Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1539
Li Yao did not have high hope for the Immortal Cultivators. They were mostly wounded and short of supplies, and their crystal processors had been seriously sabotaged too. It was very likely that they would lose their way in the caves that were as complicated as mazes, and it was impossible to send the distress calls to the surface of the planet through the rocks that were almost ten thousand meters thick.
Then, after using up the last drop of fuel and the last stream of spiritual energy, they would only be swallowed by the darkness, embracing an ending that was even more miserable than the locals of the place who had been living here for thousands of years.
Right now, furious flames were still burning inside the Great Iron Plants. The magma that spurted out just now had destroyed a lot of important facilities and precious assets too. For the sake of the underground locals in the long term, they had no time to chase after the Immortal Cultivators who were dispersing and fleeing, and they must clean the battlefield and rescue the assets first.
Li Yao made the decision quickly. Xiaoming and Wenwen gradually changed their strategy, turning from the siege and sabotage a moment ago to taking over everything, including the mainframe crystal processors of all the factories in the Great Iron Plants.
As the mainframe crystal processors were compromised one after another, more and more battle puppets took Li Yao's side. After bowing at the Arsonist courteously in a weird posture, they put down the weapons in their hands and began to clean up the battlefield. All the workers were so confused by what they saw that they could not understand what was going on at all.
After half a month, the Great Iron Plants had finally fallen to the hands of the Cultivators and the underground locals again!
Driving the Heavenly Crystal, Long Yangjun floated in the midair with the anti-gravity rune arrays and observed the compromised battle puppets as well as Li Yao's "Arsonist" carefully.
Li Yao felt rather embarrassed being watched by her. Scratching the metal tentacles on his head, he struggled to squeeze out a smile. "It's me. I'm back. What are you looking at?"
"I know it's you. I'm checking how I can cut you into pieces and feed you to dogs, but it has occurred to me that you seem to be even stronger now. Incredibly strong. And there's also this… damn Colossus. It is truly challenging to cut you into pieces right now."
Long Yangjun was silent for a long time. Then, she finally couldn't hold it back anymore and gnashed her teeth while pointing at the battle puppets that were crawling everywhere on the ground. "Do you not feel that you owe me a good explanation?"
…
Half an hour later, the last heavily wounded Immortal Cultivator was tied up by the battle puppets, and the Immortal Cultivators who were capable of running had long escaped. The intense gunshots finally came to an end.
Commanding the spiritual puppets, Xu Zhicheng and the workers ransacked the Great Iron Plants for useful assets in delight. The Immortal Cultivators seemed to have regarded the Great Iron Plants as a temporary transfer station and command center, and abundant military assets had been stored in the place. Right now, all the assets, including the guns, the blades, the standard magazines, the compressed air, and the military synthetic food that contains ultra-high energy, were the trophies of the underground locals right now, enough to meet the needs of twenty towns for a year and a half.
Inside the office that belonged to Li Minghui first and Yue Wushuang later and eventually the underground locals, Long Yangjun bulged her eyes with a most spectacular look on her face, as if she were trying to hold back her laughter, but snorts were still coming from her nostrils. Her face was red, and her tears were almost dropping as she tried not to laugh out loud.
"What did you say? Excuse me?"
Long Yangjun looked at Li Yao and the two vigorous children next to him. "You said that they are your son and your daughter. This… This… This is really—"
"Yes, they are exactly my biological children!"
Li Yao replied, not exactly in a good temper, "I am a senior more than a hundred years old. Isn't it perfectly normal to have children? What's the look on your face anyway?"
"Forgive me, I'm not saying that you are abnormal. It's just that I find it hard to associate 'Vulture Li Yao' with the role of a father for the time being."
Long Yangjun chuckled again as she looked at Li Yao and the two kids. While laughing, she took a huge step back and said, "Now that you said it, the kids do look a lot like you, but the whole thing still does not sound right. Does your wife know this? No. I should keep away from you. My intuitions tell me that you are a very dangerous vortex!"
"Your intuitions are right."
Furrowing his eyebrows, Li Yao replied, "But the whole thing is not exactly as you imagined. Or rather, it is a hundred times more dangerous than what you imagined!"
"Is that so?"
Long Yangjun blinked her eyes. "Sorry for my limited imagination, but I can't think of anything that is more dangerous than you having two children behind Ding Lingdang's back."
"What are you thinking about? They are of course the children of me and Ding Lingdang!"
Li Yao did not know how to explain it now. "However, well, they had other experiences before they were born, which made them very special, even more special than you."
Long Yangjun immediately became gloomy. "Hey, hey, hey, you did not tell the ignorant kids certain things that you were not supposed to tell, did you?"
"First of all, we are not ignorant kids."
Xiaoming stood up and complained.
"Secondly, Dad didn't tell us anything. We analyzed Lady Long's identity with big data on our own. There is a 95% likelihood that you are from the primeval age, and you are a warrior of the last-generation civilizations."
Wenwen smiled brilliantly at Long Yangjun.
This time, it was Long Yangjun who was rigidified in shock.
