by <unknown>
Chapter 2661: The Channeling Temple |
Li Yao nodded his head. He had inferred it with Long Yangjun earlier and was not surprised at Wuying Qi's story.
In such a way, the mysterious legends from ten thousand years ago had a logical explanation. Though not as romantic as before, it made more sense now.
"You know the result of the battle. The Supreme Emperor and the Blood God repeated the tragedy in the primeval age like the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan. They perished together, and so did the troops that were loyal to them, disappearing into the cold universe. The civilization of human beings that had just been reconstructed was almost destroyed, embracing another ten thousand years of chaos."
Wuying Qi 3.0 said, "The Supreme Emperor escaped to the Gold Throne, and the remains of the Blood God hid in Doom, his flagship, where he rested for nine thousand years before he was finally able to send out a telepathic thought to the enlisting bases all over the universe to summon the new-generation warriors.
"However, because of the long time passed, most of the enlisting bases had been ruined or run out of energy, ending up as cold and silent graves.
"The Blood God was also too weak. His telepathic thought was seriously jammed during the transmission and might not have reached every enlisting base. In the end, perhaps only 1% of the bases heard his calling.
"In the end, I was the only warrior who showed up before him, and it seemed that nobody would come again for a long time.
"Having no other choices, the Blood God could only place all his power and hope in me. He taught me everything he knew, which included bizarre knowledge that human beings could not understand with their wisdom, hoping that I could accomplish the mission."
Li Yao pricked his ears, knowing that it was important. He asked in a hurry, "What mission?"
"First of all, to sneak into the Empyreal Terminus Sector, find the Gold Crystal Pyramid, modify it on a large scale, and start the Next Sun Plan."
Wuying Qi 3.0 said frankly, "But it's not so easy to sneak into the Empyreal Terminus Sector, and it's impossible to modify the Gold Crystal Pyramid even if I can sneak it. Besides, the energy of a whole planet is needed to power the Gold Crystal Pyramid!
"It had been more than nine thousand years since the collapse of the Star Ocean Imperium. With the unique astronomical features of the Empyreal Terminus Sector, it must be the capital of a powerful force. I cannot activate the Gold Crystal Pyramid until I get the place under control.
"To unearth, modify and use the Gold Crystal Pyramid, I had to control this planet; to control the planet, I had to defeat the powerful force that regarded this planet as their capital; and to defeat them, I would need a strong and loyal troop!
"The ways to modify the Gold Crystal Pyramid were based on the clues on the books left by the Nuwa Clan, and the books were actually from some members of the Houyi Clan who joined the Nuwa Clan later. It seemed that the zealots of the Houyi Clan were hunted when their scheme to threaten the Pangu Clan with the Gold Crystal Pyramid was discovered, so they had to join the Nuwa Clan's side. But the Nuwa Clan did not want to destroy the sun or brainwash anyone with the Gold Crystal Pyramid. They only wanted to release the extraterritorial devils with the facility so that every carbon-based life could hear the extraterritorial devils. So, they came up with the plans for modification.
"The modification was only theoretically possible. A lot of experiments were needed to figure out its feasibility in reality.
"All in all, I have to find more enlisting bases, or rather, 'Channeling Temples', of the Human Expedition Army first."
"Hold on a second—"
Li Yao raised his hand. "What are Channeling Temples? Is channeling a special technique of the Covenant Alliance to communicate via brainwaves of a special frequency?"
"Yes, but it's not the Covenant Alliance's special technique. It's a technique of the Pangu civilizations' alliance and its cornerstone."
Wuying Qi 3.0 said casually, "Like I said to you before, talking and writing are very ineffective means of communication that are only suitable for planetary civilizations. It's no different from the howling of beasts.
"Interstellar civilizations, particularly the diversified interstellar civilizations that have multiple races, have to count on energy waves, especially brainwaves, to communicate with each other.
