Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Ultimate Benevolence?”

Recalling the Path of Ultimate Benevolence, Li Yao said, deep in thought, “Are they the ruling class in the Covenant Alliance?”

“You can say that, but it’s not accurate.”

Zhuge Jinglun said, “Equality is appreciated in the Covenant Alliance. Theoretically speaking, everybody is a slave and a lamb of the gods. Nobody has the power to rule over the Covenant Alliance in the gods’ place.

“However, to fight a war against the Imperium as an entity, administrators, commanders, order maintainers, and brainwashers are needed. Together, those people make up the group of Ultimate Benevolence.

“The group of Ultimate Benevolence is not exactly an independent group, but more like an approved and honorary title. When the people of Water, Wood, Metal, Fire, and Soil are filled with piety for the gods and realize their destinies, they can join the group of Ultimate Benevolence.

“Right, one of the important tasks for the group of Ultimate Benevolence is to maintain the Covenant Alliance’s network. To some extent, the Covenant Alliance is like a beehive, and a powerful network is required to pass on the orders of the group of Ultimate Benevolence to the worker bees.

“The Cultivators, the Immortal Cultivators, and the common soldiers can fight on their own without the Spiritual Nexus or the orders from their superiors, but the Covenant Alliance people can’t. If the connection between soldiers and commanders is cut off, it will be what you’re seeing right now. The soldiers will not know what to do at all.

“So, the network is of paramount importance for the Covenant Alliance. Only the purest and most innocent candidates can become the network engineers of the Covenant Alliance.

“If it’s like a beehive, there must be some sort of a ‘queen’ in it. They’re on the top of the hierarchy in the Covenant Alliance!”

Interested, Li Yao asked again, “Is it possible for us to dissolve the Covenant Alliance by killing the guy on the top?”

“It’s definitely possible, but we don’t know who that person is exactly.”

Zhuge Jinglun explained, “We only know of five ‘Ultimate Benevolence Masters’, from the groups Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Soil respectively. However, it’s not easy to track them down. Even the most powerful fleets of the Imperium can barely lock onto the space fortresses they live in.

“Besides, judging from the social structure of the Covenant Alliance, if the five groups have an Ultimate Benevolence Master each, the ruling class should have an ‘Ultimate Benevolence Master’ too, and he should be the center of the Covenant Alliance.

“We don’t know if the Covenant Alliance will collapse if we kill the sixth Ultimate Benevolence Master, because we’ve killed none of them in the past thousand years.

“However, the good news is that if the Covenant Alliance is really going to invade the Imperium, it will be our best opportunity to find the Ultimate Benevolence Masters and kill them.”

“Huh?”

Li Yao was intrigued. “Why?”

“Because the Covenant Alliance’s attack is highly dependent on the network.”

Zhuge Jinglun said matter-of-factly, “If the Ultimate Benevolence Masters stay back in their bases, their orders have to pass dozens of Sectors before being delivered to the frontline. How can they win the war like that?

“So, in this final battle, all the Ultimate Benevolence Masters will definitely go to the frontline as the centers of the network with their invincible fortresses.”

Li Yao nodded his head. Looking at the Covenant Alliance people who were almost identical, he asked, “If the Covenant Alliance people have naturally-endowed talents, do they need training? How can they be promoted into the group of Ultimate Benevolence?”

“Of course they have to train themselves. Only by training and meditating can they unlock more of their genes and receive the gifts of their ancestors!”

Zhuge Jinglun smiled and said, “But it’s a mystery how one can be promoted into the group of Ultimate Benevolence. All that we know after hundreds of years of studies is that it’s more likely for you to join the group of Ultimate Benevolence if you’re Connate Bodies and that most of the Postnatal Bodies will be worker bees for their entire life. But it’s not absolute. The Postnatal Bodies are the majority in the Covenant Alliance, and it’s still hopeful for them to be promoted considering the absolute number.”

“Connate Bodies? Postnatal Bodies?”

Li Yao asked, “Director Zhuge, are you talking about the different sources of the Covenant Alliance?”

