Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The news of Emperor Chengwu’s coronation came to the capital three days ago.

Together with the news was a grand ceremony and parade.

Under the fear of fall, the four Kurfürst families had invested whatever they had left and established a new army. Although it was not as astounding as the ace fleets that they had earlier, the new army did look rather powerful on the surface.

This Emperor Chengwu was Emperor Shenwu’s cousin. His bloodline was unquestionable, but he was utterly useless and was only the four families’ puppet.

The four families wished that they could reunite the Imperium under his name.

They sent the message of the new emperor’s coronation and the parade throughout the Imperium to expand their influence.

People in the Imperium generally believed that a country needed a monarch. Even though they knew that Emperor Chengwu was only a puppet and the coronation ceremony was not even held in the capital, the emperor looked sacred and inviolable after he ascended to the throne, making the Immortal Cultivators have second thoughts.

When the Imperium was so chaotic, the authority of an emperor could be a weapon more powerful than a fleet.

“I’m aware of that.”

Li Yao nodded his head. “This Emperor Chengwu is nothing but a new puppet.”

“A puppet he is, but convention is such a powerful thing. For a thousand years, the people of the Imperium have been taught to be devoted to their emperor. It cannot be changed overnight.”

Li Jialing paused for a moment and said, “It’s been almost a year since the late emperor’s demise. Now, a fake emperor on the four families’ side is claiming the crown, but the reformists do not have an emperor to lead them when their slogan at the beginning was to respect the emperor and renew the Imperium. How can the reformists unite the Imperium without an emperor?”

“That’s indeed a headache. Hasn’t General Lei Chenghu been looking for a new emperor? He even asked me to take part in the inspection several times, but the candidates were hardly satisfactory.”

Li Yao was one of the most powerful people in the Imperium. Leaving aside the backup from the Star Glory Federation, he was the legitimate King of Black Wind, had the support of the Arsonist Fleet, and was one of the strongest warriors in the Imperium. He was definitely among the most influential people in the Imperium, and Lei Chenghu was probably the only person who could compete with him. The smaller warlords in the Imperium were not a match for him at all.

Therefore, though Li Yao was not a Kurfürst, he had the power of one. Both Li Linghai and Lei Chenghu had to respect his opinion when they were electing a new emperor.

However, the royal family had been turned into a wasteland by the generations of Kurfürsten who intentionally indulged them. The candidates in the royal family were hardly normal, much less competent enough for the title.

“Like I’ve told General Lei Chenghu many times, the election of a new emperor is an internal affair of the Imperium, and I shouldn’t intervene much as an outsider.”

Li Yao sighed and frowned, “However, those candidates are simply too unworthy. Some of them are greedy and ambitious, and some cannot think clearly at all. In short, they cannot contribute to our cause at all!

“Even a puppet should have some wisdom. I really don’t care who’s going to be the emperor, as long as he understands the simple idea that there are no eternal friends but only eternal interests, so that he can leave aside the differences between the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators for now. However, none of the candidates can meet such a simple requirement!”

Li Jialing smiled. “It seems that you’re really angry with all those candidates, right?”

“Angry?”

Li Yao said, “I helped General Lei Chenghu devise a few tests, and those guys all revealed their ambitions. They hated Cultivators so much that they wished they could swallow the Arsonist Fleet and the Star Glory Federation in the next second!

“I’m not saying that the emperor of the Imperium can’t be hostile to the Star Ocean Imperium, but you’d better figure out who’s a greater threat first, alright? Now, the four families are not destroyed yet, and the Covenant Alliance’s hasn’t revealed itself, but you’re hoping to slaughter all the Cultivators, devour the Arsonist Fleet, and march to the Star Glory Federation? You could ask for a better way of death!

“If they can slightly hold themselves back until we finish off the four families and the Covenant Alliance before they attack the Cultivators, I would think more highly of them. But now, not just me, even General Lei Chenghu is not satisfied with them.”

“Yes. General Lei has talked to the queen a lot in the past days about the new emperor. I heard his complaints all the time.”

Li Jialing smiled and said, “Actually, General Lei attaches much more importance to the new emperor than you do, Brother Yao, and he’s not just electing a new puppet.”

“Huh?”

Brightly stunned, Li Yao asked with a smile, “No puppets? Does Lei Chenghu intend to elect a ‘sage emperor’?”

“That’s General Lei’s plan.”

Li Jialing nodded and said, “General Lei believes that the decline of the Imperium in the past hundreds of years boils down to the imbalance between the monarch and his subjects, where the monarch was too weak and the subjects were too powerful.

“If the reformists elect a new puppet, would he be any different from the four families’ puppet? Where would the reform be?

“Yes, General Lei Chenghu and the queen can ensure that the ideology of the reformists are unchanged with their prestige when they are alive, but General Lei is old and may die within a hundred years, and it remains to be seen if the queen can turn into a spectral Cultivator. They can’t protect the puppet forever.

“If one day both General Lei and the queen perish, and the new-generation warlords grow powerful, what can the puppet emperor do? Would the reformists not degenerate into the new-generation four families by then?”

What Li Jialing said made Li Yao grow respectful for Lei Chenghu. “That’s quite right. General Lei Chenghu is quite a visionary. Even though we’re on different sides, I have to admit that he’s a pure soldier who’s devoted to his country!

“However, although it’s great to have a wise emperor instead of a puppet, how can you find a wise emperor so easily? Hasn’t General Lei Chenghu looked into the files on the members of the royal family already? I’ve read the files myself. Few of them are worthy enough. It’s not like we can find several toddlers and groom them into a wise emperor in the coming decades, right? No, by General Lei Chenghu’s rigorous standards, I’m afraid that a baby has to be groomed since when he was back in his mother’s womb in order to meet his demands. Hahahaha!”

Li Yao cackled, but Li Jialing did not respond. The atmosphere was weird and awkward.

“Wait, why are you talking to me about that?”

Feeling that Li Jialing’s face was weird, Li Yao had a mouthful of the strengthening drug and said, “Let the queen and General Lei Chenghu worry about the election of the emperor. What exactly do you want to talk to me and ask for my support?”

“Brother Yao…”

After a long silence, Li Jialing made up his mind and took a deep breath before he said, “If General Lei Chenghu and the queen would like me to be the new emperor of the Imperium, will you support me?”

“Pu!”

Li Yao spewed out the strengthening drug and coughed so hard that his tears were running out. “Cough, cough, cough. You… You’ve got to be kidding me. Cough, cough, cough. Did my ears just deceive me, or is something wrong with Li Linghai’s and Lei Chenghu’s heads? You, the new emperor? Your family name is not Wuying at all!”

“That’s not important.”

Li Jialing said casually, “You wouldn’t think that General Lei Chenghu is one of those stubborn men who have to kneel before the Wuying family, right? The Imperium does not belong to any family, and General Lei is loyal to the Imperium, not Wuying Qi or his unworthy offspring.

“Of course, most people of the Imperium can’t accept an emperor with a different last name, but it’s fine because few people really know me.

“I’m the queen’s biological son. The queen, Lei Chenghu, and the King of Black Wind will endorse that I’m the thirteenth son of the late emperor and that I was secretly sent out of the palace to avoid political conflicts. Now, I’ve returned to the capital after growing up in the Li family. Who can question my legitimacy?”