Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Training…” Li Jialing was at a loss again. His eyebrows and his lips shuddered slightly, and he played the role of a perplexed young man perfectly.

“Yes. Only after you taste the bitterest of bitterness can you grow into the best of the best. I do not need to explain such a simple logic to you, do I?” Li Lingfeng sighed and said gravely, “As either a member of the Li family or an Immortal Cultivator, honing yourself in the cruelest and craziest ways, making breakthroughs on the path of evolution incessantly, and advancing to the unprecedented levels that have never been reached before—that is your destiny!

“Every member of the Li family has been through that. Everybody tortures, torments, and whets themself in the cruel environment where only the fittest survive. They tear their flesh into shreds, grind their bones into powder, and burn their guts into ash before they condense all the pieces together and build them into a new self!

“That is as much the case for you as it is for anybody else of the Li family, including myself. Do you think that I suffered less pain than you when I trained myself at the beginning?

“It is true that most members of the Li family never shoulder the extreme pain that you had, but that’s only because they are unqualified. Those people will never grow into a perfect warrior like you. The destiny awaiting them is to die an unknown death as cannon fodder in an insignificant war, or they’ll be dispatched to a remote resource plant under the control of the family, where they will live their boring, tasteless life.

“Look at the corridor that is filled with guts and broken limbs behind you. Look at your hands that are stained with blood. You should know this already. You are different from those worthless, hopeless guys. That is not your destiny. You were born to dominate the world as the greatest glory of the Li family!”

Li Jialing stared at the bloody pathway behind him again.

This time, he did not tremble but stuck out his long, narrow tongue, licking his lips that were covered in bloody, with voracity beaming out of his eyes.

Watching the young man who looked like a ferocious beast that had just been let loose, Li Lingfeng smiled in comfort.

“I don’t understand.” Taking a deep breath, Li Jialing regained his tranquility. He stared at Li Lingfeng and asked, “Why me? You have so many sons, grandsons, and great grandsons. Why did you have to pick me for such refinement? My parents were only unknown, bottom-level warriors of the family. Or were they—”

The young man’s eyes shuddered as he observed Li Lingfeng’s face.

Li Lingfeng smiled warmly. “It is not what you are thinking. I never attach much importance to lineage. Or rather, whoever has the blood of the Li family flowing in their veins is qualified to be my heir. As for whether or not they are my own offspring, that is not important.

“What I need is a real expert. There are a lot of useless descendants among my offspring. I despise them as much as anybody else does.

“Come on. Show me the ‘masterpiece’ that you have just created, and I will tell you all the truth.”

“Truth…”

Flames flowed out of Li Jialing’s eyes. He stood up without a sound and walked to the bloody pathway.

When he accidentally stepped on a few bones on the ground and broke them, he did not even bother to blink.

“I know you have always been curious about why I picked you from all the younger generations of the Li family when you seemed so plain and unattractive. And more importantly, what was the seal that haunted your head, baffled you, and prevented you from killing about?”

Roaming among the broken corpses at east, Li Lingfeng said casually, “For someone as smart as you, you should’ve vaguely guessed that the so-called ‘seal’ is quite similar to the Three Fundamental Laws.”

Li Jialing’s pupils constricted violently. He scratched his skull unconsciously. “Three Fundamental Laws? The Covenant Alliance?”

“Yes. It is a very complicated issue, which can be traced back to the Origin Plan, a program to raise future warriors for the family, personally planned and implemented by me decades ago.”

Li Lingfeng took out a green, translucent ball from his pocket and tossed it at Li Jialing. “This is all the information and data about the Origin Plan. I prepared it a long time ago as a gift for you when you are completely awakened.”

Blinking his eyes, Li Jialing held the green ball in his hand and inputted a stream of spiritual energy into it.

The ball flew from his palm and to the height of his eyes, triggering a panoramic light beam. Infinite information poured down like a waterfall.

“The Origin Plan was a program drafted and implemented by me in order to raise super warriors for the next generation of the family. It was a bit avant-garde and experimental,” Li Lingfeng said. “You know that as one of the four Kurfürst families, the Li family has always attached great importance to the education of the next generation. Only the elites of the elites can be real members of the Li family. Garbage who have the blood of the Li family but do not want to make a name for themselves should be eliminated without any mercy no matter their parentage.

“Therefore, almost since the moment they are born, every member of the Li family has to receive the nurturing of the best resources and the harshest training of optimization.

