Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao had never seen anybody talking about such an absurd and evil thing as “brainwashing” in such a matter-of-fact way.

Perhaps it was a necessary skill for every emperor or leader.

Even so, ripples of confusion still spread out of Li Yao’s eyes, as he mumbled, “Sounds… fair enough, but it is brainwashing after all…”

“No, ‘brainwashing’ is just the fear of the intelligently incapable people who are restrained by their experiences and their imaginations. Like I said just now, when an ancient person sees modern surgery, he will only criticize it as ‘demonic arts’! Li Yao, I believe that you are not a simple-minded ordinary person. You should be able to view the new technologies in the most rational and forward-looking ways and see their advantages and disadvantages as well as the revolutionary significance that they have brought to the civilization of mankind!”

Wuying Qi’s hollowed face showed delight as Li Yao was more or less shaken. He continued, “In short, in the Demon Beast Empire, the Star Ocean Imperium, the Star Ocean Republic, the Imperium of True Human Beings, or the end of your country of Cultivators in the future, the source of all the problems is that the universe is too vast and people are not united.

“In order to address the two problems, one solution is to shorten the distance among Sectors through more advanced communication as well as transportation methods that the development of technology provides, allowing the power of the central government to be projected to other places quickly. However, the development of technology is never easy. No matter how our civilization develops, it is always extremely costly and risky for us as three-dimensional lives to travel or communicate via the four-dimension.

“Now that the distance among planets cannot be shortened for the time being, we can only work on the human factors and unite the people through brainwashing. In fact, it is also the foundation and prerequisite for technological advancement. How can you achieve anything if you are not united?

“However, I do not like the word ‘brainwashing’. The more accurate way of saying it is ‘enlightenment’.”

“Enlightenment?” echoed Li Yao subconsciously.

“Yes, the technology to generate common feelings, memories, and will by stimulating the brains can improve the efficiency of information exchange and knowledge inheritance by hundreds of times. It can make the most selfish traitors regret what they did and the most idiotic mortals become wise. It is an indispensable technology for mankind to evolve from a planetary civilization to an interstellar civilization and from an interstellar civilization to a real ‘grand-universe civilization’.”

Wuying Qi said, “You may think that I got the technology from the Covenant Alliance or even had any clandestine deals with it, but you can’t be more wrong. The origin of the technology has nothing to do with ‘evil brainwashing’ but can be traced back to the early years of the primeval age when the Pangu civilizations’ alliance had just been founded. The purpose of such a technology was not to enslave anyone; it was for the different civilizations that made up the alliance to sympathize with each other and live in harmony.”

“The early years of the primeval age?”

Li Yao did not expect that Wuying Qi had grasped such an ancient piece of technology. He was deeply shocked.

He held his breath and pricked his ears, as if he did not realize that more and more black hair had turned into thread-like nerves and crawled into his body while Wuying Qi talked.

Li Yao’s consciousness and Wuying Qi’s were connected by the thousands of threads.

Every word that Wuying Qi said next seemed to include infinite information. It was not just the sounds but also the vivid pictures that bombarded Li Yao’s soul like crystal bombs. However, it did not raise Li Yao’s dislike or wariness at all, because it sounded completely unrelated to the war right now.

“With your wisdom and ability of deduction, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to realize that the most critical way in sustaining the continuity of a massive empire that covers thousands of Sectors is to unite the people’s understanding so that they can share similar memories, feelings, and glory.”

Wuying Qi corrupted Li Yao’s soul quietly as he continued, “If a country’s territory only involves a planet or a continent, it will be easy to gather common understanding. However, if the territory includes two planets that are tens of thousands of lightyears away from each other, one frozen and the other covered in deserts, and the two planets are out of touch with each other now and then, the residents of the two families won’t have any ‘common memories’ at all. Conflict and division will be inevitable!

“Two planets are already troublesome enough, but what about twenty thousand planets, or two million of them?

“Before the Pangu civilizations’ alliance was founded, the situation in the universe was even worse than today. However chaotic and disunited the Imperium is, all the citizens are at least human beings who share basically the same biophysical structures and cultures.

“The Pangu civilizations’ alliance, on the other hand, included thirteen vastly-different carbon-based lives, who had just fought life-and-death battles not long ago!

“The differences among carbon-based lives can be unimaginably huge. Let me give you the simplest example, which is the Houyi Clan and the Kuafu Clan that once fought over ten suns.

