Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  Su Changfa, the Immortal Cultivator.

  "Senior Su, I didn't know that you would contribute to the 'Heavenly Road Plan'. This rather goes against your usual style, doesn't it?" Li Yao exclaimed.

  "What's strange about this?" Su Changfa said unhurriedly, "After hearing the news about the dark nebula, even I was rather curious, because judging from its location and its distance from the center of the cosmos, it belongs to neither the territory of the Imperium nor that of the Covenant Alliance!

  "It means that the existence who sent a signal to you is not the Imperium, not the Covenant Alliance, but a force that none of us know!

  "There's no telling whether the force is a friend or a foe yet. It may jeopardize the interests of the Imperium of True Human Beings as much as it may jeopardize the interests of the Covenant Alliance!

  "It is especially so when an expedition army from the Imperium of True Human Beings is marching over aggressively and probably passing near the dark nebula. Who knows what may happen?

  "If a terrifying existence is indeed lurking inside the dark nebula, and it captures the entire expedition army of the Imperium, from which it figures out sensitive details and the coordinates about the Imperium of True Human Beings, will it go back and march toward the Imperium's homeland?

  "With that in mind, just like you, I want to figure out what the mysterious world hiding in the darkness really is!"

  Chapter 1326: The Arts of Colonization |

  Sitting cross-legged, Su Changfa went on. "You know that I graduated from Imperial Colonization University in the Imperium of True Human Beings. The main research fields of the Imperial Colonization University are the expansion of the Imperium's territory and the colonization of other Sectors. Today, I will teach you some of the basic knowledge.

  "Tell me, Li Yao. What do you think the most important and precious resources in the universe are?"

  Li Yao pondered for a moment before replying, "Spiritual energy? Mother lodes? Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures? I'm afraid that the answer isn't so simple, right?"

  "It isn't." Su Changfa smiled. "Spiritual energy, mother lodes, and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures are indeed important, but without another two resources, their value can never be fully exploited.

  "Let me tell you. Only two resources in the boundless universe can be called the most important—time and information.

  "Time means the possibility of development, and information means the direction of development.

  "The simplest example. Right now, the Imperium of True Human Beings and the Star Glory Federation are hostile. A fleet from the Imperium whose capability far exceeds yours is now marching toward you!

  "If the expedition fleet of the Imperium shows up in front of you right now, the federation will not be able to resist at all. You will be doomed to failure!

  "It's a pity that the almost infinite sea of stars is itself the best barrier. The expedition fleet will not arrive for another hundred years, but the information of the expedition fleet's arrival, unfortunately, has been learned by you in advance.

  "So, in the next hundred years, you can develop and evolve pertinently. When the expedition army really arrives, the outcome of the battle will not be definite!

  "This is exactly the importance of 'time', a valuable resource.

  "The reason it will take a hundred years for the expedition fleet to arrive is that it doesn't know the 'information' that is your specific coordinates!

  "Time and information are complementary and also influential to each other. They decide how far a civilization can go and how strong it can become!

  "Therefore, in the greeting, communication, and competition between different civilizations, the key to victory lies in how you conceal and camouflage your own information and how you collect the unknown civilization's information as much as possible!

  "In Imperial Colonization University, there's a teaching that has been passed on for almost a thousand years—Never look down upon the locals of any planet, no matter how underdeveloped and weak they appear to be, and never leak any information about ourselves to the locals unless we are absolutely certain of our safety!

  "Locals are all very dangerous beings. Once they learn any information on us, with a few hundred years earned through the long distance in the sea of stars, nobody knows how developed they will be and what kind of trouble they will cause to the Imperium!

  "Look. I'm the best example myself."

  Pointing at himself, Su Changfa smiled bitterly. "It doesn't matter about telling you the truth now. When we are exploring the Sectors with local civilizations, we have a whole set of standard procedures in which the tiniest detail is specified. We can melt into the world of the locals completely and gather enough critical information in order to evaluate the level of the local civilization precisely. After we decide that it is 'harmless', we will begin our next-step operation from there.

  "If we had arrived in the Flying Star Sector directly, you never would have noticed us before we launched our thunderous strike!

  "Hehe. It was exactly because we landed on the relic of the Pangu civilization, which was terribly far away from the Flying Star Sector, and were captivated by the primeval battlefield there that we were fooled by your lies, leading to the hopeless consequences.

  "It is evident enough that the slyness of the locals has nothing to do with the level of their civilization. Even the most underdeveloped civilization might have a shameless, cunning, cruel individual such as you who could ambush the explorers from a much more developed civilization!"

  Li Yao coughed for a moment and said, "Thanks!"

  With a grim face, Su Changfa said, "In the conquest and expansion over the past thousand years, the standard procedures to colonize a brand-new Sector have been gradually concluded in the Imperium of True Human Beings, which consist of four steps, namely infiltration, observation, disruption, and teleportation!

  "The first step is infiltration. We will blend into the local civilization immaculately under the fake identities of the locals. This is the most important step. The new civilization must not learn of our existence.

