Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Senior Brother!”

Luo Xingzi was Xiao Xuance’s junior brother in the Feathered Snakes Brotherhood. When Xiao Xuance had been the leader of the sect, he had been one of the deacons.

Therefore, he could hardly believe Xiao Xuance’s betrayal and had almost even passed out in fury. He yelled, “So, you are really a member of the Temple of Immortals and a cowardly Immortal Cultivator?

“Why?

“Senior Brother, you are the best expert and the crownless king of the Flying Star Sector. You are already at the peak of the world of Cultivators. Even if you are interested in the secret arts of longevity, there are endless resources at your disposal!

“Why did you create the Temple of Immortals and get so many innocent people killed?”

Xiao Xuance smiled casually. “It’s true that I am an Immortal Cultivator. But the so-called Temple of Immortals is just a disguise. Don’t mistake the selfish, spineless ‘false Immortal Cultivators’ of the Temple of Immortals for us ‘real Immortal Cultivators’!

“You’re right, Junior Brother. I am already at the top of the world. If it were for my own interest, even if I wanted to pursue an eternal life, it would not have been necessary for to stir up so much trouble.

“However, hehe, although it is immortality that we the real Immortal Cultivators pursue, we are not talking about the eternal life of individuals, but the splendor and eternality of the civilization of mankind!

“Our dream is very simple. We will reunite the Flying Star Sector, which is essentially loose sand, and build a powerful nation governed by the Immortal Cultivators!”

“What?”

Everybody, including Li Yao, was greatly shocked.

“Ever since the arrival of the apocalypse and the collapse of the coalition government of the Flying Star Sector five thousand years ago, we have been the lone dusts in the sea of stars without our own country!

“Five thousand years. It’s been five thousand years!

“We groped and struggled in the darkness. To this day, the dozens of space zones are still only minding their own business, completely disorganized.

“This is the source of all tragedies!

“If we weren’t loose sand, how could the space pirates have been so wild and even defeated the attack of the Cultivators with a single planet?

“If we weren’t loose sand, how could we have hesitated to get in touch with the compatriots on Iron Plateau for five thousand years?

“If we weren’t loose sand, how could we never have the ambition to explore other Sectors?

“For five thousand years, we’ve been cowering in the Flying Star Sector like turtles. We barely explored the world fragments near the Flying Star Sector, not to mention sending out a large-scale expedition army to explore other Sectors like we did five thousand years ago!

“Five years ago, faced with the threat of the Temple of Immortals, the world of Cultivators, which was in disunity, still refused to work together on the Ice God Project. In the end, it was a non-obligatory ‘Grand Illusionary Soldier Project’ that was carried out!

“Hehe. In the eyes of the Immortal Cultivators, if the Flying Star Sector remains as divided as it is now, we will forever be as weak as today, our civilization will not make any progress, and we will never step out of the Flying Star Sector and regain the glory of the Star Ocean Imperium!

“Yes, the glory of the Star Ocean Imperium!

“Back in the Star Ocean Imperium, the Flying Star Sector was one of the most important districts. There are endless magical equipment, debris, and relics even to this day!

“We are the offspring of the greatest warriors of mankind from the era of the Star Ocean Imperium!

“We should concentrate all our resources and realize the wish of the strongest human beings of the Star Ocean Imperium. We should rebuild the imperium so that the civilization of mankind can rise again until it becomes the strongest species in the sea of stars!”

Xiao Xuance was speaking faster and faster until he sounded insane in the end.

Even Luo Xingzi was somewhat awed by his resolution. He was dazed for a long time before he opened his mouth again. “Even so, there was no need to resort to such extreme methods. You know that the unification of the Flying Star Sector and the foundation of a new coalition government is not a new idea. We are already on the road!”

Xiao Xuance burst into laughter. “A thousand years of thinking, and what?

“It’s useless, Junior Brother. The Flying Star Sector has been divided for too long. The middle-sized and small-sized sects are the rulers of their respective space zones, which are essentially their independent kingdoms.

“Every sect has their own interests, and every space zone has their own plans!

“As the saying goes, it is better to be the head of a hen than to be the tail of a phoenix. How can those sects willingly establish a coalition government with us?

“Chances are that they will even suspect that the six sects of Heavenly Saints City are merely taking the chance to swallow them!

“Leader Si is right here. The Star Fighters’ Alliance always represents the interest of the middle-sized and small-sized sects. Why don’t you ask him if he is willing to?

“Hehe. In fact, there is no need to ask. Even if a new nation is established in hundreds of years, after countless negotiations and compromises, a weak parliamentary regime is most likely to be adopted.

“By then, in parliament, all the representatives will still argue against each other and double-deal for the interests of their own sects!

“Such a ‘nation’ will be merely a glamorous-looking skin. How can it realize the last wish of the Star Ocean Imperium?

