Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  Therefore, he could only hold back his laughter and set them free later.

  Walking along the stairs, he arrived at the third floor of the national museum, only to discover that Li Jialing was looking afar through the window at the crowds who were paying tributes to Blackstar the Great.

  "You have been observing those people all the time over the last days."

  Li Yao walked over and asked, "And you seemed deep in thought. What's on your mind?"

  "Nothing."

  Li Jialing shook his head. After a brief silence, he said, "I only feel that those people are both pitiful and pathetic. They will be manipulated no matter what they do, just like I have been manipulated since I was born."

  Li Yao was slightly dazed. "I don't know if the queen is manipulating those people, but for me, I am sincerely helping those people to get what they deserve, no matter if it is their military credits, their dignity, or just the rights of survival.

  "Such an approach may be too extreme and carry too many risks, but they already cannot live on anymore. This is their only and last chance."

  Li Jialing looked at Li Yao, somewhat in surprise. "They are Immortal Cultivators."

  "Yes, they are."

  Li Yao sighed and said, "Immortal Cultivators are naturally the greatest enemy of the Cultivators. Also, those 'surplus generals' are definitely not the kindest people in the world. Many of them were ferocious bullies, if not bloody butchers, when they were in their hometowns.

  "But things should be considered separately. No matter what atrocious crimes they committed, they should at least be credited for resisting the invasion of the Covenant Alliance and defending humanity.

  "Whatever their motives to participate in the Imperium's counterattack were, and even if they were just seeking fame and fortune, objectively speaking, without the fighting and sacrifices of those Immortal Cultivators, it is possible that the universe would've been occupied by the puppets of the Covenant Alliance. They might even have gathered enough resources and energy to revive the Pangu Clan, which would be an irreversible catastrophe for the civilization of mankind.

  "Accomplishments cannot offset crimes, but crimes should not cover accomplishments either. Those people are both criminals and contributors. I want those Immortal Cultivators to be tried for their crimes in the past, and I even want to perform the punishments in person, but I am unwilling to see them kicked away like dogs after they devoted their everything for the civilization of mankind.

  "Do you understand the difference between the two concepts?"

  Li Jialing thought carefully for a moment and nodded his head.

  "Besides—"

  Li Yao said, "Those 'surplus generals' may have committed unpardonable crimes in the past, but those disabled veterans—the low-level Immortal Cultivators in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage—are different… How should I put it? I'm not saying that they are innocent, but if they grow up on a different land under a different system in a different way of education, they might become Cultivators too.

  "I cannot kill all the Immortal Cultivators at the center of the cosmos, but I truly want to find a way to destroy the soil from which the Immortal Cultivators are grown."

  Li Yao's gaze went past Li Jialing's shoulders as he watched the common veterans of the Imperium who strode forward in lines and pay tributes to Blackstar the Great's statue. He had a lot of mixed feelings.

  Li Yao was himself a "veteran" of the Star Glory Federation. When he took part in the College Entrance Examination in his younger years, and when he was smeared to be the Blood Devil after he returned to the federation, it was all thanks to the selfless help of the veterans that he lived through the difficulties.

  He had deep feelings for the army and the veterans.

  Although the Imperium of True Human Beings was a hostile country, he found it impossible to hate the veterans who had devoted everything to the war against the Covenant Alliance.

  "The four Kurfürst families are too idiotic and greedy. Prime Minister Dongfang Wang is the same too."

  Li Jialing found it hard to believe. "Do they not know that they are shaking the foundation of the country? Why didn't they address it earlier? This is outrageous!"

  "I can only say that reality is not a game. It is impossible that everybody will follow the orders 100% without any discount like machines after the authorities press a button."

  Li Yao said, "Strong as Blackstar the Great might've been, weren't there still people who pretended to obey him but in fact did not? How could one Dongfang Wang control so many people down below?

