Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“With the universe as your laboratory and billions of mortals as your pawns and subjects.”

Li Yao said, “This is indeed as expected of your identity as a dual successor of the Pangu civilization and the Nuwa civilization!”

“Don’t overstate it. Thousands of experiments are required even when a new strengthening drug is to be synthesized or when you are designing a new crystal suit.”

Long Yangjun remarked, “Then, shouldn’t we run a small-scale experiment if a certain ideology will affect the future of billions of people? If you do not run an experiment, how do you know whether or not the ideology is righteous? Is your ideology naturally self-justified just because you are passionate and hotblooded?”

Pondering for a moment, Li Yao said, “Fine, let’s not waste time on the unimportant details. Tell me your specific experiment. Since you are exploring the origins of the Covenant Alliance, how is the underground world of the capital related to it? The Covenant Alliance couldn’t have originated from below the capital of the Imperium, could it?”

“Of course it couldn’t, but it might have originated from the same logic.”

Long Yangjun suddenly leaned close and said mysteriously, “Do you not find it strange that the descriptions on the origins of the Covenant Alliance in the history books of the Imperium of True Human Beings are all fuzzy and ambiguous? It feels like the weird, far-flung country rose exactly together with the birth of Blackstar the Great a thousand years ago, and the Path of Ultimate Benevolence and the Three Fundamental Laws were already very perfect back then.

“Here comes the question. We know that there was absolutely no such thing as ‘Alliance of the Holy Covenant’ ten thousand years ago when the Star Ocean Imperium was founded, and it was even less possible for the Covenant Alliance to have been created in the Great Dark Age earlier because the entire universe was ruled by demons back then.

“In other words, until the Star Ocean Imperium collapsed ten thousand years ago, the worlds which worshipped the Pangu civilization and observed the Three Fundamental Laws had been dominated by ‘normal people’ who had feelings and free will.

“The local governors could’ve been Cultivators or dictators with the immature ideas of the Immortal Cultivators, but they couldn’t have been the desireless and emotionless puppets, much less the reborn members of the Pangu Clan, right?”

Li Yao was slightly stunned because he had never considered the problem before. He couldn’t help but nod his head. “It seems… correct. Take the Heaven’s Origin Sector for example. Although the Heaven’s Origin Sector is at the edge of the cosmos, we have never forgotten the glories of the Star Ocean Imperium but regarded ourselves as the descendants of the Supreme Emperor. The memories are still fresh after ten thousand years.

“The worlds under the control of the Covenant Alliance can’t be more remote than the Heaven’s Origin Sector. So, the people who dominated the places at the beginning were naturally the good or bad experts, who should’ve been perfectly normal human beings with feelings.”

“That’s right.”

Long Yangjun said, “If it were ‘normal human beings’ who lived in those worlds at the beginning, how exactly did they abandon their feelings and become cold, heartless puppets step by step?

“Even if they had indeed excavated tremendous relics of the Pangu Clan, or even certain…’brainwashing temples’ as you put it, which could be dated back to the primeval age, they could’ve totally made use of what was beneficial for themselves and abandon what was harmful. Just because they utilized the technologies and the magical equipment left by the Pangu civilization did not mean that they had to become the puppets of the Pangu Clan again!

“Think about it. If it were you who discovered a massive relic of the Pangu civilization, would your first thought not to learn and digest the technologies inside and not to repair all the powerful magical equipment, but to send your head into a certain weird device to be washed?”

Li Yao shook his head and said, “I certainly wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course, you are not an idiot, and you wouldn’t do that at all.”

Long Yangjun said, “But were the initial people of the Covenant Alliance all idiots, who were willing to be the Pangu civilization’s most loyal slaves, most docile livestock, and the most precise tools for no good reason at all?”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Li Yao thought for a long time. “Then… did somebody force them to do that?”

“Perhaps. This is exactly what I want to find out through my ‘social experiment’.”

Holding her arms, Long Yangjun sat on a primeval corpse that had already fossilized and swung her legs while she continued, “I am different from you. You have been educated with the ideas of the Cultivators since young, and you have fought for the ideas of the Cultivators your entire life. In the meantime, you have received the most copious returns, and you have become an indispensable part of a world of Cultivators. You are even some sort of ‘symbol’. It is safe to say that your personal worth is highly realized on the path of the Cultivators. Their ideas have been completely melted into your life and cannot be excised at all.

“Making you doubt or even object to the ideas of the Cultivators is like to force you to cut your flesh or even kill yourself. It is absolutely impossible.

