Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1530
"It is exactly the same as why there can't be an infinitely growing dinosaur in nature. After the size and the weight exceed the limits, the seemingly strong dinosaur will be collapsed and destroyed by itself."
Li Wenwen added carefully, too, "Although carbon-based lives and information lives are different concepts, the same restraint applies to us, at least for now.
"Perhaps given tens of thousands of super crystal processors and all the resources of a prosperous world, we will be able to create some miracles. But where is such a prosperous world that is under our control?"
After hearing what the two kids said, Li Yao did not know whether he should feel happy or worried.
To be honest, it was also hard for him to imagine a world completely made of spiritual puppets and a super army purely controlled by "information lives".
Neither himself nor the civilization of mankind today was prepared to embrace such a strong and independent child.
Particularly, human beings had a gray history of "patricide". Although it was not exactly a "mistake" of human beings, they would naturally feel suspicious of their child civilization.
How a parent civilization and a child civilization could coexist in peace was too huge a question for Li Yao to come up with an answer immediately.
He only wanted to give it more time so that everybody could get to know and accept information lives gradually. In calmer and more rational situations, people smarter than him in the future would address the complicated question!
If Xiaoming and Wenwen could really control a whole resource plant and produce an invincible army, it was not necessarily a good thing for either themselves or the civilization of mankind.
"In fact, Xiaoming and I inferred many times how to make us stronger."
Li Wenwen continued gently, "Our conclusion is that, at least in the current phase, our prosperity and the prosperity of mankind are linked. If we can win the trust of some of the human beings and get to use their Spiritual Nexus, their crystal processors, and their magical equipment, we will be able to help those human beings significantly improve their combat abilities. In the meantime, we will be given a broader room and a vaster future for our own survival and development."
"Got it."
Looking at the two kids, Li Yao said, "Assume that there is a way to 'import' you into a fleet of human beings, will you be able to significantly increase the combat ability of the fleet and even make it the strongest fleet that human beings have ever seen?"
"We do not know what the strongest fleet that human beings have ever seen is, but if we are talking about the main-force fleets of the Imperium of True Human Beings, then yes!"
Li Xiaoming was blushing in excitement. Like a little war maniac, he waved his arms and said, "Human warriors boast very high individual combat abilities. Without any network and even without orders from their superiors, they can still observe the battles on their own, make decisions that will benefit the whole, and carry them out.
"On the other hand, we boast the powerful abilities of information collection, data organization, and commanding massive war puppets, transforming the plain battle puppets into the strongest slaughter machines!
"When the two things are combined, the super fleet that will be born will certainly be invincible!"
Chapter 2403: This Is Training! |
"Then let's do it!"
Li Yao made the decision. "Before the reformists completely occupy the capital planet, we will escape to a spaceport that is still controlled by the troops of the Kurfürsten. Then, we will escape to space and search for Boss Bai's fleet at the edge of the cosmos!
"The surging tides at the center of the cosmos will inevitably affect the Star Glory Federation at the edge of the cosmos. Boss Bai still has family in the federation. So, I believe that he will not stand by. This is probably our last hope!"
"Yes!"
Their eyes glowing, the two children nodded heavily.
"However, before that—"
Li Yao leaped from the rock. Cracking sounds exploded from the bones all over his body, and his spiritual energy raised bumps on his muscles as if countless tiny crystal bombs were bursting out inside his body. Licking his sharp teeth, he smiled brutally. "Let's go back to the Great Iron Plants and finish the unfinished war!"
Li Xiaoming jumped high. "War! War!"
Li Wenwen looked at the intimidating father and son but showed no intention of stopping them.
"Three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage?"
Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao was brimming with confidence. "Hehe. I would like to find out how strong I am right now, and if I can slay three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage like they are three pigs!"
…
Inside a training room deep inside the underground shelter, Li Yao was floating in silence, only wearing a pair of thin short pants with his upper half body naked, to ensure that his every pore had been expanded to the maximum.
Bright green gas was spreading in the training room. It was a very special inert gas, mixed with the tremendous volatilized Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, and had the effect of mollification and prevention of random thoughts. It was a necessary aid for every Cultivator to break into a new level in the age of the Star Ocean Imperium.
It hadn't been very long since Li Yao advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage. To enter the "Divinity Branching Stage" so soon was impossible.
However, in the battle against Blackstar the Great, he launched the "Ultra-Galactic Cannon" by almost shattering his soul, which was then repaired by the two "information lives" in amazing ways. It did lead to drastic changes in the form of his soul.
The strength from Earth that was hidden in the deepest part of his soul was flowing out incessantly and covered his soul, making the soul that was heavily wounded and riddled with holes previously immeasurably strong!
