Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

by <unknown>

  The Hyper Spirits boasted computational abilities and logic abilities far more advanced than regular artificial intelligence, which allowed them to hack and control a super crystal processor easily. Of course, when they were applied to massive magical equipment complexes, they could significantly improve the automation of the starships or space fortresses. That was also true.

  Xiaoming and Wenwen's antecedents were Hyper Spirit No. 17 and Hyper Spirit No. 18. That was also absolutely true.

  Of course, however impressive the Hyper Spirits actually were, they were still within the category of artificial intelligence, which was a popular technology in both the federation and the Imperium. It was a necessary ancillary technology to use any large magical equipment. Both the space pirates and the Cultivators of the Imperium had seen too many of such things.

  It was an accepted theory that the two starships were controlled by very sophisticated artificial intelligence.

  As for Xiaoming and Wenwen, the two lovely kids, Li Yao also admitted to the crew dutifully that they were his children who had naturally endowed abilities that made them very awesome "specialists of artificial intelligence". Only the two of them were capable of controlling the Hyper Spirits on the two starships.

  While it was slightly unbelievable, but considering that they were the children of "Vulture Li Yao", the whole thing seemed, well, more understandable now.

  As it turned out, the crew got along rather well with the two starships and the kids. The problems that Li Yao was worried about did not happen at all.

  Both the space pirates of the federation and the Cultivators of the Imperium were marines. For a marine, what mattered most was always bigger, faster, and stronger starships.

  Could there have been a more exciting thing than to be allocated to a starship that boasted the highest cyberwarfare abilities in the entire Imperium?

  Although the "Hyper Spirits" almost caused a destructive catastrophe to the federation in the past, weapons themselves were not guilty, and it all depended on whose hands the weapons were. Now that the "Hyper Spirits" belonged to the "Coalition Fleet of Pyromaniacs", of course they should be as strong as possible.

  The two kids were particularly amiable too, and they raised a natural sense of protection. After seeing how lovely the kids were, many crew members were secretly complaining about how ruthless Li Yao was to put such little children on starships and involve them in the perilous war. It was simply too risky whatever unique techniques they had!

  All in all, boosted by the crew's pride and sense of unity, and thanks to the automatic performance of the starships, it took only half a month before the two highly-modified cyberwarfare cruisers miraculously gained preliminary combat ability.

  The remaining amazing abilities had to be activated and improved in the real battle.

  After more than half a month, when the starships of the two branch fleets were mostly done with maintenance and upgrading, Boss Bai supervised a minor drill.

  On one side of the drill, it was the fleet commanded by Boss Bai in person in the traditional way.

  On the other side, it was the new-generation fleet commanded by the Fist King under the assistance of Xiaoming and Wenwen, which was more intelligent and automatic.

  As it turned out, while Boss Bai boasted more experience and elite warships that were faster and fiercer, the victory did not come easily. He had essentially tried everything he could before he tore apart the battle formation of the Fist King's fleet like peeling an onion.

  Despite the failure, the Fist King's fleet still led one third of the starships to retreat in order, keeping the seeds of the troop alive, under the delicate projection of firepower, the marvelous coordination, and the absolutely calm and emotionless command.

  Of course, such a marvelous "failure" was not entirely to the credit of the Fist King, Xiaoming, and Wenwen, but more like the first perfect cooperation of the newborn information lives and human beings.

  Boss Bai was quite right. The pure information lives had obvious vulnerabilities. Their existence and strength were highly dependent on their communication with each other, and in the vast, boundless space, communication could be a burdensome task that was prone to interference.

  Human beings, on the other hand, had the greatest advantage that they could process fuzzy orders independently. In the most extreme cases, a human soldier would be an army—an army of himself!

  Human beings plus information lives, that was perhaps the right way to fight future wars, and the only path for their civilization to surpass the black wall and reach beyond the Pangu universe.

  Seeing that Xiaoming and Wenwen were stronger and better integrated into human society after every day, Li Yao, however, felt a little self-contradictory.

  Even though they had revealed part of the truth, some information was still retained. Once the crew learned the whole truth, knowing that the so-called "artificial intelligence" actually had their own minds and will and did not necessarily have to follow the instructions of human beings, what would they think?

  Would they be happy, or would they be dreaded, when they found out that the "artificial intelligence" was so similar to human beings?

  Human beings could be corrupted and completely lost because of power, wealth, or strength. Was it also the case for artificial intelligence, or information lives?

  Right now, Xiaoming, Wenwen, and the Fist King were still relatively weak, and Li Yao believed that they were cooperating with mankind sincerely, but if they mastered the strength far exceeding that of human beings someday, making them ten times, a hundred times, or a thousand times stronger than mankind, what could he do?

  Information lives were the creatures and children of mankind. Li Yao had already been taught too many good lessons on the evilness and brutality of mankind. As the saying went, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree". If that was what mankind was like, what would their descendants be?

  Although he had been making blood-boiling claims in front of everyone, claiming that all the problems could be solved through "love" and "communication", he wondered if that was really the case when he considered in secret at night.