“But I am different from you. The dual bloodlines that I carry and my unique fate allow me to see the complicated universe and the paths, which each had their own characteristics, from four different perspectives. I am a person from ancient times, but I can also be a moderner. I can be a member of the Pangu Clan, but I can also be one of the Nuwa Clan. I can even free myself from all the identities and just be a lonely yet unique ‘observer’, who wanders in the universe among the three thousand Sectors.

“Observers know a game better than its participants. The difference between you and me lies not in the computational ability or the thinking patterns, but in the fact that I am more unrestrained than you. Therefore, my ideas are less hindered by stances and preconceptions, which allows me to think more calmly and less emotionally.

“As a Cultivator, when you heard about a country such as the ‘Alliance of the Holy Covenant’, you will feel disgusted and rejective intuitively, believing that the Covenant Alliance is even more violative of humanity than the Imperium of True Human Beings is.

“But for me, there is no such thing as ‘humanity’ at all. Or rather, the two extreme approaches—to release the feelings as much as possible and to repress them as much as possible—are both parts of ‘humanity’. What intrigues me more is not whether the Covenant Alliance is right or evil, but how it was born, how it rose, and where it will go to. Why did the initial people of the Covenant Alliance willingly abandon their feelings? If they were forced to do it, then who forced them?

“Do you not think that if someone did force the initial people of the Covenant Alliance to abandon their feelings, that person would, in fact, be the worst villain of all?

“Since half of me carries the legacy of the Pangu civilization, there is a connection between me and the people of the Covenant Alliance who admire Pangu as their supreme god. It is naturally my obligation to consider the origins and the future of the Covenant Alliance.

“If somebody contorts the philosophies of the Pangu civilization and is doing evil things under Pangu’s banner, they will be ‘false gods’ and ‘evil gods’, and I must destroy them as a ‘true god’, don’t I?

“Of course, when I just came to the Imperium from the federation, I hadn’t thought so much yet. At that time, I had just awakened all the heritages inside my body. It felt that I just opened my eyes after I was reborn. I only wanted to travel and get to know this… beautiful but strange new world.”

Long Yangjun seemed to become tired after a long time of talking. Leaning against the giant corpse of the primeval creature, she smiled at Li Yao lazily and said, “Do you want to know my experiences in the few years after I left the federation? That is a long story that I wouldn’t tell to anybody else. I’m only willing to tell you because of our special relationship.”

“Wait, let’s get one thing straight first—”

Li Yao felt that his hair was all rising. “What ‘special relationship’ do we have exactly? You must not be ambiguous about that!”

“Thanks to your hospitality, I was brought to the Star Glory Federation from the Ancient Sages Sector. At that time, I certainly clung to the thigh of Vulture Li Yao, the dominator of three Sectors and the founding father of the federation, a lot.”

Long Yangjun said, “In return, you clung to my thigh without any courtesy after the battle against Blackstar the Great, didn’t you? Therefore, we are in a relationship of ‘mutual thigh-clinging’. Isn’t that a special relationship?”

Stunned for a long time, Li Yao gave up resisting. “Fine, whatever you say. After all, I am a righteous man, and I am not scared of gossip. Just go on!”

He sat straight with his legs crossed before the giant corpse and said with his eyes glowing, “Tell me now. What exactly have you been through in the Imperium? For the record, while I am a firm, unwavering Cultivator, it does not mean that I am an obstinate, stubborn fundamentalist. Since you know me well, you should know that I am always ready to rectify my mistakes. After all, I’m already used to being slapped in the face by other people with their ideas. If you have a point, I will simply borrow your point and melt it into my beliefs, and I will certainly not persist in my own theories doggedly!”

“I knew that you would be a communicable friend.”

Long Yangjun said with a smile, “Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother to tell you those things.”

Long Yangjun began to tell her own story unhurriedly.

She told Li Yao that she did not lie to him when she was awakened in the Ancient Sages Sector at the beginning, and she never kept the legacy of the Pangu Clan a secret on purpose.

It was because she did not know her bizarre, twisting past, that she was a warrior of the Nuwa Clan who was corrupted by certain uncanny forces of the Pangu civilization in a certain way.

Later, after the fierce battles and the extraordinary views she saw in the Star Glory Federation, the strengths of the dual heritages gradually awakened inside her body.

It was not until “Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan” activated his plan, and both she and Li Yao fell into the virtual space where they were faced with the enormous energy of the extraterrestrial devils, that her heritages were completely awakened.

The Pangu civilization and the Nuwa civilization, order and freedom, law and chaos—two opposite strengths immediately began a fierce battle inside her brain, splitting her personality and making her lost.

She left the federation at that time because she intended to find somewhere peaceful and quiet in the vast space to sort through the messy but overwhelming strength inside her body. Otherwise, if she had gone out of control while she was in the Star Glory Federation, it wouldn’t have been anything good for either herself or the federation.