Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 817
"With great power comes great responsibility!
"Cultivators are the servants of the civilization of mankind and must devote their everything!
"Cultivators come from the ordinary people and must serve the ordinary people unconditionally!
"Ordinary people are water, and Cultivators are fish. Without ordinary people, there will be no Cultivators. Every crystal that Cultivators consume is a cost of the wealth of mankind. Therefore, the techniques and Cultivation arts that the Cultivators trained with the crystals do not belong to the Cultivators but to mankind!
"Such absurdities were the most popular theories in the Martial Meritocrats civilization. They were the undebatable 'truths'!
"All in all, Cultivators of the Martial Meritocrats civilization dedicated themselves to the most tiresome and dangerous jobs. Their tax rate was many times higher than that of the ordinary people. When the ordinary people were in trouble, they had to give everything that they had to help them. In short, from the laws to the morals, everything dictated that they be out-and-out 'saints'!
"The Cultivators of the Martial Meritocrats Sector whose heads must've been seriously wrong, after being brainwashed for a long time, accepted everything in the end, too. They degraded themselves but considered it a pleasure. They devoted but never asked for anything in return!"
Li Yao coughed hard. "One side is willing to take, and the other is willing to offer… There doesn't seem to be a problem, does there?"
"If the territory of the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats had been restricted to the Martial Meritocrats Sector alone, there wouldn't have been a problem. After all, all the Cultivators and ordinary people shared the same history, creeds, culture, and values. No matter how demanding the ordinary people were, they had boundaries after all.
"Besides, the ordinary people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector fought their way to prosperity through bloody battles, too. They were not entirely lowly, lazy, troublemaking creatures. They were as demanding on themselves as they were on the Cultivators. Everybody was giving it their all to march to the universe so that they could find more Sectors and save the brothers and sisters there!
"What seriously went wrong, however, proved to be the brothers and sisters that they rescued from other Sectors."
Chapter 1250: The Chiyou Cult |
Li Yao's heart was tightened. "How so?"
The Star Glory Federation also considered protecting the human beings of all the three thousand Sectors as its responsibility. In the planning, it was also going to expand actively and explore new Sectors in order to build up the entire federation!
The Martial Meritocrats Sector's fall would be a great lesson for them.
"The Martial Meritocrats Sector was quite fortunate," Su Changfa sneered. "With the star maps of the Star Ocean Imperium, it soon found a Sector not far away from them named 'Sand Primitive Sector', which was also inhabited by a lot of human beings.
"However, not every Sector was as lucky as the Curly Dragon Sector, the Medicine Fork Sector, or the Martial Meritocrats Sector, which did not suffer much in the gory war, had a relatively stable environment, and could absorb the heritage of the Star Ocean Imperium during the reconstruction of their civilization.
"Most of the Sectors had been destroyed in the war that caused the collapse of the Star Ocean Imperium. They were shattered and occupied by tremendous demons and extraterrestrial devils.
"In such a harsh environment, even though some of the human beings survived, it was impossible for them to sustain a complicated and delicate modern civilization. They were forced to retrograde to the primitive stage and build everything from scratch again.
"The Sand Primitive Sector was exactly such a miserable world.
"Before the Martial Meritocrats' people arrived, the civilization there had been at an extremely low level, which was no better than the world of ancient Cultivators forty thousand years and even worse in many aspects!
"The natives of the Sand Primitive Sector were nomadic. They were aggressive, radical, sensitive, and suspicious in nature. There weren't systematic training techniques and Cultivator arts. Everything was incomplete. The few Cultivators were known as 'shamans' and fought with their talents and instincts.
"To resist the rough environment and the brutal alien species, the shamans of the Sand Primitive Sector had to establish an extreme and cruel religion named the 'Chiyou Cult', in which the legendary ruthless God of War was honored to be the supreme god. They trained themselves with the 'strength of belief' and triggered the potential inside human bodies through approaches such as 'seances' and other sacraments, in order to raise the most bloodthirsty 'berserker warriors'!
"As time went by, the culture of the Sand Primitive Sector was also deeply affected by the Chiyou-worshipping belief, which often proved to be radical, passionate, and fearless. The Chiyou Cult leaked to every pore and every bone of their daily life!
"They formed different tribes around the shamans who claimed that they could communicate with God Chiyou. The people only knew the shamans and Chiyou but did not have any idea about officials, government, or law!
"All in all, the Martial Meritocrats Sector and the Sand Primitive Sector were vastly different from each other in history, culture, belief, social form, and strength system. Other than the similar appearance and language, they were essentially two different species!
"However, at that time, even the smartest, keenest Cultivators of the Martial Meritocrats Sector didn't realize what such differences actually meant!
"The discovery of the Sand Primitive Sector made the entire Martial Meritocrats Sector overjoyed. The people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector had finally found subjects that they could save. Their long-accumulated sense of justice and sympathy finally emerged in all its splendor and had somewhere to go!
