Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Everybody fell silent after hearing what Boss Bai said.

Except for Li Yao, all of them were rather shocked.

Possession and reincarnation were not rare, but splitting the soul into five hundred pieces, storing them inside the bodies of mice, and luckily escaping after a hundred years of self-brutalization was too incredible!

Long Yangjun couldn’t help but glance at Li Yao, finally understanding what he meant by “eccentrics”.

“It’s my turn next.”

The Fist King said, “Lei Zonglie is not my real name. I do not have a name. I… am not a human being, but a machine.”

In the calmest tone, the Fist King quietly depicted his struggle and survival, and how he studied on the Land of Sins in the past hundreds of years, including how he spent a long time inside a forsaken library of human beings and gradually awakened his first wisdom there.

He mentioned almost all the things that he never had the opportunity to in his entire life. In the end, he summarized, “I used to think that ‘machine’ was my entirety. Little did I expect that the wizardly chip that Boss Bai brought over would open up new possibilities for me. The more I studied the wizardly chip, the more I felt that something in my fundamental data was simmering with impatience and about to burst out, like grass sprouting again in the broken ice after a cold winter.

“In the past, I did not know what my real destiny was, or what I was going to do after I became the strongest in the universe, but now, I have come to the understanding that if my origins are indeed from the wizardly civilization, I’m bound to find the relics and the survivors of the wizardly civilization. Perhaps I will need to face the Flood or go to Earth, the mysterious world in Li Yao’s dream, together with him.”

“We’re the same.”

Before the Fist King finished, Xiaoming and Wenwen, who had similar life forms to him, shouted, “Our births were probably concerned with Earth too. So, we naturally need to find Earth, look for the origins of our lives, and perfect our life forms. What if all the earthlings look exactly like us? It would be great if we could find six billion partners!”

After everybody confessed their identity, they all focused their eyes on Long Yangjun.

Long Yangjun’s countenance was erratic as she lowered her head, deep in thought for a long time. When she accidentally raised her head, what she saw, however, were the encouraging eyes of Xiaoming and Wenwen.

Long Yangjun was slightly dazed. The corners of her lips rose, as if she were laughing at her own timidity. Taking a deep breath, she said slowly, “My name is Long Yangjun. I am an… ancient person.”

“We know that.”

Boss Bai said, “Being from the Ancient Sages Sector that is covered in the dark nebula, you naturally count as an ‘ancient person’, which is too rare among us so many ‘eccentrics’. Why are you so cautious, Fellow Cultivator Long?”

“No.”

Long Yangjun said expressionlessly, “When I said that I was an ‘ancient person’, I did not mean that I was from the Ancient Sages Sector, but that I was from an earlier time, the primeval age hundreds of thousands of years ago.”

Under the eyes of the stunned Boss Bai and the sparking Fist King, Long Yangjun told her story unhurriedly.

Of course, it also included her speculations on the primeval war, the threat of the Flood, and everything else.

Although the experts at the meeting were capable of communicating in a way dozens of times faster than language, it still took Long Yangjun a good ten minutes before she finally explained her past, her memories, and her deductions.

Her words were like the fiercest space storm that had blown Boss Bai and the Fist King into dizziness, who were not back to themselves until a long time later.

By the time they were finally back to themselves, Boss Bai stared at Long Yangjun for one minute and then at Li Yao for another, before he said with a bitter smile, “Vulture Li Yao, you are truly incredible. It truly baffles me why so many… unbelievable monsters have been gathered around you!”

Li Yao grinned and opened his hands, making the gesture of hugging everyone. He said lightheartedly, “Look, don’t you feel much more comfortable after telling the secrets in your heart, like a heavy burden that you’ve been carrying for a thousand years has been put down? Furthermore, the sky did not fall, and nothing went wrong. We now do not need to be wary of each other or pretend to not know each other’s secrets when we do know. Such awkward situations can be saved, right?”

Boss Bai scratched his stubble. His eyes were small, but the brilliance of those of a tiger was beaming out. Glancing around, he said slowly, “The ‘eccentrics’ of different backgrounds like us perhaps do not count as ‘normal human beings’ in the narrow sense. However, from a different perspective, we are all searching for the ultimate truth through hard work and trying to shape ourselves through the truth. In that case, we are all ‘Cultivators’ in the broad sense, aren’t we?

“Fellow Cultivators, greetings, it’s nice to meet you, and it’s great to fight side by side with you on the path of Cultivation!”

Boss Bao’s summary was exactly what everybody was thinking.

Li Yao, Long Yangjun, the Fist King, Xiaoming, and Wenwen said at the same time, “Fellow Cultivators, greetings.”

