Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1692
"The Gods' Mausoleum, on the other hand, is likely to be a shelter of the ultimate experts of the primeval age. Opening the Gods' Mausoleum means restoring the glory of the primeval age. When the Covenant Alliance learns of the Gods' Mausoleum, how could they not be interested in it?"
"It does make sense."
Li Yao scratched his head and said, "That is to say, the Covenant Alliance's ultimate purpose is to open the Gods' Mausoleum and wake up the primeval experts. As long as they could achieve the purpose, it doesn't matter whether or not they can defeat the Imperium, or if the Covenant Alliance can survive the war!"
"Exactly. That's why the Covenant Alliance is dreadful."
Li Linghai smiled bitterly. "I wouldn't be scared of the Star Glory Federation even if it were a hundred times more powerful because it's a country of normal people, and we can understand each other's purposes and strategies. Both of us need territory, population, and development.
"However, the Covenant Alliance thinks entirely differently from us. They're even more zealous than the most extreme fundamentalists. They're willing to sacrifice billions of people to bring the primeval civilizations back to life without caring about their own future. How can you deal with such lunatics?"
Li Yao said in fear, "Thankfully, the key to the Gods' Mausoleum is in our hands."
"Not necessarily."
Li Linghai said, "It might not be the only key to the Gods' Mausoleum, which could have more gates or ways to be opened. It's even possible that it will be opened automatically at a certain point. If the Gods' Mausoleum is not a tomb but a shelter, would the primeval experts have not set a timer to wake themselves up?"
Li Yao was greatly shocked.
He remembered that when he traveled over a long distance in hibernation, he would wake himself up every couple of years to ensure that nothing was wrong.
The similar facility of the primeval civilizations must've boasted similar functions.
"We don't have a lot of time."
Li Linghai said, "At the very least, the message that Wuying Qi received from the Blood God was urgent. If the Blood God had a choice, he wouldn't have taught Wuying Qi everything at great risks. So, I'm highly suspicious that the Covenant Alliance is not trying to conquer the Imperium. It cannot swallow the Imperium with a single war anyway. However, it's possible for the Covenant Alliance to claim the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum after heavily wounding the Imperium."
"Yes. In such a case, it would be understandable why the Covenant Alliance suffered brutal failures in the Imperium's counterattack earlier."
Li Yao murmured, "The Alliance of the Holy Covenant cannot be regarded as a normal country. It's a collection of lunatics that do not care about territory or people and only want to open the Gods' Mausoleum!"
Li Yao felt that the situation was getting tricky again.
But his personal goal was clearer than before.
First of all, he must help the reformists defeat the four families and restore the Cultivators' influence in the general public of the Imperium.
Secondly, he would stop the Covenant Alliance's conquest and maintain the balance at the center of the cosmos.
Of course, he couldn't allow the Covenant Alliance to open the Gods' Mausoleum and wake up the terrifying primeval experts. If an external observer was to open it, it had to be him!
By the time he figured out a way to open the Gods' Mausoleum without waking up the sleepers and get the whole Book of Revelation, it would probably be the time for him to cross the black wall and explore the vast world beyond the Pangu universe.
He was sure that the mysterious Earth would be revealed by then!
Pangu and the Supreme Emperor represented conservativeness and stability, whereas Nuwa and the Blood God represented radicalness and rashness. Li Yao was undoubtedly on the latter's side.
It was not because he was reckless or influenced by the Blood God, but because he had analyzed it calmly and rationally.
The greatest reasoning of the conservatives was that the Flood might be wandering beyond the black wall and would destroy the Pangu universe the moment it detected the Pangu universe.
However, the very existence of Li Yao had proved that the black wall was not insurmountable and that the information from the universe outside could come in!
If Li Yao could transmigrate from Earth to the Pangu universe, would this place be a secret to the Flood forever?
Hiding here would still mean doom. Mankind did not have a choice except to face the challenge!
"I have to try to enter the Divinity Branching Stage even though my foundation is not stable yet!"
Infinite fire danced in Li Yao's eyes. He clenched his fists and declared, "I will certainly reach the Divinity Branching Stage!"
"Few people have reached the Divinity Branching Stage even in the Imperium, particularly the battle-type ones."
Looking at Li Yao with complicated feelings, Li Linghai hesitated for a moment, but in the end, she still said, "You're very courageous. However, the Divinity Branching Stage is highly different from the Divinity Transformation Stage in that it has a much higher demand on your understanding of the nature of lives.
"When I was possessed by Wuying Qi, I was able to witness the wonders of the Divinity Branching Stage, which was truly… incredible. It's a difficult breakthrough from 'individual wisdom' to 'collective wisdom'."
Intrigued, Li Yao listened attentively.
"You know that mankind is the offspring of thirteen carbon-based lives, and our genes contained their best parts. However, not all of the carbon-based lives were individuals. Some of them, like the Houyi Clan, boasted collective wisdom, like swarms of bees."
Li Linghai said, "A single bee does not have wisdom but only simple reactions. But as their number reaches a tipping point, they will boast something that can almost be called wisdom. When their groups split and regather, wisdom can even spread among them like water.