"When they discovered that their 'poor brothers of the Primitive Sector' were struggling on a mother planet whose environment was extremely harsh under the scourge of demons, extraterrestrial devils, and other alien species now and then, large-scale aids were immediately underway!
"Magical equipment, crystals, and techniques were delivered to the Sand Primitive Sector incessantly without bothering the cost. Many volunteers arrived at the new land, too, promulgating the latest training methodology and system to the natives!
"In order to cope with the threats of the enemies, before they taught the people of the Sand Primitive Sector how to till the land with machines, they taught them how to use the advanced chainswords, crystal cannons, heat-sensitive flying swords, and even… crystal suits!
"Since the environment of the Sand Primitive Sector was too harsh, and the demons and extraterrestrial devils were not likely to be wiped out any time soon, it didn't take long for the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats to pass many laws including the Bill of Equal Human Beings and the Bill of Sectoral Free Communication.
"According to the laws, all human beings in the sea of stars were brothers that were entitled to the same natural rights. Among them, the right of free migration, the right of residence, and the right to protect oneself from any war were the most sacred and inviolable three!
"Therefore, as long as they were willing to, the natives of the Sand Primitive Sector were absolutely qualified to immigrate to the Martial Meritocrats Sector freely. After receiving simple education and training, they would be granted the citizenship of the 'Alliance of Martial Meritocrats' and have the same privileges and benefits as natives of the Martial Meritocrats Sector did!"
Even Li Yao found it unbelievable when he heard the part.
Were the people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector all morons?
Although Li Yao supported the integration of the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector because of the push of the Imperium of True Human Beings, it was unthinkable to grant all demons the citizenship of the Star Glory Federation!
Besides, in the Star Glory Federation, there were many Cultivators who had a different stances from Li Yao's. The radical ones of them included Lu Zui and Zhou Hengdao, and the more conservative ones included his wife, Ding Lingdang. Regardlessly, they were all wary of the demons and checked Li Yao and his supporters from the other side of the scale.
Li Yao had no issue with Ding Lingdang's belief being utterly different from his. On the contrary, he found it very necessary.
One civilization could not have only one voice, even if the voice sounded correct and righteous.
Only by the check and balance of different ideologies could it be ensured that the civilization walked on the correct path without leaning to either side.
Although all the Cultivators of the federation, including Li Yao, had the pure heart of a newborn babe to believe in brightness, it did not mean that they were really three years old!
Su Changfa smiled. "Do you feel that the people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector were silly?"
Li Yao nodded subconsciously.
"Wrong. The Martial Meritocrats people may have been a bit naïve, but they were not foolish enough to open the door for burglars!" Su Changfa said coldly. "However, misguided by a faulty system, even the smartest guys will have to push forward even if they know clearly that swamps and abysses are in the front.
"If they don't walk forward, those behind them will still push him into the abyss!
"The bills that the Martial Meritocrats Sector passed were ostensibly because of their belief and ideology.
"But more importantly, they were meant to address the issue of the shortage of labor force.
"At that time, the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats had developed for more than a thousand years. It was a rather mature, high-level civilization. Most of the citizens were highly educated. They all hoped to participate in jobs that were technology-intensive, vigorous, creative, and brought a sense of achievement.
"The great leap in the space cruising technology and the exploration of new worlds provided many technology-intensive, high-paying, and promising jobs for them.
"At that time, a job related to space exploration was the biggest dream and a dream that could very likely be realized for every citizen of the Martial Meritocrats Sector.
"But then there was a problem. Although the advanced jobs were sufficient, who was going to fill in the dirty, tedious work and the simple, repetitive jobs?
"Spiritual puppets were naturally a choice. However, the cost of the puppets was too high. Also, they would consume a lot of crystals. It would be too wasteful to deploy them for such lowly work.
"Although there were abundant resources in the Martial Meritocrats Sector, the people there had equally abundant ambitions. They were hoping to explore the entire universe. Crystals, as fuel for the space voyages, had to be carefully distributed.
"The arrival of the Sand Primitive Sector seemed to have solved the problem perfectly.
"While the natives of the Martial Meritocrats Sector were engaged in the advanced, demanding, vigorous, and creative jobs where astronomy, medication, law, liberal arts, and philosophy were involved, the Sand Primitive Sector took part in the low, simple, repetitive jobs that did not require any creativity or bring any sense of achievement, as the bottom-level workers and farmers in the society.
"Doctors, stargazers, and workers were just different fields of work. Nobody was nobler than anybody. All the citizens were helping each other and contributing in their own way to a brilliant, glorious civilization.
"It was perhaps what the decision-makers of the Martial Meritocrats Sector had thought."
Li Yao was hooked by the story. He asked subconsciously, "Were the people of the Sand Primitive Sector not willing to take it?"
"I wouldn't say that. The first generation of the Sand Primitive people accepted such an arrangement rather gladly," Su Changfa replied. "After all, the environment of the Sand Primitive Sector was too harsh, and too many enemies were out there. Compared with their home, the Martial Meritocrats Sector was almost heaven on earth! Even the heaviest, dirtiest, and most boring jobs in the Martial Meritocrats Sector were still a hundred times better than their days in their homeland!