  "I believe that Dongfang Wang must've foreseen the consequences of reducing the generals and ignoring the disabled veterans with his vision and wisdom, but everybody has only limited abilities. If his subordinates each have their own plans or even embezzle the subsidies for the veterans, what can he do?"

  Li Jialing frowned. "Dongfang Wang is known as a prime minister of iron and blood. Is he unable to settle such a minor issue? If anybody dares to embezzle the subsidies, just behead them!"

  "What if the criminal is an experienced expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage with deeply-rooted forces? Can he be killed too?"

  Li Yao asked, "If the criminal is a Divinity Transformation Stage expert from the Li family, but other Divinity Transformation Stage experts of the Li family are defending him, can you kill all of them? If the criminal is a Divinity Transformation Stage expert from the Dongfang family, can Dongfang Wang execute a member of his own family? If all the experts of the four Kurfürst families, regardless of their origins, already have unspoken rules and all of them embezzle, what can Dongfang Wang do?"

  After a long daze, Li Jialing asked, "They are all unparalleled experts with high computational abilities. Can't they think of the consequences? Why are they so greedy and shortsighted?"

  "It has nothing to do with greed, idiocy, and shortsightedness. Getting to the bottom of it, it is a systematical issue. Their ideals and beliefs have grown awry since the root."

  Li Yao said, "It is exactly because the prevailing idea of 'survival of fittest' among the Immortal Cultivators that every rational Immortal Cultivator has strong motives to loot resources and benefits through whatever means possible to strengthen themselves.

  "As to if the looting was reasonable and legal and what kind of catastrophic consequences it will bring in the long term, such things are beyond their concerns.

  "If they do not loot crazily right now, they will become weaklings and losers in the short term, and they will lose everything in the cruel internal competitions. How can they care about the long-term and the overall interests?

  "The majority of the rational Immortal Cultivators with normal thinking abilities will not hesitate to embezzle if it can increase their odds of survival. The resources that have already fallen into their pockets can barely be given away too. Why would anybody do such a thing that would lower their odds of survival?

  "Perhaps when the Imperium of True Human Beings was just born a thousand years ago, there were still some Immortal Cultivators that had dreams and integrity. They were the 'pure Immortal Cultivators' such as Lei Chenghu. However, in the prolonged race of survival, those Immortal Cultivators are destined to be eliminated, just like the devoted surplus generals and disabled veterans would've been eliminated if we hadn't appeared in time.

  "The valiant Immortal Cultivators who fought bravely were all eliminated. Only the most selfish, shameless, blatant, and greedy Immortal Cultivators were able to survive. After generations of 'adverse selection', do I need to describe to you what the Immortal Cultivators who have survived to this day look like?

  "The Imperium of True Human Beings today is made of millions of such Immortal Cultivators. Below the seemingly glamorous appearance, the stinky mucus is flowing everywhere, and the bizarre, crazy phenomena of corruption are happening without any stop. Even if the persons at the top intend to stop the trend, they have nowhere to get started at all. Any reforms from top to d
own will only become excuses for the interest groups to further exploit the underprivileged, making the situation at the bottom level of the society worse and worse. Is it strange at all that this is happening right now?"

  Chapter 2274: Dilemma of the Immortal Cultivators |

  Looking at the disabled veterans bowing and offering wreaths, Li Jialing clenched his fists and said, "Things must've been different in the age of Blackstar the Great."

  "They're all the same."

  Li Yao said, "If the Immortal Cultivators did not have so many corruptions and internal conflicts, and they were not as selfish and despicable as they are today, it was not because the Immortal Cultivators had higher integrity but because the Imperium was still in the phase of expansion. The interests of the newly-conquered areas could be swallowed in order to soothe the conflicts within.

  "The vigor and vitality of countries such as the Imperium of True Human Beings are built on accelerated expeditions. Whenever they stop expanding, the internal contradictions will burst out together, resulting in their inevitable decline.

