Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1501
What he was seeing was so similar to the scene of the riot of the captives from the Covenant Alliance in the Godly Might Prison!
When Li Yao snuck into the Godly Might Prison, ready to rescue Lei Chenghu, he happened upon a riot of the captives of the Covenant Alliance. The communication among the captives was not necessarily conducted through language but done in a way similar to "thought reverberation". As a result, the thousands of captives were as united as one person!
Li Jialing and Li Linghai both told Li Yao that the Covenant Alliance boasted very special techniques. Even the ordinary people had the uncanny abilities that were similar to telepathic thought transmission, which made their unity and organization much better than the ordinary soldiers of the Imperium. It significantly made up for the Covenant Alliance's shortage of high-level warriors.
Li Yao did not expect that Long Yangjun was capable of that!
In other words, she was not just "harmlessly" teaching the underground locals the ways to suppress their feelings and desires; she was also issuing certain clandestine instructions to the people who had been brainwashed through "thought reverberation"!
Well, wait, since Long Yangjun voluntarily invited him to come to this place, it was not exactly "clandestine". But all in all… there must be something sleazy and dangerous going on!
In fury, Li Yao focused his telepathic thoughts and slashed them on Long Yangjun's forehead on the podium. "You should've been more careful with your costume. Why didn't you carry a few chicken wings on your back?"
The profound and mysterious hums stopped.
Perhaps it was an illusion, but even the overwhelming, gleaming primeval runes on the wall dimmed a lot.
The brutal, disobedient wildlings all stood up. They did not howl or look at Li Yao at all. Instead, they simply disappeared into the darkness without a sound, crawling into the deeper cracks.
Even the dozens of Nepenthe believers in grey robes hid stealthily.
Long Yangjun glanced at Li Yao casually. Touching her white, flawless, and glistening robe, she stepped on nonexistent stairs and walked down from the top of the stone column in midair.
"Why bother? You could've just jumped off!"
Li Yao threw another telepathic thought over. "I don't believe your legs will be broken if you jump from only dozens of meters high!"
Long Yangjun stared at Li Yao and replied coldly, "Cut the crap. Follow me."
Li Yao pondered for a moment. He had a lot of secrets that he did not want Li Jialing to know yet, not because he did not trust the little lion, but because if Li Jialing was unfortunately captured and possessed by Wuying Qi, all his memories would likely be absorbed by Wuying Qi.
Then, everything about the Star Glory Federation that Li Yao told Li Jialing right now would probably be learned by Blackstar the Great.
Therefore, it would be safer to keep it a secret from Li Jialing for now.
Li Yao asked Li Jialing to wait outside for a moment. He also gave the young man some prospection magical equipment, asking him to measure the edge and structure of the artificial cave. Then, he followed Long Yangjun to go to the deepest part of the cave.
In the rocks of the deepest part of the cave, a gigantic artificial carrier had been stabbed in abruptly. However, after a long time of being melted by the high temperatures and high pressures, and because of the corrosion of minerals, it had long become a fossil and could not be compared to the Kunlun relic or the Nuwa warship. It was barely of any value to be excavated.
Li Yao wondered why there was a huge warship deep below the ground. It was not until he observed carefully for a long time that he realized it was not a warship but an enormous excavator that could shatter rocks and build tunnels.
The general structure of the vehicle was similar to the "earthly dragon" adopted by Starlight in the underground world of the Martial Meritocrats Sector but, of course, significantly larger in size. It must've been the drilling machine that the giants of the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan used.
At this moment, the most advanced drilling magical equipment in the old days had turned into a lifeless, collapsed palace that served as a perfect temple for the wildlings.
Following Long Yangjun, Li Yao walked into the primeval excavator and did find a lot of giant corpses that had been highly dehydrated and fossilized. Some of them had human heads and snake bodies, some had three heads and six arms, and some had green faces and bulging tusks like fiends.
It was not the first time that Li Yao had seen similar corpses of the "primeval gods". He had seen too many of them in the Kunlun relic and the Nuwa warship and therefore was not surprised.
However, he could totally imagine how panicked and astounded the underground locals were when they saw the "primeval gods" for the first time. Perhaps Long Yangjun used exactly those corpses to deceive them and mislead them into thinking that she was an envoy of the gods, didn't she?
Chapter 2355: A Friendly and Frank Conversation |
"Why are you not talking after you see me? You haven't figured out yet how to trick me?"
Looking at Long Yangjun's cold and mysterious back, Li Yao sniffed. "You've done a better job in acting than 'Mother White Lotus Wan Mingzhu'. Why have I never noticed that you have such a facet?"
"Aren't you well aware that I have dual personalities?"
Long Yangjun was not infuriated but simply walked to the depths of the gigantic excavator. She said casually, "Most of the time in the past, what you saw was my side that was more inclined to the 'Nuwa Clan', but what you are seeing right now is the Pangu Clan's side of me.
"Now that I have brought you to the underground world, I will not keep anything from you. Just widen your eyes and watch this side of me carefully!"
Li Yao stopped and said solemnly in full wariness, "Stop walking anymore. What's your purpose exactly?"