"How could the Houyi Clan describe the magnificent solar storm that they witnessed on the orbit, how could the Zhurong Clan describe the ten thousand hues of a fire and the information that they read from burning matter, and how could the Gonggong Clan describe the feeling when they were gradually melted into the water in the boundless ocean with words?
"Those feelings cannot be expressed in any language, but they were the core of those carbon-based lives. If they could not understand one another, it was impossible for them to strike a stable alliance, and a war could consume all creatures.
"So, after the Pangu civilizations' alliance was established, plenty of Channeling Temples were set up on every planet. You can consider them to be certain… brainwave intensifying buildings. They're the centers of socialization, education, and administration. All the members of the alliance have to visit the Channeling Temple regularly to communicate with other carbon-based lives so that they could understand each other and the nature of life better.
"You can also consider the Channeling Temple as a special religious building, where the Zhurong Clan who played with furious fire every day could understand the Gonggong Clan who lived in water and could even transfer their souls to fish, and where the Kuafu Clan who were half-plants and half-animals could understand the Houyi Clan who were like a swarm of insects.
"In the meantime, the Pangu Clan, as the leader of the alliance, could send instructions regarding the future of the civilization into every citizen's head via the Channeling Temples. The orders such as wiping out feelings and destroying all the deep-space exploration starships were all issued and carried out through the Channeling Temples."
"Got it."
Li Yao snorted and said, "Channeling Temple is just a fancy name for 'brainwashing center'. It seems that the thirteen primeval clans each had different talent, and the Pangu Clan's talent was to mess with other people's heads."
"I wouldn't object if you insist that such an advanced means of communication is brainwashing."
Wuying Qi 3.0 said peacefully, "However, channeling is not the only way of brainwashing. I've seen too many corrupt officials of the Star Ocean Republic who tricked millions of people with their sophistry. The shameless Wuying Qi 2.0 was also an excellent speaker who could courage millions of people to die for his ambitions with only a few words. They did not need a Channeling Temple at all.
"Technology is just technology. There are many ways to brainwash people if you want, and channeling is just one of them.
"Of course, in the last years of the primeval age, the Channeling Temple did become a holy sanctuary for human beings, the new servant species. Both the human beings manufactured in factories and those who were naturally reproduced would be sent into the Channeling Temples regularly to be inculcated with knowledge and loyalty. Sometimes, the Channeling Temple was even part of every man-manufacturing factory, and they coexisted all the time."
Li Yao recalled the black city that was purely made of geometrical shapes on Kunlun. There were indeed some buildings that looked like sanctuaries. Back then, the researchers wondered what those religious buildings that boasted a unique style were for.
"Thanks to the legacy of the Nuwa Clan, the Blood God learned of the locations of many man-manufacturing factories and Channeling Temples. So, as long as he could find those places, he could create a troop that was absolutely loyal to me—or him. Although the Nuwa Clan worshiped absolute freedom and chaos and this did not befit their ideology, neither me nor the Blood God was really a follower of the Nuwa Clan. There was no time to consider too much in the emergency."
Wuying Qi 3.0 said, "After training with the Blood God for ten years, I
left with all his knowledge and a new mission.
"At that time, the Star Ocean Republic, which regarded the Empyreal Terminus Sector as the capital, was declining, but it was a powerful country that had developed for thousands of years anyway. I knew that I could not defeat it by myself.
"So, instead of entering the territory of the Star Ocean Republic, I explored the edge of the cosmos, until I reached several Sectors that belong to the Covenant Alliance today. Of course, the Covenant Alliance wasn't established yet back then. Those Sectors were still far-flung places with few resources. Bloody battles took place all the time.
"However, I knew very well that several man-manufacturing factories and Channeling Temples were in those Sectors!"
Chapter 2662: Default Setting |
Li Yao took a deep, deep breath and recalled the miserable Nepenthe believers deep below the ground.
Perhaps Long Yangjun was correct. The Covenant Alliance was not created by the Pangu Clan, but by human beings themselves.