  "The Imperium has deteriorated to such an extent that it is now too sick to be rescued by any medication. Any 'reform' will not solve the root of the problems. They may be able to cut out the cancers on the body, but they cannot change the genetic deficiencies. Not just Li Linghai and Lei Chenghu, even Blackstar the Great could not heal the country even if he were back to life.

  "In order to transform and revive the Imperium, the true path of immortality must be criticized and denied in the most complete way. But here comes the question. Is the Imperium of True Human Beings without the guidance of the true path of immortality still the Imperium of True Human Beings? Which Immortal Cultivator could afford such a destructive reconstruction of their beliefs?"

  Li Jialing thought hard for a long time. "Do we have to do that? Is there not a third option?"

  "It is inevitable."

  Li Yao said solemnly, "Survival is the natural instinct of any life. As long as the true path of immortality highlights the law of survival of the fittest, everybody will spend all the resources on themselves for survival driven by their instincts. The resources will be wasted in meaningless internal conflicts. Even if they are not needed for now, they will be secretly hidden in case they are needed in the future, and they will never be devoted to the public, the country, the civilization, and the external fights. So, how can the most optimal configuration of resources be reached at all?"

  Li Jialing frowned hard and shook his head. "That being said, is the ideology of the Cultivators any better? Can the Cultivators always maintain high morals and fight for the general public under the guidance of their beliefs, and social ossification and enormous interest groups will never appear? If that is the case, the Star Ocean Republic and Firefly wouldn't have been destroyed!"

  "You are right. I don't want to lie. Both Cultivators and Immortal Cultivators are humans, and every human has desires and deficiencies. What is happening to the Imperium of True Human Beings today will… has happened to the Star Ocean Republic and Firefly yesterday and even resulted in two destructions."

  Deep in thought, Li Yao mumbled, "But I still prefer to believe that at the very least, in a society where the prevailing ideas are that the strong should help the weak, the weak should support the strong, and the strong and the weak should fight together, people will not be so motivated to jeopardize the interests of the whole just to strengthen themselves. If the community is the most solid shield and the warmest reliance for the individuals, then considering the interests of the whole before considering themselves will not be in violation of human nature, right?

  "If you still find it hard to understand, we can construct a simplest social model, where the whole society is highly compressed and simplified into two persons and one unit of resources.

  "One of the persons is you. You are not sure whether you are a Cultivator or an Immortal Cultivator, and you can switch between the policies of the Cultivators and those of the Immortal Cultivators easily.

  "The other person is an expert who is far stronger than you. But he is heavily wounded and in dire need of the resources for recovery.

  "Naturally, the resources are now in the hands of you, who are strong and healthy. If you choose to consume the resources yourself, your strength will be increased by 10%, but the heavily wounded expert will die soon.

  "But if you give the resources to the heavily wounded expert, his strength will be increased by 100% after recovery.

  "Right now. Other than the two of you, there lie all kinds of threats in this world. The stronger your overall strengths are, the more likely it will be to survive in the perilous world.

  "Here comes the question. In the first scenario, if you know that the heavily wounded expert is a cold, ruthless Immortal Cultivator who believes in survival of the fittest, would you like to offer the valuable resources to him so that he can be fully recovered, while you are only one fifth if not one-tenth as strong as he is?

  "In the second scenario, if you know clearly that the heavily wounded expert is a Cultivator who has fought for the weak countless times, what will you choose? Will you give the resources to yourself to maximize your personal combat ability, or will you give them to him to maximize the combat ability of the team?"

  Li Jialing rolled his eyes again and again. It was not until a long time later that he finally struggled to say, "I can't lie. In the first scenario, I will reserve all the resources for myself without a care for the life or death of the expert, but in the second scenario, I will very likely give the resources to the expert. After all, he will probably protect me after he is recovered.

  "However, in the first scenario, there is still one option. If the resources can be divided, I will separate the resources, giving the larger proportion to myself and the smaller proportion to the expert to make him more or less recovered. Then, he will be slightly weaker than me but can still be of help."

