Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 794
"Above the regular armies, at the peak of the pyramid, there are the most elite forces made of the Cultivators!
"Militias, regular armies, and Cultivators will cooperate with each other in a trinity! When the Immortal Cultivators arrive, we will treat them with a few black hole bombs first. Then, the militias will bombard millions of tons of burning steel on them with the artilleries. After that, the regular armies will hold the battle formation and protect the militias, while the Cultivators will look for opportunities to attack the high-level Immortal Cultivators who have been barraged by the cannons. The supersonic fighters piloted by ordinary people can harass them nearby. The flying swords and the missiles will be launched together, and the crystal cannons will echo with the nuclear weapons. Cultivators will fight side by side with ordinary people to defend our civilization together. This is the battle pattern that I've designed!"
Chapter 1213: The Hands That Hold the Saber! |
The eyes of all the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and demon emperors were glittering. Li Yao's words had greatly enlightened them.
It was quite right. The supersonic fighters, missiles, and tanks might not be enough to deal with the Core Formation Stage Immortal Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Immortal Cultivators, but they were surely even enough to hit and injure those in the Refinement Stage!
If a Cultivator in the Nascent Soul Stage and an Immortal Cultivator in the same level were in engaged in a fierce battle, while the Cultivator was assisted with a team of supersonic fighters that would launch missiles five times the speed of sound at his opponent, the outcome of the battle would be obvious.
It was the simplest math.
After pondering for a while, Professor Mo Xuan raised a very critical question. "Li Yao, I've read your proposal carefully. There are not too many technological obstacles. So, if we can develop such a strength system, the Imperium of True Human Beings certainly can, too!
"Do you think that the Imperium of True Human Beings has developed the same strength system or even come up with countermeasures?"
"Professor, you've asked the most critical question." Li Yao smiled. Pointing at his temples, he said, "I believe that it is very unlikely. It is not about the technology but about the ideology!
"The strength system with oil and coal and the fundamental power source based on chemical energy and nuclear energy is in fact nothing extraordinary if we get to the bottom of it. The Imperium must have relevant technological reserves. However, once the system is really established, it will only mean one thing, which is that, for the Immortal Cultivators, the strength of the ordinary people will be much higher than before, to the point that they may be hurt by the ordinary people!
"From the ancient times to the present day, under the training system of spiritual energy, ordinary people without spiritual roots cannot inhale or exhale natural spiritual energy directly. The gap between them and Cultivators is huge.
"The powerful magical equipment of the ancient Cultivators did not have buffer and stabilization units. The ordinary people could barely pick them up, much less make use of them. Soldiers waving regular sabers, swords, and bows are nothing but ants in the eyes of a Cultivator holding a flying sword.
"That is the reason Cultivators were respected as deities in the ancient times!
"Today, after the profound research on spiritual energy, we have significantly improved many kinds of magical equipment. With the buffer and stabilization units, civil magical equipment is finally usable for the general public.
"But for military magical equipment that boasts a high output of spiritual energy and high damages, it is still not readily usable for ordinary people. Only strong soldiers with solid souls can manage to manipulate relatively low-level spiritual energy weapons!
"If a weak person is asked to operate a storm bolter, a chainsword, or a crystal cannon, it is very possible that the 'recoil' of spiritual energy is enough to blow apart their soul!
"Therefore, even today, under the training system of spiritual energy, the chasm between Cultivators and ordinary people is still very huge. Ordinary people can barely cause any significant damage to a Cultivator, so they are destined to a weak and submissive position!
"The Immortal Cultivators exploit ordinary people mercilessly, while the Cultivators protect ordinary people like the infants in cradles. But they mean the same thing—we all think that the ordinary people are not capable of deciding their fate!
"But it is wrong!
"I sensed it deeply in front of the parliament building in the capital city. The ordinary people have intense feelings, unwavering determination, and burning devotion. They can fight, too. They can defend their belief and their homeland with their owns hands. They can even protect a Cultivator!
"If Cultivators can be compared to the saber of humanity, then the ordinary people will be the hands that hold the saber! The possible damage of the saber does not simply count on the sharpness of the saber's edge but also depends on how thick and strong the hands that are grabbing the weapon are!
"This is my original purpose of developing the 'non-spiritual-energy weapons'. Ordinary people are a treasury with endless potential! If such a war system is truly built, every ordinary person will be able to decide their own fate!
"Just now, I kept talking about 'black hole bombs'. In fact, black holes are not important, and zones of zero spiritual energy are not important, either. Even if the black hole bombs can never be invented, so what? Even if the universe is filled with spiritual energy, so what?
"As long as the army of ordinary people truly takes shape, and they boast innumerable supersonic fighters and tanks, the Cultivators will never be able to ignore their existence again like before!
"Even if they are ants, they will be ants with venomous stings after being armed. Cultivators may step on them just as easily as before, but the Cultivators' heels will itch or hurt for a moment!