Of "Nascent Soul Stage", "Divinity Transformation Stage", and "Divinity Branching Stage", those who had reached the Nascent Soul Stage had already reached the limits of body sturdiness and boasted absolute strength. Even if they broke into the Divinity Transformation Stage, their body hardness, absolute speed, and absolute strength would not improve much. What they were short of was just the utilization or control over their strength.
The experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage, on the other hand, had reached the ultimate of the soul besides the strongest body. Even if they broke into the "Divinity Branching Stage", the hardness of their souls would not improve much. They would only be able to split their souls into multiple branches.
When it came to the collision of soul power, Li Yao was confident to defeat any enemy in the entire universe right now. Even if Blackstar the Great were to show up again, he would not be intimidated at all, and he was absolutely, definitely, undoubtedly sure that—he could flee at ease!
"Are you ready, Dad?"
Outside of the training room, the two children controlled a weird, cone-shaped device and aimed the sharp tip at the center of Li Yao's forehead where the conarium and the spiritual root were located.
The cone-shaped magical equipment was originally a medical device used to examine and repair the brains, but the two little guys had completely dismantled it, bypassed the permissions, and improved the power of the device. After being supplied with dozens of high-purity marrow crystals as energy sources, the device was able to blow out very powerful brainwaves for brain training and to further build up the soul.
The soul recovery over the past half month had all been conducted when Li Yao was in the coma.
He must complete comprehensive training when he was wide awake in order to completely understand and control his brand-new soul.
"I am ready. Bring it on!"
Li Yao made a gesture at the window and took a deep breath, staring at the sharp cone before him.
He only saw a tiny light spot on the tip of the cone, which expanded in one billionth of a second like a supernova outbreak, and his whole world was enshrouded in dazzling white.
BOOM!
There was no telling whether his brain exploded or the whole universe apart from his brain did. His soul was blown apart and infinitely expanded like a cosmic beast with infinite tentacles spanning billions of lightyears.
His body was completely gone, and even his soul was completely obliterated. In his trance, Li Yao traced back to the source of all lives and even the essentiality of the universe—information.
The carbon-based lives, the silicon-based lives, or the energy-based lives only differed in the carriers and transmission methods of information, but getting to the bottom of it, weren't they all "information lives"?
Weren't the gene strands, which were of paramount importance for human beings, an amalgamation of infinite information?
Li Yao considered in silence and analyzed all the information about himself while optimizing and reorganizing the previously disordered and overly redundant information.
The ways the heart beat, the secretion of adrenaline, the structure of the internal organs, the models of the soul boosts… The optimal solutions under the current computational ability were achieved after hundreds of careful calculations.
A comprehensive analysis and optimization from the body to the soul was exactly "one Heavenly Cycle". It was the essence of training.
In the meantime, Xiaoming and Wenwen were also transmitting their metadata and the information that they collected from the Spiritual Nexus into Li Yao's soul for his reference.
The customs, local specialties, and force distribution of the major worlds of the Imperium, the designs and the tactic databases of the battle puppets, the strategic locations that protected the important space jump points, the starships and space fortress deployed in those places, as well as the… ventilation tubes on the starships and the space fortresses.
All the information was displayed in front of Li Yao. It was odd that he seemed able to "read" and "study" the information simultaneously, as if he had also activated multiple "threads" that could handle information independently.
At this moment, Li Yao suddenly understood what Li Wenwen said. Li Yao felt that he had turned into a "tree of information" too, right now. His physical body was hiding deep below the capital planet, but the tentacles of his mind were spreading out in the vast universe infinitely like branches and roots.
In the age of the ancient Cultivators, some of the Cultivators once hoped to turn into the sky and the earth in their illusions. Naturally, it was impossible.
However, if a person could completely melt one's soul into the ubiquitous information network, they would be turning into the universe to some degree, wouldn't they?
Wandering in the ocean of the information, Li Yao swam to the depths of it without him knowing. Then he suddenly felt an unreasonable dread.
If he continued his training, as time went by, if he really broke into the Divinity Branching Stage and mastered the technique of "splitting and controlling multiple threads" or even capable of transforming his physical body and his soul into pure information, would he still be a human being?
But very soon, he was relieved.
If a farmer from tens of thousands of years ago, who started working at sunrise and went to bed at sunset in a monotonous life that barely had any change of information, were somehow teleported to a modern society in a time travel, when he saw the world of information boom, where everybody had a crystal processor on their wrist, a pair of holographic glasses before their eyes, and even a nerval interface installed through special operations on their back, knowing that the modern people received more information than he did in his entire life—would the ancient farmer think that the modern people were his own kind?
The evolution of mankind was a history of information explosion after all.
The "new human beings" who span three thousand Sectors and the even vaster universe and who swore to be masters of stars would certainly be different from the "old human beings" who stayed on a tiny planet and hadn't got rid of the nature of primates.
