Forty Millenniums of Cultivation - Chapter 1545
Chapter 1545: The Final Preparations!
A month had passed since the Star Picking Plan began.
However dangerous the Star Picking Plan was, and whatever unpredictable consequences it might bring, the benefits of the plan were obvious.
First of all, the plan prevented the Ancient Sages Sector from taking the Imperium of True Human Beings’ side immediately and the Black Wind Fleet from acquiring a base with abundant spiritual energy, resources, and cannon fodder that it could take advantage of.
If the Black Wind Fleet truly acquired such a base, it would be able to recover from the consumption and exhaustion in the hundred-year journey within a year and a half. They would show up in front of the Star Glory Federation with in their most terrifying form, utterly refreshed and prepared. In such a case, the federation would barely stand any chance of winning.
Without such a ‘delaying tactic’, it would have been impossible for Li Yao and Long Yangjun to stop the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators and the eight Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators from sending a signal to the Black Wind Fleet through Heiye Lan.
Even if Li Yao had sent a signal to the Star Glory Federation at the same time, and the federal fleet and the Black Wind Fleet arrived at the Ancient Sages Sector simultaneously, Li Yao did not have high hopes in the federal fleet’s combat ability in such head-on clashes.
A hundred years ago, in the Meeting of the Nascent Soul Stage in the Star Glory Federation, the general principles to defend the federation had been settled. They would focus most of their attention on counteroffensive battles by taking advantage of the territory of their homeland. Recklessly marching and attacking the Black Wind Fleet deep inside the dark nebula was not in their favor. Fighting the enemy’s strong suits with one’s weaknesses was a military taboo that should be avoided.
Secondly, the plan allowed the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators from the ‘ancient era’ to appreciate the wonders of the modern Cultivation civilization. Li Yao believed that he could at least sway the majority of them and therefore achieve a sincere partnership between the federation and the Ancient Sages Sector. It was even possible that the Ancient Sages Sector would join the federation genuinely and become its indispensable part!
The trend of the universe was unstoppable. Li Yao truly believed that the Star Glory Federation represented the future of the civilization of mankind and was much more advanced than the Imperium or the Covenant Alliance. As long as they saw it with their own eyes and experienced it for themselves, most of the ancient Cultivators would certainly be attracted to it.
It was where Li Yao’s belief lay. He could not suspect or waver about that.
The Star Glory Federation would march to the center of the cosmos one day and bring a whole new future to all human beings, including the citizens of the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance!
If they could not even fascinate a bunch of ‘ancient people’, how could they expect to attract, assimilate, and liberate the citizens of the Imperium and the citizens of the Covenant Alliance?
Meng Chixin and the rest of them considered the Star Picking Plan an open scheme, one that the federation could not resolve even if it was seen through.
But for Li Yao, the plan was also an open scheme, one where an advanced civilization assimilated an underdeveloped civilization.
Li Yao believed that the Star Glory Federation made of Ding Lingdang, Guo Chunfeng, Jin Xinyue, the Fire Ant King, Professor Mo Xuan, Fiend Blade Peng Hai, Xiong Wuji, Lei Dalu, Bai Kaixin, and the rest of his family, friends, and compatriots would certainly not disappoint him after a hundred years of rapid development!
It was the most important reason for him being fully devoted to the Star Picking Plan.
Besides, another benefit that was much more straightforward when the Star Picking Plan was pushed forward at a super high speed was that Li Yao, as the ‘technical director’ of the whole plan, received the magical equipment and jade chips from the Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun, the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, who had collected the items from all over the Nuwa warship for decades. He was also free to study dozen intact Colossi and the debris of even more Colossi. He even received the trust of Heiye Lan, the female warrior from the Imperium, and was able to glean the technological intelligence of the Imperium from her!
Heiye Lan was just a warrior. The infiltration operation that she had been forced to carry out because of the accident had far exceeded her abilities. She was already completely exhausted after making it so far.
After Long Yangjun told her the fake Star Picking Plan, claiming that the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector had decided to sneak into the federation to sabotage them in cooperation with the Black Wind Fleet, she did not notice anything wrong.
Or rather, she never thought even in her wildest dreams that the bodacious, insane ‘ancient people’ would have the courage to consider allying with such an insignificant country like the Star Glory Federation under the threat of the magnificent Imperium!
Even if she was suspicious, there was nothing she could do.
The barriers and secret techniques of the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators could not be removed easily. Her resistance would only lead to crueler, tougher treatment. If anything, the situation would only grow tenser.
Therefore, after much deliberation, Heiye Lan decided to fully cooperate with the twelve experts.
She was born in a noble family in the Imperium of True Human Beings, and she was the daughter of the commander of the Black Wind Fleet. Although her specialty was her Colossus, she had learned a fair amount of knowledge in terms of the navigation and piloting of starships and the emergency maintenance of various kinds of magical equipment.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible for her to force the assault warship to land on the Ancient Sages Sector on her own after all the crew members on ‘Weary Tooth’ were ripped apart by the storms in the four-dimensional space.
In the Star Picking Plan, she was temporarily working as Li Yao’s assistant and carried out the maintenance and examination work on the crystal suits, Colossi, starship, and other advanced magical equipment together with him.
