Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

As Wuying Qi’s topic went deeper and deeper, the Gold Crystal Tower that existed in reality was gone, replaced by brilliant stars and bizarre, uncommunicable alien species, as well as the glorious, splendid civilizations they created.

The Pangu Clan, the Nuwa Clan, the Kuafu Clan, the Houyi Clan, the Zhurong Clan, the Gonggong Clan…

“You are free to loathe and berate the ‘evil brainwashing technologies’, but no matter what you think, the truth is that it was exactly because of the technologies of enlightenment that the thirteen carbon-based races who were hostile and wary against each other were united with the minimal price in the shortest amount of time possible, constituting a solid alliance.”

Wuying Qi’s gloomy voice came over, as unstoppably as a rumbling thunder. “Had it not been for the technology of enlightenment, the thirteen entirely different carbon-based lives wouldn’t have been able to sympathize with each other at all. Then, how could they establish a country? Without a unified country, the primeval war would’ve burst out hundreds of thousands of years earlier, with an intensity dozens of times higher. In that case, ‘human beings’, the new-generation life that gathered the best genetic clips of the thirteen carbon-based lives, wouldn’t have been born at all!

“Wake up, Li Yao! Let me give you the simplest example. Imagine that you are the captain of an exploration fleet of the Pangu Clan, and you have discovered that the Houyi Clan and the Kuafu Clan, two relatively underdeveloped but highly potential civilizations, are engaged in a life-and-death war. They are about to destroy their last sun, and the two civilizations would die with each other!

“You love peace and crave for communication and unity, but you cannot understand their languages, their modes of thinking, and their civilizational forms. Vice versa, they do not understand you and even dread you. Also, in their cultures, they have strong tendencies to self-destruct. At least, they are absolutely not scared of dying together with the enemy. In other words, you cannot threaten them to stop the war through violent approaches.

“Let me ask you, under such cruel and extreme circumstances, what can you do to save the two civilizations, whose minds have been blinded by hatred, from stepping into the abyss of destruction?

“If there is a button on the panel in front of you, which can shoot out ten thousand… brainwashing waves after you press it so that the Kuafu Clan and the Houyi Clan can more or less understand you and accept your wish for peace, will you press the button?

“In order to sustain the two civilizations, you will have to deprive them of their free will to commit ‘self-destruction’.

“If you cling to your ridiculous theory that free will is more important than anything, you will have to watch the Kuafu Clan and the Houyi Clan brutalizing each other until nobody stands. Their civilizations that were born after hundreds of thousands of years will be destroyed.

“Tell me the most real answer in your heart. What will you choose, Cultivator Li Yao?”

A control panel seemed to have truly appeared before Li Yao, and there was a tiny, crimson button on it.

He was also truly inside a bridge, which was controlling a massive, advanced interstellar fleet as if a god had arrived.

However, even the might of a god could not separate the Kuafu Clan and the Houyi Clan who were in a desperate fight.

Their entirely different social forms, means of communication, and modes of thinking made the Kuafu Clan and the Houyi Clan hard to accept the existence of the Pangu Clan, much less the “kindness” and “peace” that the Pangu Clan offered.

What other ways could stop the war and bring peace—a real, everlasting peace—except for brainwashing?

Li Yao’s fingers were shivering.

With every shiver, he seemed to see the soldiers of the Kuafu Clan and the Houyi Clan fighting in space and on the grounds of the rough planets in his trance.

The gigantic tentacles that looked like vines blew the black beetles apart, their entrails splashing out. The incessant beetles, on the other hand, swallowed all the vines and juices. Even the Kuafu’s spheres were riddled with holes.

Those who were not of my own kind would definitely think differently.

Kill those aliens.

It was impossible for human beings to live in peace with the aliens who looked entirely different. Even human beings and demons who were of the same origin had fought a war of tens of thousands of years, which only ended when one party completely surrendered. For the Kuafu Clan and the Houyi Clan, they must’ve considered themselves to be the only normal and standard people in the world and the creatures other than themselves to be ugly, evil, unreasonable, and incompatible, right?

When they were fighting the hideous, wicked aliens, and they were about to secure the final triumph after great sacrifices were made, another kind of alien that was more hideous, strong, and wicked showed up out of nowhere and asked them to stop the war and restore the peace?

They would not accept it. No intelligent lives would accept such peace. It must be a scheme. The war had to go on until they destroyed their enemy or they were destroyed!