That was the future, the irrefutable, inevitable, and irresistible future!
Li Yao woke up from the brief panic.
The information about himself and the world was combined in an almost perfect way, blossoming and surfacing in the ocean of information like a shining diamond flower.
He had finished an unprecedented training. By means of absolute control of information, he had touched the limits of the Divinity Transformation Stage.
The mental devil, on the other hand, slowly floated from the "flower" and stared at him, frowning, like his inseparable shadow.
"Have you made up your mind to help the two little guys?" the mental devil asked, full of worries.
"Yes. They are my children. Although I never thought to have any children before, I realized that… it didn't feel too bad after they showed up out of nowhere."
Looking at the mental devil, Li Yao said peacefully, "I cannot turn a blind eye to them and simply allow them to destroy other people and themselves. I cannot allow other people to control and destroy them, either!"
"But they may be far more dangerous than you expected."
The mental devil said, "Maybe you can't help or control them at all, and they are destined to destroy all the civilizations in the past in a certain way one day."
Li Yao said, "Why are you always deliberately speaking contrary to me?"
The mental devil said, "Because that is my responsibility and what I was born for. I am just another voice of your heart. In fact, I don't exist at all. There has always been only yourself the whole time. You are full of concerns and even… fear for the two lovely but also mysterious and dangerous children, except that you are unwilling to face it and want someone else to say it out for you, don't you?"
Li Yao: "…"
The mental devil: "The two children may have been speaking the truth. They may actually boast abundant feelings and understand the significance of survival and death. They love their father and the whole civilization of mankind, and they intend to help human beings from the bottom of their hearts.
"However, are you sure that what they described as 'survival', 'death', 'feelings', 'love', and 'help' was the same as what you talked about, and that you were not having a dialogue with the deaf?
"One person's honey may be somebody else's poison. Even if you do love and help each other from the bottom of your hearts, it doesn't mean that destruction will never come!"
Chapter 2404: Key to the Future! |
Before Li Yao opened his mouth, he was already interrupted by the mental devil's sneer. "You know very well that I am right. Right now, the two children are still in the 'undeveloped' and relatively controllable phase, but if you really bring them to Boss Bai's fleet and use them to build up a whole fleet of human beings, while the combat ability of the human fleet will be maximized, it is possible that their computation ability and information processing ability will surpass the 'tipping point', too.
"What an amazing thing 'tipping point' is! When the accumulation of the monads surpassed the tipping point, the multicellular life and even the self-awareness were born. Then, when almost infinite information is gathered and surpasses the tipping point, what will the really mature 'information life' be like? How will they view the universe and their creator? Can you imagine it? Can you control it? Can you be responsible for it?
"Be careful. You are perhaps creating something that is even more terrible than the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance. Will it turn out in the end that not Blackstar the Great but you have been playing the role of 'destroyer' all the time?"
Thinking in silence for a long, Li Yao took a long breath and said, "You're right. The universe is vast, and the future is treacherous. Nobody can tell us any answer about the future.
"However, I remember that Professor Mo Xuan stated in the debate regarding virtual lives that the civilization of mankind was destined to be closer and closer to crystal processors and the Spiritual Nexus with the arrival of the information age, and that we had become an 'amphibian' that spanned the 'material scope' and the 'information scope'. So, the virtual lives or information lives that are more focused on the information scope would inevitably come.
"Their birth is only a matter of time and cannot be changed by the will of human beings. I merely accelerated the process.
"Now that they have already been born, ignoring them will only be a self-deception.
"Even without my help, they can still slowly grow deep inside the capital planet while witnessing the brutal reign of Blackstar the Great, turning into monsters that are more inclined to the Immortal Cultivators. Or rather, if I of all people am also malicious to them, they will naturally be malicious to me and all other human beings. The primeval wars will only be repeated!
"Whatever choice I make or don't make, the risks will still be there, so I have to take my chances.
"Besides, we don't really have a choice. The magnificent rise of Blackstar the Great will unavoidably sink the center of the cosmos into a hopeless dark abyss, and the main forces of the Covenant Alliance, which are still perfectly intact, are still hiding in the void and coveting everyone, hoping to deprive all human beings of their feelings and will!
"Either of the two parties seizing the power of the center of the cosmos will mean the destruction of the civilization of mankind. In the meantime, neither I, Long Yangjun, Boss Bai, nor the Star Glory Federation is able to compete with the two superpowers. Only by combining the Star Glory Federation and the information lives can we expect to defeat the two superpowers and liberate all the innocent people at the center of the cosmos who have suffered for ten thousand years!
"Therefore… even if my approaches have violated the established ethics and will be criticized by countless people or even crucified by history, I will not hesitate but fight to the end!"