  In the end, it was Boss Bai who calmed him down.

  "I believe in the evil nature of mankind, and space pirates are the evils of the evils, but do you know that even the most ferocious and selfish space pirates on Spider Den in the Flying Star Sector also worked together a lot? Why? Was it because their nature changed? No, it was only because a more formidable enemy had appeared, say, the troop of the Cultivators, and the wicked space pirates were forced to hug each other and warm each other up.

  Boss Bai said, "Everybody was born selfish and extremely evil, but in a hazardous, primitive world, an individual was so weak that even the evilest person had to cooperate with other people in order to survive. In the forced cooperation, the initial understanding and trust came into being. That was the case for brothers, family, society, or country. They were not born because of 'love', but only because of some kind of…'have to'.

  "Is it possible that civilizations are exactly like human beings?

  "Perhaps all civilizations are selfish, heartless, and malevolent in nature. They would not be able to survive otherwise.

  "However, faced with the unexpected threats in the vast universe, selfishness, heartlessness, and malevolence alone are far from enough. After they are developed to a certain extent, civilizations will have to team up in order to fight the great threats together.

  "So, the focus is not whether or not the Pangu civilization, the civilization of mankind, the information civilization, or the wizardly civilization is evil, because they are all genetically evil. What we should focus on is whether or not there is a threat that they absolutely cannot resist on their own. It will force them to temporarily abandon their evilness and wariness of each other and be united, or to generate a weird thing called 'love'.

  "Luckily, it seems that we happen to have such a threat—the Flood."

  The Flood that was d
estroying all the civilizations was a fluke?

  It might sound absurd, but it was exactly what the Fist King expressed before.

  In the history of mankind, most glorious civilizations originated from the river basins that were frequented by floods. Floods were destruction but also life. Floods brought infinite desperation but were also the harbinger of hope.

  Faced with the overwhelming flood, the creatures in the dark forest were left with no choice except to summon all their wisdom and courage, walk out of the forest, and stride forward together bravely, to be the new master of the new world after the flood ebbed!

  Chapter 2495: A Letter to Hometown |

  One month had passed.

  At the border of the radiation range of "Blue Emperor", the star closest to the Blue Sky Space Zone, a cluster of alloy that was as thin as paper and as smooth as silk, slowly unfolded, while the ripples on its surface flowed like veins and nerves.

  It was both like some sort of liquids flowing with metal colors, and a flag fluttering in the wind, or a beautiful flower blooming slowly.

  When it was stretched out into a gigantic metal plate more than ten kilometers in diameter from the highly-compressed liquid metals, the sophisticated, overlapped rune arrays on its surface were completely revealed too. Then, with the strokes of those runes as the fold lines, the metal plate was slightly creased, constituting a complicated structure. In such a way, it looked even more like a huge metal rose.

  Absorbing the radiations and waves released by "Blue Emperor", the metal rose shivered and emanated the most glamorous brilliance.

  It was exactly one of the five hundred "antennae" of the super-remote communication magical equipment.

  Five hundred metal roses were shivering and blossoming in space at the same time.

  Li Yao, Boss Bai, the Fist King, Xiaoming, and Wenwen, on a starship, were anchored at the center of the formation made of five hundred metal roses.

  When Li Yao came to the Imperium by himself, he carried a portable super-remote communication base.

  However, the device was too small in size, and therefore had an unsteady performance and a low confidentiality, meaning that the information it sent out could be captured and intercepted by third parties. Also, it had been riddled with holes in the fierce battles afterward. Naturally, it had been abandoned.

  Now that Boss Bai had provided sufficient resources and a steady base, and the Fist King, Xiaoming, and Wenwen could help with the design of the new super-remote communication base, it was possible for them to build a more advanced, secret, and even half-permanent base.

  Although he was absolutely confident about the performance of the brand-new base, for absolute safety, Li Yao had still decided to only send information to the federation and ask the federation to not send any message back.

  Keeping the one-way communication could perhaps make the federation hide longer at the edge of the cosmos, at least until the situation at the center of the cosmos was clearer.

  The federation was not very powerful, and it was more suitable to perform a cutthroat attack at the most critical moment as an unexpected army than to be summoned right now.

  Under the help of Xiaoming and Wenwen, Li Yao wrote most of the things he had experienced after he came to the Imperium into a report, including the current situation of the Imperium, the complicated relationships of the reformists, the four families and the Covenant Alliance, and so on, with an appendix containing the introduction to the Imperium's armed forces, the basic structure and performance parameters of the starships of all types, the leadership of the main fleets, etc. Everything was packed and sent back to home.

  He believed that the information would be of great help for the construction of the Star Glory Federation in the next step.

  Of course, there was still the Pangu universe and… the Flood.

  Before he sent everything over, Li Yao had already reminded his hometown that it was a one-way secret document, and that they were fine right now and in no need of reinforcements from home.

  In the future, they would send a secret document home every month, announcing that they were still safe and could handle everything. Uncontrollable events had happened only if their message was not received for three months in a row.

