Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Curly Dragon, Medicine Fork, Martial Meritocrat, and Sand Primitive…”

Li Yao was in a daze. He felt as if he had gone back to more than a hundred years ago, when the Immortal Cultivator Su Changfa ‘brainwashed’ him for the first time on Kunlun.

To this day, he still remembered the Curly Dragon Civilization, which was eventually trapped on the ground because the resources on the mother planet had been too abundant and the people lost their vision; the Medicine Fork Civilization, which grew too feeble because of over-medication and eventually perished in a virus outburst; and the Martial Meritocrat Civilization, which introduced the Sand Primitive natives into the country without identification and education and embraced its own death.

He remembered the remnants of the starships in the empty ports of the Curly Dragon Civilization, which were rusted and riddled with holes and could never soar into the sky. He remembered the land of the Medicine Fork Civilization which was scattered with bodies after the outburst of the virus. He remembered how the last Cultivator of the Martial Meritocrat Civilization, the young man who later became ‘Blackstar the Great’ Wuying Qi, struggled desperately in the magma after he was thrown into a volcano.

Could everything… really be changed?

Ling Xiaole gave Li Yao an advanced portable crystal processor for ‘Civilization’.

The mini crystal processor was directly connected to the database of the game center. It was very convenient to retrieve the game records of most of the public worlds, or rather, the history of the rise and decline of different civilizations.

By clicking on the icons on the light beam softly, one would be able to appreciate the brand-new paths for the Curly Dragon Civilization, the Medicine Fork Civilization, and the Martial Meritocrat Civilization in the virtual world from the very beginning.

The scale of time had been highly compressed. Every second in reality represented one month in the virtual world. Streams of information were pouring down like waterfalls, displaying the major events that happened in the game.

Holding his breath, Li Yao saw three paths that were completely different from the original brainwashing illusions.

He saw that the governors of the Curly Dragon Sector fought against the laziness and shortsightedness that human beings were born with time and time again and marched into space without bothering about the cost. They gritted their teeth through it no matter what gory sacrifices they were forced to pay. In the end, before the resources on the mother planet went completely dry, they had completed the construction of the Deep Sky Fleets that could fly across Sectors, endowing the people of the Curly Dragon Sector with the ability to sail and cruise through the sea of stars.

He saw that some of the people of the Medicine Fork Sector realized the flaws of their civilization in advance and intentionally built a few ‘dirty rooms’ that were different from the ‘sterile world’ outside. They lived inside the rooms to keep their immunity. When the final plague broke out, they struggled to survive while remaining united and invented a lot of brand-new techniques. They did physical exercises and built up their body from scratch, awakening the powerful genes that had hibernated for a long time. Eventually, they defeated the virus and the plague, and the civilization sprouted and blossomed on the scarred land again.

He saw that the Martial Meritocrat Civilization realized the danger of opening the country to others recklessly through small-scale social experiments. They gave up their ignorant kindness and unprepared innocence and went into the Sand Primitive Sector with the overwhelming advantage of their civilization. During the hundred years of governing and edifying, most of the Sand Primitive natives were assimilated before their new generations were slowly introduced into the Martial Meritocrat Sector.

“Those are three videos that have the highest ‘completion rate’ in the highest difficulty, but they are certainly not the only solutions,” Ling Xiaole said. “Today, countless players have come up with many different solutions to save the civilizations. Although many of the solutions can be called bizarre if not deviant, they do share one thing in common—none of the players have ever crossed the boundaries of Cultivators and human beings.

“Different from the brainwashing that the Immortal Cultivators gave Li Yao more than a hundred years ago, every detail in the highest difficulty is real, and every problem exists objectively in the real world. They are even more serious than the crises that the real civilizations once faced before.

“99% of the players failed, but after millions of failures, someone finally successfully pushed the three civilizations forward by more than a thousand years! It is enough to prove that, however complicated, difficult, and dangerous it is, the road to brightness still exists!”

Li Yao did not respond to her because he was still dwelling in the brand-new worlds of the three civilizations.

He slowed down the speed of the timeline and enlarged the pictures on the light beam, observing the flourishing cities and the smiling faces in the Curly Dragon Civilization, the Medicine Fork Civilization, and the Martial Meritocrat Civilization.

Although he knew that everything was the virtual representation of the crystal processor, he still felt extremely comforted and satisfied.

In such a Martial Meritocrat Sector, even if there was still a young man named ‘Xiao Qi’, he must be fighting for a more beautiful future and would never become ‘Blackstar the Great’ Wuying Qi, right?

Observing Li Yao’s reaction from nearby, Ling Xiaole suddenly shook her hands. Rays shot out of her crystal processor and condensed into a vivid flower in her fingers, which she handed over to Li Yao.

“Although the Curly Dragon Civilization, the Medicine Fork Civilization, and the Martial Meritocrat Civilization are already long gone, I think that the people who once lived in the civilizations will be greatly consoled if they see that their worlds can become so beautiful from the heavens, won’t they?

