Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

A month later, in the depths of the Land of Eternal Night, above the Nuwa warship and the Pangu laboratory…

The deep blue flower that had slowly blossomed in the night sky when Long Yangjun left was truly like a spring breeze that was filled with vigor and life. The ice field and even the entire Ancient Sages Sector were utterly different from one month prior, and they appeared to have been reborn compared to three months ago.

After the remaining soul of the commander of the Nuwa Clan was destroyed, no new changes took place in the Pangu laboratory. The explorers found a lot more crab factories and corpses of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan. However, most of the giant crabs had been completely destroyed by the Nuwa Clan hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the corpses of both the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan were broken and feeble. Even if some extraterrestrial devils or similar things had been attached to them, they were long gone.

However, the debris of magical equipment that the soldiers left behind—including the remote weapons and the blades from the primeval era and the weird-shaped ancillary devices that were similar to crystal processors—allowed the exploration team to return with full loads.

As it turned out, the Star Glory Federation was the one that took advantage of the battle between the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan.

However, all the remnants in the Nuwa warship and the Pangu laboratory combined might not be as valuable as the two ‘dictionaries’.

With the two dictionaries that were essentially ‘hands-on tutorials on primeval languages’, not only were they able to parse the mysterious, opaque texts on Kunlun and open the secret rooms and forbidden areas that had been sealed over the past hundred years, they were also given a chance to examine the mysterious way of thinking and information transmission among the primeval species, which would significantly increase mankind’s ability information filtering, analysis, processing, and communication technology.

Informatization was everything in a universal civilization!

In the meantime, an enormous space gate was also established in the orbit of the planet of the Ancient Sages Sector.

The star beacons that constituted the space gate were the components of the space gate of the Black Wind Fleet that Li Yao had destroyed. The power and navigation range of the device were great enough to summon a whole fleet from the center of the cosmos to the edge of it.

Therefore, despite the blockage of the dark nebula, the federation, which was right next to the Ancient Sages Sector, soon received the messages. The ‘bridge’ between the two worlds was officially constructed. With sufficient crystals and a powerful starship, it would be possible to teleport through thousands of stars and jump from any random planet in the federation to the orbit of the planet of the Ancient Sages Sector!

The Ancient Sages Sector’s speed of integration was doubtlessly accelerated.

The local leaders of the Ancient Sages Sector in various aspects all spared no effort modernizing the forces that were under their command.

After the initial quakes and conflicts, the whole world was rushing and witnessing new changes on a daily basis.

Li Yao, in the meantime, was also working hard toward his new goal.

The last words that Long Yangjun had left him before she took off had been haunting him.

His real destiny… Yes. He had always had a destiny, which was to accomplish the Vulture Plan and to destroy a certain something!

The uncanny dream had harassed him for more than a hundred years since he was born. With everything coming to this point, the time had come to resolve the puzzle.

Also, Li Yao had a vague feeling that when he resolved the puzzle and learned the truth of the Vulture Plan, it would be the time for him to really climb to the Divinity Transformation Stage!

Yes. Li Yao was preparing to break into the Divinity Transformation Stage right in the Ancient Sages Sector!

The spiritual energy in this world was more abundant. So, the odds of successfully advancing into the Divinity Transformation Stage should be slightly higher than in the federation. Even though the increase might only be one percent, it would still be something worth making use of.

The more important reason, however, was the critical ‘apocalypses’.

Right now, Li Yao had a much more profound understanding about training, civilizations, and the universe than a hundred years ago.

A hundred years ago, he knew that the ‘minor apocalypses’ targeting the experts were a type of random ‘dark forest’ attack. They were the barricades that the countless prehistoric civilizations established against alien species in the billions of years of development of the universe.

However, according to the latest studies in the past hundred years, the personal experience of Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun, and the speculation that Long Yangjun had proposed a month ago, Li Yao had new ideas.

Perhaps the major and minor apocalypses could also be classified as internal apocalypses and external apocalypses. Externally speaking, they were the autopiloting weapons left by ancient civilizations. Internally speaking, they were the ‘ecological balance’ inside the trainer himself.

If a human’s soul was compared to a stable ecological circle, the improvement from the Nascent Soul Stage to the Divinity Transformation Stage would certainly be a world-changing modification on the entire ecological circle. Countless new variables would be introduced, which would cause the ‘creatures’ living inside it to evolve significantly.

During the process, the entire ecological circle might collapse if anything went wrong. Was that not some kind of internal apocalypse?

