Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Survival, reproduction, and expansion were the most primitive and powerful instincts for all lives.

The mental devil seemed to have been convinced by Professor Mo Xuan. As it was deep in thought, the evil brilliance inside its eyes was even more intense than before, and the bloody thorns around Li Yao were dancing much more actively, too.

Li Yao’s screams became more and more hoarse, as if he had been completely suppressed by the mental devil.

Professor Mo Xuan thought that the mental devil was really tempted. He was overjoyed. “How about it? There’s no need for me to deceive you at all. By then, I will only need the world in cyberspace, and the bodies of the hundreds of billions of people in the entire federation will be the most prosperous home for the Blood Stripe Virus. No. Not just hundreds of billions. As long as the two of us join our hands, it is definitely possible to accomplish what the Mad Armageddon started ten thousand years ago and sweep across the entire universe!”

The mental devil sniffed, giving neither approval nor disapproval. “Blood God, the Mad Armageddon. You are truly cocky enough to compare us to him. Getting to the bottom of it, the two of us are merely two bumpkin extraterrestrial devils at the edge of the cosmos…”

“There’s no other way now. We have no retreat,” Professor Mo Xuan replied, half calmly and half insanely. “The Pangu Civilization is about to be reborn. The Alliance of the Holy Covenant is the best evidence. We also saw a living member of the Pangu Clan personally on Kunlun!

“The Pangu Clan cut their emotions with secret techniques, transforming themselves and all their vassal species into cold, heartless machines, for the sole purpose of destroying the soil in which Chaos, or the extraterrestrial devils, thrived!

“Chaos, the extraterrestrial devils, and the ancient Blood Stripe Virus were the same in the eyes of the Pangu Civilization. They were all evil energy lives. The sole significance of the Pangu Civilization seemed to be annihilating energy civilizations!

“Now, the existence of the Star Glory Federation is no longer a secret. Since the Imperium of True Human Beings is capable enough of discovering this place and launching an expedition army, one day, the Alliance of the Holy Covenant will discover us and send an expedition army, too, with the will of Pangu!

“The Pangu Civilization is cold and merciless. Do you think that they will let us go? By then, in a relatively better case, everybody will be brainwashed, their feelings and emotions gone. Kindness or evil, beauty or ugliness, all the emotions will be washed. After that, all individuals will be resealed with the ‘Three Fundamental Laws’ and turned into the walking dead and the most perfect tools!

“In the worst case, the entire habitable planet will be demolished and burnt into a translucent glass ball with overwhelming fire that is beyond the imagination of any human being. Not just human beings, even bacteria and viruses, which you considered carriers in the past, will not survive!

“It is definitely going to happen!

“For the Imperium of True Human Beings, this place is a conquerable territory, a land of high wealth and value. At the very least, the civilians here are slaves that can be exploited. So, the Imperium of True Human Beings has come to swallow this place. They won’t completely destroy all the habitable planets or kill everyone here.

“But for the Alliance of the Holy Covenant and the Pangu Civilization behind it, the edge of the cosmos, savaged by the extraterrestrial devils, is a highly-infected area of plagues. They will not come here to conquer the place but to purge it!

“Do you see it now? The extraterrestrial devils and human beings should be good friends fighting by each other’s side. Or rather, they should be in a deeply integrated symbiotic relationship. Whether you consider yourself an extraterrestrial devil or a human being, this is no time for an inner struggle! Let’s build a powerful Human 2.0 civilization to bring out the maximal power of the Grand-Unified Spiritual Nexus. That’s the only chance for us to resist the ‘purge’ of the Pangu Civilization. We may even be able to march to the center of the cosmos before we are attacked and exterminate the reborn Pangu Civilization while it is still in its cradle!”

The mental devil and Li Yao both widened their eyes.

Professor Mo Xuan was not just shouting desperately; he was also persuading them heartily.

The mental devil thought for a long time and then mumbled, “Then, I’m more confused now. Was the ideology of ‘absolute peace’ you mentioned just now merely an excuse?

“Most of the extraterrestrial devils feed on the intense emotional fluctuations of living creatures. If all the worlds you build up in the virtual world are as peaceful and eventless as Peach Blossom Paradise, there won’t be too much intense emotion at all!

“Also, you know that the Pangu Civilization is gradually reviving. They have even found a strong spokesperson named the Alliance of the Holy Covenant. After they finish the Imperium of True Human Beings, they will certainly come here and ‘purge’ the Star Glory Federation. Still, you are planning to build virtual words of ‘absolute peace’? Won’t it destroy everybody’s fighting will and get them killed in the end?”

Professor Mo Xuan was silent for a moment. Then he burst into laughter.

In his laughter, the whole world was shaking violently again. The sky and the earth collapsed. The furiously burning village turned into red, dancing butterflies before they became shiny crimson crystal balls far, far away.

Now, Li Yao, the mental devil, and Professor Mo Xuan were in the middle of space.

Glittering stars were all around them. Upon closer inspection, every star was a crystal ball in a different color that contained all the things in the tiniest details. They were all splendid and wonderful small worlds!