  "Because of the limited resources in the sea of stars, there is no civilization that is absolutely kind. We must assume that every civilization is malicious from the beginning in order to ensure our own safety as much as possible.

  "The presumption of innocence does not work here.

  "Assume the civilization is malicious at first. Then, with that in mind, we will observe the population, resources, military power, top-tier warriors of the civilization in darkness, and so on before we conclude whether or not it is capable of imposing its 'maliciousness' upon us and how great a price we will have to pay when we impose 'maliciousness' upon it!

  "This will be the second step, observation.

  "Generally speaking, a Sector that is worth 'observing' at the cost of tremendous time and resources boasts a certain capability. It is not so easy to be conquered in their 'home field'.

  "Which leads us to the third step, disruption.

  "By 'disruption', I mean the explorers will mobilize the resources of the Sector through their own abilities so that meaningless internal strife will be caused.

  "For example, we can lead to top experts of the civilization into fighting each other with the magical equipment several generations ahead of the civilization.

  "Or, we can instigate an ambitious warlord of the civilization to wage a civil war at the central government of the civilization.

  "Or, we can release plagues and crystal processor viruses, and even summon a 'minor apocalypse' from the homeland of the Imperium, casting the civilization into incessant natural disasters.

  "All in all, before the army of the Imperium arrives, we will try our best to exhaust the capabilities of the civilization and disrupt, or even terminate, their development!

  "The riot of the Immortal Cultivators in the Flying Star Sector was an example of 'disruption'. After the establishment of the Temple of Immortals
and the incitement of Yan Xibei, Xiao Xuance, and others' ambitions, the development speed of the Flying Star Sector was significantly slowed down. They almost reached the fourth step, 'teleportation'!

  "It should've been a classic colonization case that would be recorded in the textbooks of the Imperium, but eventually, you jumped out of nowhere and messed up everything, turning it into a pot of half-cooked food!

  "Oh, right. There's still the fourth step, 'teleportation'. We will establish a space gate, send the coordinates of the destination, and find a way to make the army in the homeland jump over instantly.

  "This seems to be the easiest step, but there are still many tricks as to how and where the space gate should be built. Everything is knowledge!

  "Infiltration, observation, disruption, and teleportation. The tasks seem arduous, but the explorers who are sent out are mostly experts in the Nascent Soul Stage, a level that is almost the top tier in every Sector. It is not difficult for them to break into the core circle of the unknown civilization. With a few ploys, a Sector will be ours!"

  The more Li Yao listened, the more scared he was. He declared, one word after another, "Do not compare the federation to your Imperium. What you want is conquest, but what we want is integration! We are looking for allies on our mission. If the new civilizations are not willing to join the big family that is our federation, we will never force them to!"

  "Integration and conquest are just two expressions of the same meaning." Su Changfa smiled and said slowly, "You have chosen 'integration' only because the time left for you is as short as a hundred years, and your abilities of remote attack and troop projection are far from enough for you to conquer a new world a million lightyears away. Even if you do manage to subjugate them, you will not be able to digest and absorb them!

  "If you boasted a super fleet like the Imperium does, and you had hundreds of years for your digestion and absorption, when a fat and delicious new Sector unfolded itself in front of you, and the locals of the world were arrogant enough to show their muscles and refuse to 'integrate' with you, would you or would you not 'accelerate the progress of their civilization' by resorting to a tiny bit of your military power?"

  Li Yao shut his mouth, unwilling to discuss the hypothetical questions with the obstinate Immortal Cultivator Su Changfa.

  "Even if you are truly so childishly innocent, the two steps 'infiltration' and 'observation' are still necessary at least. Learn the essence of Imperial Colonization University well now!"

  Su Changfa sighed and said, "Although I hate that I cannot mince you into pieces and burn you into ash, I'm really unwilling to see you captured by the locals deep inside the dark nebula and confess all the information inside your brain cells under their interrogation!"

  Li Yao scratched his nose and asked, "Why?"

  "I've already said just now." Su Changfa glimpsed at him and said, "The destruction of the Star Glory Federation is not the slightest concern for me, but the most critical thing is that you have not only the information about yourselves but also the information about the Imperium of True Human Beings!

  "If a powerful, malicious civilization truly lies inside the depths of the dark nebula, it will certainly retrieve tremendous information about the Imperium of True Human Beings after it swallows the Star Glory Federation. Do you think that it will let go of the Imperium by then?

  "Or rather, after all the information in your head is exploited, there is a great chance that the civilization will decide to go at the Imperium first instead of the federation.

  "After all, the Imperium is a hundred times 'fatter' than the federation. It is much more attractive for the predators in the universe!"

  Li Yao chuckled in amusement. "So to speak, our exploration mission may prove to be a burden for the Imperium?"

  "Exactly." Su Changfa glared at him coldly.

  "Then, I'm so sorry. Do excuse me!" Li Yao said, not meaning what he said at all.

