Forty millenniums of cul.., p.791
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 791
Thirdly, the Super Crystal Beast plan!
It was proposed by a specialist of the Blood Demon Sector who was adept at the refinement of demon beasts.
As was known to everybody, human beings and demons had different approaches regarding the usage of animals in a battlefield.
Demons preferred to stimulate the growth of the animal's cells and trigger their mutation through the biochemical technology, thereby transforming the animals into ferocious demon beasts.
Human beings, on the other hand, liked to implanted chips into animals and build them into crystal beasts that could be controlled remotely.
The demon beasts were more brutal and boasted a higher combat ability, but sometimes, they could be disobedient or even attack their masters when they went mad.
The crystal beasts were highly controllable. They could carry out complicated orders, but in terms of animality, they had retrograded even compared to the regular wild animals. Therefore, such crystal beasts were only suitable for reconnaissance and transportation missions but not head-on battles.
If the two types of beasts could be combined by implanting chips that were written with complicated tactical orders into the central nerves of the demon beasts, super crystal beasts, which were stronger than crystal beasts and more controllable than demon beasts, would be made!
There were no theoretical obstacles as to how to implant the chip into a demon beast. As to the technology to write complicate tactical orders into a chip, the demon emperor found the answer from the Flying Star Sector.
"About the crystal suits in the Flying Star Sector, there is a technology named 'skill card'. As long as a skill card is inserted into a crystal suit and activated, the crystal suit will be able to automatically respond and allow ordinary people to perform an expert's ultimate skill!" the demon emperor said. "If we can create a few additional slots on the super crystal beasts that can be inserted with control chips or the skill cards, the super crystal beasts will be able to perform the ultimate skills, too. Their combat ability will be greatly improved!"
The plans of the experts that were full of imagination fascinated Li Yao. He greatly enjoyed himself. However, he was indeed dumbfounded by a few Nascent Soul Stage experts who were too imaginative and did not know how he should comment on them.
A Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator from the Flying Star Sector, perhaps because of the enlightenment of Iron Plateau, proposed a plan named the Barbarian Plan!
The specific content of the plan went like this.
Go to explore new Sectors immediately and locate a desolate world without too many resources near the Heaven's Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Flying Star Sector.
If the existence of a civilization and the quantity of resources were not required, such a desolate Sector would be not hard to find.
Then, a batch of loyal soldiers would be shipped over and set up settlements there, pretending to be a civilization of barbarians who had lost all the heritage after the collapse of the Star Ocean Imperium but then redeveloped from the scratch on their own.
The warriors of the primitive civilization had a healthy body and a simple mind. They were the best materials for cannon fodder.
"Anyways, you can imagine it to be a bigger Iron Plateau!"
It was exactly what the Cultivator from the Flying Star Sector said.
On the 'larger Iron Plateau', some of the debris of magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium, which could send out spiritual waves to the outside world incessantly, would be placed intentionally to make sure that the barbaric world would be discovered by the expedition army of the Imperium first.
"The expedition army of the Imperium has to finish a journey of a hundred years. By logic, they will not bring too many low-level troops, and even the high-level troops will be tired after the trip!
"At this time, if they can suppress a primitive world and ask the barbarians to be the cannon fodder and their vanguard, it will definitely be the best choice for the expedition army of the Imperium!
"After all, it was what Xiao Xuance thought years ago. He planned to instigate the 'barbarians' of Iron Plateau to fight the space residents, saving the Immortal Cultivators the trouble!
"I don't think the expedition army of the Imperium will think too highly of the uncivilized barbarians. They will even offer magical equipment to the barbarians and arm them to the teeth so that they can fight us better!
"We can even fabricate some tales, in which the barbaric civilization is described as the loser in the competition of the three Sectors and that they were banished a long time ago and hate our guts.
"It's just like the tale between the Iron Plateau natives and the space residences, with some minor adjustments.
"In such a case, the expedition army of the Imperium will be even less suspicious. They will definitely be hoping to drive the tiger to attack the wolves and to settle the problem without getting their own hands dirty.
"But they don't know that the 'barbaric civilization' is with us. Among the seemingly uncivilized barbarians, our best warriors, most knowledgeable scholars, and top experts of reverse engineering are hidden!
"After the 'barbaric civilization' sends back tremendous intelligence about the Imperium so that we can crack the magical equipment and the tactics of the Imperium, and after they bring the expedition army of the Imperium to a trap, we will attack from the outside, and they will attack from the inside. The expedition army of the Imperium will be settled once and for all!"
The Nascent Soul Stage from the Flying Star Sector talked rather enthusiastically, but most of the listeners, including Li Yao, looked at each other in bewilderment with a weird expression.
It was indeed… an impressive scheme. But was it not too wishful? For such a complicated, highly-dependent plan to work out, some luck was definitely necessary, and should it fail, all the elites would be wasted for nothing!
If the plan was too complicated, then the next plan was a bit too 'magnificent'.
