Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The declaration rumbled inside Fang Chengzhi’s head like an enormous bell, spreading out slowly but surely.

Before he completely woke up from the shock, he had heard a scream that was even louder, more hateful, and crazier coming over from not far away in the valley.

“The federation! Li Yao! How sordid and vicious of you!”

While the voice was still echoing, a streak of green rose from the ground and dashed at the dozens of starships floating in the sky. Fang Chengzhi observed carefully, only to discover that it was an elegant, unworldly, and beautiful girl in green clothes who jumped into the sky.

Despite her whining and apparent madness, her perfect face was still enough to disturb many men’s minds.

She seems to be… Murong Ling, one of the four most famous female Cultivators in the Hundred Cranes State. Why is she as crazy as that?

As a Cultivator from a noble family who was passionate about socialization, Fang Chengzhi naturally knew most of the celebrities in the other sects and states.

Murong Ling’s Cultivation was rather high and seemed even better than his. In the blink of an eye, she had already ascended to an altitude of hundreds of meters. With a couple of delicate swords swirling around herself rapidly, she roared, “My father was the leader of the righteous Cultivators in the Hundred Cranes State. He never did anything wrong, slaying evil and maintaining the local order. Who did not know the great name of ‘Heavenly Sword of the South’? Now, he has been executed by you for nothing other than butchering several villages of mobs? I don’t buy it! I don’t buy it at all!

“Those mobs had themselves to blame for their outcome. Who asked them to come and steal the food of the Murong family? Looting our warehouses in daylight, they were unpardonable bandits! Stomping on the lairs of bandits and annihilating the bandits big and small was meant to pacify the local region and keep the order. What’s wrong with that?”

Murong Ling’s desperate shouts attracted a lot of Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector to gather in the valley. They all looked at the sky in astonishment.

The starships of the federation in the sky, on the other hand, did not give any response, as if they had been rendered speechless by Murong Ling and were unable to refute her ‘reasons’.

Murong Ling grew even more excited. Her hair in a mess, she burst into laughter and said, “The Star Glory Federation? Vulture Li Yao? Don’t think that I’m unaware of what is on your mind. You just found a random excuse to kill my father because you were after the properties of the Murong family. Everybody knows that the thirty percent of farmlands and mines of the Hundred Cranes State previously owned by the Murong family have fallen into your hands!

“He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick. However, occupying our ancestral enterprise with such a ridiculous excuse and tearing the Murong family apart just like that is too outrageous. None of the thousands of fellow Cultivators in the Ancient Sages Sector will be convinced! Do you have any morals at all?

“Vulture Li Yao, don’t presume that the thousands of Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector have been intimidated by the Star Glory Federation just like that. Although I am just a woman, I am going to challenge you today with my righteous indignity because justice is on my side!

“You killed Elder Scorching Sun because of the mightiness of the Cloud Qin Gold Statue and the hundred divine boats. If you think you are capable enough, just come down and duel with me singlehandedly without counting on the divine boats and the Gold Statue!

“Li Yao! Li Yao! You—”

Murong Ling drove her flying swords and triggered her spiritual energy, cursing aloud.

Seeing that more and more fellow Cultivators had gathered below, some of whom were even cheering up for her, she was even braver and more determined. In a daze, she felt that she had truly seen justice and the reasons that enshrouded the Ancient Sages Sector for a hundred thousand years ascending slowly behind her, providing her with infinite strength.

She was about to grit her teeth and charge at the biggest ‘divine boat’ when several divine boats around suddenly flashed. Dozens of mystic rays darted close and penetrated her body brutally. Her internal organs, bones, and flesh were burnt into ashes instantly, and her soul dispersed into nothingness before she could struggle in anguish. Then, she did not know anything anymore.

The most famous female Cultivator of the Hundred Cranes State perished just like that, leaving absolutely nothing behind her.

All that remained were the crystals of dust that were falling onto the heads of all the Cultivators present, like snow in June that contained infinite discontentment.

Fang Chengzhi stared at the scene in silence.

He was panicked first, then overwhelmed, before he was puzzled in the end.

However, after the ‘snow’ landed on the ground and regained its original appearance of dust, all the panic, confusion, and weakness on his face had entirely gone.

Thanks to the stimuluses in the exhibition of hundred-year glory and the scene before his eyes, he was granted with a new epiphany.

He felt as if thunder had struck inside his head, and a brand-new strength that was of a higher level and as boundless as ocean was flooding in incessantly.

Right now, he did not understand the nature of the strength yet.

But it did not matter. He had all the time in the world. The world of the Ancient Sages Sector had changed. His belief was going through drastic transformations, too. One day, he would figure out the Star Glory Federation’s source of strength and make himself, the Green Cloud Sword Sect, and the entire Ancient Sages Sector climb to a higher peak with the strength that he had just learned!