“All in all, in the eyes of the Immortal Cultivators, the sects in the Flying Star Sector nowadays, be they the six sects of Heavenly Saints City or the smaller sects in the other space zones, and I do mean each and every of them, are a cancer to our civilization!

“Our civilization can only progress after all the sects are destroyed, when the power and resources of every space zone is concentrated in the hands of one leader and we are guided by one voice and one true path!

“Besides, hundreds of years of negotiations and compromises are just a waste of time. Can we really afford that?”

Luo Xingzi gnashed his teeth. “So, you Immortal Cultivators made up an organization called the Temple of Immortals and caused mayhem in the Flying Star Sector because you were paving the way for the ‘Grand Illusionary Soldier Project’. But in fact, you have backdoors in the ‘star brain’, the main database for the Grand Illusionary Soldiers. In the end, the Temple of Immortals and the Grand Illusionary Soldiers will attack the Cultivators collectively. When the main force of the Cultivators is destroyed, you will reign over the Flying Star Sector, right?”

After a long sigh, Xiao Xuance answered, “Exactly. We’ve been carrying out the plan for decades. Never did we expect that it would fail at the last moment!

“I took everything into consideration, but I never knew that a survivor was left in the slaughter a hundred and twenty years ago and that the survivor even became the ‘Pirate Potentate’!”

“Senior Brother!” Luo Xingzi burst into fury. “People of different such beliefs should distance themselves from each other. This is the last time that I will call you Senior Brother. In the future, I will call you Xiao Xuance!

“Xiao Xuance, the Immortal Cultivators like you claim that you are fighting for the civilization of mankind, but how many people has the Temple of Immortals that you made killed in the great explosion during the Skyhill Sword Seminar, in the arrival of the extraterrestrial devils in the tenth space ring, and all the other disasters over the past five years? So many innocent men and women!

“And you, you killed a starship full of people for your own survival a hundred and twenty years ago, and yet you are brass enough to declare that you are not a coward?”

“Of course, I’m not a coward,” Xiao Xuance replied calmly. “My own life is as insignificant as dust, but a great responsibility was on my shoulders. My value to the civilization of mankind is ten times, a hundred times, and a thousand times more than that of all the people on that starship combined!

“From the perspective of the civilization of mankind as a whole, I had more reason to survive than the people on that starship.

“So, I killed them and saved myself. It was not for my own survival but for the rise of the civilization of mankind. How is that cowardly?

“As for the victims killed by the Temple of Immortals…

“The birth of any great nation requires the blood of countless sacrifices. The loss of so many people, including my own son, leads to the rise of a brand-new imperium. Isn’t that good enough?”

Luo Xingzi was dumbfounded, not knowing what to say for a long time.

Even Li Yao was stunned, with a feeling that Xiao Xuance was so shameless that he almost sounded reasonable.

Xiao Xuance continued speaking, his voice becoming ever louder. “Don’t you see, Junior Brother? This universe is a dark forest where the strong prey on the weak. Survival of the fittest is the only law of nature!

“Only the strongest, the most coldblooded, and the cruelest civilization can live in the dark forest!

“Just look at what the civilization of mankind has become under the leadership of the Cultivators!

“Slack, undetermined, hypocritical, and weak. You’ve lost the wariness of the entire universe!

“You are just asking for your own death!

“Your slogan that it is the responsibility of the Cultivators to protect the weak is hilarious!

“There are only limited resources in the universe. Wasting the precious resources on people who are as weak as ants will only result in the decline of the entire civilization!

“Filter the weak, bring up the strong, and keep evolving. That is the path of immortality for a civilization!

“When the Immortal Cultivators take over the Flying Star Sector and build our nation, all the resources will be controlled and distributed by the government. Everybody will go through the strictest screening when they are born. The sick and the disabled do not need to live one more day to waste food!

“The infants who are healthy and strong will receive the harshest training. For the talented geniuses, whatever their familial background is, they will get the most resources and the guidance of the most excellent teachers. For the weak without talents, no matter how noble their family is, they will be eliminated without any mercy!

“The strong will enjoy excessive resources and focus on their training. They do not need to waste any of their time on ordinary people.

“The weak will be sent to the resource plants, where the environment is harsh, for mining and make whatever contributions they can to mankind!

“Other than that, rigorous competitions will be held regularly. With their lives on the line, the strongest of the strong will be selected and enlisted into an expedition army to recover other sectors, collect more resources, and even explore the ‘Empyrean Terminus Sector’, the center of the old Star Ocean Imperium!

“This is the future of the civilization of mankind!

“This is the dream country that the Immortal Cultivators have been fighting for throughout the years!

“This is the second unified imperium in the history of mankind that will pass on the glory of the Star Ocean Imperium—our Imperium of True Human Beings!”