  "That will be the same."

  Li Yao said casually, "No matter what the ratio is, the combat ability of your team will not be maximized. In other words, you haven't achieved the optimal configuration of resources.

  "Besides, if you give a few resources to the heavily wounded Immortal Cultivator, he might not be grateful for you at all but would likely resent you for your pettiness. In the team fights later, the two of you will be wary of each other and probably burst into conflicts before external threats show up, right?"

  Li Jialing was stunned. "That's right. But who can guarantee that the Cultivator will certainly protect the weak after he gets all the resources and recovers? What if he changes his mind, drops his mask of hypocrisies, and abandons me at a critical moment?"

  "It's all about probability. Everything has odds. I'm not saying that it is necessarily the right choice to give all the resources to the Cultivator expert in the second scenario; I'm just saying that such a policy will maximize the odds of survival. That's all."

  Holding the windowsill with both hands, Li Yao stared at the statue of Blackstar the Great and said, "It's true that Cultivators may be fake gentlemen sometimes, but Immortal Cultivators are certainly always real villains. Fake gentlemen will not hurt other people until they drop their disguise at the last moment, but real villains spurt out venom, implement schemes, and harm other people for their own interests twenty hours a day. If you have to choose one of them as partners, even a fool will know which option is better?"

  Li Jialing frowned and said, "What are you trying to say, Brother Yao?"

  Li Yao said, "What I'm trying to say is that, in a world of any scale, if your companions are Immortal Cultivators, it won't matter however kindhearted, honorable, selfless, and devoted you used to be. Driven by the instincts for survival, your only policy will be to transform yourself into an Immortal Cultivator as soon as possible, preferably an even more cruel, brutal, and cunning one than your companions. At the very least, you will have to strike a 'balance of deterrence' between one another. That is the only way for yo
u to ensure your own safety and your partnership with other people.

  "But as a result, the world made of the Immortal Cultivators cannot achieve the optimal configuration of resources that you brag about at all. On the contrary, if you have 100 points of combat ability in the ideal situation, it will only be 10 points because of your conspiratorial games of survival.

  "I would like to name such a phenomenon as 'dilemma of the Immortal Cultivators'. The entire Imperium of True Human Beings is now trapped in a gigantic dilemma of the Immortal Cultivators, to the point that it cannot destroy a minor Covenant Alliance at a corner of the cosmos, which does not have any creativity at all, when it has the most abundant resources at the center of the cosmos.

  "In the second social form, if your companions are Cultivators, the odds that you are transformed into a Cultivator will be very high, and you tend to act selflessly, say, give the valuable resources to other people first, because you know that it is a reliable investment and that they will return even more resources to you after their wounds are recovered.

  "Such a positive encouragement and feedback will make the two of you more and more selfless and united. In the end, you will achieve the optimal configuration of resources and output the highest overall combat ability, right?"

  Li Jialing tilted his head and thought for a long time. "It does seem to make sense."

  "Of course it is. Isn't a living example standing right here?"

  Li Yao declared, "You were a little devil who could not tell kindness from evilness and who did not hesitate before bloody slaughters at all. You were the best talent to grow into an Immortal Cultivator. But after you got in touch with such a Cultivator of morals and integrity like Brother Yao, you have been touched by my lofty character without you knowing it, and you are learning to view the world from the Cultivators' point of view. You are slowly transforming into a Cultivator. Isn't this the best evidence?

  "Therefore, as long as everybody offers a tiny bit of love, the universe will be a much more beautiful place tomorrow. Although the path of the Cultivators seems down and out right now, it will become the mainstream at the center of the cosmos in the days to come! Only the path of the Cultivators can save the Imperium. If the Imperium is to be reformed to give birth to a 'new Imperium', it shouldn't be a new Imperium in the plan of Li Linghai and Lei Chenghu, but a new Imperium where everybody is a Cultivator!"