Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The red evening glow slowly dimmed, and the setting sun fell below the horizon. Darkness of the night spread like ink and gradually covered Jin Tuyi’s face.

“The third phase will be thirty to fifty years after today.

“During the next thirty to fifty years, the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector will completely meld into a new Sector with two space zones. Also, large wormholes in the Dark Desolate Domain will facilitate easy transportation. The two worlds will be connected seamlessly.

“By then, the wars of the past will have been over thirty to fifty years ago. The new generation after the war will grow up!

“Everybody will have learned the threat of the Imperium of True Human Beings since decades ago. Then, in the textbook for the new generation, paragraphs about the war between human beings and demons will become shorter and shorter, and those elaborating on the formidability and evilness of the Imperium of True Human Beings will become longer and longer.

“Eventually, ideologically speaking, the contradiction between human beings and demons will be replaced by the contradiction between Cultivators and Immortal Cultivators.

“The new generation after the war are unlikely to hate demons as much as their fathers do.

“As the communication goes deeper, the appearances of demons and human beings will be more and more similar. With the propaganda of certain people, the same-origin theory will become very popular. Most of the bottom-level demons will be described as victims who are oppressed by the tyrants. The war thirty to fifty years ago will be blamed on a few insane, ambitious schemers.

“Among the ordinary people, the integration of human beings and demons will accelerate. The relatively mild features of the demon race, such as cat ears, rabbit ears, and furry tails, will be symbols for ‘cute’ and even ‘sexy’. ‘Little demon’ will be used to address the young, beautiful, and attractive girls. Artwork depicting the ‘forbidden love’ between human beings and demons will emerge. Communicating with demons and even falling in love with them will be the new fashion.”

Jin Xinyue listened attentively and pictured a long scroll in her head.

Jin Tuyi coughed for a moment and continued.

“The fourth phase will be fifty years after today.

“By then, human beings and demons should already be fairly close to each other. Also, after decades of labor, demons will have paid off all the reparations. In the meantime, the threat of the Imperium of True Human Beings will be drawing near.

“I estimate that, for victory and survival, the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector and the Flying Star Sector will have no alternatives except to upgrade the previous agency for collaboration into a new political entity. A new country will be established!

“The new country will likely succeed the name and the political system of the Star Glory Federation because the Star Glory Federation is the only country in the three Sectors that has experience in running a super large government. The Blood Demon Sector is like an alliance of tribes. There’s no need to mention the Flying Star Sector, which is essentially loose sand.

“The new Star Glory Federation will be fundamentally different from the federation in the past!

“It is not hard to guess that, when the new federation is established, the leadership of human beings will still be wary of demons. The demons are unlikely to get the same political rights as human beings do. Their rights such as the right to vote will be greatly restricted.

“But it doesn’t matter. Think long term. Agree with them and set up the new federation first!”

Jin Tuyi waved his hands resolutely and announced, “The fifth phase will be seventy years later. The expedition army of the Imperium of True Human Beings will be coming ever closer. To cope with the threat, the new federation will definitely be excavating resources and exploring more worlds crazily.

“By then, the ‘Strengthening Plan for New Human Beings’ will likely be accepted after it is proposed.”

Jin Xinyue frowned and asked, “Father, what is ‘Strengthening Plan for New Human Beings’?”

“Perhaps, you master has told you that I believed that the external features of demons are no longer adapted to the environment and are destined to be discarded,” Jin Tuyi replied in a smile. “Yes, I wasn’t lying, except that I kept something to myself.

“Tusks, claws, wings, tails… Those external features of demons are indeed redundancies that are best to be removed.

“However, what about inside?

“What if the development of the biochemical technology allows someone to activate the primeval cells inside their internal organs, bones, and muscles so that they will boast stronger hearts, lungs, stomachs, and muscle fires while maintaining their appearance as human beings?

“You see, to deal with the Imperium of True Human Beings, we will have to develop many resource planets that are full of venomous fog, which requires workers and immigrants that are much stronger than usual.

“To win the war, we will need stronger soldiers, too!

“Also, in the worst-case scenario, if the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Flying Star Sector are all destroyed and we are forced to flee toward the rough space zones full of magnetic turbulence and cosmic rays, a stronger body will be all the more necessary!

“Develop the ‘controllable primeval cells’ technology, activate part of the primeval cells, combine the advantages of the old demons and the old human beings, and create new human beings who are humans outside but demons inside! This is the ‘Strengthening Plan for New Human Beings’ and the only solution to the Imperium of True Human Beings!”

Jin Xinyue found it hard to believe. “Will the leadership of the federation agree to the proposal?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Jin Tuyi said. “At that time, the ‘same-origin’ theory will have already become prevalent. Everybody will understand that the demon race is just a branch of mankind. The so-called ‘primeval cells’ are the natural-born legacy of human beings, too.

