Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

A month had passed since the Star Picking Plan began.

However dangerous the Star Picking Plan was, and whatever unpredictable consequences it might bring, the benefits of the plan were obvious.

First of all, the plan prevented the Ancient Sages Sector from taking the Imperium of True Human Beings’ sides immediately and the Black Wind Fleet from acquiring a base with abundant spiritual energy, resources and cannon fodder that it could take advantage of.

If the Black Wind Fleet truly acquired such a base, it would be able to recover from the consumption and exhaustion in the hundred-year journey within a year and a half. They would show up in front of the Star Glory Federation with in their most terrifying form, utterly refreshed and prepared. In such a case, the federation would barely stand any chance of winning.

Without such a ‘delaying tactic’, it would’ve been impossible for Li Yao and Long Yangjun to stop the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators and the eight Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators from sending a signal to the Black Wind Fleet through Heiye Lan.

Even if Li Yao had sent a signal to the Star Glory Federation at the same time, and the federal fleet and the Black Wind Fleet arrived at the Ancient Sages Sector simultaneously, Li Yao wouldn’t have high hopes in the federal fleet’s combat ability in such head-on clashes.

A hundred years ago, in the ‘Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage’ in the Star Glory Federation, the general principles to defend the federation had been settled. They would focus most of their attention on counteroffensive battles by taking advantage of the territory of their homeland. Marching reckless and attacking the Black Wind Fleet deep inside the dark nebula were not in their favor. Fighting the enemy’s strong suits with one’s weaknesses was a military taboo that should be avoided.

Secondly, the plan allowed the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators from the ‘ancient era’ to appreciate the wonders of the modern Cultivation civilization. Li Yao believed that he could at least sway the majority of them and therefore achieve a sincere partnership between the federation and the Ancient Sages Sector. It was even possible that the Ancient Sages Sector would join the federation genuinely and become its indispensable part!

The trend of the universe was unstoppable. Li Yao truly believed that the Star Glory Federation represented the future of the civilization of mankind and was much more advanced than the Imperium or the Covenant Alliance. As long as they saw it with their own eyes and experienced it in person, most of the ancient Cultivators would certainly be attracted to it.

It was where Li Yao’s belief lied. He couldn’t suspect or waver about that.

The Star Glory Federation would march to the center of the cosmos one day and bring a whole new future to all the human beings including the citizens of the Imperium and those of the Covenant Alliance!

If it couldn’t even fascinate a bunch of ‘ancient people’, how could it expect to attract, assimilate and liberate the citizens of the Imperium and the citizens of the Covenant Alliance?

Meng Chixin and the rest of them considered the Star Picking Plan an open scheme, one that the federation couldn’t resolve even if it was seen through.

But for Li Yao, the plan was also an open scheme, one where an advanced civilization assimilated an underdeveloped civilization.

Li Yao believed that the Star Glory Federation made of Ding Lingdang, Guo Chunfeng, Jin Xinyue, the Fire Ant King, Professor Mo Xuan, Fiend Blade Peng Hai, Xiong Wuji, Lei Dalu, Bai Kaixin and all his other family, friends and compatriots would certainly not disappoint him after a hundred years of rapid development!

It was the most important reason why he was fully devoted to the Star Picking Plan.

Besides, another benefit that was much more straightforward when the Star Picking Plan was pushed forward at a super high speed was that Li Yao, as the ‘technical director’ of the whole plan, received the magical equipment and jade chips from the Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun, the two Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, who had collected the items from all over the Nuwa warship for decades. He was also free to study the more than ten intact Colossi and the debris of even more Colossi. He even received the trust of Heiye Lan, the female warrior from the Imperium, and was able to glean the technological intelligence about the Imperium from her!

Heiye Lan was just a warrior. The infiltration operation that she was forced to carry out because of the accident had far exceeded her abilities. She was already completely exhausted after making it to this step.

After Long Yangjun told her the camouflaged Star Picking Plan, claiming that the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector had decided to sneak into the federation for sabotage in cooperation with the Black Wind Fleet, she did not notice anything wrong.

Or rather, she never thought even in her dreams that the bodacious, insane ‘ancient people’ would have the courage to consider allying with such an insignificant country like the Star Glory Federation under the threat of the magnificent Imperium!

Even if she was suspicious, there was nothing she could do.

The barriers and secret techniques of the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators were not to be got rid of easily. Her resistance would only lead to tougher and crueler treatments. If anything, the situation would only be tenser.

Therefore, after much deliberation, Heiye Lan decided to fully cooperate with the twelve experts.

She was born in a noble family in the Imperium of True Human Beings, and she was the daughter of the commander of the Black Wind Fleet. Although her specialty was the Colossus, she had learnt a fair amount of knowledge in terms of the navigation and piloting of starships and the emergent maintenance of various kinds of magical equipment.

Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible for her to force the assault warship to land on the Ancient Sages Sector on her own after all the crew members on ‘Weary Tooth’ were ripped apart by the storms in the four-dimensional space.

In the Star Picking Plan, she was temporarily working as Li Yao’s acolyte and carried out the maintenance and examination work on the crystal suits, Colossi, starship and other advanced magical equipment together with him.

