Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Sister Qingqing and I are pure friends,” Li Yao said solemnly. “You can stop being so nosy. Also, my primary purpose is to visit my professor to figure out the truth about the collapse of the Virtual Spirits Sector and Lu Qingchen!

“Listen up. This is my plan.

“Soon, Ling Xiaole of the Secret Sword Bureau will come and lead me to the Tinder Base. I prepared to go there alone. But since you’ve already guessed so much, you might as well come with me. We can take care of each other if something goes wrong.

“After we reach the Tinder Base and get to know the Tinder Plan, we will certainly speak to Professor Mo Xuan. I will take the chance to ask him why he left the production team of Civilization and why he and Professor Yuan Manqiu got divorced.

“After everything is sorted out, I’ll contact my wife through Professor Mo Xuan’s communication route. As one of the most influential celebrities in the federation, Professor Mo Xuan must have his private routes that connect to the capital city or the Grand Desolate War Institution. Also, Ding Lingdang is from the Grand Desolate War Institution and was in a good relationship with Professor Mo Xuan. Even if Professor Mo Xuan cannot reach out to Jin Xinyue, he can certainly speak to my wife!

“Alright. After I contact my wife through professor and tell her the good news that I’m back, we will be able to communicate with the federal army through my wife and gain part of the control permissions of the Hundred Flowers Space Zone. At the very least, we can summon a batch of troops or soldiers of the Patriots Front.

“After my wife learns everything, and with the support of the Patriots Front and the federal army, we will return and tell the truth to the other ten experts of the Ancient Sages Sector. We will tell them that I am in fact Monster Li. When they are flabbergasted and soaked in sweat, I will talk sense into them and allure them with benefits. In their astonishment and gratitude, can they do anything but join the federation?

“Even if something goes wrong, I will have arranged a lot of experts from the federation. We’ll have everything covered.

“In such a case, before the enemy knows it, the federation will have gained ten experts at the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage and even two in the Divinity Transformation Stage!

“I don’t care about the tricks and schemes of the enemy. This time, I’m going to beat them with overwhelming strength! When the enemy plays all their moves and thinks that they are sure to win, the twelve ancient Cultivators will slap them in their face! Tell me. How can we lose the battle?

“This is my plan. Simple, straightforward, and absolutely effective. Do you feel that it is secure?”

Long Yangjun frowned and pondered for a moment. “Probably… I guess?”

“That will do!” Li Yao clapped his hands. “Of course, if time allows, and if we happen to run into each other, it is perfectly understandable to bid farewell to Sister Qingqing, catch up with her, and ask her to bring bliss to the people in billions of years’ time!

“Alright. Enough talking. Ling Xiaole is here. Let’s go to the Tinder Base to meet Professor Mo Xuan!”

…

Hundred Flowers City, at the center of the vast Hundred Flowers Space Zone near the overlapping gravity sphere of the two stars, was made of an array of hundreds of round space stations. Not counting the workers and their family on the hundreds of ‘space gates’ nearby, the main district alone already had a population of 150 million.

Although it was not the largest space metropolis in the Star Glory Federation, it was definitely a ‘future city’ with the highest education on average and the most cutting-edge techniques and arts.

Because it was at the center of the sailing routes of the federation, it was naturally suitable to be a center of transportation and data interaction, which also attracted the talents of the seven Sectors and countless sects, groups, research teams, and academic institutions related to crystal processors and the Spiritual Nexus to migrate to this place. After decades of development, especially after the core database and super computation center of the ‘grand-unified Spiritual Nexus’, the control and interaction center of ‘Civilization’, and ‘Future University of the Star Glory Federation’ were established there one after another, the city became the well-deserved ‘think-tank’ of the federation.

According to the statistics, of the Gai-level super crystal processors in the federation, which had the highest computational ability nationwide, Hundred Flowers City had one, and of the Jing-level super crystal processors secondary to the Gai-level, the city had sixty-nine, which was more than one third of the total. The city was an out-and-out city of crystal processors.

It was thanks to the computation, analysis, interaction, and transmission of the super crystal processors that the smoothness of the sailing routes and the stability of the grand-unified Spiritual Nexus were ensured.

After Li Yao and Long Yangjun boarded the shuttle that was the shape of a silver waterdrop under the lead of Ling Xiaole, the half fox demon, and travelled inside Hundred Flowers City without a sound, they truly felt the extraordinariness and profoundness of the city that far exceeded Fish Dragon City, Firefly, or the orbit city in the Uranian Ring Sector.

From the outside, Hundred Flowers City was a perfect cube made of hundreds of balls that were dozens of kilometers in diameter and had absolutely no flaws on the surface.

Such a shape that was in complete violation of natural law and the universe’s regular form was the best symbol of mankind’s ambition to challenge nature.

However, when the shuttle travelled inside Hundred Flowers City, it seemed to be travelling in a splendid natural landscape.