"One ant is enough for a Cultivator to itch for a moment. What about a million ants? A billion? A trillion?"
"We don't have a trillion ordinary people," Professor Mo Xuan remarked subconsciously.
"We don't, but the Imperium might." Li Yao smiled. "There are tens of billions of ordinary people in the three Sectors. So, the population of the ordinary people in the Imperium will certainly be much larger!
"This is the greatest difference between the federation and the Imperium. This is also our greatest advantage!
"We and the ordinary people belong together. Cultivators fight for the ordinary people, and ordinary people give Cultivators their full support. The contradiction between us is little. We are a community with a shared destiny. The ordinary people getting stronger equals to our civilization getting stronger!
"But things are obviously different in the Imperium.
"When an emperor regards his subjects as weeds, his subjects will regard him as a sworn enemy in return. The Imperium of True Human Beings treats the ordinary people as ants. They are filtered the moment they are born, and the weak among them will be forced to mine underground until they die. Even newborn babies cannot survive. The weak are not even considered 'true human beings'!
"Ordinary people must be hating the Immortal Cultivators' guts. It's just that they are unable to resist because of the huge gap of capability and the high-pressure suppression.
"Is the Imperium of True Human Beings brave enough to arm billions of ordinary people to the teeth? I'm afraid that the ordinary people will aim at the Immortal Cultivators the moment they are armed!
"Therefore, I estimate that, even if the Imperium of True Human Beings grasps the methods to manufacture the 'non-spiritual-energy weapons', they will definitely not spread them out but keep them top secret.
"Distrusting and even fearing the strength of the people is the common disease of every empire throughout history. How can the Imperium of True Human Beings be an exception?
"However, no technology will be blocked forever. As long as we defeat the Imperium's first attack by relying on the ordinary people, we will disseminate the technology to the Sectors within the Imperium's territory and awaken the miners and the ordinary people who are struggling to live with their own strength. When they rise up and resist, however magnificent and dominating the Imperium of True Human Beings appears to be, it might collapse all of a sudden!
"My proposal is named the Black Hole Plan, but don't think that the 'Block Hole' refers to the black hole bombs.
"The 'Black Hole' is not the black hole bomb, but the ordinary people of the Imperium of True Human Beings who are awakened from their exploitation and slavery, who master their own fate, and who will swallow all the Immortal Cultivators!
"I believe that, if we truly win the war one day in the future, it will not be Cultivators who defeat the Immortal Cultivators but the ordinary people living in the federation, the Imperium, and all three thousand Sectors!"
Li Yao bowed quickly and left the podium before the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators recovered from their shock.
It could not be helped. Li Yao's last comment was too much for them.
A brand-new strength system meant a paradigm-shifting social reform. Faced with the overwhelming chemical and nuclear weapons, the masters of spiritual energy, although still boasting an absolute advantage, were no longer as unshakable as before.
The ordinary people would be more or less capable of restraining the Cultivators!
What would such a transformation mean for the world of Cultivators, for the civilization of mankind, and for the future?
Every Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator and demon emperor was deep in thought, as if thorny ants were truly crawling on them.
Hardly had Li Yao returned to his seat when he received complicated stares from all directions.
Even Professor Mo Xuan said to him with a bitter smile, "Li Yao, you truly make breaking news wherever you go without resting at all. You have proposed such a tricky question for us again!"
Li Yao smiled and replied confidently, "There is not any problem as long as we truly trust the strength of the ordinary people. The history of mankind is a history of Cultivators being secularized and integrated with the ordinary people. Not any force is enough to stop the process!"
Professor Mo Xuan hesitated for a long time but still shook his head and said nothing in the end, not knowing how he should comment on Li Yao's plan.
The agenda of the meeting did not leave time for the detailed discussion of every project. Li Yao's ultra-long presentation was already an exception, but the next speaker still did not go up front until five minutes later.
The whispers in the hall were louder and louder.
Jiang Hailiu, the host, stood up and said something to his portable crystal processor. Then, his eyes suddenly shivered before he left the hall in a hurry.
Li Yao and Professor Mo Xuan looked at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what was going on.
Li Yao's plan was indeed a bit shocking, but such an overreaction seemed unnecessary.
A moment later, Jiang Hailiu strode back to the center of the hall again. His face was half red and half pale. There was no telling whether he was excited or anxious while he said solemnly, "Fellow Cultivators, we have just received an urgent message from the Flying Star Sector. I'm afraid that the Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage has to be adjourned now."
Before the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the demon emperors could respond, he continued. "According to the news from the Star Prier's House on Spider Den in the Flying Star Sector, Kunlun, the relic of the Pangu civilization, has probably been found!"
Chapter 1214: It's Finally Here! |
"Kunlun!"
Including Li Yao himself, many Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators stood up in excitement.
Li Yao remembered awakening the ancestral memories hidden at the end of the gene strands while he was exploring the mysteries of the cells in the Hundred Desolation Mountain in the Blood Demon Sector.