  "Apologies are unnecessary." Su Changfa sighed and said, "Learn the essence of colonization that the Imperium has accumulated after a thousand years from me. For the Imperium, I wish for your exploration operation to be a successful and fruitful one!"

  Chapter 1327: Everything Is Set |

  Three months had passed second after second.

  While the Heaven's Artillery, the super teleportation platform deep inside the Grand Desolate Plateau, was being modified with the heritage of the Pangu civilization and the state-of-the-art technology learned from the Immortal Cultivators, Li Yao was absorbing the complicated knowledge, technology, and techniques of various aspects crazily.

  He was like a piece of well-tempered steel whose density had reached the maximum, only to be pushing new metal constituents into his body by brute force in the high temperature and high pressure!

  At four o'clock in the morning, on Kunlun, inside the arena of fifty times the standard gravity.

  General Cultivators in the Core Formation Stage would be staggering as if intoxicated after only a short while of high-intensity training under such gravity.

  Li Yao, however, was wearing super-dense metal weights that were several tons on his hands and feet, which were bound by highly-tensile veins of demon beasts.

  To perform every punch and kick, he needed to overcome the burden of the metal weights and the boundary of the veins of the demon beasts!

  Ding Lingdang and Iron God Yan Ba, one on the left and the other on the right, bombarded him crazily!

  Li Yao, however, was like a slipper ball that was rotating smoothly inside the arena. The spiritual shield around him was taking almost a hundred different shapes every second, allowing him to resist the opponents' attacks in the most perfect angle. As a result, the powerful and tricky bombardments simply slipped over on his spiritual shield!

  After three minutes, although he suffered hundreds of heavy punches from the two expert body practitioners, he was still standing magnificently due to such a weird defense technique with a confident smile on his lips.

  "Three minutes are up!" Li Yao licked his lips. The spiritual energy around him suddenly grew sharp, turning into invisible wind blades and cutting off all the veins of demon beasts that were confining his hands and feet.

  His palms and heels both seemed to have 'withered' for a moment, too, allowing the circular weights to fall off from his body. They were blown to the wall of the arena in ear-splitting wind so deeply that the entire arena was humming.

  Swoosh, swoosh! Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!

  After getting rid of the incarceration of the weights and the ropes, Li Yao punched hundreds of times casually.

  The sharp aura from his fists was focused without dispersing, as if a hundred vipers dashed out of his arms at the same time!

  "It's my turn to attack!" Li Yao had still been jumping up and down to warm himself up a second earlier, but the next second, he seemed to be split apart into two persons that were lunging at Ding Lingdang and Iron God Yan Ba simultaneously!

  Stormy shrieks were echoing on the dull and scorching arena again. Despite the wall that was more than half a meter thick, the staff outside still felt that their eardrums were being ripped apart.

  At seven o'clock in the morning, on the orbit of Kunlun, in the field of star beacon assemble simulation…

  Inside the deep, dark universe, Li Yao was wearing an engineering crystal suit that had six circular artificial arms making it look like a spider. He was floating in midair silently.

  Right next to him, hundreds of magical equipment units and ten times more components that could connect the units were floating, too.

  Li Yao's telepathic thoughts spread out incessantly like tides through the eight artificial arms. Like invisible ripples, they covered all the units and components softly.

  Suddenly, every unit and component was enveloped in dark red fluorescence.

  They seemed both enlivened by Li Yao and embroiled in wild turbulence. Attracting and assembling themselves, they were gradually taking the form of a star beac
on, and every detail of the form was outlined at a visible speed.

  After the bigger modules were assembled, Li Yao cut into them immediately. His hands turned into two clusters of colorful lights, while spiritual threads darted out from his fingers into the depths of all the modules. He slightly adjusted the internal architecture of every module by manipulating the spiritual threads with his fingers before he connected all of the modules together carefully.

  In the end, a star beacon that was more than fifty meters long and had eight umbrella-shaped metal membrane receptors, better known as 'universe lighthouse', appeared in the darkness!

  "Time: one hour, twenty-two minutes, and thirty-five seconds!"

  When the numbers appeared on the staff's crystal processors, amazement and exclamations echoed inside the entire simulation test field.

  Finishing the assembly and debugging of a super star beacon of such an enormous scale purely on his own with a time cost of less than one and a half hours!

  Those who are qualified to be present at the simulation test arena were all the top refiners of the three Sectors, but even they had to admit that, in all the three Sectors, it was difficult to find a second refiner with such hand speed, skill, and precision!

  "Li Yao, job well done. How do you feel?" Professor Mo Xuan asked.

  "How do I feel? I don't know," Li Yao replied. "My ten fingers cannot feel anything now!"

  At half past eleven, on Kunlun, in Li Yao's special cafeteria…

  In front of Li Yao, a demon beast 'Single-Horned Elephant' the size of a hill, which was shining greasily after being roasted and emitting pleasant flavor, was looming.

  For someone who smelled it for the first time, they would definitely be drooling full of eagerness.

  However, for Li Yao, who had been stuffed by excessive food for quite a few months in a row, it was quite a headache.