On the other hand, she was also responsible for teaching some of the twelve experts the basic skills to maneuver a starship.
Long Yangjun was the first one to volunteer to study the arts of starship piloting from Heiye Lan.
In such a case, even if she showed amazing expertise at piloting the starship half a year later, she would be able to ask Heiye Lan to take all the credit.
The terms that the twelve experts of the Ancient Sages Sector offered to Heiye Lan in return were that, after the Star Picking Plan was activated, Heiye Lan would be taken to the Star Glory Federation together so that she could collect the first-hand data about the federation.
It was the only solution. They could not keep Heiye Lan in the Ancient Sages Sector, which might lead to more changes. Besides, if they sat on the fence, they would need someone who could directly speak to the Black Wind Fleet, too.
Naturally, on Li Yao’s side, he wanted to get Heiye Lan, the daughter of the commander of the Black Wind Fleet, to the federation, too, so that the Secret Sword Bureau under Guo Chunfeng’s lead could elicit more intelligence from her.
The poor Heiye Lan had no idea that those ‘ancient people’ were so shrewd at all. They were simply considering her a fish on a chopping block and rolling her over while they pondered where they should cut her open.
To facilitate the cooperation between the Ancient Sages Sector and the Imperium of True Human Beings, she was truly confessing a lot of technological secrets dutifully and earnestly.
Many technical manuals from the Imperium of True Human Beings in terms of the maintenance of crystal suits, Colossi, and starships had been copied onto jade chips and given to Li Yao.
From Heiye Lan’s perspective, ‘Master Spiritual Vulture’ was just an ancient Cultivator. No matter how remarkable his ancient refining arts were, how could he possibly understand the most complicated, state-of-the-art technology from the Imperium of True Human Beings?
Little did she know that the ‘Master Spiritual Vulture’ had actually been swapped a long time ago. The guy standing before her was one of the most frightening refiners in the Star Glory Federation!
When he was still in the federation, Li Yao had already studied a lot of the secret technology from the Imperium of True Human Beings by analyzing the crystal suits and starship brought over by Su Changfa and his fellow Immortal Cultivators.
However, Su Changfa and his teammates were not real warriors but some sort of ‘pioneers’. They did not bring ultimate weapons such as the Colossus together with them, either.
Heiye Lan’s jade chips helped Li Yao to fill the most critical missing part.
Fascinated, Li Yao was completely devoted to the new knowledge, devouring the maintenance manuals of crystal suits, Colossi, and starships from the Imperium of True Human Beings crazily.
…
Two months had passed since the Star Pick Plan was activated.
After the full examination and testing in the first month, the twelve experts had each chosen a Colossus to their liking. They began the quick training of the crystal suits and the Colossus under the guidance of Meng Chixin, Wu Suiyun, and Heiye Lan.
They were smart, quick-witted Cultivators above the high level of the Nascent Soul Stage after all. Naturally, the progress of their learning was very fast.
Also, the preliminary usage of the Colossus was not so hard to grasp.
When Li Yao piloted the Colossus for the first time, he had already been able to launch an ultimate skill and execute a member of the Pangu Clan.
It was true that he had fortunately had the assistance of ‘Little Black’ at the time. But right now, the Cultivators had more time to learn than he did. Naturally, they were getting the hang of the Colossi very quickly.
As the ‘technical director’, Li Yao had the full knowledge on the performance features of every Colossus and the combat style of every expert. He had also finished deploying all the ‘backdoors’ during times of maintenance and modification.
The backdoors that he had installed on the Colossi and the crystal suits that Heiye Lan had brought to the Ancient Sages Sector could mainly be classified into three categories.
The first category of ‘backdoors’ was used to determine the location.
As long as they were activated remotely through special telepathic thoughts, the specific location of the target would be displayed on his receptor.
The second category of ‘backdoors’ could also be activated remotely. Once activated, they would generate weird space waves, making the device unable to be absorbed into a Cosmos Ring.
The effect was basically the same as the barriers that Long Yangjun had imposed on the Thousand Stars Tray.
The Ancient Sages Sector was an enclosed world. Many secret treasures had been passed on from the primeval era, including tremendous Cosmos Rings.
The storage space of the Cosmos Rings in this Sector was much larger than that of the Cosmos Rings the federation gathered from the edge of the universe.
During the Dragon Spring Meeting, Yan Liren had once unleashed an enormous sword dozens of meters long from one of his Cosmos Rings.
Since the Cosmos Ring could accommodate such a giant blade, it was definitely capable of accommodating a Colossus no more than thirty meters tall.
If searching in the entire Ancient Sages Sector, more than ten Cosmos Rings of such a level could be found.
It would be too dangerous if twelve dangerous rogues were wandering around carrying a Colossus with them.
Therefore, Li Yao specifically added the ‘safety’. Once activated, they would reduce the inconspicuousness of the Colossi to zero.
The third kind of ‘backdoor’ was certainly barriers to cut the mainframe crystal processor and the engine reactors of the Colossi and paralyze them.
Li Yao had used up all his wisdom on the backdoors. Even if the experts from the Black Wind Fleet arrived, they would still have to vomit blood if they wanted to crack the ‘backdoors’ that he had installed!
