Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 825
Therefore, the viper had to crawl into the elephant's head through the nose and inject venom into its most feeble nerves!
Wuying Qi had no choice but to go to the capital and feed himself to the enemy. He needed to have the central army in the capital dispatched to his territory to annihilate his border defense army, too.
How could he achieve that?
What kind of crimes would make parliament and the Cultivators determined to annihilate a credible general who had been stationed in the frontier for more than ten years with his troops without caring about the cost?
Only crimes against humanity and the crime of massacre!
Therefore, if it was a young man who did not know the first thing about the Immortal Cultivators and did not have a firm belief yet, when he heard Su Changfa telling the story of Wuying Qi's legendary rise, he would inevitably feel that it was shocking, logical, and yet full of lucky coincidences. Wuying Qi had been forced into desperation every time and had no choice but to counterattack ruthlessly before he secured a final victory in the end!
It was indeed intriguing and satisfying. One could not help but feel that was what a great man should do!
However, if one were inferred backward from the result, it would be easy to notice that blowing up Karan and the 8.2 million innocent civilians on it, purging the ten or so vassal worlds with blood, and turning into a warlord that threatened the central government were certainly not Wuying Qi's helpless choices. They were even not the strategies that he came up with during the war but plans that he had made long before the war began when he decided to swallow the entire Star Ocean Republic!
Every step was a trap that he had repetitively deduced and calculated. After a series of seemingly unconnected subtle movements, they led to the result of a perfect coup!
The almost ten million restless souls on Karan were the offerings that Wuying Qi had been long prepared to sacrifice in order to seize the highest power!
Moreover…
Li Yao even realized that all the words were simply Su Changfa's side of the story. He claimed that, while Wuying Qi was fighting the Covenant Alliance in the front line in difficulties, the public, parliament, and Cultivators in the rear were shortsighted, ungrateful, and jealous!
Was it really true?
Was it possible that Wuying Qi was merely expanding the force of the border defense army with the military threat of the Covenant Alliance?
Was it possible that, after the public, parliament, and Cultivators gave him all the support and resources that he needed, he dedicated ten percent of the resources to the resistance and ninety percent to build up the Salvation Syndicate and raise countless Immortal Cultivators in secret?
Otherwise, how could the Salvation Syndicate have leaked into every Sector of the Star Ocean Republic, to the point where they took over the country in their final insurrection?
Was it possible that Wuying Qi and the Covenant Alliance had reached certain clandestine deals and that the large-scale attacks of the Covenant Alliance were within his expectations or even agreed upon?
Li Yao's brain was like a spring with broken ice floating on the surface. He was calmer than ever and no longer under the influence of the fancy talks.
But on the surface, he pretended that he was completely fascinated. Clenching his fists, he pursued further in excitement, "Then, what happened next?"
With a pitiful and yet indignant face, Su Changfa said after a long sigh, "Wuying Qi becoming the president of the Star Ocean Republic was everybody's hope and the necessity of history. Under his government, the Star Ocean Republic was reborn from fire and thriving again!
"However, while Wuying Qi was reforming society with the true path of immortality, it was only natural that the interest groups of the Cultivators fought back fiercely!
"The Immortal Cultivators who had just risen were like a morning sun. They represented the future of the civilization of mankind and were therefore utterly unstoppable!
"The shameless Cultivators and the ignorant ordinary people who were incited by them were obviously no match for them!
"The despicable bandits who were hoping to stop the wheel of history with their tiny arms were all ground to dust by Wuying Qi's iron army!
"However, their shamelessness was still far beyond the imagination of Wuying Qi and the other Immortal Cultivators. For counterattack and comeback, to restore the reign of the Cultivators, they even conspired with the Covenant Alliance, their old nemesis in the past!
"The Covenant Alliance returned and helped the Cultivators reestablish the parliament of the Star Ocean Republic, which falsely claimed that it was the legal government of the Star Ocean Republic!
"Hehe. The so-called legal government was merely the Covenant Alliance's puppet!
"When the two enemies joined their hands, they did seem rather formidable. Many vassal worlds wavered again and took the Cultivators and the Covenant Alliance's side.
"A civil war broke out!
"This was the second civil war that Wuying Qi had been through, but this civil war was a hundred times larger than the civil war in the Martial Meritocrats civilization hundreds of years ago. Almost a hundred Sectors were involved in the fire of war. Nobody at the center of the cosmos was able to get away from it!
"The civilization of mankind reached a perilous moment once more!
"While coping with the Cultivators and the Covenant Alliance calmly, Wuying Qi contemplated on the real cause of the civil war and the regime that was most suitable for the civilization of mankind to develop and rise in the sea of stars.
"Finally, he reached a conclusion!
"The biggest problem was the 'republic system' being adopted right now!
"The universe was too vast. The Sectors were extremely far away from each other. The communication and transportation were inconvenient. Their environment and interests were different from each other's. Therefore, there was a natural trend of division and independency!
"If the so-called free and democratic republic system was to be implemented any further, wherein every Sector, every space zone, and even every planet was able to utter their voice without restraint and without cost, division and civil wars would be unavoidable because they were all too selfish to place the interests of the civilization as a whole above the interests of their own world!
