Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Boss Bai chuckled and simply said without being modest, “Are you indirectly complimenting yourself? Even a monster like me is not confident to completely destroy you and has to ‘surrender’ to you and regard you as a bro!”

The Fist King hesitated and said, “Are you not scared of me, Boss Bai?”

Boss Bai sniffed. “Do I need to be scared of you?”

“Not that ‘scared’, but ‘highly vigilant’.”

Thinking for a moment, the Fist King said, “According to my calculation, if my real identity is exposed, a lot of people will be highly wary and scared of me and try their best to eliminate me. It’s difficult for normal people to accept the unknown beings like me, but Boss Bai doesn’t care about it at all and is still talking to me lightheartedly. Why?”

“Only the weak are scared of the unknown; the strong will only open their arms to the unknown, either embracing it or conquering it.”

Staring at the Fist King, Boss Bai said, “There are bound to be all kinds of weird life forms in the vast universe, and the cooperation, competition, symbiosis and destruction among the life forms are natural, too. Faced with such a cruel and dangerous universe, the most sensible choice is to build up oneself through all possibilities, instead of eliminating the signs of threats in fear every day—there are simply too many signs of threats. How can you eliminate all of them?

“All in all, the real cause of destruction can only be your weakness, not the formidability of your enemy. That’s what I’ve believed in since I embarked on the journey of a space pirate.

“Besides, it is possible that a terrible ‘flood’ on the other side of the universe has destroyed countless civilizations including the wizardly civilization. Who knows whether or not the torrent of destruction will attack the world of Cultivation one day?

“In that case, it will be the doom of our world. When the doom comes, we will all be animals fleeing from the dark forest in panic. Isn’t it hilarious if we are still hostile and scared of each other?”

The Fist King was in deep thought. “That does make sense…”

Sparks of hope shined in Boss Bai’s eyes as he extended his hand to the Fist King. “Then, would you like to cooperate with me?”

The Fist King said, “We have been cooperating, to resist the Imperium.”

“The Imperium? Hahahaha, the Imperium!”

Boss Bai’s laughter was even crazier. “Do you think that a tiny Imperium, or the tiny three thousand Sectors, can trap Boss Bai and be my ultimate prey?”

The Fist King was stunned. “The three thousand Sectors are the maximum of the known universe. Even the vast universe is not enough to be Boss Bai’s battlefield?”

“No, no, far from enough!”

The sparks in Boss Bai’s eyes gradually burnt into the most glamorous fire. Opening his thin arms at the artificial sky that seemed to be bleeding because of the starships hovering there, he moaned hungrily, “Did you know, Fist King, that I was rather disappointed when I just came to the center of the cosmos even though I was faced with the terrifying enemies such as the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance?

“At that time, I thought that I had seen through the entire cosmos, and there was nothing worth plundering and conquering apart from the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance. The best I could do was to explore the mysteries of the primeval age afterward.

“There was a while when I was confused and lethargic about everything. My ambition was to be the greatest space pirate in history, but even the greatest space pirate couldn’t have done any greater job than stealing a country, which had been done by countless men of the time such as Blackstar the Great. If I were to do the same, it would be like biting the bones that had been bitten a hundred times by the predecessors. Would there be any fun in it at all? And would I be remembered by this civilization or this universe billions of years later?

“Hehe, looting the royal palace of the Imperium of True Human Beings, robbing the Covenant Alliance of their ultimate treasures, and exploring the mausoleums of the Supreme Emperor and even Pangu and Nuwa. They did sound awesome, but getting to the bottom of it, were the items in the royal palace and the mausoleums the wealth of the creatures in our world in the first place? The wealth was here all the time. Even if it fell to my hands, it would merely be changing a place, and nothing would be added at all.

“Showing off in one’s own world and looting everything, would that be any different from a wastrel who stole and lost all the savings of his parents? Would that be expected of the ‘greatest space pirate’ at all?”

The Fist King sounded more or less surprised. “Then, what is ‘the greatest space pirate’ in Boss Bai’s mind?”

“Only the worthless wastrels would boss around in their own home and steal the savings of their ancestors. The real capable guys should naturally march outside and steal other family’s things!”

Boss Bai smiled. “The existence of the wizardly civilization was like the most brilliant axe that chopped my head, opening my eyes and allowing me to see a new world!

“Wandering around the three thousand Sectors and looting the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators is just a child’s play. The real great space pirates should pilot thousands of warships, break the barrier of void and desolation, and attack the worlds where the wizardly civilization and other alien civilizations are at!