The only choice then was brainwashing.

Only by erasing the few zealots’ persistence of war and inculcating the will for peace into most people could such a country-obliterating war be stopped.

Besides, even if there were other ways, even if the Pangu Clan brought peace and unity with sharp blades and scorching cannons, how would it be any better than brainwashing?

Li Yao’s finger touched the “brainwashing button”, but it soon twitched and could not press down.

“However…”

Li Yao panted hard. “However, such a preset question is too extreme. You have set up too many prerequisites to push the answer into a corner. Even though the commanders of the Pangu Clan were indeed faced with a similar choice, it would still have been greatly different from the situation in the Empyreal Terminus Sector today!”

“Ah, that is to say, you acknowledge that massive brainwashing has positive effects and will even bring precious peace at least under certain extreme circumstances, don’t you? You don’t think that brainwashing is necessarily evil but believe there is a 1% chance that it may be righteous and positive?”

Wuying Qi’s laughter came over. “Very well. You turn out to be teachable after all. You and I have finally reached a common understanding, which is not a bad start and deserves all the time that I spent on you.

“However, on second thought, you will realize that the scenario I proposed was not extreme at all but a general phenomenon of the universe. In the vast universe, isn’t it perfectly normal for two vastly different carbon-based lives to be unable to communicate with each other? In fact, it will be unbelievable if two carbon-based lives who are born millions of lightyears away from each other can communicate freely the moment they meet, won’t it?

“According to Liu the Star Prier, the genius astronomer of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago, and based on the history from the primeval age to this day, when two highly-developed civilizations first met, they would definitely be highly wary and hostile against each other. War was often the first and the only means of their communication.

“Many civilizations had destroyed their enemies or were destroyed by their enemies before they figured out the truth about the enemies or understood that the enemies were as alive and intelligent as themselves. Wasn’t it a shame?

“Therefore, a massive, high-speed way of information interaction that surpasses languages, species, and civilizations is necessary for an interstellar civilization. That is the enlightenment that I described, or the ‘brainwashing’ in your words.

“Without ‘brainwashing’, it will be impossible for the intelligent lives dispersed in all the corners of the vast universe to communicate efficiently and straightforwardly, and the will of the leader of the civilization cannot be passed on to every individual at the end. Such civilizations will always be loose sand. Not just conquering the vast multiverse, they cannot even maintain themselves. They will collapse and destroy themselves on their own sooner or later!

“Do not fear new technology. Open your arms and embrace it! The evolution of civilization is the evolution of the methods of information, interaction, and education. When our ancestors were still primitive apes, we already began to communicate by soundwaves and record events by drawing traces on the trees. At that time, the advancement of such a method of interaction was too great. Perhaps that was the reason why our ancestors were selected by the Pangu civilizations’ alliance as the prototype of the new-generation perfect carbon-based life. However, such a method of interaction and education has been employed for hundreds of thousands of years. Today, in the age of interstellar development and discovery of the multiverse, we are still talking, writing, and teaching the next generation with books for decades. That is too inefficient, absurd, and shameful!

“It’s time for a change, Li Yao.

“The civilization of mankind, which communicates only via speaking and writing, has already hit the bottleneck of evolution. It’s impossible to step out of this universe.

“Only by injecting abundant knowledge, mutual memories, perfect morals, and the will of the leader into billions of brains directly can the real and perfect new human beings be born—the golden humans who have the wisdom, courage, and strength to march into the grand universe!

“Only such flawless true human beings can allow for a technological boom under the boost of unified thoughts and highly-efficient interaction. It will allow us to digest and absorb the precious legacies left by the primeval civilizations in only several hundred years and make us a real grand-universe civilization!

“Li Yao, for someone with your Cultivation, you are essentially standing on the peak of the evolution of mankind, only second to few people. It will be a crime if you cling to the obsolete ideas and morals to restrain and even strike the propagation of new technologies; it will be the greatest crime against mankind.

“We are running out of time. Really. The civilization of mankind does not have any time now. We have to seize every second to break out of this place and at least take a look at what it looks like outside in order to decide the direction of development of our civilization in the next million years. In order to achieve that, we will need a powerful, united, loyal, and devoted Imperium. Only the technologies of enlightenment can possibly create such a new Imperium. So, come on, stand on my side just like you used to stand on Li Linghai’s side. Build a new Imperium and create new human beings together with me so that our civilization can climb to the summit of the universe!”