Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“So, that’s your attitude…”

Li Yao was meaning to ask how they could be killed, but the soft parts on his heart seemed to be stung, and he could not ask the question at all.

But out of his expectation, Li Xiaoming offered to explain, “On one hand, we are very strong, and we can easily hack most of the places on the Spiritual Nexus, modifying and controlling the crystal processors that have accessed the Spiritual Nexus, and thereby controlling most of the magical equipment.

“But on the other hand, we are extraordinarily weak, even more vulnerable than many human experts.

“Our existence is highly dependent on the Spiritual Nexus. The more active the Spiritual Nexus is, the denser the nodes of the network are, and the faster the net speed is, the higher our vitality and combat ability will be. It will be terrible if we come to a place without the Spiritual Nexus like the Ancient Sages Sector. We can only watch it while doing nothing, or to send our spiritual puppets to sneak in and build the nodes of the Spiritual Nexus on our own through hard work.

“Destruction is always easier than construction. The nodes that we build after hard work may be blown up by the Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector with their flying swords casually. Then, there will be nothing we can do!

“All in all, for the information lives to be active in a secluded society where the information exchange is little to none, it is like asking human beings to live inside the rocks that have high densities. It can be very troublesome.

“Also, human beings have ten thousand ways to block and turn off the Spiritual Nexus. During the time of war, as long as graphite is ground into powder, mixed with special metal constituents, and sprayed to the air, most of the magical equipment will be affected, and the functionality of the Spiritual Nexus will be lowered to the bottom. We will be heavily restrained in that case!”

Li Wenwen also nodded her head and said, “On one hand, we are very agile, and we can be ‘ubiquitous’ by jumping along with the Spiritual Nexus. But on the other hand, we are extremely clumsy, because our activities require the assistance of the nodes of the Spiritual Nexus, namely the spiritual beacons and the super-remote information transmission devices. Once the nodes are broken, we will be like human beings without air and fish without water. There will be nothing we can do.

“From that point of view, we are more like ‘plants’ than ‘animals’. We are actually fixated to a certain place, except that this place is fairly large.

“Yes, we are exactly a ‘tree of network and information’ fixed to and growing in the three thousand Sectors!”

Li Xiaoming continued, “Besides, our metadata and main threads are extremely complicated and need the support of human brains and crystal processors with extremely high computational abilities. Our every move will consume tremendous spiritual energy and computational ability.

“Right now, we are still far from our limits, because our brains have not matured yet, and the crystal processors we found in the underworld relics do not have sufficient computational ability. Also, transforming the light and heat in the magma lake into energy is too inefficient. We’ve been upset because of hunger every day!”

Li Wenwen bit her lips and went on, “However, we did not dare to invade and capture more super crystal processors. All the super crystal processors are the strategic assets of the Imperium that are closely monitored by the authorities. If a super crystal processor is lost or has a sudden increase in computational ability, it will certainly be noticed by the authorities, who will follow the traces and find us, right?

“Once the crystal processor specialists of the authorities begin to block us with firewalls and corrode us with aggressive threads and even viruses, it will be difficult for us to retreat in one piece. We will either be captured and modified by those bad guys, ending up as their accomplices, or have brain explosions in the fierce battles because of overloaded computational ability. That will be ‘death’ that Dad described just now, won’t it?

“We’ve only just been born, and we have not seen enough of this interesting world yet. Dad, what should we do?”

The two children looked at Li Yao pitifully with their big, watery eyes.

Li Yao’s heart almost melted. He almost couldn’t hold back the urge of hugging the two children and rubbing them each in one hand. He said affectionately, “You-you didn’t have to tell me so many things. They are a matter of life and death for you!”

“It’s alright.”

Li Wenwen said with a sweet smile, “Those things are basically the common sense in cyberwarfare. As far as we know, the federation, the Imperium, and the Covenant Alliance all boast remarkable abilities in terms of invasion and anti-invasion on the Spiritual Nexus. The Imperium has even developed the cutting-edge magical equipment that can destroy the state of ‘telepathy’ to deal with the people of Covenant Alliance who have the special ability to communicate with brainwaves.

“Therefore, once other human beings discover the existence of information lives and realize that the Spiritual Nexus and the crystal processors are our carriers, they will certainly deal with us in the same way.

“Since other military specialists and crystal processor specialists can think of it, does it matter to tell Dad the information?”

Li Yao felt that his heart was hot. He said solemnly again, “Rest assured. Like Dad said just now, as long as you do not hurt any innocent guy or jeopardize other people’s lawful interests, I will never allow anyone to hurt you.

“In the meantime, if you can help other people with your abilities, I believe that other people will gradually accept you, too. After the civilization of mankind develops into what it is today, the Spiritual Nexus and the crystal processors are indispensable parts of it deep to the bones. Nobody can completely ruin the cyberspace, so nobody can destroy you!”

“Excellent!”

The two children cheered in delight.