Long Yangjun said with a smile, "Don't be scared. I am your life-saver after all. Since I have rescued you from Blackstar the Great's hands at great risks, and I have brought you back to my nest for careful treatment, is there any reason why I should do you harm? There is no need to be so anxious at all. To be honest, even if I want to harm you, I'll prefer to crumble your beliefs inch by inch and enjoy your furious but helpless look, rather than simply savaging you physically. The destruction of a physical body is always most crude and boring, isn't it?"
Li Yao gnashed his teeth. "I will certainly bear your favor in mind. Next time you are savaged by Blackstar the Great to the point that you are almost destroyed, I will naturally come back for you too! However, just because you did me a favor does not mean your ideas are justified! You should know it more clearly than anybody else that I am a man of principles. I am a selfless, devoted, and loyal Cultivator who will not waver in front of what is right and what is wrong!"
"Is that so?"
Long Yangjun finally stopped and turned around, looking at Li Yao. A familiar smile gradually popped up on her cold and indifferent face. "But I don't feel that I am crossing your lines. Then why do you have to act so aggressively as if you are holding me responsible for something I've done?"
"In that case, let me ask you, what were you doing just now? Were you not brainwashing the underground wildlings and eliminating their feelings and desires?"
Li Yao said confidently, "Also, can you turn off the light ring above your head for now? Let's just talk nicely and throw away all the occultic sound and visual effects. If you insist on doing that, I can surround myself in dazzling electric arcs and get a headful of golden and explosive hair so that we will be communicating on equal terms!"
"Excuse me, I forgot about it."
Long Yangjun waved her hands, and the light ring hovering above her head gradually dimmed, eventually turning into a silver metal ring that was stored into her Cosmos Ring.
She said, undisturbed, "If you are accusing me of being pretentious, I will not deny it. After all, neither the residents of the 10,084th district nor the ignorant wildlings here will trust an outsider easily. If I had not pretended to be an envoy of the gods, it would've been impossible for me to join them and make them absolutely trust me so that I can settle their wars and conflicts.
"Besides, by claiming that I am an envoy of the gods, I was not entirely lying, because I am a successor of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan after all!
"As for your accusation that I've washed off their feelings and desires, I'm afraid that you've wronged and overestimated me.
"Haven't Li Jialing told you that the so-called feelings and desires all depend on a material foundation? In the places where materials are abundant, communication is frequent and smooth, life security of the people is ensured, and the future of the people is promising, it will be natural that the feelings and desires of the people will blossom. Everybody will be passionate and self-expressive. They will not be implicit at all.
"However, in the remote mountains that are poor, secluded, and hopeless, people who are going to spend their entire lives there were born to be taciturn, nonchalant, and numb. They do not have any hope for the future, and they have few desires except for survival and reproduction. Even if they do have some feelings deep inside their hearts, they will usually hide the feelings very well. Isn't it only natural?
"The ecological system ten thousand meters below the ground is a relatively simple and extremely barren system. Look at the monotonous environment around you. Do you think the wildlings living here boast profuse feelings and desires require my 'brainwashing'? How hilarious!"
Li Yao was not moved. He simply sniffed and said, "Then, what were you doing just now? Why did the wildlings of three different tribes, who should've been fighting each other relentlessly, sit below your feet obediently in harmony?"
"It's true that I taught them certain tricks to repress their feelings, but my lessons were mainly about how to hold back the fury and abandon unnecessary hatred."
Long Yangjun replied confidently, as if she did not feel guilty at all, "After ten thousand years of bloody battles, in the areas of darkness and death, few beautiful feelings are left in the brains of the Black Armors, the Night Wings, and the Red Rings. The only thing they remember is the ineffaceable hatred. Nobody knows how the hatred originated, but they know they will not stop until one or two of the tribes are completely wiped out.
"When I just came to the underground world, the three tribes were about to summon all their people for an unprecedented bloody war. Although they did look hideous, they were a part of mankind after all and the creatures of Pangu and Nuwa. Whatever my stance was, I did not want them to die together with each other.
"Therefore, through what I was capable of, I helped them settle the war and saved the precious lives of a thousand wildlings. Why, Cultivator Li Yao, is that in violation of your principles? Do you want me to just sit by and watch the wildlings slaughter each other until none is alive?"
Li Yao was stunned for a moment. Then he sneered, "So to speak, you did it for a noble purpose?"
"Does it really matter what my purpose was?"
Long Yangjun smiled casually. "As the saying goes, you just judge people by what they do, not what they think. Whatever clandestine purposes I might've had, it was an undeniable fact that I saved the precious lives of so many wildlings, soothed the pain of the residents of the 10,084th district as well as many other zones, and even… condensed them in a certain way so that they could be highly-organized. Wow, I have done so many great things. I think you should be applauding me. Why are you acting as if I were a criminal?"
"Highly-organized? Right, I remember it now."
Li Yao said, "The way you controlled the wildlings was exactly the same as how the commander of the Covenant Alliance led the common soldiers in the Godly Might Prison. I'm afraid that you are not just saving the precious lives of those wildlings but also trying to transform them into your tools, aren't you?"