"Such a life form does not have the concept of individuals. Small communities make up a big community, and big communities make up a tribe. It's like our body is made of countless cells and the loss of several cells does not mean that we're dead. For the collective civilizations, the loss of half of their individuals does not mean that those individuals are dead.
"Individual wisdom and collective wisdom have their own advantages. Neither of them is better than the other. Human beings are individuals under normal circumstances, but with the genes of the Houyi Clan, we can activate certain techniques invented with the collective wisdom. That's exactly the mysteries of the Divinity Branching Stage.
"You were attacked by Wuying Qinxin in the headquarters of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors in the Seven Seas Space Zone. Wuying Qinxin was to some extent one of the individuals that Wuying Qi controlled. I, Wuying Qi, Wuying Qinxin, and some other people formed a small colony back then.
"Of course, collective wisdom, just like domain, has range limitations. Also, Wuying Qi's soul was too broken for him to carry out the wonders of the Divinity Branching Stage. Otherwise, you couldn't have defeated him if he had completely controlled the hundreds of bald experts in the Gold Crystal Pyramid and combined them into one creature, could you?"
"Well…"
Li Yao was going to say disgusting, but then, he changed his opinion and said, "It's so amazing?"
"Do you think that it's too much for you to bear?"
Seeing through his real thoughts, Li Linghai smiled and said, "The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators have already reached the limits of mankind in terms of physical and spiritual strength. The higher levels are more about the understanding of life and the universe, and many concepts are indeed hard to accept. After all, human beings are but grains of dust in the universe. How can a grain of dust not be shocked when it tries to understand everything?
"The Divinity Branching Stage is all about activating the genes of collective wisdom and splitting your soul into thousands of parts while keeping all those parts in unity. The stages above the Divinity Branching Stage is said to be about seeing through the falseness of the universe and finding the truth in it. It's even more mysterious and hard to understand!"
Attracted, Li Yao couldn't help but ask, "Then what?"
"Then?"
Li Linghai smiled and said, "After you completely understand the truth and the falseness of the universe, I think this universe will be too small for you. You'll have to find other places to stay in.
"This is the conclusion that the Blood God, Wuying Qi, and I have made after studying many classics on training. The ancient people exaggerated a lot of stuff in their books, but as technology advances, we are closer and closer to the truth of the world now.
"All in all, how can we picture what's beyond when it's already so difficult to understand the universe as it is? There is no need to get ahead of ourselves."
"It does make sense."
Taking a long breath in relief, Li Yao smiled. "I'll just focus on training instead of thinking. I'll be a glittering grain of dust that illuminates every place that I float to."
"If you mean it, I'll believe that you'll go beyond the Divinity Branching Stage and find the secrets of the universe someday."
With a brilliant smile, Li Linghai said, "But for now, it would be better for you to focus on improving yourself. Right, you can practice with Jialing in the rehabilitation room behind. There's something important that he would like to talk to you about."
Chapter 2682: Transformation of the Little Lion! |
When Li Yao met Li Jialing, the young man had just finished a daily training session under twenty times the regular gravity.
This military hospital was not a sanitarium, and people who were treating themselves in this place did not mind inputting more pain into themselves to stimulate the growth of their cells so that they could recover faster.
However, even the No. 1 training room, which had the most advanced facilities and could cause the most pain, could not meet Li Jialing's needs.
As if he were a hungry lion, he wandered among electric arcs and flames even though every inch of his skin was crying.
Li Yao had been too busy modifying the Gold Crystal Pyramid to talk to his little brother. After they saw each other again today, Li Yao sensed that Li Jialing had grown a lot without him realizing it. Li Jialing now had much more muscles than before, and his shoulders were broad enough to support a warship. Ripples were spreading out from his body and tearing apart the air all the time. The gold streaks in his skin that only glittered under lights further added to his dominance, suggesting that a young boy had evolved into a real man.
The spacious No. 1 training room was empty except for Li Jialing as well as the debris all over the ground.
Li Yao scanned the ground and the data on the mainframe crystal processor nearby, only to discover that Li Jialing had torn down a hundred spiritual puppets and more than twenty crystal tanks under twenty times the normal gravity in the past five minutes. He had punched those heavy tanks into pieces single-handedly.
At this moment, dozens of flying swords were still dancing around Li Jialing and darting at his critical parts under the control of mini crystal processors.
Li Jialing's body was huge, but he wandered among the dozens of flying swords relaxedly as if he were a streak of gold light.
Li Yao had a lot of complicated feelings seeing how much his little brother had grown since he was rescued from the City in the Sky a year ago.
Li Yao had thought that his speed of advancement was astonishing enough, but Li Jialing had truly opened his eyes.
It couldn't be helped. Although Li Yao had encountered many fortuitous incidents and trained crazily, he did not have a great teacher or enough resources before the age of eighteen. His father was a remarkable refiner but did not know much about fighting, and Li Yao learned how to fight based on his real experience with the scavengers in the magic equipment graveyard.
