Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 858
As for Professor Mo Xuan himself, he had been elected the president of the Refiners' Association of the Federation. He was doubtlessly one of the best refiners in the federation!
Since the Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage and the Magical Equipment Exposition were held together, it was only natural that he had been asked to host the meeting.
"In the past five years, we have made significant breakthroughs in every field regarding magical equipment and techniques. Many super projects that concern the next hundred years have yielded promising results!"
On the Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage, Professor Mo Xuan got directly to the main topic. "Our main research products are focused on five fields!
"First of all, the bulk raising of the 'super warriors'! With the spiritual energy generated incessantly on Kunlun by transforming the radiation from the pulsar, we have implemented the Three-Five Plan, allowing many training prodigies to improve their level at the speed of light! Fellow Cultivator Ding Lingdang, who is sitting with us right now, is the greatest success of the plan so far!
"Secondly, the super-long human hibernation and unfreezing. We have received the help of Fellow Cultivator Gui Suishou, the oldest individual in the three Sectors. We have also retrieved much valuable technology from the debris of the Pangu civilization's escape capsules. Substantial breakthroughs have been made!
"Right now, we have realized long-term hibernation, with a success rate close to 100% and an energy cost meeting the actual demand. A Cultivator's body and level will not be affected at all even if they hibernate for five hundred years!
"Thirdly, the starship technologies, especially the cross-world starships that can perform dozens of space jumps in a row!
"The starship specialists from the Flying Star Sector are to credit for the remarkable achievement.
"They have completely parsed the Imperium of True Human Beings' war base while also studying the starship debris left by the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan on the surface of Kunlun. In only five years, the technology of our starships has been boosted by at least five hundred years!
"Fourthly, the space navigation that is directly related to the starship technology. As is well known, we discovered a primeval navigation map left by the Pangu Clan in the escape center on Kunlun, which included most of the information regarding the space zones around us!
"The decryption, restoration, and deduction on the star map has not been stopped for one second in the past five years. Right now, we have basically grasped the basic situation of the thousands of space zones near the Heaven's Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and Flying Star Sector!
"Lastly, the techniques and the technologies about the Colossi!
"It's true that we haven't entirely cracked the mysteries of the Colossi yet, nor are we able to develop brand-new Colossi on our own. We can only do the simple assemble and modification work. After five years, we have only assembled five Colossi!
"This number is too low. However awesome a Colossus is, it cannot decide the victory of a war!
"However, the techniques, technologies, spells, and runes retrieved from the broken parts and units of the Colossi can generally be applied to all kinds of aggressive magical equipment, especially crystal suits!
"After applying the runes and techniques related to the Colossi on a large scale, and together with the 'superstring magical equipment' from the Imperium of True Human Beings, our crystal suits are taller, faster, and stronger than five years ago. Their survival abilities and their operational duration in a battle have both witnessed revolutionary improvements!"
With Professor Mo Xuan's opening remarks, information streams as vast as an ocean flooded out on the colorful light beams around the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, displaying the breakthroughs in the tens of thousands of subcategories in great detail!
"It is not an exaggeration to say that, after five years of integration and the great development on Kunlun, the comprehensive capabilities of the three Sectors are at least three times higher than five years ago!"
Professor Mo Xuan extended three fingers to stress the conclusion.
All the participants were quite calm. They were all more or less numb to the shocking breakthroughs in the past five years now.
They all knew that Professor Mo Xuan was not bluffing and that the increase of three times was merely a conservative estimate.
"However…" Professor Mo Xuan changed the topic and said solemnly, "I believe that we all know clearly what has facilitated such 'explosive development'!
"In the past five years, we have been focused on the fields with the least technological difficulties and the most relics and heritages. They are the fields that are easiest to crack.
"Let's say that we are faced with an exam paper about the civilization development. Right now, the simplest multiple-choice questions and the fill-in-the-blanks at the front have been completed, but those questions only make up ten percent of the total score. Even if we answer all of correctly, it is still not guaranteed that we will not 'fail'!
"The remaining ninety percent of the questions will definitely not be as easy. We are destined to be faced with tough and bloody battles in the next ten years. We will have to settle the obstacles patiently one after another. It is unlikely that our development will be as smooth and fast as the previous five years!
"I believe that everybody knows what matters most if we do not want to fail the exam.
"That's right. It's our size!
"Right now, we have only three Sectors. The population, resources, relics, and training systems are too few, weak, and incomplete after all. How can you dedicate a grandiose performance inside a small nut?
"Explore new Sectors, find new resources, arts, techniques, and relics, bring the compatriots there to our side, and trigger the most dazzling sparks of wisdom in the collision of different Sectors!
"Three Sectors is far from enough to compete with the Imperium of True Human Beings or the Alliance of the Holy Covenant in any regard!