They were travelling on a boundless prairie and appreciating the cows and goats through the transparent floor below their feet, then seeing lakes in the middle of raging deserts and the green oases next to them, and then passing through deep, dark canyons reaching primitive forests. They witnessed the exotic views on many resource planets. It was truly dazzlingly beautiful.

Such natural views were all the illusions constructed by super large-scale 3D light beams.

Such facilities were almost installed in every space city with limited space as a virtual comfort for human beings who originated from a planet.

The illusions in Hundred Flowers City were particularly vivid and almost felt real. One might even say that they were an enormous Grand Illusionary Land that covered the entire city.

Normal people would inevitably feel that they were on a certain planet as the scenes changed several times.

“Future University lies in the ‘mountains’ up ahead. It is a supreme university founded together with the New Federation. The most excellent talents in the seven Sectors have been gathered there.

“The silver, egg-shaped buildings in the ‘deserts’ are the data interaction and control center of the game ‘Civilization’. Also, the production center for new plots and new DLCs is here, too. For the needs of the super crystal processors, the climate here has been set to be very dry.

“In front of us is the Tinder Base.”

Ling Xiaole, Li Yao’s tour guide, wagged her fox tail and introduced the city to them enthusiastically.

While talking, the little girl stuck her tongue out. “I must thank you for bringing me here. Many research centers and bases in Hundred Flowers City are not open to outsiders. Even I did not have a chance to visit them even though I am a distinguished employee of the Secret Sword Bureau… Wow!”

After the shuttle moved into the Tinder Base, the picture in front of their eyes changed drastically into a dirty undersea world, as if they had passed through a nonexistent gate or pierced through a bubble.

No. It was not a dark, blue ocean as seen today but one from the time when the planet was just born. Volcanoes were erupting at the bottom everywhere, turning the ocean into a pot of boiling soup. Black pillars of smoke were rising from the highly unstable prehistoric ocean, like the hands of fiends that were extending from the cracks at the bottom of the ocean.

However, it was exactly because of the amazing reactions between the precious metals and minerals brought by such ‘fiend hands’ from the depths of the crust and the materials in the seawater and the raw air that the first batch of monads was born.

Although they knew that it was just an illusion, Li Yao and Long Yangjun were still greatly astounded by such a magnificent picture of a prehistoric undersea world.

The Tinder Base seemed to have a deeper meaning by setting up such illusions at its edge.

The shuttle kept pushing forward. As if they were travelling through a channel of time, the illusions around them were changing nonstop, too. The undersea volcanoes gradually fell dormant. The seawater turned shallower. Thick ancient fungi grew out of the craters around the ancient volcanos and extended to the end of the ocean like a white carpet. The prehistoric ocean creatures who fed upon the ancient fungi gradually showed up, too. Red algae, green algae, trilobite, Anomalocaridids, nautili, Devonian fish…

Aya!

The shuttle moved forward from the prehistoric ocean to the medieval ocean. Suddenly, it leapt out of the ocean and barged into a paradise of gymnosperm and fern. All kinds of reptiles and enormous insects were growing blatantly inside the woods. A monster that looked like a tyrannosaur crawled out of the dense forest and opened its bloody mouth at them, as if it was about to swallow the shuttle whole.

Naturally, the shuttle was safe and sound, but Ling Xiaole did utter a half-true-half-fake exclamation.

After a brief period of darkness, mammals and primates gradually replaced the reptiles and governed the world. Very soon, a few apes with black hair all over their body whose eyebrows were high and cheeks hollow became the focus of the picture. They were dancing around a campfire. An enormous starship of the Pangu Clan seemed to be observing them coldly from the sky.

Starting from that scene, time began to flow much faster. The twigs in the hands of the apes turned into sticks, the sticks transformed into stone axes, and the stone axes evolved into bronze spears. Flying swords showed up, armor appeared, and caves and tree houses turned into pavilions and into flying mountains and islands in the sky. It was the first brilliant and glorious outbreak of the civilization of mankind, the age of the ancient Cultivators!

After that, it was thirty thousand years of the Great Dark Age that was dominated by demons, followed by the Star Ocean Imperium. Then, the second collapse caused by the Armageddon Rebellion and the second renaissance that came right next. In the end, seven broken worlds at the edge of the cosmos were condensed into the Star Glory Federation…

From the birth of ancient creatures, to the enlightenment of the Pangu civilization, to the hundred thousand years of development of the civilization of mankind, the whole civilization’s history was reflected in the ‘time channel’ that was not very long.

Every illusion stood for a phase of the development of life, but the skyscrapers and the tide of starships that represented today’s Star Glory Federation were only put at the second to last phase. The last phase, which should have represented the ‘future’ of the civilization of mankind, was actually a picture of many silver metal balls that were floating in midair like balloons. There was no telling what it meant.

As if they sensed that honorable guests had arrived, all the silver metal balls melted like liquids, before they turned into four huge, glittering words.

“Tinder Lives, Civilization Lives.”