"How could you have discovered the man-manufacturing factory or the Channeling Temple on your own?"
Li Yao asked in a cold voice, "Did the local warlords not realize your scheme?"
"Wrong. They noticed my scheme very early. Or rather, I volunteered to tell them part of my scheme."
With a mysterious and creepy smile on his face, Wuying Qi 3.0 said casually, "Don't you see? Thousands of years of warfare had twisted the minds of the local experts at the border of the cosmos. They called themselves Cultivators, but they were nothing like you. They were just bugs under the skin of Cultivators.
"Those bugs had been fighting each other so brutally that they were essentially crazy devils. They craved new weapons and new resources and would pay any price to kill their sworn enemies.
"Who would refuse it if I told them that there was a way to manufacture incessant super slaves and super warriors?
"I hid my strength that came from the Blood God and pretended to be a harmless archaeologist. I 'accidentally' discovered the remains of some Channeling Temples and man-manufacturing factories, and a local warlord 'accidentally' learned it. That idiot was tricked and threatened me to create an invincible army for him so that he could swallow the dozens of Sectors nearby.
"Of course, he also provided tremendous resources for me so that I could study further and repair the Channeling Temples and man-manufacturing factories.
"After a lot of setbacks and hard work, I repaired a man-manufacturing factor and the correspondent Channeling Temple several years later. Actually, the man-manufacturing factory was not important, because human beings had great reproductive capabilities themselves. It was too costly and time-consuming to develop new humans with the man-manufacturing factory. So, the better choice was to capture the ordinary people, wipe out their feelings, and control their souls in the Channeling Temples. Although the quality of the slaves and soldiers created in such a way was not guaranteed, their quantity was huge and their cost was low. It is still the regular way for the Covenant Alliance to create new blood even to this day.
"The warlord received a batch of slaves who were emotionless, uncomplaining, and would die before they stopped working, as well as an iron-blooded army who was fearless and relentless and would sacrifice themselves to accomplish a mission. So, he grew much more powerful and swallowed multiple Sectors.
"But good days did not last long. When he secured consecutive victories, his enemies discovered their own Channeling Temples and modified their subjects into emotionless, absolutely loyal slaves and soldiers with the same technology. You should be smart enough to know that it was me who secretly leaked the technology and even guided other warlords to building their own Channeling Temples under different identities."
"Got it. The slaves and soldiers brainwashed by the Channeling Temple were loyal to the local warlords on the surface, but there were some fundamental instructions deep inside their genes and souls that, once activated, would shift their loyalty to you!"
Li Yao said coldly, "It's a pity that your plan went wrong in the end. You thought that you could manipulate all the warlords, but you accidentally triggered the most original function of the Channeling Temples, making the brainwashed people pledge their loyalty to the Pangu Clan!"
"You're not wrong at all, but the question was not about the warlords, because I could easily deal with those idiots with 10% of my computational ability."
Wuying Qi 3.0 said, "The problem was about the Blood God. It was the conflict between me and the Blood God that got things out of control."
"The conflict between you and the Blood God?"
Li Yao found it surprising. "What was the conflict between you and the Blood God that made you kill him in the end?"
"It was all the fault of the evil, weak, vile, childish, and hilarious Wuying Qi 2.0."
Wuying Qi 3.0 mumbled, "You should know that, despite everything I had been through, I was essentially a weak, mortal man who was fascinated by the worldly entertainments.
"The Supreme Emperor and the Blood God might hold different beliefs, but they both considered for the civilization of mankind and the ultimate mysteries of the universe beyond. They pursued the answers to the questions that might not carry any answer at all.
"Those questions and those pursuits were incomprehensible for Wuying Qi 2.0 at that time.
"For Wuying Qi 2.0, the Blood God's goal was hilarious. Even if the multiverse did exist, it was still perilous to climb across the black wall. Besides, who knew what was lying in the universe beyond the wall? There were too many uncertainties. It was too far-fetched!
