Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

“What is it? What is it exactly?”

Although the flickering light spot was not as intimidating as that of his master, Li Yao felt the most alarmed deep inside his soul.

He sensed the scent of his kind again, except that they were much stronger than Lu Qingchen.

If he and Lu Qingchen were two vipers crouching in the crevices of a rock, then the latest ‘same kind’ were simply giant serpents that could swallow the sun, the moon, and the stars!

One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, a hundred o’clock, a thousand o’clock, ten thousand o’clock. Very soon, a tiny ‘firefly’ flew out of every crystal brain that had been dyed black. Thousands of light spots constituted an ever-changing, splendid swarm that danced around Lu Qingchen’s soul. Then, they

crawled into Lu Qingchen’s soul one after another like brilliant shooting stars.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Lu Qingchen’s soul was already at the peak of his life. Even Li Yao had to avoid it.

But there was nothing he could do about the light spots that had crawled into his soul. He screamed miserably again. This time, it did not seem to be a disguise, but more like he was really going to tear his soul apart and dig out the light spots in order to ease the excruciating pain.

Even Lu Qingchen, who liked to be hung and whipped, could not bear the pain… Li Yao could not imagine it at all.

Very soon, the black smoke and the devilish flames that wreathed Lu Qingchen were shattered and dimmed. Tiny light spots flew out of the wounds and the orifices on his body and gathered in front of him. One moment, they were in the standard square formation, and the next moment, they were

perfectly round. Just like that, they were changing into geometries that were as precise as the atomic number.

Lu Qingchen’s face was twisted, as if he had been haunted.

His soul ripples could not take the form of rules because of the interference of shock and fear.

“It’s you. It’s actually you. It’s… you!”

Lu Qingchen seemed to know the owner of the strength. He was quite respectful or wary of his identity. He stammered, “Professor? Professor!”

The word ‘master’ almost made Li Yao shiver and expose his soul.

‘What was going on? Li Yao was well aware of Lu Qingchen’s experience. Over the past hundred years, only Su Changfa and Professor Mo Xuan were qualified to be his teachers. However, the cluster of weird and powerful light spots did not seem to belong to either Su Changfa or Professor Mo Xuan.

He was a powerful existence that Lu Qingchen had met when he left the federation and travelled in the sea of stars in the form of a remnant soul. Moreover, he had acknowledged him as his master?

As he expected, in the ever-changing cluster of light spots, a calm voice echoed again. “There’s no need to be so courteous, and there’s no need to be so weird. When I granted you your strength, I told you frankly that it was just a deal. I was never your teacher, and you will pay for your strength someday in

the future.

“Now is the time to pay the price.

“But why?

Inside Lu Qingchen’s dark soul, streaks of brightness as sharp as sabers and swords were beaming out and tearing his soul apart.

The damage to his heart was even more severe than the damage to his soul. He roared in excruciating pain, “When I met you in the depths of the sea of stars, I was just a half-dead remnant soul, and you had the unbelievable power to stir the clouds and swallow the stars!

“At that time, you could kill me easily with a telepathic thought. You could even dissect my soul into billions of ‘flakes’ and squeeze out all the secrets deep inside my soul. I wouldn’t be able to fight back at all!

“But you didn’t. Instead, you repaired and strengthened my soul, transforming me from ‘Lu Qingchen’ to ‘Puppet King’!

“You created the ‘Puppet King’ single-handedly. Although I don’t know your real purpose, I feel that everything I did has never deviated from your path. Why didn’t you destroy me in the beginning? Why didn’t you stop me during the process? Why did you suddenly appear when I was about to reach the

peak of glory and slap me off the clouds? Why? Why?”

Li Yao was both clear and confused.

‘What was clear was that he was certain that his guess was correct. While Lu Qingchen was fleeing in a hurry in the sea of stars, he had indeed met with a different fortune. He had encountered this… indescribable cluster of light spots, which had been modified and strengthened into a ‘Puppet King’ with

the help of the latter.

‘What confused him was that, according to the characteristics of the ‘Puppet King’, it had been specially built to corrupt the Spiritual Nexus of the Star Glory Federation and was very specific to the target. Therefore, the cluster of light spots should have a deep grudge with the people of the Star Glory

Federation. How did it crawl out of the ‘Fuxi System’?

When he calmed himself down and listened to the rest of the story, Li Yao almost lost control over his soul and cried out.

“Isn’t the secret deep inside your soul the so-called ‘Star Glory Federation’?

The cluster of light spots was glittering. He said casually, “I’m not interested in the insignificant small countries at the edge of the sea of stars. In fact, as long as alll the resources in the center of the sea of stars are utilized perfectly, however many small, desolate countries there are in the periphery of the

sea of stars, they will all be fish on a chopping block. The army will crush them and annihilate them instantly.