In any case, being covered by the dark nebula, the Ancient Sages Sector was a natural ‘sanctuary’. Trying to advance into the Divinity Transformation Stage there could at least reduce the odds of ‘minor apocalypses’ in the traditional sense from the outside world to the lowest.

Besides, Li Yao could not wait to find out the truth of the Vulture Plan and return to the federation!

Inside a large comprehensive supply starship on the Land of Eternal Night…

The federation had a set of intact ancillary systems and facilities to aid breaking into the Building Foundation Stage from the Refinement Stage and from the Building Foundation Stage into the Core Formation Stage. Everybody knew the common practice.

However, advancing into the Nascent Soul Stage or the Divinity Transformation Stage was very personal and mysterious. For someone at his level, Li Yao could count on the help from no one other than himself.

Li Yao had devised a unique magical equipment system to help his upgrade.

The main equipment was a combustion improving cabin inside the comprehensive supply starship. It was supposed to press the ancillary fuel additives into the combustion room brutally in 120 times the standard air pressure, in order to boost the five-kilometer-long starship that was as big as a mountain.

At this moment, it would press the compressed nutrition liquids that were carefully mixed with the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures of the entire Ancient Sages Sector into Li Yao’s body through all the pores with an even greater pressure!

Meng Chixin, Wu Suiyun, Yan Liren, and Master Bitter Cicada, the four unparalleled experts, stood nearby to provide protection.

“Let’s begin!”

Soaked in the glittering, thick liquids, Li Yao was firmer than ever, with a pair of eyes even brighter than the nutrition liquids.

Hum!

The rune arrays carved around the entire device trembled violently, as if they were wild bees flying abruptly.

The silver liquids in all directions were pressed hard into Li Yao’s body!

Li Yao took a deep breath. His nostrils, windpipe, and lungs were filled with the concentrated solution of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, which swept across his self-awareness like an unstoppable river and flooded into the depths of his soul.

At this moment, the view in the depths of his soul was different from what he had seen in the past.

The Ancient Sages Sector, the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, the Flying Star Sector… Every world that he had been through in the past blossomed like a flower with the tiniest details. On every petal and every pistil was a glowing facet that clearly recorded his every movement, his feelings, and his thoughts on every person and every event.

Through those flowers, he was travelling back to every moment in his life and reexperienced everything that had happened before.

Life became a highly-unified condensate, getting more real and vivid.

Another phrase to describe Cultivation was—to know oneself.

Right now, Li Yao’s understanding of himself in this life had reached a whole new level, but he did not stop there, instead sinking toward the deepest bottom of the ocean and the deepest trench in it like an unstoppable submarine.

He passed through the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and then the Blood Demon Sector again. He did not even stop too long in the magical equipment graveyard at the beginning of his life, but simply gritted his teeth to charge at the crack that had been opened after multiple collisions!

What is the Vulture Plan exactly? What is it that I must destroy? Tell me! Tell me!

Li Yao’s self-awareness marched forward or sank down without considering anything else. The bottomless valley turned into an endless tunnel. His speed picked up, and he was surrounded by starry light. All the stars were then pulled into spiral rays that interweaved into all kinds of bizarre, unpredictable patterns. Every pattern seemed to contain the most mysterious information, but he did not have any time to care about that because his soul, his mind, his consciousness, and his subconsciousness were all occupied by the same word.

Earth!

Boom!

After a deafening explosion as if the universe had fallen apart, the starry light was shattered, the darkness was gone, and the tunnel was paved through. Li Yao was finally back to where his uncanny dream began, in the orbit of ‘Earth’, the third planet of the solar system.

He seemed to have been combined into one with himself at that time. Floating in the vacuum, he stared at the blue planet that was so beautiful, peaceful, and vulnerable.

What was strange was that, although he had seen that the blue Earth was burnt into a yellow, withered, rotten apple in his mottled, broken memories countless times, the Earth in front of his eyes was still succulent, clear, and blue, like the most perfect gem that had never been under the scourge of any power.

“Run to the end of the universe and live the rest of your life peacefully. You cannot defeat it. You cannot destroy it!”

As he expected, Li Yao heard the begging of his companions in the past from the depths of Earth again.

Then, he felt that every cell inside his body and every bit of his soul were on fire, burning his life into the most unwavering determination. In the most solemn voice, he declared, one word after another, “No. We have not failed yet. However powerful and invincible it is, I have managed to escape after all!

“Even though… I am a worthless ordinary person right now, I will train myself crazily at the edge of the cosmos. Even death will not stop me. One day, I will come back with the most powerful forces and companions in the universe and accomplish the Vulture Plan to destroy Earth!”