“Besides, their appearance will not be affected at all, but their internal organs, muscles, and bones will be far stronger. What’s bad about that?”

Jin Xinyue pondered for a moment and nodded.

Although she still had a lot of questions, she thought that she had better let her father finish first.

Staring at the two newly-rising bloody moons in the sky, Jin Tuyi casually said, “The sixth phase will be seventy to eighty years from today. After the marriages between human beings and demons, and through the ‘Strengthening Plan for New Human Beings’, most human beings will carry the features of the demon race more or less.

“In the meantime, the miners on the resource planets will be a great political power. Activities demanding equal rights will be more and more frequent.

“The expedition army of the Imperium of True Human Beings will be coming at any moment. How can the new federation be divided at such a moment? In the end, just as the ‘Affirmative Action for Ghosts’ was passed a hundred years ago, ‘Affirmative Action for Demons’ will certainly be approved, too!

“In the new federation, the boundary between demons and human beings will be completely eliminated. Everybody will share the same political rights, including the most precious… right to vote!”

Jin Tuyi smiled. “My dear daughter, did you know that the Speaker of Parliament in the Star Glory Federation, who is also the commander of the federation army and has the power to mobilize the federal army without the approval of the parliament in emergencies, is actually elected by votes!”

Jin Xinyue gasped hard and immediately understood what her father was planning to do!

Although she was a bit startled, she was also surrounded by obscure flames of excitement!

“When the Star Glory Federation was born, there were a lot of contradictions within the country,” Jin Tuyi said. “The contradiction between the major sects, the contradiction between the Cultivators and ordinary people, the contradiction between the major sects and the federal army…

“To coordinate the interests of different parties as best as possible, the Star Glory Federation adopted the system where the Speaker was elected by votes.

“As it happens, the federation has always been at war during the hundreds of years after it was founded. In the war, the power of the highest leader naturally grew larger and larger. It is barely restricted today and probably will never be in the future.”

Jin Xinyue bit her lips softly and stimulated her brain with the slight pain. “Father, how can you be so certain that the new federation in a hundred years will still use the system? Election when a great enemy is coming? It seems better to focus the power in the hands of a strongman, doesn’t it?”

Jin Tuyi shook his head firmly. “No, it doesn’t. The new federation will certainly not do that.

“Think about it. According to our current intelligence, the Imperium of True Human Beings, which is the new federation’s enemy, is a country that has made best use of the advantages of a totalitarian regime. It is an ‘imperium’ after all.

“The new federation is lesser to the Imperium of True Human Beings in terms of territory, technology, techniques, top-tier experts… You name it. How can you expect to compete with them if you choose exactly the same political system as theirs?

“If both countries are playing dictatorship, we might as well surrender to the Imperium of True Human Beings. Why should we stay in the new federation to be bullied by others? We’d better find a master with stronger muscles if we must.

“To fight against the Imperium of True Human Beings, the Flying Star Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Heaven’s Origin Sector are definitely far from enough. In the next hundred years, more worlds will be discovered and explored.

“To attract the new worlds to join the new federation, or at the very least, to prevent the new worlds from joining the imperium, the new federation will have to adopt a system that is entirely the opposite of the imperium’s.

“Cultivators always talk about ‘belief’. In fact, a country has its ‘belief’, too. The political system of the Star Glory Federation is its ‘belief’. It is also perhaps the only part about the country that is better than the Imperium of True Human Beings. How can the country destroy the belief before the war begins?”

Jin Xinyue thought through everything and took a long breath in relief. “That explains a lot. I finally understand what father’s secret weapon is now. It is our population!”

“Exactly.”

The third bloody moon finally rose up. Jin Tuyi’s face was in a trance under the illumination of the three bloody moons, as if he had envisioned what would happen a hundred years later. He observed, “We have lost the war today, with absolutely no chance for a comeback.

“However, if a supreme leader who has the bloodline of demons is elected legally in the ‘Star Glory Federation’ in a hundred years, and there are a lot of descendants of demons in the parliaments who can influence the policies of the new federation, whose victory is it exactly?”

Jin Xinyue was fascinated by the future and breathed heavily.

Glamorous brilliance was beaming out of Jin Tuyi’s eyes, which fell upon his daughter and seemed to cover her in a colorful armor.

“My daughter, I know that you’ve been ambitious since you were young. You were not satisfied as a minor saintess. You always craved to be the unique ‘Dark Lady of Nine Heavens’ of the Pantheon of Demons, preferably the most powerful one in the history of the Blood Demon Sector!

“However, in my eyes, the ‘Dark Lady of Nine Heaven’s is still too insignificant. How can the master of one Sector fit the appetite of my daughter?

“I wonder, what do you think about being the first female Speaker of the ‘Star Glory Federation’ with a demonic bloodline in a hundred years when the Imperium of True Human Beings comes close? What do you think about leading the new federation to crush the imperium and march toward the center of the sea of stars?”