“Do you want to give them a flower to commemorate the civilizations that were scattered in the universe but have been gone for a thousand years and for the brothers and sisters that we will never have the chance to meet?”

Li Yao took a deep breath and nodded, picking up the nonexistent virtual flower from Ling Xiaole.

Ling Xiaole smiled and went on. “For many people, the first thing they do after coming to the game center is to offer flowers to the deceased civilizations. Every virtual flower costs one star coin. Whenever a player buys one flower, more than a hundred and twenty groups and sects that have signed strategic agreements with ‘Civilization’ offer another star coin. All the star coins will be transferred to a special fund.

“The purpose of the fund is to send unmanned exploration starships into the depths of the universe, especially at the edge of it, to look for the civilizations of human beings that are not within the range of the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance and have been lost for ten thousand years since the collapse of the Star Ocean Imperium.

“The Curly Dragon Civilization, the Medicine Fork Civilization, and the Martial Meritocrat Civilization have been destroyed, but we believe that there must be more civilizations of our own kind in the boundless sea of stars, which are struggling in the darkness without any reinforcements, in dire need of help.

“Although our exploration has been futile for decades, the work will never stop until the federation dies. We will find them and tell them about the existence of the federation. We will tell them that a brighter future… does exist!”

Her words made Li Yao respect the New Federation that had devised the system even more.

Ling Xiaole smiled more delightedly than before, her teeth that were as white as jade glowing. “This flower is my personal gift because there is another popular theory here. If you offer a flower to the brotherly civilizations that have perished deep inside the universe, you will be much luckier when you play the game, just like if you worship God Li Yao. You don’t think that this is superstition, too, do you?”

Li Yao could not help but laugh.

This time, he did not refuse Ling Xiaole’s kindness but raised the virtual flower to the three civilizations that were still thriving and striving in the universe.

The colorful flower cracked into many butterflies, which flew into the three enormous light beams in three streams. They seemed to be dancing merrily on the shoulders of the natives of the Curly Dragon Sector, the Medicine Fork Sector, the Martial Meritocrat Sector, and the Sand Primitive Sector.

“May you rest in peace.”

Crossing her hands nearby, Ling Xiaole mumbled, “Please watch over us, too, and bring good luck to the Star Glory Federation!”

After finishing the ‘local custom’ of offering a flower to the past civilizations, Li Yao and Heiye Lan were led into a VIP room.

As the Speaker’s special representative, Li Yao was there for the purpose of better understanding the New Federation. Naturally, Li Yao did not completely dwell in a certain game like a regular player.

Ling Xiaole had selected more than a hundred highly representative DLCs for Li Yao. They included almost all aspects of the New Federation from the past hundred years.

The DLCs did not necessarily have to be played. As long as one watched the classic performance of the experts, they would develop a deep and thorough understanding about the great events in the New Federation in the past hundred years.

However, the first two worlds displayed by Ling Xiaole were wastelands that were full of darkness and desolation.

“In the adult ceremony of all the people in the federation, and before they are granted the right to enter the real world of ‘Civilization’, they have to complete a series of virtual lessons first. In the virtual lessons, they will be shown the worlds that have failed and died because of bad decisions, which will remind them how tricky and dangerous a civilization’s march is and that they will be doomed forever after a moment of carelessness!”

What Ling Xiaole presented to Li Yao were two worlds that were adapted based on the real history of the New Federation.

In the two virtual worlds, the decision-makers both made choices that were the opposite of what had happened in reality.

The ‘key decision point’ of the first failed world was seventy years ago, when the Star Glory Federation, which only had the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector, first encountered the Water Crystal Sector that was seriously short of all resources except crystals.

In reality, both parties had remained as calm as possible. The hawks within the federation had been suppressed, too. After a long negotiation, both parties had made great compromises for a merger.

But in the virtual world, that had failed; the hawks in the federation had won.

“The desert barbarians have nothing. They can’t even build a starship. On what grounds are they occupying so many crystal mother lodes? For the development of the federation, and to resist the Imperium of True Human Beings, we must swallow the Water Crystal Sector as quickly as possible!”

Such voices became mainstream in the parliament and the military.

The federation in the virtual world waged a war of conquest on the Water Crystal Sector aggressively.

The war went very well. As the hawks said, the civilization in the Water Crystal Sector that barely had any metal resources and could not produce a starship was unable to resist the federation at all. The surface of the mother planet was soon occupied by the invaders.

However, the harsh environment of the Water Crystal Sector, as well as the unpredictable guerilla teams in the desert, became the greatest headache for the occupants, alliance of the mining industry and resource syndicates.

Even the natives who did not dare join the guerilla teams were at least bold enough to blow up all the mines, making the highly unstable crystals explode.

The mining bases were seriously damaged, and the cost was too high. The war that was waged at great expenses became a loss and seriously slowed down the development of the federation. The projects raised in the Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage a hundred years ago were all affected.

Before the people of the federation had time to regret, even more depressing things happened.