“Before the Imperium of True Human Beings is destroyed, it seems unnecessary to waste too much computational ability and time on such insignificant secrets.

“The enemy even knows the Star Glory Federation!”

Li Yao’s soul turned cold. A moment later, he burst into fury again. “How dare you say that the Star Glory Federation is an ‘unimportant small country’? Then, am I, ‘Supreme of the Three Realms’, the father of the federation, Li Yao, an ‘ordinary passerby’ in your eyes, too? That’s outrageous. I can tolerate

it, but I can’t. Whatever the hell you are, you made the biggest mistake by not extracting the background and strength of ‘Vulture Li Yao’ from Lu Qingchen’s soul in time. You are destined to pay a high price as a shining fly!”

“Then why are you making fun of me?”

Just like Li Yao, Lu Qingchen’s self-esteem had been greatly insulted. He roared in fury, “First, you endowed me with such tremendous strength out of nowhere, and now you are taking it back in such an absurd way. Why? Why?”

“Do you still not understand?”

The changing geometries of the light spots were more and more complicated. They turned from the original cubes and balls into forty-two-faceted, eccentric-shaped, and indescribable shapes. “I’m not very interested in your motherland, but you do have certain research and value in person. I sensed your

scent in the vast sea of stars and perceived your potential. You can be refined into the most powerful virus for crystal processor tests.

“What? Intensity test?”

Lu Qingchen mumbled to himself with embarrassment and fury on his face. He gnashed his teeth. “What does that mean?”

“Literally.”

The cluster of light spots continued, “The most dangerous, powerful, and ever-changing virus of crystal processors will be used to test whether or not my defense barrier is solid enough, whether or not the anti-virus and repair system is perfect enough, and whether or not it can resist the mental

corruption of the Spiritual Nexus in all forms, the attacks of crystal processors, and even the soul of human beings.

“Do you understand now? You are a carefully-made ‘vaccine’. By the small-scale, carefully-calculated, and controllable virus flooding throughout the entire process, my self-protection and repair mechanisms are constantly growing, becoming more and more perfect, and even forming a reaction layer

that is similar to my natural instincts. When a virus of the same type as yours appears, it will automatically lock onto and annihilate it without consuming too much of my computational ability.

“In short, you can make me even more perfect. Therefore, I’ve been indulging and even pushing your growth until this moment. Do you understand my existence?”

oa

Lu Qingchen was silent for a long time. His soul was twisted like a rope that was about to break. Li Yao could not tell whether it was hatred or desperation. “I… got it. I was wrong. Very wrong. Hahahaha. In fact, I knew the answer a long time ago. I knew that the Five Great Masters were just five puppets.

But how could I have been stupid enough not to realize who was behind the puppets?

“I mistakenly thought that the manipulators were the sleeping Pangu Clan and some kind of command from the primeval era that was driving the ‘soldier bees’ and the ‘worker bees’ forward.

“In fact, it has always been you, the ‘Fuxi System’, or, to put it simply, ‘Fuxi’

Li Yao did not know whether he should shape his soul into a ‘roaring to the sky’ shape or a trying to cry’ shape.

Fuxi!

The Fuxi System!

So, there was no such thing as a sixth supreme master, or even the so-called ‘five supreme masters’ were just illusions of data and information. They were virtual puppets that did not exist. The truth behind the supreme master was that the ‘Fuxi System’ had come to life?

If so, the ‘Fuxi System’ must’ve been self-aware in the primeval era hundreds of thousands of years ago and became the earliest ‘strong artificial intelligence’. It was much more advanced than Xiao Ming, Wen Wen, the Fist King, and even Li Yao and Lu Qingchen.

It was indeed a piece of cake to take advantage of the situation!

“Crap!”

Li Yao’s soul was all scrunched up. “If the ‘Fuxi System’ had awakened its self-awareness long ago, the space battle network of the entire Holy Accord Alliance would have been an extension of its self-awareness, its internal organs and limbs. If so, wouldn’t we have been wandering around the Spiritual

Nexus among its veins and nerves and been discovered long ago?”

Li Yao suddenly felt that his soul was freezing, as if the ‘shining flies’ would surround him at any moment.

“Don’t be nervous. I don’t think so.”

The mental devil had no idea what was going on, either. It could only try to cheer him up. “Viruses are divided into periods of lurking and outbreak, too. When the virus is lurking, the human body may not be able to sense the virus, and the immune system may not be activated, either!

“Not only is it impossible for ordinary people to destroy all the viruses inside their body, even Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators cannot guarantee that there are no viruses inside their body.

“Right now, Lu Qingchen jumped out of his own accord and was in the state of the outbreak of the virus. Naturally, he was discovered by the ‘Fuxi’. But we have kept a low profile from the beginning to the end. We did not sabotage or hack the ‘Fuxi System’. We are like viruses in hibernation.. How could

they detect us so easily?