On the other hand, she was also responsible for teaching some of the twelve experts the basic skills to maneuver a starship.

Long Yangjun was the first one to volunteer to study the arts of starship piloting from Heiye Lan.

In such a case, even if she showed amazing expertise on starship piloting half a year later, she would be able to ask Heiye Lan to take all the credit.

The terms in return that the twelve experts of the Ancient Sages Sector offered to Heiye Lan were that, after the Star Picking Plan was activated, Heiye Lan would be brought to the Star Glory Federation together, so that she could collect the first-hand data about the federation.

It was the only solution. They couldn’t keep Heiye Lan in the Ancient Sages Sector, which might lead to more changes. Besides, if they were to sit on the fence, they would need someone who could directly speak to the Black Wind Fleet, too.

Naturally, on Li Yao’s side, he wanted to get Heiye Lan, the daughter of the commander of the Black Wind Fleet, to the federation, too, so that the Secret Sword Bureau under Guo Chunfeng’s lead would elicit more intelligence from her.

The poor Heiye Lan had no idea that those ‘ancient people’ were so shrewd at all. They were simply considering her a fish on a chopping block and rolling her over while they pondered where they should cut her open.

To facilitate the cooperation between the Ancient Sages Sector and the Imperium of True Human Beings, she was truly confessing a lot of technological secrets dutifully and earnestly.

Many technical manuals from the Imperium of True Human Beings in terms of the maintenance of crystal suits, Colossi and starships had been outputted into jade chips and given to Li Yao.

From Heiye Lan’s perspective, ‘Master Spiritual Vulture’ was an ancient Cultivator after all. No matter how remarkable his ‘ancient refining arts’ were, how on earth could he possibly understand the most complicated, state-of-the-art technologies from the Imperium of True Human Beings?

Little did she know that the ‘Master Spiritual Vulture’ had in fact been swapped since a long time ago. The guy standing before her was in fact one of the most frightening refiners in the Star Glory Federation!

When he was still in the federation, Li Yao had already studied a lot of the secret technologies from the Imperium of True Human Beings by analyzing the crystal suits and starship brought over by Su Changfa and his fellow Immortal Cultivators.

However, Su Changfa and his teammates were not real warriors after all, but some sort of ‘pioneers’. They did not bring ultimate weapons such as the ‘Colossus’ together with them, either.

Heiye Lan’s jade chips helped Li Yao to fill the most critical missing part.

Fascinated, Li Yao was completely devoted to the new knowledge, devouring the maintenance manuals of crystal suits, Colossi and starships from the Imperium of True Human Beings crazily.

…

Two months had passed since the Star Pick Plan was activated.

After the full examination and testing in the first month, the twelve experts had all chosen a Colossus to their liking. They began the quick training of the crystal suits and the Colossus under the guidance of Meng Chixin, Wu Suiyun and Heiye Lan.

They were smart and quick-minded Cultivators above the high level of the Nascent Soul Stage after all. Naturally, the progress of their learning was very fast.

Also, the preliminary usage of the Colossus wasn’t so hard to grasp.

When Li Yao piloted the Colossus for the first time, he was already able to launch an ultimate skill and execute a member of the Pangu Clan.

It was true that he had the assistance of ‘Little Black’ at that time. But right now, the Cultivators had more time to learn than he did. Naturally, they were getting the hang of the Colossus very quickly.

As the ‘technical director’, Li Yao had the full knowledge on the performance features of every Colossus and the combat style of every expert. He also finished deploying all the ‘backdoors’ during times of maintenance and modification.

The backdoors he installed on the Colossi and the crystal suits Heiye Lan brought to the Ancient Sages Sector could mainly be classified into three categories.

The first category of ‘backdoors’ was used to determine the location.

As long as they were activated remotely through special telepathic thoughts, the specific location of the target would be displayed on his receptor clearly.

The second category of ‘backdoors’ could also be activated remotely. Once activated, they would generate weird space waves, making the device unable to be absorbed into a Cosmos Ring.

Its effect was basically the same as the barriers Long Yangjun imposed on the Thousand Stars Tray.

Ancient Sages Sector was an enclosed world. Many secret treasures had been passed on from the primeval era, including tremendous Cosmos Rings.

The storage space of the Cosmos Rings in this Sector was much larger than that of the Cosmos Rings the federation gathered from the edge of the universe.

During the Dragon Spring Meeting, Yan Liren once unleased an enormous sword dozens of meters long from one of his Cosmos Rings.

Since the Cosmos Ring could accommodate such a giant blade, it was definitely capable of accommodating a Colossus no more than thirty meters tall.

If searching in the entire Ancient Sages Sector, more than ten Cosmos Rings of such a level could be found.

It would be too dangerous if twelve dangerous rogues were wandering around carrying a Colossus with them.

Therefore, Li Yao specifically added the ‘safety’. Once activated, they would reduce the inconspicuousness of the Colossi to zero.

The third category of ‘backdoors’ were certainly the barriers to cut the mainframe crystal processor and the engine reactors of the Colossi and to paralyze them.

Li Yao had used up all his wisdom on the backdoors. Even the experts from the Black Wind Fleet arrived, they would still have to vomit blood if they wanted to crack the ‘backdoors’ he installed!