"Even if the Covenant Alliance and the Cultivators could be destroyed this time, new, unstable factors would pop up again next time. As time went by, the civilization of mankind would be destroyed in internal strife!
"The problem needed to be resolved from the source!
"The republic system was an underdeveloped system only good enough for the small countries when the civilization of mankind was still restrained to the planets. It was too outdated for the development in the era of the grand universe!
"In the boundless, dark, and cold sea of stars, the civilization of mankind needed to be unified under one banner, one voice, and one leader to march forward bravely and unstoppably!
"Solidarity! Solidarity! Solidarity is strength! Solidarity is everything!
"There was a reason the civilization of mankind was reborn from fire in the Star Ocean Imperium and defeated the civilization of demons, which had dominated the universe for thirty thousand years, regaining control over the sea of stars!
"The imperial system! It was exactly because the Star Ocean Imperium adopted the imperial system that the Supreme Emperor and the most excellent elites of mankind could play their roles in the best ways that they could and establish such a brilliant and glorious country!
"It was most hilarious that, although the Star Ocean Republic called itself the 'rightful successor' of the Star Ocean Imperium, it only inherited the empty shell and failed to learn the core system, which was the actual essence!
"When Wuying Qi realized that, it was the time when the war was most intense. Led by the barefaced Cultivators, the army of the Covenant Alliance raged into the territory, and the fire of war was almost ignited in the capital!
"Everything seemed to be in peril, but the night is darkest before the dawn!
"The greatest news came over from the depths of the Empyrean Terminus Sector!
"In the past, the Supreme Emperor once received three volumes of the Book of Revelation, which was the civilizational heritage of the Pangu Clan. However, the volumes were lost when the Star Ocean Imperium collapsed!
"But right now, the Immortal Cultivators had discovered one volume of the Book of Revelation from an ancient relic, from which the unbelievable techniques and technologies of the Pangu civilization could be retrieved!
"That was the destiny!
"That was the sign that the rise of the civilization of mankind was unstoppable!
"With destiny in hand, and as everybody hoped, in order to save the country and the civilization, Wuying Qi no longer hesitated and altered the regime of the country decisively from a republic into an imperial system. He ascended to the throne and proclaimed himself to be an emperor!
"The Star Ocean Republic evolved into a grand new imperium!
"In order to be distinguished from the Star Ocean Imperium in the past, in order to draw a clear line from the so-called 'legal government of the Star Ocean Republic' and also to demonstrate the belief and ideology of the new imperium, Wuying Qi named the new country… the Imperium of True Human Beings!
"Just like that, the young man who was tied up like a piglet by the ordinary people of the Martial Meritocrats Sector and thrown into the crater had finally grown into the supreme leader of the civilization of mankind, the protector of the three thousand Sectors, the founder of the Imperium of True Human Beings, and the forever first citizen of the imperium! He was henceforth known as Blackstar the Great!"
Chapter 1263: Motivation and Tutelage |
Su Changfa's voice and face were more and more excited. In the end, when he uttered 'Blackstar the Great', he was almost shouting at the loudest of his voice with his face flushing, like the bombardment of the main gun of a starship. Smoke seemed to be popping up everywhere!
Together with his roar, an enormous spiritual puppet almost a hundred meters tall slowly crept out from the infinite sea of stars in the Grand Illusionary Land behind him!
The pure black spiritual puppet looked very similar to the black crystal suit that Wuying Qi had been wearing, but the aura around it was hundreds of times stronger. An everlasting cosmic storm seemed to be condensed around him as his cloak and his flag!
The black giant opened its hands and extended to the universe, almost occupying the entire Grand Illusionary Land. The suffocating oppression was slowly released to the world of reality from the Grand Illusionary Land. Li Yao felt that the gravity was dozens of times higher!
"Ah!"
Although Li Yao had known the answer earlier, he still exclaimed in shock cooperatively.
To criticize the Cultivators' belief that the ordinary people must be protected, the three examples in the beginning would be sufficient. The remaining part of the story was unnecessary for that purpose.
The fourth story, which the narrator had spent the most time on, was actually the chronicles of the founding father of the Imperium of True Human Beings. Through the 'legendary rise' of Blackstar the Great, the Cultivators were smeared again between the lines, the formidability of the Imperium of True Human Beings was better rendered, and the one being brainwashed would have a greater sense of acknowledgement for the Imperium of True Human Beings, the Immortal Cultivators, and Wuying Qi, Blackstar the Great!
Through the story-telling of Su Changfa that was mixed with hypnotization techniques, the immersion experience of the Grand Illusionary Land, and the original paintings and graphics created by the art masters among the Immortal Cultivators, normal people would be mired in the soul-stirring story and not be able to help but stand in the role of 'Wuying Qi, Blackstar the Great'.
Once they accepted the setting, when Wuying Qi rose to the throne from nothingness and integrated into the Imperium of True Human Beings, normal people would not be able to distinguish the logical fallacies!
