Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao saw a brand-new universe slowly rising in front of him.

Every star in the universe was made of the most brilliant point of an individual’s life.

The ecstasy, fury, sorrow, and happiness that were denser than anything congregated with Li Yao’s soul into a surging, unstoppable galaxy that rushed into the core database of the extraterrestrial devil without meeting any hindrance!

“Ahh! Don’t! Don’t kill me, humans! We’re on the same team…”

The extraterrestrial devil was like a glass ball that was melted. All the tentacles and flagella were burnt up. Plies of wrinkles were even dangling from the silver shell.

Under the massive blast of emotions and will, it screamed desperately and twistedly.

Very soon, the scream turned into bubbling and gurgling sounds. Its core database completely crashed. The energy waves degraded into dim curves, drowned in the reverberation of Li Yao, Professor Mo Xuan, Wei Qingqing, and everybody else!

In reality, the mainframe crystal processor of District 01 space station, the super crystal processors in the Tinder Base, and the bases that were responsible for exchanging information and telepathic thoughts with the seven Sectors around Hundred Flowers City had a series of explosions at the same time!

Without the control of the extraterrestrial devil, the dark void could not hold out any longer. The most fundamental layer of the entire Spiriters’ Realm was collapsing. Too many people had been drained in the reverberation of soul a moment ago, and their memory pieces were scattered like cosmic dust and attracted to the powerful souls of Li Yao and the experts from the Ancient Sages Sector, allowing them to have a glimpse on tremendous bizarre memory clips in the moment!

Li Yao’s soul, on the other hand, was the center that crashed into the fundamental database of the extraterrestrial devil. Naturally, it swallowed a lot of information, data, and energy waves from the extraterrestrial devil. The foreign energy that was struggling before death went on a rampage inside the deep part of his soul and bombarded the gate that was hidden at the bottom level of his soul!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Li Yao felt that three peals of thunder echoed in a row in the depths of his soul. The seals and shackles were blown to smithereens, and an invisible gate was slowly opened!

A while back, this very ‘gate’ had already been barraged once by another extraterrestrial devil at the bottom of Deep Blue Super Brain Hospital, which had made Li Yao notice the existence of the ‘gate’ for the first time.

Right now, the seal on the gate had been completely opened. Through the gap in the gate, he noticed that an unbelievable channel seemed to be hidden in the depths of his soul, which led to a different world where he could see a blue planet as the third planet of a stable galaxy.

Earth…

“Argh!”

Li Yao wanted to hold his head and roar, but his soul had been melted with the entire universe, and he could only float and drift together with the turbulence made of thousands of soul pieces.

In a trance, he heard himself making that declaration again. “I will certainly be back! I will certainly be back! I will certainly be back!”

Plop!

Li Yao seemed to have fallen into a dark, bottomless ocean, and his soul was condensed again.

Opposite him, Professor Mo Xuan was floating in the void with his arms wide open. He was still in the same simple style, with a gray coat, untrimmed stubble, and an untidy face. But the affection, regret, shame, pain, and resolution in the depths of his eyes made Li Yao realize that he was different from a moment ago.

It was… the real Professor Mo Xuan who was exactly like a hundred years ago!

From the ten fingers at the ends of Professor Mo Xuan’s wide open arms, countless strings of light, like the extensions of his veins and nerves, dived into the depths of the darkness.

Li Yao sensed powerful life energy surging out unstoppably from deep inside Professor Mo Xuan’s soul and flowing to nobody knew where!

The last bit of Professor Mo Xuan’s life was burnt crazily. His soul grew weaker and weaker, and his body was turning dim and clear. He was even disintegrating into shiny powder from his feet and dispersing into the darkness.

With a smile, he walked to his death peacefully.

Li Yao bulged his eyes. “Professor, what are you doing? Why are you burning your soul crazily like that?”

“Listen, Li Yao.” Professor Mo Xuan coughed lightly and said, “I don’t have much time left. I’m glad that everything could be ended in your hands in such a way. Before I leave, there are a few things that I would like to say to you.”

“It won’t happen,” Li Yao said in a hurry. “Since your remaining soul is still here, we can definitely find a solution. You won’t die. You even survived when you were in the state of a Phantom Entity. There’s got to be a way. Please stop!”

“I have to die,” Professor Mo Xuan said calmly. “I… It extracted tremendous computational ability to attack you at the last moment without considering anything. Countless mainframe crystal processors in and out of Hundred Flowers City were overloaded. As a result, a lot of the crystal processors and bases for space communication have exploded. Hundred Flowers City is completely out of control now!

“At this moment, the gravity control rune arrays, the temperature adjustment units, and the air circulation system in the space stations are all having problems. People will die if the situation is not resolved. A lot of people will die.

“Only I can repair the urgent faults at the cost of the last bit of my computational ability by constructing a brand-new, temporary control circuit. Thirty percent of the facilities in Hundred Flowers City can be recovered.

