in most cases. It is needless to say that, while they led everybody into trenches, they also stomped on all the rules in the world and paid the prices that could've been avoided!"

  "Are you hesitating because the price for the Next Sun Plan is too huge?"

  Wuying Qi let out a low laugh. "Even the greatest price can't be greater than the destruction of mankind. As long as the civilization of mankind can continue, any law can be stomped on, any morals can be shattered, any price should be paid, and everybody must be sacrificed!

  "Remember the law of the universe. Always remember that survival is the primary and most important need of every civilization."

  "F*ck your law of the universe."

  Li Yao said coldly, "A long time ago, I also abided by the theory and regarded survival as the primary, if not the only, need of a civilization.

  "However, after too many competitions of beliefs, and after seeing so many ambitious schemers using it as their cover, I gradually changed my view.

  "Survival is the primary need of cockroaches, rats, hyenas, and jackals, but survival should never be the primary need of a civilization!

  "If a civilization lives only for survival, is it any different from cockroaches, rats, hyenas, or jackals? Why is it shameless enough to call itself a civilization but not a collection of genes of selfishness?

 
"What is the definition of civilization? Splendid buildings, powerful weapons, highly-divided social structure, a long history… Is a civilization a civilization because it has those? At the very least, the Pangu civilizations' alliance thought otherwise. They proposed their own definition; a real civilization is a civilization that is capable of destroying itself.

  "I cannot agree with the Pangu civilizations' alliance, and I have my own opinion. In my eyes, only when a civilization establishes a certain rule that is above their own instincts for survival and defends the rule whatever it takes, even if it means sacrificing at the critical moment, will the civilization be a real civilization!"

  Chapter 2638: Justified! |

  "Absurd! It's utterly absurd!"

  Wuying Qi gradually recovered from his initial shock and was accustomed to Li Yao's continuous mental attack. He mocked unregretfully, "The rules that you called 'morals' were invented by human beings for survival, weren't they? Only when you can survive and catch your breath can you pursue more things. If the civilization of human beings perishes, what will be the point of the obsolete rules and morals?

  "In any case, what I'm doing today is to defend the civilization of human beings!"

  "This is our biggest difference. Both of us believe that we're fighting for mankind, but our definition of 'mankind' is too different."

  Li Yao stood at the center of the red star, and the red star turned into his suit and a Colossus for his soul. He opened his hands, raising tides of light hundreds of thousands of kilometers high, confronting Wuying Qi. "What makes you a human being? Your appearance, your language, your genes, or your soul? Maybe in the past, you would be a human being if you had the appearance of a human, talked like humans, and embraced the human culture.

  "But in the future, when genes can be freely modified, when humans can reshape themselves by activating the legacies of the thirteen carbon-based lives from the primeval age, and when they can even upload their souls to the Spiritual Nexus and crystal processors—no, such a future has already arrived. Neither the demons whose genes have been highly modified nor the spectral Cultivators who have abandoned their physical forms are human beings in the traditional sense, but we still acknowledge them as part of our civilization and our own kind.

  "Then, if humans are not defined by their genes or souls, what should they be defined by? What can prove that they are humans, not evil beings?

  "What else can serve as the essence of human beings except for the rules that are beyond survival, beyond instincts, and beyond everything?

  "In my opinion, if people like you can kill billions of people, drive another billions of people crazy, and turn another billions of people into puppets who know nothing but obedience, you and your accomplices are no longer human beings, but beasts and bugs in the skin of humans!

  "A civilization made of thousands of beasts and bugs like you is not the civilization of mankind, but a civilization of monsters!

  "The real civilization of mankind will come to an end when you destroy Empyreal Terminus. By the time you and your soldiers occupy the three thousand sectors, the real mankind will be dead and replaced by monsters!

  "Even if billions of years later, your descendants claim the whole universe under the flag of mankind, it will not be the continuation and victory of mankind, but those of monsters which have nothing to do with the human beings today! A species whose members think absolutely the same and a species that can easily sacrifice tens of billions of people for a purpose can never become real human beings and does not deserve to be a civilization!"

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Li Yao's thoughts gathered into countless burning meteorites that flew at the black sun.

  However, they were blocked and absorbed by the wild tentacles of the black sun.

  "Hehehehe. You are truly brazen. You're just talking about useless things on the moral high ground!"

  Wuying Qi chuckled in a low voice. "At the very least, I've devised the Next Sun Plan for the future of mankind. What about you? What can you do except sabotaging it like a naïve high school student? You are just an unhelpful hypocrite. Can you come up with a more reasonable solution than the Next Sun Plan to direct the future of mankind? How can you save mankind if you deny my plan but cannot offer a new one?"