"It is not exactly 'control'. To be more exact, I was merely 'communicating' with the wildlings."
Long Yangjun explained, "It is a very special way of communication, similar to the direct communication with brainwaves. You may call it 'telepathy'.
"Theoretically speaking, every ordinary person is capable of 'telepathy' without special training. Our brains are born with such an ability. The connections between a mother and her child, or those between twins, are all phenomena of telepathy due to the overflow of brainwaves.
"A man would have a very weirdly familiar feeling when he visited a place for the first time, as if he had visited the place a long time ago. In fact, it is only because he accidentally received the brainwaves of the passers-by and connected with them.
"However, in daily life, the heads of the ordinary people are filled with exuberant emotions and self-awareness, and they are used to transmit information via soundwaves. As a result, such an ability is gradually covered.
"But as long as one suppresses the emotions to the minimum, trying to empty their brain, they will naturally recover the ability of 'telepathy' under some guidance. How should I put it? It's like how the blind always has keen ears, and the intellectually disabled can sometimes come up with brilliant ideas. They are all part of the biophysical 'compensation effect'.
"Therefore, I was not brainwashing the wildlings just now but only talking to them by way of 'telepathy'. It was no different from standing on a podium and giving a blood-boiling speech to refresh the audience."
Long Yangjun had been peaceful and patient the whole time, and Li Yao could not vent his fury at all even though he had a lot of it. He could only ask in suspicion, "Telepathy? Is it a real thing?"
"Yes."
Long Yangjun said casually, "However, it is destined that you cannot master such an ability because your soul, feelings, and self-awareness are simply too intense. It is absolutely impossible for you to repress your emotions and completely clear your brain."
Li Yao was still not entirely convinced. "If there is such a convenient way of communication where everybody can talk to each other just by thinking, then why have the Pangu Clan, the Nuwa Clan, and human beings developed speaking abilities? Isn't it completely redundant?"
"You are wrong about that. The language based on the vibration of sound waves is in fact a more advanced way of communication than 'telepathy', which directly relies on the interaction of brainwaves."
Long Yangjun said solemnly, "The biggest problems of 'telepathy' are that it can only be used to deliver the fuzzy, general concepts and that it will make the whole group of people likeminded. When the brain waves are mixed, the speed and efficiency of communication will certainly be improved, but it is obviously very disadvantageous in the cruel competitions of nature if ten thousand people only have one idea. It will take only one foolish decision to ruin the entire community.
"Communicating with a language seems inefficient and underdeveloped, but it protects the brains of all the members of the group so that everybody will be an independent individual who can think entirely on their own. As a result, the community as a whole will have a myriad of different ideas, and the diversity and abundance of decisions will be ensured to the largest content. That is the most important and safest approach on the way of evolution!"
Chapter 2356: Join the Noble Cause! |
Li Yao thought for a moment and realized that it did make sense. When he discussed with Di Feiwen, the deputy commander of the Black Wind Fleet, about the situation of the Imperium back when he was in the Star Glory Federation before, and when he talked with Li Linghai about the development of the battle after he came to the Imperium, they had both compared the Imperium with the Covenant Alliance and explained the features of the warriors of the Covenant Alliance.
With the ability of "telepathy" and a system of high efficiency and absolute obedience, the Covenant Alliance had been on the winning side in the war against the Imperium for a thousand years, even though it was just a barren country based in a corner of the cosmos.
But as time went by and the war fell into an impasse, the fatal flaws of the Covenant Alliance were gradually revealed, which were the rigidity, lifelessness, and lack of creativity in their society. From top to bottom, all the people of the Covenant Alliance thought exactly the same. Such a problem was even more severe in the Covenant Alliance than it was in the Imperium. After all, however decayed and corrupted the Imperium was, the major forces never lacked creativity when they plotted against each other.
During the Imperium's counterattack, the Covenant Alliance's weaknesses were completely exposed, and the Imperium's army secured a gratifying triumph by taking advantage of them!
Long Yangjun told Li Yao that there was no seemingly immaculate ability in the universe that was really immaculate and did not come with a price.
It was like no ferocious beasts could unlimitedly increase their strength and speed, or they would collapse on their own. The seemingly powerful ability of "telepathy" was actually a lethal trap on the way of evolution. The convenient communication and the easy organization for the time being were actually traded with the independent thinking and the diversified development of the whole community.
When the Pangu civilizations' alliance rose first, it was obvious that there were more carbon-based civilizations than Pangu, Nuwa, Kuafu, Houyi, etc., that were engaged in the million years of wars among them. Some of the civilizations did choose to establish their society by communicating with brainwaves.
When the "language civilizations" encountered the "telepathy civilizations", they were almost caught unprepared by the enemy's effective communication and meticulous organization, but as long as they could weather through the first attacks, the endless whimsical tactics of the "language civilizations", as well as the schemes and ploys formed in their independent heads, would often turn the situation around for the "language civilizations", allowing them to completely annihilate the "telepathy civilizations".
Therefore, when the Pangu civilizations' alliance was really founded, the thirteen carbon-based civilizations reached a consensus that languages made by the vibration of sound waves would be the medium of communication to ensure the independence and diversity of the individuals.