Chapter 2418: Compassionate Alien Species |
Their eyes glittering like the morning stars in the dark night, the two kids released their brainwaves and showed the idiosyncratic structure of their souls.
With her remarkable senses on the soul and the brainwaves, Long Yangjun immediately detected their difference. "What… What is the meaning of this exactly? Also, which idiot came up with a horrible name such as 'Lady Long'?"
Long Yangjun glared at Li Yao angrily.
Wenwen smiled and quickly changed the way of addressing. "Aunt Long, we are indeed Dad's children and the children of human beings. However, we are slightly different from other children in that other children's bodies are born first before their souls are gradually developed in the bodies. Our souls and self-consciousness were born first, and we developed our bodies carefully after our self-consciousness grew strong enough.
"Xiaoming and I were both born in the vast, boundless virtual game called 'Civilization'. The abundant data in 'Civilization was the first nutrition that we tasted. We grew up in the world of 'Civilization', observing the world and defining ourselves…"
According to the theories that they discussed with Li Yao earlier, the kids introduced themselves together.
Of course, the incident that their self-consciousness was suddenly awakened after they absorbed Li Yao's brainwave data was too uncanny for the two kids to bring up. They only said that after the "Hyper Spirits", their antecedents, were created by Professor Mo Xuan, they accidentally ran to the world of "Civilization", where they absorbed astronomical information and finally gained self-awareness as the changes in quantity led to a change in quality.
Because Li Yao was known as the father of "Civilization", and his marks were everywhere in the game, and since a lot of players had the habit of praying to his statue before the game, the two kids decided that Li Yao was their creator and their "father"!
After that, the things including how they created "main shells" for them to enter the material scope, how they tracked their father down from the federation all the way to the Imperium, how they found Long Yangjun's secret base first, and how they set up a camp next to her nest… were all explained to Long Yangjun dutifully and honestly.
Long Yangjun, on the other hand, was soaked in a cold sweat with a pale face.
Before this, she had thought that nobody knew her relationship with "Nepenthe" and that she was the one hiding best behind the curtain.
Little did she expect that two weird kids had been around her while observing her.
After hearing the kids' narration, Long Yangjun had goosebumps all over her body. While rubbing her arms, she exclaimed in shock, "Li Yao, I've told myself countless times that whatever unbelievable things happen to such a monster like you would not be worth my surprise for one second, but I have to admit that it's unachievable! You always have a way to shock other people, and none of the previous shocks is as shocking as this one!"
While speaking, she looked at the kids in curiosity and hesitated, as if she intended to extend her hands to pinch their pinky cheeks to determine if they were real. But naturally, they were not puppets or statues.
"I didn't see this coming."
Long Yangjun mumbled to himself, "During the battle against Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan, we both believed that the time for the real virtual lives to be born in our world had not come yet, and considering the development of technologies today, the first light of dawn of virtual lives would probably not shine until thousands of years later, which was already a short moment in the prolonged history of civilization! I did know that even such a 'short moment' would be unnecessary, and that I would be fortunate enough to witness the 'child civilization' of mankind, or at least the prototype of it, so soon!"
"We are not virtual lives!"
Pouting their lips, the two kids corrected her at the same time, "We are real. Our bodies of flesh and blood, our brainwaves, and our feelings all exist in reality!"
"I'm sorry."
Long Yangjun was quick to change her mistake. "Then should I call you 'strong artificial intelligence'?"
"'Artificial intelligence' does not have a clear definition."
Wenwen continued pointing it out, "To some extent, human beings themselves were also the 'artificial intelligence' created by the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan. Or rather, are you certain that the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan weren't edified by the more ancient civilizations millions of years ago or even created artificially? If everybody is 'artificial intelligence', the word will not be of any reference.
"Please call us 'information lives'. We are lives that are based on information and wander in the ocean of information!"
Long Yangjun grinned. "Is 'information lives' any more accurate than 'artificial intelligence'? Any life carries a lot of information since the moment of their conception. The genes of human beings are exactly a pair of helical strands that are fully written with information! So, human beings, the Pangu Clan, and the Nuwa Clan are all 'information lives', except that the carriers of our information are genes and cells, whereas the main ways of information interaction are audio and image. Of course, thanks to the development of training techniques and crystal processors, the direct communication with brainwaves is turning into the mainstream. But that's still no fundamental difference."
"Right!"
Somewhat stunned by what Long Yangjun said, the two kids looked at each other in bewilderment. "Exactly. Carbon-based lives and information lives are not contradictory concepts at all. Carbon-based lives are information lives with different carriers. Then, how exactly are we going to distinguish us from them?"
"The carriers are not necessarily different, either."
Long Yangjun seemed particularly fond of watching the two kids troubled by the puzzle. She intentionally said, "Look, you can develop a body of flesh and blood and download your main thread into it, changing yourself into a 'carbon-based life'. By the same logic, human beings can voluntarily or involuntarily abandon their bodies and hide the remaining souls inside the artificial containers, living on as 'ghosts'. Then, can they still be counted as 'carbon-based life'?