"Besides, the two Sectors were far away from each other after all. Although the space carriers of the Martial Meritocrats Sector jumped back and forth at the highest frequency, few natives of the Sand Primitive Sector were transported to the Martial Meritocrats Sector. They took up less than one tenth of the whole population.
"When you live under somebody else's roof, you must learn to bend your neck. People of the Sand Primitive Sector were rather dutiful and hardworking when they just arrived in the foreign land.
"They took over the dirty and tedious jobs that the natives despised and worked diligently. They had no complaint whatsoever about the minimum wages and benefits. They worked from day to night for the sole hope that they could move their wife, their children, and even their entire family to the Martial Meritocrats Sector to live a happy life!
"The Sand Primitive people who had just left their homeland naturally kept their habits as a nomadic people and continued worshipping their Chiyou Cult. However, they often chose times and locations that were unattractive and conducted their rituals in secret so that nobody else would be disturbed.
"Human rights, including the right to worship different gods, were respected in the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats. The citizens generally had an indifferent view toward different religions, ranging from pantheists to atheists. They knew clearly that the legendary deities such as Pangu or Nuwa were prehistoric civilizations at best. There were no real gods in the universe. Their religious beliefs were more of a hobby.
"Now that the Sand Primitive immigrants had done their jobs so excellently, it did not seem inappropriate to let them keep their religion because they were not disturbing anybody.
"Moreover, many citizens of the Martial Meritocrats Sector regarded the Chiyou Cult to be an exotic, mysterious culture from a foreign land. They even joined the Chiyou Cult to feel the unique charm of the 'primitive culture' for themselves."
[ol][li data-annotation-id="e3e40e4d-0b67-45ca-904e-e5383ddf8554"]Chiyou was a sagacious mythical king in ancient China.[/ol]
Chapter 1251: Frogs in Warm Water! |
As Su Changfa spoke enticingly, the Grand Illusionary Land behind him was changing and displaying vivid pictures, too.
The last picture was one where countless people were worshipping and dancing deliriously in front of a black, angry Chiyou statue.
Compared with the Curly Dragon civilization and the Medicine Fork civilization, the Martial Meritocrats civilization had left much more detailed records. They were almost like the real-life experiences of some citizens of the Imperium.
Seeing that the number of the Sand Primitive people whose skin was blackened and whose body was tattooed was growing nonstop, Li Yao felt that his teeth were aching.
Jin Tuyi once told him blatantly the real Red Tide Plan, which was in fact the roadmap for the demon race to integrate into the federation. It was basically the same.
However, from Li Yao to Ding Lingdang, and even including Lu Zui and Zhou Hengdao who had died and Speaker Jiang Hailiu who was still alive, everybody more or less kept their vigilance. There was no way that the Red Tide Plan would be implemented exactly as Jin Tuyi had in his mind.
It was because human beings and demons used to be sworn enemies. The two parties were wary of each other by nature.
The people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector, however, took the people of the Sand Primitive Sector as their 'siblings'. They embraced all of them without the slightest alarm.
Li Yao seemed to envision the beginning of a tragedy.
"At first, the integration of the Martial Meritocrats Sector and the Sand Primitive Sector seemed to be going well. 'Model Integration Zones' were established, in which the Martial Meritocrats natives and the Sand Primitive natives lived in peace, took part in different jobs, and communicated with each other closely. There were even a lot of married couples from different worlds. Quite a few hybrids were born.
"With the Sand Primitive natives engaged in the labor-intensive work, the natives of the Martial Meritocrats Sector were able to focus all their attention on realizing their dream to explore the sea of stars. The national capabilities soared, and the territory quickly expanded!"
Su Changfa sighed. "However, the decision-makers of the Martial Meritocrats Sector did not foresee the fatal changes caused by two factors!
"Firstly, the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats adopted an election system where one citizen had one vote. Under such a system, a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator locally born and raised had one vote, and an immigrant from the Sand Primitive Sector who was new to the place, who had just learned the dialect of the Martial Meritocrats Sector, and who couldn't even repair a toilet, also boasted one sacred vote because he was a citizen of the nation!
"Although the Cultivators of the Martial Meritocrats Sector were people of honor and integrity, they would not concede or give up in the pursuit of the supreme power. They would also debate and argue with each other.
"They might not be fighting for their selfish interests, but only when they were high in power could they carry out their belief and the belief of their party!
"In order to enter parliament and even the highest decision-making circle, they had to fight for more votes!
"The Alliance of Martial Meritocrats had been founded for a thousand years. Most parties had their own 'ticket bunker', which was the range of their influence. The votes in every election wouldn't change too much. It was very difficult for them to win votes from the ticket bunker of other sects, too.
"Although the system was a bit rigid, it ensured the stability of politics and the continuity of policies.
"But the arrival of the Sand Primitive immigrants changed everything.