“So, there is no option now. Consider it my way of repenting… for one thousandth of my sins!”

“Professor!” Li Yao found it impossible to tell the difference now. “Are you yourself or the extraterrestrial devil?”

Professor Mo Xuan’s lips struggled into a smile. He asked back, “What about you? Are you completely Li Yao or mixed with some part of the ‘mental devil’? Does a pure Mo Xuan or Li Yao really exist? Are human beings evil and hideous because they are corrupted by the extraterrestrial devils, or have the extraterrestrial devils been attracted to human beings because they are evil and hideous in the first place?

“Such questions are too complicated for me to answer. You can take your time to study them! Our time is limited. Li Yao, listen up!”

At this moment, all the body parts below Professor Mo Xuan’s knees had turned into glittering dust that dispersed into darkness.

From Professor Mo Xuan’s glabella, a cluster of silver light emerged and slowly drifted to Li Yao.

“I told you last time that I would teach you the method to enter the Divinity Transformation Stage the next time we meet.”

Putting on an ugly smile, Professor Mo Xuan said, “In fact, you must’ve sensed something just now, mustn’t you? The Divinity Transformation Stage is not unsubstantial at all. It is just the release, reverberation, contagion, and control of the soul. Every Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator has their own ‘domain’. Your domain is perhaps the voice that surges out of your soul!

“At first, you swallowed the soul pieces of the extraterrestrial devil, which should’ve given you a lot of techniques to travel on the Spiritual Nexus freely with your soul. This database, on the other hand, is the essence of my decades of years of study. It should be able to help you better sort through your strength, condense your soul, and reach the real Divinity Transformation Stage!

“I won’t be reassured if the database is given to anybody else since there may still be the residues of the extraterrestrial devil inside. But because a weird ‘mental devil’ resides inside your soul, which is highly immune to the extraterrestrial devil, you are the best candidate to accept it. It will be at your mercy after you have it purged!

“Also, there are a lot of research files and experiment data regarding artificial intelligence and the Grand-Unified Spiritual Nexus inside the database.

“Believe me, Li Yao, the Grand-Unified Spiritual Nexus is really the future of mankind. I may be indeed too hasty today. However, we must not give up eating for fear of choking, we must not stand still and refuse to make progress, and we must not refuse to touch the future because we are scared, instead sealing us in the seemingly safe ‘present’!

“Mankind will eventually embark on the journey to the future, won’t they? Like you said just now, no matter how much darkness, danger, ugliness, and pain is up ahead, just walk on bravely!

“I look forward to the day, even if it is millions or billions of years away, when the civilization of mankind really breaks out of the universe that nurtures and yet seals us and pays a visit to a greater world!”

He spoke to Li Yao with a smile, full of expectation. His legs vanished in the wind. The only thing left was his mottled and lackluster torso above the waist.

“I will!” Li Yao felt his eyes and heart becoming hot again. Clenching the essence of Professor Mo Xuan’s hundred years of training, he said, “Human beings already cannot live without the Spiritual Nexus. Perhaps your dream will really come true one day—in millions of years!”

“Hehe. I have no doubt about that.” Taking a deep breath, Professor Mo Xuan slightly raised his voice. “However, there is one other thing that needs to be done. You have to destroy another extraterrestrial devil!”

Li Yao was greatly surprised. “Another one?”

“The division and reproduction of the extraterrestrial devils costs a great amount of energy,” Professor Mo Xuan explained. “So, since it was swallowed by you a hundred years ago, this extraterrestrial devil only ‘divided’ or ‘reproduced’ twice.

“One time, it divided when Lei Yuqin, the cerebral specialist, was examining my soul and performing therapy and invaded her soul.

“However, it wasn’t a very successful division. Lei Yuqin’s own emotions and ambitions were not very intense. She did not ferment a very powerful extraterrestrial devil, and it was destroyed by you easily in Deep Blue Super Brain Hospital.

“But before that, during the collapse of the Virtual Spirits Sector, the extraterrestrial devil had a very successful ‘reproduction’. The one who was corrupted was another experimenter named ‘Lu Qingchen’!”

Li Yao was greatly alarmed. “Lu Zui’s grandson, Su Changfa’s disciple, the president of the CFIA and leader of the Immortal Cultivators in the federation, and Jin Xinyue’s spy whom she planted a long time ago?”

“Exactly. Don’t underestimate him at all. He had the most intense emotions and the most massive ambitions. For the extraterrestrial devil, he—he was an even better ‘nest’ to reside in than me!”

Professor Mo Xuan struggled to catch his breath before continuing. “According to the plan, we were supposed to work on different sides. I would control everything in the federation, and he would invade and take over the entire Black Wind Fleet.

“Our plan was meant to avoid all the risks. If the federation and the Black Wind Fleet truly suffered great casualties in the fierce clash, giving us the chance to seize the power, it would be great. However, if something went wrong on my side, as long as he could successfully control and strengthen the Black Wind Fleet, there would still be a chance to suppress the entire federation!”