…

Neither the Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector who were changing quickly such as ‘Green Willow’ Fang Chengzhi nor the obstinate ones such as Murong Ling could disturb Li Yao at all.

Li Yao was not on Angry Fire Mountain at all but inside a training room on a starship above the capital of the Great Qian Dynasty. He was sitting cross-legged and conducting the most mysterious training.

His black hair was glowing, and a layer of vague light was flowing on his skin, like the cover of the previous antiques. He looked calm and casual. For him, every movement, every breath, and every thought was training.

Two years prior, when they set off from the homeland of the federation, they had planned to reach the Ancient Sages Sector in three to six months.

However, the dark nebula was too mysterious and filled with all kinds of bizarre interference. Despite the most detailed star map, sailing routes, and coordinates, they still encountered unexpected changes and were lost for two years before they finally found the place. In fact, they were already unbelievably lucky to have rectified their sailing route and gotten back on course so quickly.

During the two years while lost in space, Li Yao was fully dedicated to the digestion and absorption of the massive tenebrum energy left by the extraterrestrial devils as well as the gifts left by Professor Mo Xuan, allowing him to better and more deeply integrate the mental devil and Neltharion.

Before he arrived in the Ancient Sages Sector, he had finally purged and absorbed all the tenebrum energy, and the abundance of his spiritual energy reached an unprecedented level. He was not one step but one piece of paper away from the real Divinity Transformation Stage.

Although the gap was as thin as paper, it could not be broken through by storing spiritual energy crazily but required new understanding and new perspectives to view his own kind, the world, and all the objects in the universe.

The state was more or less like when his Spiritual Actualization Quotient was increased to above ninety percent. Whether or not his spiritual root would awaken at that time depended on not the improvement of his physical strength but the unpredictable opportunity.

The only difference was that when he was at a lower level, he had to look for the opportunity, but now that he was between the Nascent Soul Stage and the Divinity Transformation Stage, he could create an opportunity of his own!

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

Almost a hundred light beams displayed the major events taking place in every corner of the Ancient Sages Sector before his eyes.

Right when the hundred thousand Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector were being reeducated in a soul-touching way inside Angry Fire Mountain, drastic changes were taking place elsewhere in the Ancient Sages Sector.

Enormous temporary camps were built on a daily basis to house the disaster-stricken folks who had lost their homes. The victims would also receive comprehensive physical examinations to eradicate diseases.

Water plants were established in the middle of swamps and dirty water every day, too. From the top of them, clean, drinkable water spurted out nonstop. This measure alone had saved countless lives.

Every day, the warehouses of tremendous Cultivation sects were either opened ‘voluntarily’ or taken down by the Exos from the federation by force. The abundant food stored in the warehouses dumbfounded even the Cultivators from the federation, who found it hard to believe their own eyes.

Li Yao was very satisfied about the paradigm-shifting changes in the Ancient Sages Sector.

He naturally knew that a lot of Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector were secretly cursing him behind his back, labeling him a vicious, unreasonable, and lawless fiend.

Indeed, from the perspective of the Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector, and faced with the never-changing traditions of the Ancient Sages Sector, he was indeed a lawless, unparalleled fiend.

However…

Abiding by the existent rules was a virtue of the weak.

For real experts, only abiding by the current rules was not enough. Human beings were always making progress, unveiling the truth of the universe, and mastering patterns of nature of a deeper level.

The current laws, systems, and rules would forever be behind humanity’s knowledge about the ultimate truth of the universe.

It was the virtue and obligation of experts to remove obsolete laws and systems and to establish new laws and ‘reasons’ that better fitted the development of mankind!

After one’s Cultivation, combat ability, wisdom, and power reached a certain level, they would indeed be ‘lawless’. Whatever they did was not to be gauged by a certain partial and rigid law. Perhaps, exactly as Jin Tuyi had said in the past, only history was qualified to judge them.

In the past, Li Yao did not quite understand what Jin Tuyi meant.

But right now, he was beginning to understand it.

He could almost perceive Blackstar the Great Wuying Qi’s past state of mind.

“I firmly believe that I’m right, and I will dedicate all my efforts, strength, soul, and resources to carry out my belief in every corner and every grain of dust in the universe.

“Right now, no force, law, or moral can judge what I do because those things are exactly what I’m about to smash!

“Only history billions of years in the future can be the final judge for what I am doing today.

“Even if history rules that I am wrong, I will not accept it. As long as part of my soul is still wandering in the infinite sea of stars, as long as there is the slightest possibility, I will come back again and fight a bloody battle to the end, until all my strength, will, and life is entirely obliterated!”