"However, if we can discover seven to ten new Sectors in the next hundred years and join hands with them, we will certainly grow into a force at the edge of the cosmos that nobody can underestimate. We will have enough weight to seek a strategic balance between the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance!
"Time and tide wait for no one! Nobody knows how long the journeys in the universe will take. Even if Sectors occupied by human beings are indeed discovered, it will still take tremendous time to convince them to work with us instead of joining our enemies. Therefore, we must start our preparations right now and hopefully send out the first batch of space explorers in the next year!
"The Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage this year will be themed around 'March into the Universe'. We will mainly discuss the topic from three perspectives.
"Firstly, the technological perspective. If we are marching into the universe, how and where are we going, and how are we going to find new allies?
"Secondly, the integrational perspective. If new Sectors that have civilizations of human beings are truly discovered, how are we going to embrace them into our system? After all, judging from the examples of the Curly Dragon civilization, the Medicine Fork civilization, and the Martial Meritocrats civilization, they may be unwilling to abandon their independence and join hands with us!
"Thirdly, the personnel perspective. Who exactly is going to be deployed for such important missions? Naturally, the 'space explorers' cannot be too weak, but if the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators are sent away, too many things may be affected when they are not around. We have to determine the people for the job after careful consideration!"
Chapter 1315: Everything from Nothing |
"Now, let's hear what Fellow Cultivator Si Koulie, who is the leader of the Star Fighters' Alliance and the most renowned authority on starships in the three Sectors, has to say. He is also the general supervisor of the 'Heavenly Road Plan'!
"The Heavenly Road Plan will be our first step to march into the universe!"
Professor Mo Xuan waved his hands and sat back down in his seat.
Si Koulie went to the podium with his head held high.
He was also Li Yao's old acquaintance.
Back in the Flying Star Sector, he had once proposed the Ice God Project and competed with Xiao Xuance for the leadership of the future development.
At that time, he had been completely overwhelmed by Xiao Xuance and ended up being an anonymous character.
However, more than ten years later, while Xiao Xuance had already turned into a cluster of dust in the universe, Si Koulie had unleashed his vigor of life for a second time at the sunset of his life because he had the chance to devise the future where more Sectors were involved now!
The leader of the Star Fighters' Alliance and the chief designer of Burning Prairie, the strongest warship of the three Sectors, was filled with intense confidence and hope. His back was even straighter than a teenager's. His hair was black and glowing. There was not the slightest wrinkle on his face, and even the spots were so vague that they were barely visible. He seemed even younger than when Li Yao met him for the first time!
"Fellow Cultivators, it's been so long!"
Si Koulie's voice was as loud as a tolling bell, brimming with unquestionable decisiveness and soul-stirring passion. He did not say anything useless other than the courtesy at the beginning.
"After five years of development, we are now finally capable of marching into the universe to look for more Sectors!
"Sector is a word that many ordinary people and Cultivators often speak of. However, as for exactly what a 'Sector' is, the definitions can be quite fuzzy if not self-contradictory in many cases.
"It is well-known that the three-dimensional universe we are living in is an integral whole. There aren't any concrete 'walls' that block or enshroud different worlds.
"The universe is integral, continuous, and inseparable. Assuming that there is a tortoise that can crawl and live in space but does not grow old, given enough time, it will be able to slowly 'crawl' from the Heaven's Origin Sector to the Flying Star Sector, and then from the Flying Star Sector to the Blood Demon Sector. Nothing complicated need be involved at all.
"It's a shame that nothing doesn't grow old in the real world. Not only the individuals such as us, even our civilization only has limited time. Time is the most precious resource for us!
"What blocks two Sectors is not a visible, concrete wall but the most terrible obstacle to our knowledge—distance and time!
"Take the Heaven's Origin Sector for example. The nearest galaxy to us is still five years away from us. Even if we were to set sail at the speed of light, it will take us five years before we arrive. Not to mention that our technology is far from enough to support the speed of light yet!
"That galaxy, in the meantime, is just a random galaxy with barely any spiritual energy and absolutely no lives!
"There are too many such galaxies in the universe, 99.99% of which have no signs of spiritual energy or life. Without resources and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, they are not qualified to be defined as a 'Sector' and can be called 'wastelands' at best. They are of zero value for our development at all!
"It is impossible for us to reach a prosperous galaxy that has enough spiritual energy to nurture all creatures from the Heaven's Origin Sector through regular approaches right now, because it can be more than a thousand lightyears away from us. So, it is safe to say that we are two different 'Sectors'!
"Therefore, on many occasions, a Sector is in fact not a vast concept. On the contrary, it is extremely narrow and strict. Sometimes, its range is smaller than a galaxy!
"The galaxy of the Heaven's Origin Sector is approximately fifty billion kilometers in diameter, but only the five billion square kilometers at the core boasts sufficient spiritual energy and a habitable environment.
"Therefore, we may say that, although the galaxy that our Sector is in is fifty billion kilometers in diameter, the diameter of the Heaven's Origin Sector is only five billion kilometers, which is only one tenth of the former!