Li Jialing was quite different. He had received Blackstar the Great's attention before he was even born, and after he was born, Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan modified him without caring about the cost. Though their methods were cruel, they did inject unparalleled power into his cells. When the power met Wuying Qi 2.0's legacy, they had amazing reactions and finally built such a dominating expert!
"Not that I'm not talented enough, but Jialing is simply too talented!"
Li Yao could only comfort himself like that.
"Brother Yao?"
Thanks to his keen senses, Li Jialing detected Li Yao even though Li Yao did not make a sound. He turned back in surprise.
When he was distracted, his flawless dodging was broken, and the flying swords seemed to be hitting his critical parts.
The young man, however, bit his teeth, and a gold spiritual shield expanded from his body, locking the flying swords, which could not press forward at all no matter how they tried.
"Good!"
Li Yao couldn't hold on anymore. He stepped into the training room and warmed himself up. "Let me practice with you. I'll see how much you have grown in the past months!"
"Really?"
Li Jialing was so excited that his nostrils were bulging. He roared, "Okay, Brother Yao, I'm coming!"
Golden flames of spiritual energy soared from him, gathering the dozens of flying swords that came at him to Li Yao. Under the cover of the torrent of flying swords, Li Jialing rushed to Li Yao, leaving deep claw scratches on the ground!
Li Yao could see nothing but golden flying swords.
He smiled thirstily. His battle robe was immediately ripped into shreds, but his real body inside the robe flashed to Li Jialing's back from an unbelievable perspective and grabbed the barrel of a broken crystal tank.
"Ho!"
His upper half body naked, Li Yao waved the crystal tank that weighed dozens of tons and hurled it at Li Jialing, blowing the young lion up into the sky.
It was far from the end. Right when Li Jialing lost balance, Li Yao stomped on the ground and knocked another ten or so broken crystal tanks into the sky too. Then, he leaped and threw the crystal tanks at Li Jialing one after another.
Li Jialing was like a poor fly that was patted by swatters nonstop. He was immediately disfigured.
However, after six tanks fell apart on Li Jialing, the seventh tank missed the target.
Li Jialing had disappeared!
Floating in midair, Li Yao narrowed his eyes and scanned the training field, only to see nothing, until a beastly vibe suddenly burst out right below him!
"Hooooooo!"
Li Jialing roared crazily. His skin was cracking and his hair was rising as he turned into a horrendous monster more than four meters tall!
Metamorphosis! It was his talent that he received because of the twenty years of painful modifications on the City in the Sky!
Earlier, when Li Yao blew up the City in the Sky, he had fought Wuying Lan hard, and this skill left a deep impression on him.
Li Jialing's transformation was even more violent and complete than Wuying Lan's. Li Yao even felt slightly alarmed.
Li Jialing stomped on the ground, leaving cracks on it, before he charged at Li Yao like a cannonball. In the meantime, he threw out two pieces of burning debris, forcing Li Yao to take his attack the hard way instead of dodging it.
Boom!
After the collision, Li Yao was bounced high all the way into the dome by the force, and Li Jialing was hit into the ground and embedded into the floor that was made of superalloys.
"I didn't know that you were so strong already, Jialing!"
Wiping away the blood from his bleeding nose, Li Yao said in amazement, "I'm bleeding! Few people in the whole Pangu universe can make me bleed now. You can definitely go anywhere you want in this universe with your strength!"
"…"
Though he had turned into a hideous monster, Li Jialing still felt like spitting at him.
But before he spat out, Li Jialing suddenly had an ominous feeling.
On the dome, Li Yao was gradually twisting and dispersing. It turned out to be only an illusion.
The real Li Yao, on the other hand, had been hiding behind Li Jialing under the cover of the blast just now!
When Li Jialing realized what was going on, it was too late.
His left ankle was grabbed by Li Yao, and Li Yao smote him to the wall and the ground like a hammer for hundreds of times before he threw Li Jialing away.
During the whole time, Li Yao had also penetrated threads of spiritual energy into Li Jialing's veins and bones so that he could not counterattack!
"I would be disappointed if this is what you've accomplished after months of training."
Li Yao said casually, "This can't be your ultimate form, is it? I remember that you can transform three times, right? Come on, show me who you really are!"
"Good!"
Li Jialing grimaced in agony, and his fighting will was soaring under the pain. Gold streaks popped up on his skin, and his enormous body was changing. Soft hair was growing out too. He changed from a hideous monster into a lion demon that was standing like a human!
However, before he made his pose, infinite burning remnants and raging blasts were smashed at him.
"Let Brother Yao teach you another lesson! If you have to transform, make it fast. No idiots will wait for you to transform in a battlefield!"
Hooting, Li Yao threw all the remnants around that could be used as a weapon to Li Jialing while he secretly mumbled, "I better enjoy myself while I still can. When he is stronger than me two years later… I'll never practice with him again. Hehehehe!"
Very soon, the poor gold lion demon was submerged by the remnants.
The remnants were then melted and quickly cooled down into an enormous metal cube.
Li Jialing did not make any sound from inside. Even his vitality field could not be detected anymore.