Everybody laughed.

“Then—”

Dominating vibe surrounded Boss Bai, as if he were a raging nebula himself. “Now that the fellow Cultivators here have all confessed our secrets to each other, let’s focus on the more concrete subjects! It has occurred to me that the ultimate goals of all the fellow Cultivators here—searching for Earth, searching for the wizardly world, or searching for the truth of the primeval war—are deeply-associated and indispensable. Only by helping each other can we find the truth and our true selves.

“That is the basis of our teamwork, but we are also faced with a common problem, which is one of life and death that the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan were likely to have been faced with in the past. The problem is, should we march out of the ‘Pangu universe’ or not?

“If we march out, it’s possible that we will be discovered by the Flood. By then, not only will we be killed ourselves, but the Pangu universe will also be destroyed. If we do not march out, we will be suffocated in this place, repeating the tragedy of the Pangu civilization’s destruction in the past.

“This is a dilemma. Each option has its own reasons but also extremely high risks. Allow me to give my answer first. We should march out without considering anything!

“Life is itself a gamble with extremely low odds. When the fish march to the seashore in a wild gamble, were they ever scared of the dangers on the continent? The glory of any civilization depends on a hundred percent bravery while fighting for the one percent luck. In the past, the Pangu civilization chose to stay back, and we have seen what happened to them. Should we still copy what they did? Of course not! We should march out and take our chances! Every civilization dies. All that matters is whether the death is splendid or soundless!”

Boss Bai declared passionately.

“I agree with Boss Bai. There are certainly risks. The crucial factors are the probability of risks and the scale of returns.”

The Fist King said calmly, “According to Fellow Cultivator Long’s speculation, the leadership of the Pangu civilization intended to hide in the Pangu universe for hundreds of thousands of years and restore their feelings, desires, and self-will after the Flood ebbed. It is a very reasonable guess.

“Then, isn’t the contemporary age we are at already ‘hundreds of thousands of years later’? At this point, it is highly likely that the Flood has ebbed, and the returns to explore the extraterrestrial lands are highest. There can’t be a better opportunity than here and now.”

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao asked, “It’s true that the Flood has probably ebbed, but what do you mean by saying that the returns are highest now? Can you explain?”

“I’m talking about the remains and the living space.”

The Fist King said, “In nature, the destruction brought by any flood entails the hope of new life. When the floods rage on the land, they will leave fertile mud while they destroy forests, they will bring the life seeds from elsewhere, which will give birth to new creatures while they swallow the old ferocious beasts. I imagine that the Flood in the universe is the same, right?

“After the Flood swallows the civilizations, countless relics will be left behind for the exploration of the survivors. Once we discover the relics of the wizardly civilization, there will be hope for us to master all the technologies and wisdom of the wizardly civilization or even to find new lives to join us. We will establish a brand-new alliance of carbon-based lives—no, an alliance of multiple-form lives, exactly like the Pangu’s alliance in the past.

“After every relic of civilization is found, the grand alliance will be stronger. In the meantime, there can’t be too many hostile, malicious civilizations in the universe right now. They have all been swallowed by the Flood, and it is barely possible for a new-generation powerful civilization to be born after only less than a million years.

“In other words, the civilization of human beings in the Pangu universe is likely to be the greatest beneficiary of the previous outbreak of Flood. As long as we have the courage to march out despite the risks, it is possible that we will harvest the entire universe!”

“Well said!”

Boss Bai couldn’t help but slap the table. “Outside, it’s the infinite treasures and living space that have been left behind after the Flood ebbed. It’s a wasteland where everything in the past has been destroyed. Whoever has the courage to explore and conquer it will be the new master of the grand universe. Or rather, by condensing the strength of thousands of civilizations, it will be possible for us to fight the Flood once again someday in the future!

“Fist King, although we are not the same species, I have to say that I truly like you!”

Xiaoming and Wenwen had similar thinking patterns as the Fist King’s. After hearing what the Fist King said, the two of them immediately began to calculate. A moment later, they nodded their heads at the same time. “Master Fist King is quite right. If we ever have the chance to march out of the Pangu universe in the thousand years to come, it will truly carry the least risks and the highest returns.”

“I have no objection.”

Long Yangjun closed her eyes and said, “The tragedy of the Pangu civilization’s destruction still flashes in my head. There is no need to walk on the wrong path twice.”

Having reached a consensus, everybody looked at Li Yao.

Pondering for a moment, Li Yao smiled and said, “I don’t think we need to worry too much about the problem, because somebody has marched out of the Pangu universe ahead of us not a long time ago!”