Hundreds of crystal worlds were emanating eccentric brightness in the deep, profound universe. An extremely thin wire extended from every world and was connected to Professor Mo Xuan’s body.

Clusters of brightness as tiny as millet were transmitted into Professor Mo Xuan’s body from the crystal worlds through the wires, as if they were providing powerful energy for him incessantly!

The mental devil looked around and observed, “This is…”

“Welcome to the deepest part of the Spiriters’ Realm. If it weren’t for the fact that you are my own kind, I never would have opened this place to you.”

Professor Mo Xuan smiled. The thousand wires that were connected to him shivered quickly and pulled a few crystal balls over.

Behind him, the crystal balls were enlarged nonstop, and bloody scenes of war were clearly visible. Together, they constituted a cruel, ruthless world of killing.

“Your question does have a point. The challenges that Li Yao proposed just now were quite reasonable, too,” Professor Mo Xuan said. “If everybody lives in a peaceful, quiet paradise after they enter the Spiriters’ Realm, and they can get anything they want without any trouble, wouldn’t the spirits and will of mankind be utterly deformed and destroyed? Where will the civilization of mankind go? How can it defend itself when faced with the Pangu Civilization or other alien species?

“Hehe. Even someone like Li Yao was able to think of the simple question. How could it have escaped my attention?”

Li Yao grunted while he was struggling in pain. “Hey, hey, hey. Professor, what do you mean by ‘someone like Li Yao’? You extraterrestrial devils are too mean!”

Professor Mo Xuan finally glanced at him and smiled. “Li Yao, don’t worry. I’ve got everything planned out for the civilization of mankind!

“Distress is the source of progress, and contentment is the beginning of decadence. The Spiriters’ Realm is certainly much more than meaningless entertainment. In the Spiriters’ Realm, there are both peaceful, quiet, carefree places such as ‘Peach Blossom Village’ and places where resolution and courage will be honed. There are also places where you can study all kinds of latest technology and explore the external world!

“Do you see those worlds of killing? They are as perfectly real as Peach Blossom Village and even more real than reality! After the souls of ordinary people enter them and receive the battle training of the highest intensity, they can also grow into great warriors to defend the civilization of mankind one day. By then, their souls will be projected to advanced ‘battle shells’, like what we did in Deep Blue Super Brain Hospital. Together with the help of the tremendous battle artificial intelligences, they will be the great army for us to resist the Pangu Civilization and march into the sea of stars!”

As Professor Mo Xuan introduced his plan, the pictures of battlefields in the crystal worlds were enlarged one after another.

It could be clearly seen that countless people were fighting one another among mountains of corpses and oceans of blood. On the land, in space, and at the bottom of the sea. With blades, with guns, and with starships. Assault, annihilation, and massacre… It was happening everywhere.

Those who were trapped in the battlefields all had twisted faces and bloodshot eyes. They were vomiting foam like rabid dogs, not having the slightest idea that they were in a virtual world.

There was no telling how many of them were the ‘Deviant Spirits’ digitally simulated and how many were the actual souls of humans!

Even the mental devil felt creeped out watching it. It could not help but observe, “You have constructed so many virtual worlds!”

Professor Mo Xuan smiled casually. “I have the best team of virtual world architects.”

Thinking quickly, Li Yao roared, “It was Wei Qingqing and all the other culture-type Cultivators who helped you build them. You—you even corrupted Wei Qingqing!”

“No, I didn’t. Such trouble was highly unnecessary,” Professor Mo Xuan admitted frankly. “It’s true that Wei Qingqing and the rest of them helped me construct the prototypes of a lot of worlds, but they didn’t know the first thing about the truth and were under the illusion that what they constructed were ‘test worlds’, which would be preserved for the brand-new civilizations in billions of years to come to make sure that they are similar to us.

“Some other fundamental data is from the game ‘Civilization’. You know that ‘Civilization’ has hundreds of different war DLCs. Tremendous data on wars and killing have been accumulated in the past hundred years. With the data as the foundation, it is very easy to build the most perfect worlds of slaughter!

“After we seize control of the Star Glory Federation, human beings will be infinitely expanded on the Spiritual Nexus. An individual will be able to enjoy the peace and tranquility in Peach Blossom Paradise today, discuss with the most talented geniuses in a super metropolis that have a population of ten billion tomorrow, and enter the gory battlefield the day after tomorrow to hone their courage, valor, and killing skills with repetitive deaths. After the killing missions are accomplished, the negative emotions caused by the memory will be sealed, allowing them to return to their normal life without any hindrance.

“Should the enemy really invade us, or if we are establishing an expedition army toward the center of the cosmos, we will turn on the enormous war database and activate everyone’s battle memories, emotions, and skill sets. Billions of civilians will be transformed into elite warriors. Together with the army of Deviant Spirits who are tens if not hundreds of times larger in number, who will ever be match for us in the entire universe!

“As for the parts in you and me that originate from the ‘extraterrestrial devils’, we can extract the intense emotional fluctuations from the warring worlds as a stable source of food. Isn’t this the most perfect symbiotic relationship?”