It was a plan named Universal Cannon, whose content was as awesome as its name.
The integration of the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector was triggering the immense spiritual energy hidden deep inside the two worlds. So, if the spiritual energy was accumulated through certain magical equipment, an unprecedented cluster of spiritual energy would be gathered after one to two hundred years!
If the accumulated spiritual energy was to be shoot out by a certain 'cannon' floating in space, would it not be an invincible weapon?
Not just an expedition army of the Imperium, even an entire planet would be crushed into pieces like an egg under the bombardment of such a cannon!
Such a creative idea rendered Li Yao and a few other refiners in the Nascent Soul Stage amused and speechless.
Yes, it was theoretically possible.
However, how could the spiritual energy dispersing in the boundless land of the two Sectors be captured? How could the energy be collected without missing any? And what kind of container could store such spiritual energy and ensure its stability in the next hundred years?
In the end, how could such energy be triggered controllably, steadily, and precisely, instead of blowing up the expedition army of the Imperium together with the Blood Demon Sector and the Heaven's Origin Sector as a super large universal bomb?
Too many critical problems regarding material science, the studies of spiritual energy, and cosmology were involved. Such obstacles were barely conquerable.
Even if the federation was on steroids every day for the next hundred years, it was unlikely that the researchers would achieve any breakthroughs!
If the technological advancement had been accomplished, there would also be no need to produce a 'universal cannon' at all. They could simply establish a fleet and march to the homeland of the Imperium to settle the problem from its source!
However, everybody understood the anxiety of the speakers. No matter what they were actually thinking to themselves, they all applauded for the speakers warmly.
Very soon, it was Li Yao's turn.
Today, he brought a whole new plan, too.
The ambience in the hall was immediately somewhat different from before. All the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and demon emperors held their breath, curious to find out what kind of extraordinary plan Li Yao, the youngest and most special Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator in the three Sectors, would present.
Would it be a realistic plan like the Wind Sail Plan, or would it be windbaggery with no consideration of the actual situation like the Universal Cannon?
If it were any other young man at his age, they would have felt that their legs shaking and their blood freezing when they were gazed at by more than two hundred Nascent Soul Stage experts.
However, after being hunted by dozens of demon emperors, Li Yao felt that such a speech was as easy as the cool breeze at a summer noon.
He smiled and connected his jade chip to the crystal processor. The file inside was displayed, but the first page was nothing except darkness.
In the darkness, he said unhurriedly, "Greetings, Fellow Cultivators, allow me to briefly introduce to you—the Black Hole Project!
"Let me begin with an ancient catchphrase. Don't ever argue with a moron because he will drag your intelligence to his level before he defeats you with his abundant experience.
"Just now, I've heard a lot of presentations from my fellow Cultivators. Many plans and proposals are incredible eye-openers for me!
"However, it appears to me that almost everybody is hoping to make us stronger than the Imperium in a certain aspect.
"Then, can you think from the other perspective? Instead of making us stronger than the Imperium, can we drag the Imperium to our level and make it as weak as us?"
Chapter 1209: Black Hole Bomb! |
Li Yao's words cast all the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and demon emperors into a daze. What did 'make them as weak as us' mean?
"Developing the technology of a certain field until it is better than the Imperium of True Human Beings' is, of course, the most correct methodology, but the question is that we don't know the potential and the speed of development of the Imperium of True Human Beings," Li Yao explained. "While we are developing, the Imperium is also developing. Why are we so sure that we can surpass the Imperium in a certain aspect?
"Even if we indeed surpass the Imperium in a certain field, the Imperium is definitely still much more advanced than us in countless more fields. It is an undeniable fact. Otherwise, the Imperium will have developed for nothing in the past thousand years, won't it?
"All in all, to surpass the Imperium in every field requires tremendous investment. It is extremely difficult and not very hopeful. Even if we do surpass the Imperium in the end, it still might not be the decisive factor in the war!
"But this is what I think. We don't know how strong the Imperium is, but we know exactly what we are able to do and what we are not. If we can figure out an approach to limit the expedition army of the Imperium's war ability to our level, we will be able to crush the intruder with our advantage in experience and number, won't we?"
All the participants of the meeting nodded before shaking their heads with obvious disapproval.
It was definitely a correct statement, but correctness did not make it useful. The critical question was 'how'!
"Generally speaking," Li Yao continued, "the advantages of the Imperium can be concluded to two aspects. Firstly, the number of the experts is larger, and their level is higher, perhaps with a few Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators. Secondly, the magical equipment of the Imperium is more advanced, and their methods to utilize spiritual energy are unbelievable!
"The two advantages are based on the same factor, which is spiritual energy!
"The top experts must inhale and exhale spiritual energy as vast as an ocean to maintain their peak state and blow out destructive force. The magnificent magical equipment can only be driven by astronomical crystals. A cook cannot make food without ingredients. The universe is ruled by the law of conservation of energy. 'Perpetual motion machines' do not exist. Do you agree, everybody?