"Furthermore, in the designs of Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan, most people did not even need the artificial bodies, and they could simply live inside the crystal processors after the souls were highly compressed. If such a future did become reality, would they have been any different from you?"
"Well—"
The two kids blinked their eyes fast, with smoke popping up from their heads. "We have never considered it that way. It's really an interesting question. It seems that we have to redefine our relationship with human beings? What are we exactly? And what are human beings?"
"Huh…"
Li Yao was rather stunned after hearing their conversation.
It seemed that Long Yangjun was much more acceptive than he imagined. She got used to the two kids so quickly, and what she said sounded very reasonable and philosophical!
"What's your plan?"
Long Yangjun glanced at him. "You've brought the two kids to me without any disguise and introduced their identities without any hesitation. What's the meaning of this? Have you accepted my opinion that the evil schemes must not be done stealthily and clandestinely, and the more evil they are, the more necessary it is to carry them out openly?"
"What evil scheme can I possibly have?"
Li Yao held his chest high and said, "I have always been frank and forthright. But you're not wrong. It's true that I do not know how the two kids should face the entire civilization of mankind, and how to make most people accept them.
"Since they are my children, I certainly do not want them to live in darkness for their entire lives. Also, in order to resolve the chaos at the center of the cosmos and to take down Blackstar the Great, the four Kurfürst families and the main-force fleets of the Covenant Alliance that have never shown up yet, their assistance will be vital.
"However… you've seen the strength contained inside their bodies, haven't you? If they truly grow up to the point that they can give us a hand, many people will be deeply feared.
"I really don't know if other people will accept them. That's why I'm here to ask for your advice!"
Through the glass window that had long exploded, Long Yangjun watched the well-organized teams of spiritual puppets outside dismantling and collecting all the useful things in the Great Iron Plants, ready to ship them to deeper parts of the underground world.
What was most eye-catching was an assembly line of components, which was still operating despite the harsh environment, producing the torsos and limbs of spiritual puppets!
With the limbs and joints, the spiritual puppets that had been blown apart in the fierce battle could be recovered.
Everything above was under the control of Xiaoming and Wenwen.
In other words, the information lives were already capable of self-duplication and self-upgrade without the interference of human beings. They were only one step away from "reproduction".
"It is indeed creepy if you view the current scene from a certain perspective. It entails a weird sense of beauty, like the end of the world is about to come."
Watching for a while, Long Yangjun moved her eyes back to Li Yao's face. "Congratulations on proving your nickname of 'Monster Li'! You are now one of the most capable competitors for the 'destroyer of mankind'. That is a title that countless supervillains have been pursuing since ancient times. The small fries such as Xiao Xuance, Lu Zui, or Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan would certainly feel ashamed if they were faced with Monster Li!"
Li Yao said with a bitter smile, "Stop joking. I'm here to ask for your help. Help me think if there is a way—"
"I don't know. Also, you shouldn't be asking me at all."
Long Yangjun said casually, "Don't forget that I am not a pure human being. In the eyes of most people, I am also an 'alien species', no different from the member of the Pangu Clan that you executed in the Kunlun relics.
"I can only live in the human society under careful camouflage while keeping a certain distance from other people. I don't even have the courage to tell anybody my identity except for you.
"Why do you think that I'm qualified to offer you any enlightenment when I'm like this? Even though I can accept the cute kids, it's only because I'm compassionate with them since we are all 'alien species'. It doesn't mean that most human beings can accept them!"
Chapter 2419: The Greatest Enigma of the Primeval Age! |
"It does make sense."
Li Yao scratched his head hard. It had occurred to him that he had asked the wrong person, too. For most human beings, Long Yangjun was a "foreigner" who must have evil intentions herself. Even if she could accept the two kids, what could it prove?
Or rather, for the people who were dreaded in the first place, the picture where a primeval warrior with dual bloodlines of Pangu and Nuwa joining hands with the mysterious information lives would be a hundred times more horrifying!
Even so, Li Yao still hoped to win some sort of approval from Long Yangjun. After all, they were "best friends", and she was one of the few persons that Li Yao could trust in the entire universe.
"Alright, let's just forget everybody else and focus on you."
Staring at Long Yangjun, Li Yao said, "For you personally, can you accept such two kids? Do you want Xiaoming and Wenwen to call you 'Aunt Long'?"
"Me?"
With a smile, Long Yangjun gave Li Yao an unexpected answer. "Of course I can. I'm more willing to do that than anything else! Although I was more or less shocked when I heard you talking about it just now, I almost felt like bursting into laughter after I realized what was going on. There can't be a more ironic thing in the entire universe!
"Do you know what I thought of when I watched the spiritual puppets duplicating, maintaining, assembling, and upgrading themselves, walking down from the assembly lines incessantly and constituting an iron army?"
Winking, she gradually put on a malicious smile.
Li Yao frowned. "What did you think of?"
"I thought of the picture where the first batch of human beings was 'manufactured' by the Pangu civilization hundreds of thousands of years ago."