  "I have never believed that I'm the smartest of mankind, and I'm never interested in directing their future."

  Li Yao said casually, "However, if we're talking about a crazy, stupid plan like Next Sun Plan, which is nothing more than a child's play, I can easily come up with dozens of them in half a minute!

  "You don't believe me? Alright, I'll waste five precious seconds and show you the most amazing computation and deduction abilities!

  "Let me see… Got it. The greatest trouble that you think human beings are faced with is a lack of resources and solidarity, which can be solved by virtualization.

  "Thanks to the progress in modern crystal processors and Spiritual Nexus, scanning human brains and digitalizing the souls are possible. I believe that very soon, human souls will be able to get rid of the limit of the brains and live in specially-designed crystal chips.

  "By then, the consciousness of thousands of people can live on a tiny chip, and only the most essential organs on the body will be kept. In such a way, human beings' demand for resources and the environment will be significantly lowered. They can live freely even far below the ground.

  "Even more amazingly, human beings will barely die in this virtual world. Resources will be nothing but data, so selfishness won't be a problem. Those who are unwilling to cooperate and share can establish their own space and enjoy it, while the others can focus on the development of civilization and the mysteries of the universe without worrying about material needs.

  "I call the brand-new human beings 'Spiriters' and their world Spiriters' Realm. When the new human beings intend to change the material world, they can choose to live in artificial bodies whose sizes can vary from a regular human to a starship or even a space fortress. Those facilities can be controlled by Spiriters. Even if they are destroyed, the Spiriters will be able to flee back to Spiriters' Realm as long as the network is smooth.

  "Such new human beings have better survival abilities and consume fewer resources. Their conflicts will be reduced. Also, they can hibernate during long-time space voyages, and they can infer the optimal strategies for their civilization in different virtual worlds. After they find the answer through thousands of attempts, they can implement it in the material world. It will be perfect!

  "Well, this is a solution that I've come up with after five seconds of thinking. I'd like to call it the Virtualization Plan. It's no worse than your Next Sun Plan, right?"

  Wuying Qi was stunned.

  "Well…"

  He found it hard to believe. "Did you really come up with that just now?"

  "Of course. How long do you think it should take? Ten years? No. It's just a piece of cake for me!"

  Li Yao said, "So, don't presume that your brag is really something, or that human beings must be led by a lunatic like you. When I brag crazily, I'll be a hundred times scarier than you! Come on, tell me honestly, is there any flaw in my solution? Why is it that your Next Sun Plan the only correct path and that my Virtualization Plan doesn't work?"

  Wuying Qi was deep in thought.

  He could've crushed Li Yao with his overwhelming mental power, but violence would not convince everybody in the mind network. However, he had little time to locate the flaws in Li Yao's elaborate narration.

  "You're speechless now, aren't you?"

  Li Yao sneered, "Actually, the Next Sun Plan that you devised after decades of hard work is as much crap as the Virtualization Plan that I came up with after ten seconds of thinking. You can't find any flaw because flaws are all over them, which in a way makes them unflawed.

  "Maybe both of the plans are somewhat practical for a millennium, but there will be infinite technical, ethical, and moral problems and risks when the p
lans are implemented. You will have to pay an enormous price and be prepared to seek remedies.

  "Only by exploring, discussing, and testing again and again can we turn a plan on paper into reality and embrace tomorrow. The work cannot be accomplished overnight. It requires the wisdom, efforts, and acknowledgment of thousands of people! On the other hand, we can just talk about Next Sun Plan or Virtualization Plan irresponsibly without considering the actual consequences, but how are you going to overcome the technical conundrums or deal with the unexpected situations? Can you bear the responsibility if your plan doesn't work in the end?

  "All in all, you are a classic condescending madman who has more ambitions than abilities and who thinks he can save the world with a precious plan that he has come up with. However, as I have proven, I can easily come up with a dozen of such lousy plans in a minute. But am I arrogant? Do I consider myself a savior of the world? Am I as shameless as you? Why are you silent?"

  Chapter 2639: All of Li Yao's Trump Cards Are Revealed! |

  Wuying Qi did not know what to say.

  He was still reflecting on the Virtualization Plan that Li Yao proposed.

  Although he hated to admit it, the more he thought about it, the more he found the plan grandeur, splendid, and practical. It seemed like a "final solution" that someone like him would come up with from every perspective!

  Also, not only had Li Yao proposed the rough idea, but he also transmitted tremendous detailed data on the Virtualization Plan with his telepathic thoughts. He discussed the technical requirements and the possibility to turn the plan into reality.

  At the very least, the plan seemed to be well-grounded and was not a crazy illusion at all.