“Yes, the Connate Bodies are the Covenant Alliance people that are ‘manufactured’ through artificial wombs.”

Zhuge Jinglun explained, “In some sort of… man-manufacturing factories, the zygotes of mankind are screened and modified to make sure that the most excellent genes are gathered and the inferior genes are abandoned. As a result, the babies that are born in the end will be pure and powerful. Those are Connate Bodies.”

Li Yao nodded his head. “I’m aware of that.”

A hundred years ago, when Li Yao explored Kunlun, he had once encountered such a man-manufacturing factory, where he met the Three Fundamental Laws for the first time.

When the Three Fundamental Laws were imprinted on the cells and genes of the babies, it went without saying that those babies would be pure and pious.

To this day, Li Yao still remembered how the Immortal Cultivators who explored the land with him loathed the man-manufacturing factory and the Path of Ultimate Benevolence.

Nothing tarnished the sacredness of “human beings” more badly than a man-manufacturing factory did.

“The Connate Bodies created by the man-manufacturing factories are definitely the most perfect servants of gods. However, all the man-manufacturing factories under the Covenant Alliance’s control are from the primeval age and have been worn out.”

Zhuge Jinglun said, “Also, it seems that certain critical ingredients and technologies are required to manufacture human beings. All in all, the Covenant Alliance hasn’t repaired all their man-manufacturing factories yet, and the Connate Bodies are being produced at a low efficiency with a high rejection rate.

“So, the Covenant Alliance has to acquire a new population through two new ways, namely natural reproduction and capturing slaves from the Imperium!

“The offspring of two Connate Bodies are purer and will be born with indestructible seals. However, the Connate Bodies are few in number in the first place, and they cannot give birth to a lot of babies even if they try their best. Besides, their children won’t have any combat ability until they’re mature, which will take a lot of time and resources.

“Capturing adult soldiers, workers, and farmers from the Imperium and brainwashing them will increase the Covenant Alliance’s combat ability and weaken the Imperium’s, which will mean double losses for the Imperium. So, although the Postnatal Bodies, who are created through brainwashing, are not as devoted and stable as the Connate Bodies, the Covenant Alliance has to count on them under the pressure of the war.

“The children born by the Postnatal Bodies are Postnatal Bodies too, and their reliability is also questionable. They have to be brainwashed by the group of Ultimate Benevolence again and again to ensure their loyalty to the gods.

“Right, Black Wind King, do you want to take a look at an instance of the group of Ultimate Benevolence?”

Li Yao raised an eyebrow. “You have a captive from the group of Ultimate Benevolence?”

“I do, and he’s of quite a high level. However, he is not one of the Connate Bodies but only a Postnatal Bodies who betrayed the Imperium.”

Zhuge Jinglun said proudly, “However, we may find more interesting information from the traitors than we can from the Connate Bodies, right?”

Li Yao was naturally eager to know more about the group of Ultimate Benevolence, who are the mysterious administrators, commanders, and priests.

This particular captive, however, was locked in a secret chamber even deeper in the island to make sure that not the slightest wave could be transmitted from his cell to the Covenant Alliance people’s town up above, or a riot of the worker bees might be raised.

As they took the elevator to the bottom level of the island, Li Yao read the file on the captive via his mini crystal processor.

The captive was named Song Guanghe. He used to be a noble of the Song family, one of the four Kurfürst families in the Imperium. But he had never been at the core circle, or he would have needed to fight the battle in person.

When the Imperium’s counterattack began, he was a colonel in the expedition army, and he went missing when his troop encountered the main forces of the Covenant Alliance in a skirmish.

Everybody thought that he had died. The Song family even applied for a medal and an honorary title for him.

However, a dozen years later, when the expedition army reclaimed the lost lands, they found him in a garrison of the Covenant Alliance. At that time, he had become the highest commander of all the ground troops of the Covenant Alliance on a resource planet!

Greatly embarrassed, the Song family had to claim that this Song Guanghe had mental derangement due to the enemy’s torture and brainwashing, and he was sent to Zhuge Jinglun for studies and treatment.