Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Wow!”

Before Li Yao could reply, the mental devil extended its little neck out of the tree of memory pieces and shrieked, “That’s too vicious! Slaying such an innocent and harmless mental devil such as myself? No wonder they say that women are the most obnoxious of all! You—you wouldn’t listen to her jibber-jabber, would you?”

“I beg to differ,” Li Yao said. “Although she may be overstating some parts, she does have a point in general. You have been quite an annoyance, and you try to bewilder, corrupt, and swallow me from morning to dust every day. If I am incautious for one moment, I will be mired in your Abyss. It does not seem a bad offer if I can wipe you out for good!”

“Not a bad offer?” The mental devil bashed its chest and cried. “Unbrotherly! So unbrotherly! To think that we have gone through life and death in the Blood Demon Sector, and I helped unravel the mysteries of the training of cells, activate the primeval memories in the ancient times, and even build the Cell Obliteration Cannon for you! I consider you a good bro to fight side by side with, and this is how you are treating me? I’m weeping!”

“A good bro? Did you really?” Li Yao thought carefully for a moment. “I only recall that, when I was framed after I returned to the Heaven’s Origin Sector, not only did you refuse to help me, you even took the opportunity to swallow me when I was in peril!”

“You dummy!” the mental devil exclaimed, as if it were greatly wronged. “Do you still understand how much I have been doing for you? I was merely enlightening and polishing you in a special way! Had I not pretended to swallow you time and time again, would your soul have grown to such an immense level, and would you have advanced into the Nascent Soul Stage at such a young age?”

“That explains a lot. It seems that I have indeed wronged you.” Li Yao nodded in approval. “Then, what about yesterday? Didn’t you declare resolutely yesterday that you had taken sides with Blackstar the Great, whom you considered to be your most admirable idol, and you had become an unwavering Immortal Cultivator? Didn’t you say that your belief would completely crush mine and you would swallow me one day?”

The mental devil blinked innocently. “Did I say that?”

“Should I retrieve a clip of my memory for you?”

“… That will not be necessary, Brother Yao. After a day’s careful consideration, I have thought everything through!

“Yesterday, I was too foolish, having been deeply brainwashed by the Immortal Cultivators. My head was not clear when I bought their bullsh*t, which is full of loopholes. That was why I spoke such nonsense to you at that time!

“Later, under Brother Yao’s insightful tutelage and charming charisma, I gradually realized the nature of the Immortal Cultivators, which is sordid, shameless, selfish, and ruthless. The decayed Imperium of True Human Beings is doomed to fail, while the vigorous Star Glory Federation will certainly rise unstoppably. It is the law of history and the trend of the universe!

“Screw Blackstar the Great and the Imperium of True Human Beings! Screw all the other Immortal Cultivators! I have decided! From this moment on, I will return to the correct path and join the side of brightness. I will examine my wrongdoings and be a proper and glorious Cultivator!

“In the future, I will certainly follow your lead. We will work together and fight side by side for the federation, for our compatriots, and for the general public. We will make contributions and sacrifices as expected of a Cultivator!

“Please look forward to my performance, Brother Yao!”

“You seem to have turned into a man of devotion after only one day,” Li Yao commented. “You are not saying this when you do not mean it because you are scared that I have found a way to execute you, are you?”

“Of course not. Do I look like such a coward?” the mental devil declared solemnly. “I meant every word that I said. I was not forced to say anything at all!”

“Really?”

“Yes! Although I am a tiny mental devil and evil is in my nature, I am Brother Yao’s mental devil after all! As the saying goes, he who gets in contact with vermilion will become red! After following Brother Yao for such a long time and being edified by your glorious deeds from dawn till dusk, finally, as the changes in quantity lead to a change in quality, I have been completely changed by you! Isn’t—isn’t it very reasonable?”

“Fine!” Li Yao licked his dry lips. He narrowed his eyes as he gazed at Tang Qianhe and said silently inside his brain, “Then, prepare to activate the most brutal form of my left arm where you are lurking!”

The mental devil was suddenly alarmed. “What are you trying to do? Your heart is beating more than a hundred times per second!”

While he was grinning hideously, Li Yao’s bloodshot eyes passed Tang Qianhe’s shoulders and pierced into the escape capsule. “Nothing particular. I only mean to find out something.”

“What—what is it?” the mental devil stammered.

“When I just began my career,” Li Yao said, “I once practiced saber arts in the middle of the sandstorms on the Grand Desolate Plateau. At that time, even the tornadoes were slashed in half and perished into nothingness!

“The second when the tornadoes that could rip apart the sky and the ear vanished in front of my eyes was the most gratifying second in my entire life. The feeling was so enjoyable that even the ‘competition of beliefs’ is no match for it!

“My saber is a saber that can kill a tornado!

“I would like the taste the feeling again, where the entire world is eclipsed by me!

“I want to find out whether or not my saber can kill a ‘god’ after being crazily whetted for more than ten years!”

