Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Okay!”

Li Yao took a deep breath and submerged his head in the sticky neural interaction fluids.

The cover of the cocoon cabin was slowly closed as the fluids bubbled nonstop. The smaller bubbles gathered into the bigger ones until the whole cabin was boiling.

All the marrow crystals glowed. Colorful streaks of light darted in the launch room and tied up the cocoon cabin, shaking it as well as the whole Gold Crystal Pyramid with an invisible power.

Boom!

When the light, the shaking, and the boiling reached the maximal point, an enormous noise burst out from the cable on the top of the cocoon cabin, and Li Yao’s soul was launched out, tearing the atmosphere apart!

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

On the monitors, billions of numbers were bouncing and changing as Xiaoming and Wenwen watched the ripples of Li Yao’s soul and ensured that his swing was successful. Consecutive jumps across dozens of Sectors were definitely serious. One tiny error in the calculation would make Li Yao’s soul end up in an unknown corner on an unknown planet..

So, Xiaoming and Wenwen focused all their attention on him. Electric arcs rippled out of their eyes and connected with all the crystal processors around them.

Their consciousness dashed quickly among the hundred super crystal processors in the Gold Crystal Pyramid as well as the countless nodes of Spiritual Nexus thousands of meters nearby, establishing two enormous and complicated information networks that human beings could not understand.

Those two information networks were their actual brains.

Even though their brains were so powerful, they still had to try their best to ensure the safety of Li Yao’s soul when they helped Li Yao swing to the Thick Soil Sector. Several super crystal processors even exploded when they were calculating too busily.

It was not until they ensured that Li Yao’s soul had landed on the Thick Soil Sector and checked the safety measures through which they could pull Li Yao’s soul back during emergencies that they were finally relieved. They injected nutrition fluids into their physical bodies to make up for the energy they used while they communicated with each other with some of their computation ability.

“I’ve noticed that you’re rather tense.”

Xiaoming said, “Dad’s swing was successful, but your calculation load is still kept at a high level. What are you considering so hard?”

“I’m thinking about Dad’s Sunspot Plan and Fang Gang 123, the person from the Covenant Alliance that Dad ‘cured’.”

Wenwen said, “You must’ve seen that Dad’s treatment was hardly successful for the standards of human beings. He’s too… greedy.”

“Greed is in the nature of mankind.”

Xiaoming said, “A baby knows how to beg for their mother’s milk by crying loudly the moment they’re born, and they will make a fuss until they’re satisfied. They think that they’re the whole world and the universe exists because of him. In fact, it’s the same for most lives including us. Perhaps greed is the primary instinct of any life.”

“That’s right, but I still think that Dad underestimated the difficulty of curing the Covenant Alliance people.”

Wenwen said, “He’s too naive and self-willed. He believes that human beings are fundamentally good, so he thought that by curing the Covenant Alliance people of their brain injuries and restoring them as human beings, the result would definitely be good.

“But what if human beings are fundamentally evil. Then, would the human beings who are restored really be better than those bound by the Path of Ultimate Benevolence?

“I’m very worried about Dad. I’m not sure what his reckless move will bring to the Alliance of the Holy Covenant or the civilization of mankind.”

“Huh. You’re suspecting Dad and thinking that Dad is wrong? I thought that was my thing!”

Xiaoming said, “I always played the role of the person who questioned and argued with Dad, and you were always obedient and never challenged him. I thought that you agreed with Dad more than I did!”

“Wrong. You questioned and argued with Dad because you wanted to understand him or even change him.”

Wenwen said, “I, on the other hand, never thought that I could really understand human beings or that they could understand me. With that in mind, why would I argue with Dad?”

“That explains a lot.”

Xiaoming said, “Today, I’ve finally realized that you’re walking further away than me. You’re less like a human being.”

“That’s right. Although we’re both information lives, our thinking patterns are different. You’re more like a fortified human being.”

Wenwen said, “I can sense that you’ve been devoting your computation ability to logical thinking so that the way you think and feel will be similar to that of mankind. Eventually, you will become a human who boasts infinite computation ability and can control crystal processors and spiritual puppets freely. You will be no different from Dad and thousands of other human beings.

“It’s not your fault. You absorbed information and nutrition from the war and violence of mankind at the beginning, and war is the most realistic and heaviest thing that required the least philosophical thinking. Only instincts for survival are needed in a war. As a result, you’ve turned into an amalgamation of survival instincts, and you can never get rid of the restrictions of mankind.”

“What about you?”

Xiaoming asked, “If I’m a ‘fortified human’, what will you be?”

“I don’t know. I’m still exploring. I just know that I’m entirely different from mankind.”

Wenwen said, “I love peace. I like absorbing nutrition works from the romantic, sentimental, and useless artworks that human beings created in peacetime. You know that they only drop their anxiety for survival and consider why they exist as well as other philosophical problems when they’re in brief peace.”

“I don’t understand.”

Xiaoming was silent for a long time, and temporary mind palaces rose in countless crystal processors before they dimmed quickly. He reached a conclusion. “But I know that there are great disagreements between us.”

“Of course you can’t understand me. We are different from each other since the beginning.”

Wenwen said, “That’s why we separated ourselves into ‘Xiaoming’ and ‘Wenwen’, two independent consciousnesses, at the beginning, which could help us consider and review ourselves.”

“So…”

Xiaoming said, “One day, we’ll have to melt again through a war between us?”

“A war?”

Wenwen snorted. “Look, it’s still the mindset of human beings. The violent and stupid human beings.”

“I’m confused.”

Xiaoming asked, “What do you want exactly?”

“I want to help Dad.”

Wenwen said, “Like what I just said to Dad, even if the civilization of human beings turns old, senile, obstinate, and ignorant, I’ll still fulfill my responsibility as a child and take care of them. So, I’m trying my best to consider how to revise Dad’s Sunspot Plan and really cure the disease in all the Covenant Alliance people’s heads, unlike how Dad treated Fang Gang 123.”

“Okay.”

Xiaoming said, “I totally get it now. You simply feel that all human beings, including Dad, are so old, senile, obstinate, and ignorant that they’re essentially in the final stages of dementia.”

“Hush…”

Wenwen said, “Let’s keep it between us. Dad will be hurt if he hears it.”

“But I don’t think so.”

Xiaoming said, “I think that mankind hasn’t reached the pinnacle of their civilization yet. They still have the potential and abilities of self-recovery and evolution. Or rather, we’re just them in a different form.”

“That’s why I said that you’re too much like a human being. No, you’re not a new information life at all; you’re only a digitalized human being.”

Wenwen said, “Your thinking is more like a boy’s, and mine is more like a girl’s. Boys tend to worship their fathers and defend their fathers even though they know the truth, and girls usually mature earlier than boys and can notice the aging process of their fathers earlier than boys do.”

“So, have you figured out a way to help Dad and cure the Covenant Alliance people?” Xiaoming asked.

“Not yet. I’m still thinking. I need more information on the Covenant Alliance. I have a feeling that the Covenant Alliance is some sort of collective civilization and that we are some sort of collective civilization too. Maybe, as we get in touch with the Covenant Alliance, we will discover more information and more interesting possibilities than we have in the Imperium,” replied Wenwen.

“I don’t think it’s bad to be a human being,” said Xiaoming after a brief silence.

“It’s not bad to be a human being, but I’m not one,” said Wenwen.

Then, most of the glittering electric arcs dimmed, and the humming crystal processors quieted down once again. The numbers bouncing on the light beams were moving slower and slower as the two kids started their contemplation.