In the primeval memories, there was the Pangu Clan, which created the universe and all living souls, and their enormous warship named 'Kunlun'!
He also remembered seeing a vintage, splendid throne of the Pangu Clan as well as a bright, golden skeleton, more than ten meters tall with the upper body of a human being but the lower body in the shape of a dragon, in the Mausoleum of Chaos.
Ba Yanzhi had once been to 'Kunlun'. He had excavated the relics of the Pangu civilization and brought back a corpse of the Pangu Clan, which was the foundation of his amazing research!
Li Yao could not wait to go to explore Kunlun to search for the origins of mankind, reveal the secrets of how the Pangu Clan created the universe, and even receive the enormous strength from the primeval era!
For a moment, he completely forgot his own 'Black Hole Plan'. There was nothing but 'Pangu' and 'Kunlun' in his head. His heart was pounding, his mouth was dry, and his eyes were spurting out fire. He clenched his fists so hard that noises were bursting out!
However—
Li Yao and Mo Xuan looked at each other, equally puzzled.
How had it been discovered so fast?
Half a year ago, after everything was settled, Li Yao had submitted Ba Yanzhi's Star Map of Kunlun, which had then been parsed by the most advanced super crystal processors of the three Sectors.
However, Ba Yanzhi's Star Map of Kunlun had been drawn in the ancient style forty thousand years ago. It lacked details and only had the basic forms of the galaxy.
However, the universe was too vast a place. Even the Blood Demon Sector's nearby had tremendous galaxies, nebulas, and star clusters.
With the Star Map of Kunlun, it was like that they had learned the color and shape of a grain of sand but had to find it from an overwhelming desert that spanned ten square kilometers, which was certainly no simple task!
Despite the computational ability of the most advanced crystal processors and biochemical brains, Li Yao had thought that it would take several years, or even more than a decade, to locate the grain of sand in the desert. It had never occurred to him that the task would be accomplished so quickly.
However, when he looked at Jiang Hailiu's face, he noticed that the Speaker was rather uneasy and more anxious than delighted, as if locating Kunlun was not a blessing but a disaster!
Li Yao thought of something and asked, "Speaker Jiang, why has Kunlun been discovered so quickly? Was there an unexpected change?"
Now that the Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage had been adjourned, all the participants resumed their daily identities. Therefore, Li Yao addressed him as 'Speaker'.
Jiang Hailiu's face was even more solemn. He nodded rather slowly and said, "Yes. At our original speed, it would have impossible to have discovered Kunlun in such a short period of time. In fact, we didn't discover it; the 'minor apocalypse' of the Imperium of True Human Beings led us to it!"
"The minor apocalypse!"
Everybody was shocked by his words. The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the demon emperors' faces were twisted for a moment, only to be replaced by excitement!
The boot that they had been waiting for so long was finally stepping on the ground. The minor apocalypse was here!
It was going to be the first head-on clash between the Imperium and the federation. Only by smothering the minor apocalypse brutally could all the plans that they had discussed just now be put into practice in good time!
Four mystic rays shot out of the ceiling of the meeting hall and gradually condensed into four shadows. They were the astronomers and cosmologists that were working in the Star Prier's House in the Flying Star Sector.
They had connected to the meeting hall through the space communication system.
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
The 3D light beam behind Jiang Hailiu suddenly changed into the boundless universe, with the Heaven's Origin Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector highlighted in a corner.
The picture was enlarged and enlarged. The space around the three Sectors immediately became clearer than before.
It could be seen that, at a distance very close to the three Sectors, a light spot had been flying straight toward the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, only to glitter all of a suddenly when it almost entered the border of the two Sectors and slightly change its direction to nearby the Blood Demon Sector.
Judging from the trajectory, it would brush past the Blood Demon Sector before long.
The light spot was, of course, the minor apocalypse.
"The Star Prier's House is a special observatory whose great purpose is to monitor the abnormal astronomical phenomena that are likely to be caused by intelligent creatures," Jiang Hailiu explained. "In our case, it has been in service to monitor the anomalies from the Imperium of True Human Beings!
"The minor apocalypse from the Imperium of True Human Beings, after a super long-distance space jump, already landed to somewhere near the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector. After releasing tremendous spiritual energy and receiving enough acceleration, it turned off most of the impetus system and flew toward us with its momentum!
"Therefore, for quite a long time, it was not on the radar of the Star Prier's House. After all, it was no different from a meteoroid and barely emitted any spiritual waves.
"We could only estimate its arrival to the two Sectors from the spiritual waves that it unleashed during its acceleration. Therefore, we were never aware of the specific date of its arrival but only knew that it would come in three to five years' time.
"However, one day ago, it suddenly reappeared on the surveillance light beam in the Star Prier's House. This time, it released tremendous spiritual waves at the cost of bountiful fuel, changing its direction and speed!
"All the astronomers in the Star Prier's House were greatly baffled.