"Even if the Blood God was right that mankind would be starved in this tiny universe as the Pangu Clan, the Nuwa Clan, and many other primordial civilizations did sooner or later, it would take at least hundreds of thousands of years before it became reality. Then, why should a weakling like Wuying Qi 2.0 worry for the people hundreds of thousands of years later?
"If Wuying Qi 2.0 mastered an invincible army through the Blood God's method, he would have many better things to do. He could seek his revenge, he could thud upon the Cultivators and the ordinary people, he could dominate this tiny universe, he could change everyone with his ideas, and he and his offspring could reign over this universe for at least ten thousand years!
"He had so many things to do. Why would he climb the black wall, search for the multiverse, and likely perish in space storms without leaving a single cell behind together with the crazy Blood God like an idiot?
"The future of mankind was not as important as his present. Wuying Qi 2.0 believed in that. So, after he realized the power at his disposal, he betrayed the Blood God without any hesitation.
"Supposedly, he should make the people who were being brainwashed in the Channeling Temples obey the Blood God's command and gain ambitions to explore the grand universe.
"However, he tampered with the Blood God's command and changed the target of their loyalty to himself. He intended to eradicate the brainwashed people's loyalty, reverence, and obedience to the Blood God.
"However, his command and the Blood God's had a serious conflict in the souls of the brainwashed. As a result, the minds of most of the brainwashed people were reset… As a refiner, you should know that a lot of magic equipment has default settings and that if things go wrong, the user can restore the default settings by pressing a button easily, right?
"The brainwashed people were the same. Because of the serious conflict between Wuying Qi 2.0's command and the Blood God's, which led to chaos on the genetic and soul level, another command that was at the bottom of their genes was activated. Their 'default settings' which were about the absolute loyalty to the Pangu Clan were restored.
"Eventually, things went out of control. The guys whose default settings were restored did not obey local warlords, Wuying Qi 2.0, or the Blood God. They acted on their own and controlled the man-manufacturing factories and the Channeling Temples in a mysterious pattern hundreds of thousands of years ago. Like viruses, they s
pread out their people and tried to resurrect the Pangu Clan.
"The local warlords could not resist those human-shaped puppets at all. I did not know how to stop the absurdities either.
"Thankfully, I had collected enough experiment data and gained a deeper understanding of the improvement of the inculcation technology. So, I simply left…"
"You simply left after causing such a huge disaster?"
Li Yao found it hard to believe. "You are truly an irresponsible jacka*s!"
"Yes, Wuying Qi 2.0 was indeed an out-and-out jacka*s, but in his defense…"
Wuying Qi 3.0 said, "We did not know the power of the Channeling Temples as well as we do today. Nobody could foresee how much longer the chaos would last. Since it was in a destitute place at the border of the cosmos, those human-shaped puppets that did not have a lot of resources might die out soon.
"With that in mind, Wuying Qi 2.0 finally returned to the Star Ocean Republic with the experiment data and the wealth he looted from the warlords. In the following decades, he built up his influence in the Star Ocean Republic.
"But thanks to the previous lesson, he dare not touch the Channeling Temples again, which was too dangerous and might get himself killed.
"He lived in peace for many years in the Star Ocean Republic, until the news that the Alliance of the Holy Covenant spread out. He was greatly shocked.
"However, on second thought, he realized that the arrival of the Covenant Alliance also created the best opportunity for him to assume the supreme power of the sea of stars!"
Chapter 2663: The Sunspot Plan! |
"You raised an enemy for your own sake!"
Li Yao couldn't help but snort as he said, "I knew that the Covenant Alliance and the Imperium were the two sides of the same coin. They're both venomous flowers that grew from the corpse of the Star Ocean Republic. But it still puzzles me how you defeated the Covenant Alliance again and again and became a famous general when you did not have a powerful troop."