“However, different people have different talents after all. In many cases, it is already too late after the fetus grows in the womb for ten months. From the perspective of eugenics, the real training should start from the womb. No, it should start from the zygote, or even before the two life seeds are combined!

“The Origin Plan was exactly such an avant-garde, experimental program to culture and refine the subjects when they are still life seeds. I carefully selected the life seeds of almost ten thousand strong warriors of the family, refined and strengthened them with all kinds of secret arts, and further screened and nurtured them after they were combined into zygotes. Eventually, the ten most ideal fetuses were chosen.

“Yes. From the ten thousand carefully-selected life seeds, ten were screened out in the most selective way. They were nurtured with the most precious Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, many of which were even directly excavated from the relics of primeval battlefields and likely won’t be found again. You can imagine how strong the fetuses must’ve been!”

Li Jialing’s eyelids shivered. “I was one of the fetuses?”

“Precisely.” Li Lingfeng smiled. “Why else do you think you can boast such strength at such a young age?”

“I still don’t understand,” Li Jialing said. “If it is a program to raise new warriors for the family, why was it never announced to the public but always kept a secret? Also, what are the Three Fundamental Laws that have been haunting my head and were eradicated only just now about?”

“Because the Origin Plan was a complete failure.” Li Lingfeng sighed. “At that time, I placed the ten meticulously-chosen fetuses near a neutron star to be strengthened by the radiation. But the starships of the Covenant Alliance jumped out of nowhere and tried to seize the products of my careful refinement. In the fierce battle, nine of the fetuses were destroyed, and the last one was polluted by the foul forces of the Covenant Alliance. It was implanted with their evil seal, which was part of the remnants of the Three Fundamental Laws.”

“Well…” Li Jialing was somewhat at a loss. “It’s not like you ran your experiments on the frontlines, did you? How did the people of the Covenant Alliance show up?”

“You’ve asked the most critical question,” Li Lingfeng said thoughtfully. “You know that the internal conflicts within the Li family are very fierce. Competition is everywhere. Perhaps some people did not wish to see my plan succeed in their struggle for power, and they were even reluctant to see me gain ten perfect warriors who were much stronger than their peers. Therefore, they ‘accidentally’ leaked the information, hoping to disrupt my plan with the hands of the Covenant Alliance.

“All in all, because of the unexpected assault from the Covenant Alliance, the Origin Plan that cost me years of hard work and tremendous resources was almost entirely ruined. Although one last fetus survived, it had been corrupted by the Three Fundamental Laws of the Covenant Alliance. Nobody could tell what kind of person it would grow into eventually. I did not dare expose your existence, either!”

Li Jialing blinked. “Why not?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Li Lingfeng said. “Because you were already ‘corrupted’ by then. How could the Li family have kept a monster contaminated by the Covenant Alliance alive? Wouldn’t it be a great humiliation for the Li family? Countless people would chastise me with you as an excuse!”

Li Jialing was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you destroy me?”

Li Lingfeng smiled bitterly, with caring light beaming out of his eyes. “If I say that I dedicated all my energy and hope into the ‘Origin Plan’, the ten perfect fetuses were more important to me than my own blood descendants, and I could not bear to abandon my life’s work when the other nine fetuses were destroyed by the Covenant Alliance, would you believe me?”

Biting his lips softly, Li Jialing pondered for a moment and asked, “Therefore, you hid my existence, fabricated a new identity for me, and let me live in the Li family as a common member, right?”

“Yes,” Li Lingfeng said. “In the report that I submitted to the family, I lied and said that the ten fetuses were all destroyed. The rest is history.

“Countless eyes in the family were staring at me the whole time. So, I could not arrange appropriate training sessions in the family directly for you. Wuying Lan, the owner of Manjusaka, is an old friend of mine. Only here can we do our best together to crack the seal of the Covenant Alliance deep inside your soul and boost your potential in order to see the end of the Origin Plan!

“This is about everything that has happened so far. The details are all recorded in the jade chip. You can take your time to examine them.

“Jialing, you have every reason to hate me, for performing strengthening and modification on you when you were still a life seed, for not telling you the truth for so many years, and for conducting such cruel training on you. But no matter how much you hate me, I want you to be clear of one thing.

“Every generation of the most distinguished heir of the Li family has been through the same thing.

“Pain is the greatest treasure. Whoever grasps the treasure will be qualified to grasp the entire world.

“Live up to your potential, and don’t fail your fate!”