  The above was all about business.

  What came next was naturally the personal issues.

  Li Yao naturally did not forget to send a few words to Ding Lingdang by the way. However, he bit his fingernail for a long time, only to come up with no explanation for the existence of Xiaoming and Wenwen.

  Thinking for a long time, he decided to do it in the most dutiful and silly way.

  Taking a deep breath, Li Yao said in the most lighthearted tone, "Honey, before I knew it, we've already been separated for such a long time. I miss you so much. Did you miss me? Hahahaha! Let me tell you, everything is fine in the Imperium, and I've been keeping a low profile without running into any accident. Also, I've found a few old friends, including Long Yangjun and Boss Bai. Long Yangjun is that sissy eunuch from the Ancient Sages Sector, and you know who Boss Bai is! You should feel safe knowing that I'm with them, right?

  "Right, guess who else have I also encountered? It's certainly not what you have guessed. I've met Xiaoming and Wenwen, our biological children! Isn't it a pleasant surprise? Hahahaha!

  "Listen to my explanation, honey, just take a deep breath and listen to my explanation. Well, this is not what you have imagined. It is actually very serious, very magnificent, and very influential, involving all human beings and the future of our entire Pangu universe…"

  With a headful of sweat, Li Yao managed to finish his speech before he launched the secret file to the infinite void with the five hundred fluctuating metal roses that were powered by the energy of "Blue Emperor".

  He looked back, only to discover that Long Yangjun was observing the outside of the starship through the window cautiously in a heavy crystal suit.

  Li Yao found it odd. "What are you doing? Are you scared that an enemy might break in?"

  "No, I'm scared of your wife."

  Long Yangjun said, "Based on the way you talked just now and your wife's character, I'm under the impression that she might tear apart the void and reach the center of the cosmos the next second after she receives such a 'pleasant surprise'."

  Well, despite Li Yao's unrefined way of talking, the Star Glory Federation, under the leadership of Ding Lingdang, had basically learned the situation at the center of the cosmos, as well as the vaster and more unpredictable universe beyond.

  As for Earth, Li Yao had shared the secret with Ding Lingdang before he left the federation. They were both doing their best, preparing themselves for the trip to Earth in the future.

  The completion of the first super-remote communication also marked the conclusion of the preliminary combination of the "Coalition Fleet of Pyromaniacs".

  The new crew, new starships, and even new life forms were all understanding and melting with each other at an unexpected speed.

  Of course, the company of human beings and information lives was not entirely lacking of setbacks. Even though the two parties could communicate without reserve on the surface, there was still a long way to go before they reached the real "understanding". For example…

  Chi! Chi! Bam!

  The No. 9 maintenance workshop of the Blue Sky Market was the Fist King's personal training field.

  At this moment, besides the hundred busy maintenance puppets controlled by the Fist King himself, there was nobody else except Liu Li, who was wearing overalls with pockets all over her body that were all stuffed with maintenance tools and who looked like a rather professional mechanic with the oil on her pinky face.

  However, Liu Li's performance today was disproportionate to her professional style. In her absentmindedness, she used too much strength and burnt up a chip inside the head of one of the Fist King's bodies.

  "Miss Liu Li, you were distracted again. The AC control chip inside me has been burnt, and my voi
ce has been transformed into this."

  The Fist King spoke with a high-pitched voice that sounded like a hen. "In the past seven days, the precision of your operations has dropped by 5%, and your faulty rate has increased by 11%. Your brainwaves are always in a disordered and unsteady state too. Considering that you haven't suffered any physical injury, what caused your psychological issues? Was it Han Te?"

  "No!"

  Liu Li jumped like a cat whose tail was stepped on. She hurried to cover herself by saying, "No, you're wrong, Master Fist King!"

  "Your breath, your heartbeat, and the constriction of your pores are highly abnormal and match with the average changes of biophysical parameters that indicate 'guilty' in my database. There is a 98% chance that you are feeling guilty. So, this is truly a Han Te situation, isn't it?"

  The Fist King thought for a moment and tried to comfort Liu Li, "I don't know what is bothering you. As far as I know, it is true that Han Te and some of the women of the Big Bai Pirate Gang, the Cultivators' fleet, and the Blue Sky Market have shared their genetic information with each other and stimulated certain nerval synapses inside their bodies in certain special postures, resulting in shivering and cramping. But I assure you that they were all voluntary, and that there was no deception or coercion. He brought joy to himself and other people. So, what are you mad about?

  "Ah, I see. Han Te brought joy to so many people but not to you. It seems that he is unwilling to exchange genetic information with you. Is that the reason for your dissatisfaction?"

  "Of course not!"

  Liu Li's face was so red that blood seemed to be dripping. She gritted her teeth and stomped. "What nonsense are you talking about, Master Fist King? I-I couldn't care less whom Han Te brought joy to or whom… with whom he exchanged the damn genetic information!

  "I just feel that the friend that I've known for almost twenty years has changed. He has changed so much after stepping into space from our hometown that he is like a different person now!"