"Then, what if there isn't spiritual energy?
"What if we can create a temporary space around the expedition army of the Imperium where there is absolutely no spiritual energy?"
Everybody was stunned by what Li Yao said!
Many Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and demon emperors looked at each other in bewilderment. They understood every word that Li Yao had said, but they failed to comprehend the sentence when the words were connected into a sentence.
Since they were born, they had been living in a universe filled with spiritual energy. Some places had denser spiritual energy, and some places had less.
Even the demon emperors who mainly trained their bodies had to inhale and exhale natural spiritual energy during their training, except that their consumption on spiritual energy was relatively less.
Asking them to imagine a world without spiritual energy was like asking a fish in the deep sea to imagine a world without water. They felt that the world was falling apart around them!
"In a world with absolutely no spiritual energy, the advantages in technologies and experts that the expedition army of the Imperium have will be suppressed to the minimum!" Li Yao declared resolutely. "In the world of 'absolute vacuum', the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators of the Imperium will not be able to absorb spiritual energy from the outside world. They can only count on their own stock or be refilled by the crystals in their Cosmos Rings.
"It's true that such high-level Cultivators boast an extremely broad brain and abdomen, which can store immense spiritual energy. But at the same time, their consumption rate is hundreds of times higher than the low-level Cultivators! How much spiritual energy will be consumed when they launch a strike that can blow up a starship? At least one tenth of their stock, I believe. And another one tenth of the stock will be drained after they resist a barrage of the starships on our side! If they calculate the trajectories of the cannonballs hundreds of times per second with the best of their computational ability, how much spiritual energy will they consume?
"Enormous as the stock of their spiritual energy may be, how long can it last?
"Of course, their Cosmos Rings can store a large number of crystals. But swallowing crystals and transforming them into spiritual energy takes time, too. It's like the delicious food that an ordinary person takes, which will take a few hours to be digested, absorbed, and transformed into energy. It cannot be turned into physical strength the moment it is eaten!
"If the ordinary person does strenuous exercises, chances are that they will even have indigestion!
"In my personal experience, it takes of more than half a day to absorb an ultra-level marrow crystal the size of a finger without any distractions. As incredible as the Cultivators of the Imperium might be, it is impossible for them to digest the spiritual energy in a marrow crystal after only several minutes, right?
"Let's say that their absorption efficiency is twice as good as mine, and it takes three hours for them to digest a marrow crystal. In a simmering battlefield, how will the Cultivators of the Imperium be given three hours to digest the marrow crystals? They will have been blown into smithereens in the bombardment!
"Same goes for the magical equipment. A lot of magical equipment has to echo with the natural spiritual energy nearby in order to achieve the best effect. The natural spiritual energy is like lubricant that keeps the steadiness of different units of the magical equipment!
"In an absolute vacuum that is devoid of spiritual energy, the more advanced a piece of magical equipment is, the less likely it can be activated to the maximum. Also, after functioning once or twice, it will certainly be overly drained, if not wasted!
"With the experts and the magical equipment both restrained, the expedition army of the Imperium will not be able to perform their brilliant methods at all, however marvelous the methods are. They will be sharks stranded on the beach and can only be butchered by us!"
Then, Li Yao halted for a moment intentionally so that the unprecedented silence in the hall could sink deeper.
Professor Mo Xuan was quite a close friend of him. After hearing such an… unbelievable plan, he simply rose up and asked without caring about the rules, "Li Yao, the absolute vacuum devoid of spiritual energy that you mentioned… is it technologically realizable?"
"Of course it is. Also, technologically speaking, it is definitely the easiest of all the plans proposed so far!" Li Yao smiled confidently. "If we get to the bottom of it, as long as the spiritual energy in a certain area is instantly vaporized, and the spiritual energy in the nearby is stopped from filling in the vacancy, we will achieve our purpose!
"It is not easy to collect the spiritual energy in an area, but isn't it more than simple to consume all the spiritual energy? Many crystal bombs of the present day are based on the mechanism that the explosive force of the crystals will damage the stability of the floating spiritual energy in the air, thereby accomplishing a large-scale explosion!
"There's also the famous method of thunder prevention. By triggering and detonating the spiritual energy of the thunder class in the clouds, all the fierce spiritual energy will be unleashed very quickly. For a long time that follows, there will be no thunder in the clouds again because the spiritual energy has been drained!
"They are all very mature technologies and magical equipment. Nothing too complicated. What I am trying to do is merely to expand such crystal bombs… by hundreds of times or thousands of times!
"This is exactly the 'black hole bomb' that I've designed. Once projected and detonated, they will instantly swallow all the spiritual energy in a certain area like a real black hole. Then, after the transformation of rune arrays, the spiritual energy absorbed will turn into high-interference waves that will form a certain 'membrane' out of the area, preventing the spiritual energy of the outside world from flowing in!