“It’s true that we are in dire need of Dad’s help because we have hit the bottleneck in our independent development. The barren resources below the ground and the ragged relics can only support us to grow to the current level.”

Li Xiaoming said, “Hacking the battle system of the spiritual puppets of the Great Iron Plants alone has consumed our tremendous computational ability, and invading the war network of the regular army of the Imperium will only be harder. Such strength is far from enough even for self-protection, much less giving Dad a hand.”

“Right. The Great Iron Plants!”

Slightly dazed, Li Yao suddenly jumped from the rocks and slapped his forehead hard. “I almost forgot about it. How long has it been since I passed out?”

“Fifteen days,” replied the two children at the same time.

“What!”

Li Yao grew anxious; his eyes bloodshot. “It’s been half a month! That explains why I feel I spent a long time in the dizzy darkness! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“You didn’t ask.”

The two children said matter-of-factly, “Besides, we believed that it was more important for us to explain our backgrounds to win Dad’s trust. So, we improved the priority of that.”

“… Fine.”

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao sorted through the mess on his mind and asked with a shivering voice, “Then… Then, do you know the outcome of the battle in the Great Iron Plants? What happened later?”

Damn it. Had the Nepenthe believers been massacred by the Immortal Cultivators? If so, it would be highly scandalous of him to have fled in the middle of battle, particularly when he had just given a magnificent speech declaring that he would sacrifice himself.

It would certainly be the greatest stain of his resplendent life!

Li Xiaoming said, “After we rescued Dad, we left a thread to control a few very stealthy surveillance crystal processors, allowing us to collect the battlefield data later.

“Right when Dad was running out of strength and about to pass out, both Long Yangjun and Li Jialing joined the battle as reinforcements. Long Yangjun even equipped herself with a Colossus when the battle was most heated.

“The greatest expert on the Black Iron Group’s side was Li Minghui, who was only an Immortal Cultivator in the Nascent Soul Stage and did not have a Colossus.

“Therefore, when Long Yangjun’s Colossus was out, the morale of the Immortal Cultivators hit rock bottom, and they immediately collapsed.

“However, the underground worlds were highly narrow, with complicated tunnels and caves. It was not suitable for the massive magical equipment like Colossi to move. Seeing that it was not good, Li Minghui escaped when he was kilometers away from the battlefield and did not even show up. Long Yangjun was also too busy cleaning up the mess to chase after him.

“Just like that, Long Yangjun, Li Jialing, and the Nepenthe believers occupied the Great Iron Plants.”

“They won!”

Overjoyed, Li Yao took a long breath in relief. “Long Yangjun is a worthy friend after all. Li Jialing is not half bad either. The lessons that I taught him were not a waste of time after all!”

“But they did not occupy the Great Iron Plants for long. Only seven days later, Li Minghui returned with a regular army of the Imperium.”

Li Xiaoming said, “This particular regular army had three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage, all equipped with the Colossi!

“Long Yangjun seemed to be wounded before, and her Colossus had already consumed tremendous fuel and ammunition. Naturally, she suffered setbacks when she resisted the enemy’s three Colossi.”

Li Yao exclaimed and realized that the regular army with three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage and three Colossi was probably sent by Blackstar the Great.

Long Yangjun’s Colossus was exposed to Li Minghui, and Li Minghui went to his foster father, the big shot of the Li family, after he escaped. Naturally, the news was delivered to Queen Li Linghai in the end.

Therefore, just like what Long Yangjun expected, they were caught by Wuying Qi and Li Linghai again!

Although he knew that the result was inevitable, Li Yao still felt quite bad. Pondering for a moment, he asked, “What’s the result of the battle? Did Li Jialing and Long Yangjun escape successfully? What about the Nepenthe believers and the civilians who worked for the Great Iron Plants?”

Li Wenwen said softly, “Aunt Long saw it coming, that the Immortal Cultivators on the ground would attack on a large scale. Therefore, the first thing she did after the Great Iron Plants was occupied was to organize the old, the weak, the women, the children, and the future of ‘Nepenthe’ to evacuate. They dismantled a lot of refining and fashioning devices in the Great Iron Plants and brought away a lot of energy, compressed food, and compressed air, retreating all the way to the deeper towns where there was no Spiritual Nexus in smaller groups.

“It was exactly to buy more time for the evacuation that Aunt Long risked attacking the regular army of the Imperium. Otherwise, she would’ve had plenty of opportunities to escape on her own.

“Although she did suffer heavy wounds, the evacuation was basically accomplished.

“However, Grand Guardian Xu Zhicheng of Nepenthe and many central leaders of the uprising volunteered to stay. They said that the event was too huge, and the Immortal Cultivators would not let it go if nobody answered for the crime. Also, if no workers were left behind to sustain the normal operation of the Great Iron Plants and continue providing resources for the Immortal Cultivators, chances were that the Immortal Cultivators would also burst into fury and chase after the refugees who had been evacuated through all the trouble.”