Violent music was playing inside Li Yao’s brain.

After he advanced into the Nascent Soul Stage from the superlative height of the Core Formation Stage, he had already become able to control himself and restrain the sound of resonation between his abdomen and his spiritual energy to his veins, nerves, and spiritual root without letting any out.

However, Li Yao had already grown fond of fighting in the middle of soul-stirring music. He was also preparing to build his special combat mode, or rather, the ‘spiritual domain’, with the violent, world-shaking music as the core!

It was said that when a Cultivator marched into the Divinity Transformation Stage from the Nascent Soul Stage, their soul and their will would temporarily be freed from the confines of their body. They would construct a special, twisted force field around them!

Everything within the force field would be covered by their soul and their will. They would be like a true god mastering everything in the tiny, independent world!

Such a force field was also known as a spiritual domain!

Within the range of the spiritual domain, a mortal could be a god!

The ability to trigger a spiritual domain marked the biggest difference between the Nascent Soul Stage and the Divinity Transformation Stage. When a Cultivator boasted a spiritual domain, they would essentially be carrying a portable ‘home field’. Whoever they were fighting against, as soon as they activated the spiritual domain, they would immediately boast mysterious ‘home field advantages’!

Of course, Li Yao was still some distance away from the Divinity Transformation Stage, but still, it would not hurt if he started making preparations right now so that he could soar into the ultimate level one day!

“Fellow Cultivator Li!”

Slapped by countless whips of light brutally, Tang Qianhe was shrieking in a high-pitched voice, her figure and her voice both twisted. “If you persist in your ignorance, you will be plagued by worries forever! Embrace the Path of Ultimate Benevolence and let us eliminate all your concerns for you!”

“Fellow Cultivator Li!”

Su Changfa and Kou Ruhuo were both summoning all their spiritual energy. They were also on the verge of exhaustion. If Li Yao jumped to the Covenant Alliance’s side at that moment, everybody would be doomed!

Even the old and cunning Su Changfa sounded like he was begging when he said, “Do not listen to that puppet’s nonsense! One’s feelings are indispensable in the first place. If you indeed kill all your negative emotions, all your positive emotions will be suppressed to the minimum, too. You will become just like her!

“How can you be delighted without experiencing sorrow? How can you be happy without going through fury? If there’s no envy, there will be no competition or momentum to strive forward! Without greed and desire, can a human being still be called a human being!

“Fellow Cultivator Li, you must not be swayed. You must not!”

“So,” Li Yao said solemnly, “you are admitting the most of her words are true? Is the future of the Imperium of True Human Beings truly not promising, and the Covenant has risen unstoppably and overwhelmed you?”

“Cough, cough! Cough, cough, cough, cough!” Su Changfa coughed nonstop, covering his weakness by throwing up blood.

“We are still at an advantage in head-on battles,” Kou Ruhuo shouted. “We have so many resources from so many Sectors at our disposal. They are enough to even crush the Covenant Alliance with their sheer weight!

“However, the shameless Covenant Alliance has infiltrated us and brainwashed a number of citizens of the Imperium, especially the hominoids who are slaves, with their theory of the Path of Ultimate Benevolence. That is why they have resurged time and time again!

“But rest assured, Brother Li. The Imperium has developed a technique called the Ring-Tu Test that can accurately tell human beings apart from such puppets!

“We will eliminate the Covenant Alliance for good very soon!”

Kou Ruhuo was a terrible liar after all because Tang Qianhe had obviously deceived the Ring-Tu Test. In the urgency, he was too anxious to care about whether or not Li Yao was laughing at him right now.

However, from his unconsidered words, Li Yao was still partly able to infer why such an absurd Path of Ultimate Benevolence was spreading on a large scale in the territory of the Imperium.

Li Yao found the Path of Ultimate Benevolence absurd because all his materialistic needs had been met. He was not concerned about the safety of his life, either. Naturally, it was the spiritual achievements that were of a higher level that he pursued.

Feelings and emotions were very important to him.

It would definitely be unacceptable if somebody wanted to take them away from him.

However, Li Yao, and even perhaps the Star Glory Federation, were probably the special cases in the three thousand Sectors.

Maybe, in many other Sectors, the ordinary people were still living lives of fear all day with barely any food or clothes. They could end up being the prey of demons, the extraterrestrial devils, or the ferocious animals of the alien species at any time. They might even become the slaves or the experimental mice of their own kind, like the hominoids of the Imperium of True Human Beings!

Walking in their shoes, Li Yao realized that, if he were a remnant citizen of the Martial Meritocrats Sector or the Sand Primitive Sector, he would be the most miserable slave in the Imperium of True Human Beings. Every second after he was born might be the second when he was sent for experiments.

Then, he definitely would not hesitate to embrace such a beautiful new world, which was claimed to be a place where everybody was equal without any conflict or oppression, even if he had to trade all his worries, fears, and sorrows for it. If anything, they were exactly what he hoped to get rid of!