Li Yao pretended that he was utterly hooked. He was breathing fast, and his lips were trembling. There was nothing but admiration in his bulging, bloodshot eyes.
Su Changfa burst into laughter and said in satisfaction, "That's right. This is the rise of the Imperium of True Human Beings. This is the ineffaceable legend of the 'first citizen of the imperium'!
"Suppressed by the thunderous might of Blackstar the Great, the Covenant Alliance and the self-proclaimed legal government of the Star Ocean Republic were but vulnerable ghosts. He swept away all of the enemies!
"The center of the universe was reunited!
"This is the true unification! Not the strange bedfellows in the past but a sharpest alloy tank of the civilization of mankind that is made of metals and minerals of different categories that have been melted in a high temperature!
"The Imperium of True Human Beings today includes the hundreds of most prosperous Sectors at the center of the cosmos. The super experts in the Nascent Soul Stage and the Divinity Transformation Stage are as numerous as carps swimming in a river! The super heavy warships that can suppress a planet easily are also like stars in the night sky!
"The comprehensive capability of the country is more than ten times higher than that of the Star Ocean Republic!
"More importantly, this is a just, honest, vigorous, and hopeful country. All the obsolete traditions and formalities of the civilization of mankind in the past have been abandoned. Every citizen of the imperium is burning their life and soul and striving for the development of the civilization of mankind with their all!
"Anybody can be a hero regardless of their background. For an Immortal Cultivator, as long as they are strong enough, no matter what family they are born into, and whether or not they have committed any… unpardonable crimes in the past, they will be able to distinguish themself and rise to power in the Imperium of True Human Beings!
"Even if you were the humblest slave yesterday, as long as your spiritual root is awakened, with some battle credits, you will be granted citizenship. Then, you will be able to climb upward to be a general, a duke, and even the master of an entire Sector someday!
"Such examples of growing from a slave into a general or from a pawn into a Sector Master are anything but unusual in the Imperium of True Human Beings!
"Fellow Cultivator Li, think about it. Even Wuying Qi, the founding emperor of the country and the forever first citizen of the imperium, was not born in the center of the cosmos; he was an out-and-out foreigner!
"Then, why can't an Immortal Cultivator from the Flying Star Sector make a career in the Imperium of True Human Beings and distinguish yourself in the sea of stars?
"Disaster is often bliss in disguise. You have survived all the tough tests and luckily run into us. Maybe, this is the will of the universe and an opportunity that has been bestowed upon you. A great cause is waiting to be achieved by you!"
Li Yao gulped again and again in shock. He seemed to have devoured twenty eggs in a row, and his drool was almost flooding.
"Well…" His eyes shuddering, he asked carefully, "What exactly is the life of the ordinary people, or the so-called 'hominoids', in the Imperium of True Human Beings? They must be taking up more than ninety-nine percent of the whole population, right? Are they all slaves?"
"Of course not!" Su Changfa was amused. "Although the slavery system is kept in the Imperium of True Human Beings, we clearly know the shortcomings of such a system. From the perspective of boosting productivity, increasing labor enthusiasm, and even ensuring stable and sustainable development, a monotonous slavery system is never the best choice!
"In the territory of the imperium, most of the hominoids are not slaves but free folk. They are also burning, working, and striving for the civilization of mankind with pride!
"We only keep the slavery system in a limited range. Even in those fields, our sociologists, psychologists, and zoologists have been improving and optimizing the traditional slavery system after hundreds of years of studies!
"All in all, the true human being's attitude toward the hominoids is not slavery but motivation and tutelage!"
"Motivation and tutelage?" Li Yao was confused.
"Exactly. In fact, such a policy is in the hominoids' best interest, too!" Su Changfa nodded and said solemnly, "We all know that the hominoids are human-shaped animals driven by their natural instincts. They do not have a soul. Their empty brain is filled with arrogance, jealousy, laziness, greed, desire, and lust!
"If they are allowed to do whatever they want without any discipline, their desires will be magnified indefinitely, and they will be addicted to virtual games, hallucinogens, sex, and all the other meaningless entertainment. Their life will be wasted!
"Even if they realize that such a life is not right and want to think, they will only be brainwashed repetitively by scheming media outlets and schemers because they do not boast the ability of independent thinking at all!
"They think that they are capable and can make a certain choice of their own free will, and they even feel an abnormal sense of gratification from it.
"But in fact, they are just the dandelions in a wild wind. They seem free, but they cannot control themselves at all. They are not flying with their own strength!
"The bottom line is, such animals must be disciplined!
"They are like the burning wildfire. If you leave them alone, they are likely to burn the world to the ground. However, if you make use of them carefully, they can also provide immense impetus for the development of the civilization of mankind!
"They are our close relatives and incubators, and the high-level animals closest to us, after all!
"With proper motivation and tutelage, they will be able to get rid of their disgusting, low-level interests and understand the significance of honor and responsibility. If you activate the strength of the 'jealousy, greed, and desire' in their head to the maximum in a skilled way, they can also be the best workers, farmers, and soldiers, tiny but qualified components in the enormous machine that is the civilization of mankind!