"Worlds with multiple space zones such as the Flying Star Sector are the weirdos in the universe. Yet, the Flying Star Sector is not a collection of dozens of galaxies but a collection of the spaces in the dozens of galaxies with the most abundant spiritual energy that are connected through wormholes."
Behind Si Koulie, a vintage and simple painting appeared.
It was a kind, sacred, motherly goddess who was spraying dew onto the ground with a willow branch.
Sprayed by the willow branch, the dews scattered into transparent, shining pearls on the ground.
It was a depiction of the myth where Nuwa created human beings.
In the myth, Nuwa was molding mud into human beings in the beginning, but she felt that the efficiency was too low while she was working. Therefore, she simply dipped a willow branch into the mud and water and sprayed it out, filling everywhere within her reach with thousands of living souls.
"Myths often contain our ancestors' profound understanding about the universe and the objects in it. They can provide enlightenment for us even today," Si Koulie said peacefully. "Let's look at the mud and dew that was sprayed out. If we consider the ground as the entire universe and every dew as an independent Sector, we will be the tiny microorganisms living inside the dew.
"The 'microorganisms' are so feeble that we can only receive sufficient nutrition and resist the scourge of the sun and the sandstorm when we are inside the dew. If we leave the dew, we will be killed very soon.
"In the meantime, although no walls stand between the dew, they are simply too far away from each other. With a microorganism's unbelievably short life, it is impossible for them to leave a dew droplet and crawl for several kilometers to another.
"This is the relationship between the Sector that our life is based on and the whole three-dimensional universe. If we only use regular cruising approaches, we are destined to be confined in the invisible and therefore unbreakable 'cage of the speed of light'!
"Thankfully, above the three-dimensional universe, there are still wormholes between the three-dimensional universe and the four-dimensional universe, allowing us to shatter the void and reach another Sector directly through a higher dimension!"
The picture behind Si Koulie suddenly changed. Colorful threads of light extended out of every dew droplet, connecting all the dew like the tiniest rainbows!
Those rainbows were the symbols for the wormholes.
"The wormholes in the universe are limited, and the place that can support a space jump is limited, too. It is often where we set up the sailing routes in the universe! For a 'blind jump' without setting the coordinates, the sailing route is ninety-nine percent likely to be a suicidal action!
"Of all of us here, Fellow Cultivator Li is the only person who has ever tried a 'blind jump' and succeeded, but I believe that even he definitely wouldn't want to have another try!"
Li Yao scratched his nose awkwardly.
Si Koulie was right. He would rather face Xiao Xuance, Bai Xinghe, Lu Zui, and Zhou Hengdao another hundred times than have a blind jump without fixed coordinates and sailing routes.
In a challenge with a formidable enemy such as Xiao Xuance, the failure would only mean a quick death. But if a blind jump failed, it was very possible that he would wind up in a desolate space without any resources or lives and wait to die slowly in the cold darkness.
There might not be a second soul in the billions of lightyears around him. Such a lonely and desperate way of death would crumble even the firmest belief.
"To march into the universe," Si Koulie went on, "the most important thing is to find out and dredge the sailing routes, before we deploy powerful lighthouses—or rather, the star beacons—on the two ends of a sailing route. We can even assemble countless star beacons into a 'space gate' so that the large-scale fleets will be able to transport more easily.
"Fortunately, human beings are not the first civilization to explore the sea of stars. Before us, the Pangu civilization developed and mapped the three thousand Sectors on a large scale. Most of the usable wormholes have been discovered and built into sailing routes. A rather perfect teleportation network based on star beacons was set up, too, connecting the three thousand Sectors into a congruent whole!
"The space network still played an important role in the age of the ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago, allowing the ancient people to transport easily among different Sectors through the sea of stars despite their underdeveloped technology.
"But unfortunately, after the civil war at the end of the age of the ancient Cultivators, the war between mankind and the demon race, and the rise and decline of the Star Ocean Imperium, the space transportation network has mostly been ruined.
"If you want to be rich, pave your road first. It is a common sense that even the village-level governments known.
"Ignoring the ancient Cultivators, in the thirty thousand years while demons reigned the sea of stars, and in the thousand years when the universe was governed by the Star Ocean Imperium, endeavors were both made to recover and increase the star beacons and the sailing sails. Although the wars rendered the endeavors futile in the end, a lot of debris and relics have still been left behind. Quite a few star beacons are even not broken but just in the hibernation state because they have run out of spiritual energy.
"Right now, with the heritage of the Star Ocean Imperium that we have excavated from Spider Den, the knowledge of the Imperium of True Human Beings brought by the Immortal Cultivators in their war base, and the legacy of the Pangu civilization on Kunlun, we have grasped tremendous information about ancient sailing routes and the secret techniques to craft star beacons and space gates of a higher level!