“The origin of the Houyi Clan was a bug with a black shell. They were like the evolved version of bee swarms. Their individuals did not have the slightest consciousness or wisdom. However, during the prolonged evolution, certain ‘circuits’ were grown on their solar energy shells. When thousands of bugs gathered and established a swarm, the interconnected circuits would boost sparks of wisdom as they vibrated their shells, thereby generating a ‘collective consciousness’.

“From that point of view, the Houyi Clan barely had any concept of ‘individual’ and ‘community’. Every member of the Houyi Clan was actually a swarm of dense bugs or a beehive that was alive and could move freely. When a member of the Houyi Clan was heavily wounded, and 90% of the bugs were lost, the last 10% could still fly into other swarms and become part of another member of the Houyi Clan, even passing part of the information in the past into the new community.

“Therefore, many members of the Houyi Clan believed that they never died. That was also the reason why the Houyi Clan was so ruthless.

“The Kuafu Clan, on the other hand, were more like ‘plants’ than ‘animals’.

“The Kuafu Clan was a species of giants. Their adults could grow to almost a hundred meters, like magnificent mountains and skyscrapers. They were the largest of the thirteen clans in the Pangu alliance.

“But who could’ve thought that the newborns of the Kuafu Clan were just tiny seeds? The Kuafu Clan did not have the concept of gender but reproduced collectively. Whenever the spring on their mother planet came, under the influence of the sun, the adults would gather life seeds the size of fingernails inside their bodies. Then, they would pierce the life seeds deep into the ground with special roots so that the vulnerable seeds could avoid the radiation of the scorching sun and accept the nutrition of the warm soil.

“After that, every member of the Kuafu Clan that passed by could sense the seed. They would also pierce their tentacles into the ground and irrigate the seeds with their nutrition and genetic information. For the Kuafu Clan, it was the most sacred bliss. You can also understand it as a way of reproduction.

“Generally speaking, a seed would gather enough nutrition and genetic information after being blessed by twenty to thirty members of the Kuafu Clan, and it would be ready to germinate.

“If more than a hundred members of the Kuafu Clan gave it nutrition and genetic information, it would definitely grow into a leader of its community and an ultimate expert of the Kuafu Clan. It might even grow beyond a hundred meters as a truly overwhelming giant. In fact, many researchers have proposed that the so-called ‘Kuafu’s sphere’ was actually made of the bodies of the members of the Kuafu Clan.

“However, no matter what its future held, the Kuafu Clan that just broke out of the soil was just a tiny seedling, which could not even move itself. It could only attract a primeval beast named ‘Yellow Snake’ with its special scent and magnetic field so that it could serve and protect it from its enemies. Of course, the vitality field of the Kuafu Clan was very helpful for the evolution of the Yellow Snake too. It was an amazing symbiosis.

“The young members of the Kuafu Clan had to grow for decades and even hundreds of years under the service of the Yellow Snakes before they could uproot themselves and become adult giants who could move freely, joining their civilization. Of course, after the civilization was highly developed, and the aeroponics and rapid growth technologies were invented, the Kuafu Clan also invented other bizarre, new ways of reproduction. However, the memories of their ancestors that were deeply rooted in the soil still lingered inside their genes, never to be forgotten.

“Tell me about it. How could the Houyi Clan and the Kuafu Clan, two entirely different carbon-based civilizations who had just been through a life-and-death battle, shake their hands, negotiate in peace, and reach a common understanding that both of them were highly-developed intelligent lives instead of ‘evil aliens’?”

Li Yao was silent.

It was true. Neither the Houyi Clan, who had collective wisdom, nor the Kuafu Clan, who were plants in their youth and animals after adulthood and who buried their debris into the “Kuafu sphere”, was likely to comprehend each other’s life forms or acknowledge that each other was a civilization.

“At that time, if the war between the two civilizations was not stopped, the Houyi Clan and the Kuafu Clan would probably be extinguished.”

Wuying Qi said, “The Pangu Clan, as a ‘middleman’, used your so-called ‘evil brainwashing’ technologies to enlighten the two civilizations and make them feel what each other felt. They shared each other’s ancestral memories and living environments, perceived each other’s feelings and desires, and understood the varieties of civilizations. Eventually, they reached an agreement and embraced peace, saving both of the civilizations. Of course, they understood the existence of the Pangu Clan by the way, which spared them of the fear for the Pangu Clan’s overly advanced technologies.”