“Well, although the wizardly civilization that I discovered was probably long destroyed, who knows whether or not other wizardly civilizations or even more bizarre civilizations are on the other side of the infinite universe?

“Driving the warships of our world, commanding millions of warriors, and boosting billions of flying swords, we will arrive before the wizards, magicians, envoys of gods and destroy their altars, burn their temples, seduce their saintesses, slay their beasts, and bring the treasures of the wizardly world back to the Cultivation world. That is what the space pirates from the Cultivation world should do, right?”

Even when the hundred crystal processors of the Fist King were calculating the same time, he still couldn’t figure out Boss Bai’s ambition. “Yes…”

“No. Even that is not enough. Not enough at all!”

Boss Bai picked up the “white flag” that was stuck to the cable tube a moment ago and put it on his body again, but he kept it unbuttoned and simply allowed the hot steam to rise and blow the ragged shirt backward in fluttering sounds, revealing his skinny chest and his back that was as straight as a spear.

He opened his fingers and extended them at the sky, as if he were piercing through the boundary of the three-dimensional universe and looting the infinite treasures in the four-dimensional space. With a daydreaming expression, he roared crazily, “Even if we eat up the wizardly civilization, we will still be restrained in the swamp of the three-dimensional universe. Since I am the greatest space pirate, is it really something to rob the three-dimensional carbon-based lives? Who knows whether or not we can find a way to break into the four-dimensional universe and pillage those four-dimensional lives?

“Hehe, gods from the four-dimensional space, the supreme existences that dominate the progress of the civilization of mankind… Damn it, I feel like throwing up whenever I hear it. One day, I will let the scumbags who call themselves gods know that the people in the Cultivation world are different and that nothing can possibly crawl over our head and blatantly manipulate our fate. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”

Pa!

One of the spiritual puppets that made up the Fist King’s body couldn’t handle the complicated calculation that exceeded the maximum and collapsed.

“Have you really lost your mind, Boss Bai?”

The Fist King’s remaining puppets exclaimed at the same time, “The advancement and formidability of the high-dimensional lives are beyond the imagination of the low-dimensional lives. You cannot threaten the high-dimensional lives at all!”

“Don’t underestimate ourselves, Fist King. Life is too amazing. Formidability and weakness, advanced and underdeveloped, they cannot be gauged by the same standard.”

Boss Bai laughed both crazily and solemnly, “Viruses are primitive and weak compared with humans, aren’t they? But human beings haven’t annihilated all the viruses when our civilization is so developed. Even in the most thriving days of the Pangu civilization, countless individuals still died miserably without a cure after contracting a virus!

“They are almost like rats. Rats seem weak, but in the hundred thousand years of history of mankind, too many creatures on too many planets have been destroyed by pestilence and its variations!

“Viruses can kill human beings. Why can’t human beings, the insignificant viruses, ants, and viruses from the three-dimensional universe kill the seemingly more advanced and strong beings in the higher-dimensional universes?

“My ultimate dream is to be such a ‘universal mouse’ that will gnaw at the barrier between different universes and crawl to infinite worlds through the holes. The lives in the four-dimensional universe, the tyrants in the five-dimensional universe, the experts in the six-dimensional universe, or the fiends in the seven-dimensional universe… As long as they exist, I will rob them and steal their everything, making them shudder in fear the moment they hear the name of the tiny rats and viruses from the three-dimensional universe and crying for help whenever they see the flag of the Big Bai Pirate Gang!

“It is not important yet how exactly my dream is going to be fulfilled. All in all, no matter you are from which dimension, I’ll just roll my sleeves and fight you. That’s what the greatest space pirate in the universe should do!”

Pa! Pa!

Another two of the Fist King’s clones were burnt up.

“Your body is obviously too skinny for the job.”

Boss Bai sniffed. “If you want to work together with me, you’ll have to practice more.”

“Me?”

All of the Fist King’s clones pointed at their iron noses at the same time. “I’m going to… roll up my sleeves and fight with you?”

“Yes, the greatest purpose for which I am still lingering in the Imperium is to establish a fleet that is enough to launch an expedition to the other side of the grand universe or even to the four-dimensional universe.”

Boss Bai said, “That’s why I was willing to tell you my secrets and check if you were a ‘Gaoist—man in the shell’. If you are and you join my cross-universe army of raiders, it will be possible for us to break the initial obstacle, which is the infinite black wall that lies beyond the three thousand Sectors.

“Believe me, we will certainly find the wizardly civilization and other three-dimensional carbon-based lives, or even the scumbags from the four-dimension and other higher dimensions. Then, we will rob all of them!”