Chapter 695: Assimilation
"...Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to turn a new page in human history. I now declare the 'Great Expedition' plan officially commenced!"
Connecting thousands of Great Thousand Flagships and nearly a hundred billion Federation citizens through the Profound Net, the current Speaker of the Federation, Jierkefu, announced the start of the Great Expedition with a deafening voice.
Over the past few decades, through the preliminary Stellar Net Plan, humanity had systematically eliminated most of the alien races within the solar system. In the future, the Federation's vision was to spread the radiance of human civilization throughout the galaxy and beyond.
"Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap..."
Thunderous applause erupted in the main venue where the mobilization speech was held.
At least, ostensibly so.
In reality, however, a large number of the Federation's new generation weren't particularly enthusiastic about this plan for the entire race to embark on an expedition to exoplanetary systems.
Living perfectly well within the solar system, rushing to move seemed rather pointless.
As for the supposed threat from the Land of White, they had cooperated quite pleasantly with these former humans, who called themselves Holy Progenitors, over the past few decades.
Many among them had even been relatives of Federation citizens years ago; perhaps decades earlier, they had fought alongside each other, studied in the same classrooms, and shared deep bonds.
It was simply due to divergent ideologies that humanity had split into two factions.
Especially for the new generation born outside of Earth, they held no particular sentiment for that so-called homeland.
However, the Federation's high-ranking officials, who had experienced the pre-schism era, clearly understood that this was merely a temporary stable period for the unstable bomb that was Bai Mo.
For a True Immortal with a lifespan of over ten thousand years, not showing up for thirty or forty years was no different from an ordinary person taking a few months off for summer vacation.
Yet, this "vacation" for a god was equivalent to half the lifetime of an ordinary person.
A select few, those with the most comprehensive information, even knew that Bai Mo's disappearance for the past few decades was merely due to his undergoing the Reincarnation Tribulation.
Perhaps many dark-hearted individuals had once hoped he would fail his tribulation, thus ending his wicked life, but now, he had clearly returned in triumph, even gaining the ability to act against the Sun.
The solar system was no longer a suitable place to remain for long.
Five words summed up everything:
Accompanying a monarch is like accompanying a tiger.
Regardless of the confusion and discontent among the nascent generation of superhumans below, the execution of the plan to pack their bags and prepare for the expedition remained entirely unaffected.
The high-and-mighty council members could not tolerate an arbitrary "god" hovering above their heads.
Since they couldn't defeat him, they would proactively distance themselves.
As for the ordinary citizens living on the Great Thousand Flagships, all of this had little impact; after all, they had spent their entire lives residing on flagships whose internal environments mimicked a planet's surface.
...
"I told you, this is meaningless."
Solar Star Spirit Yi, sliced in half by Bai Mo's Reversal Sword, almost completely purged the destructive Martial Will entangled within it in a matter of seconds.
"It will have meaning." Bai Mo didn't think so, and once again condensed thousands of shadowy hands, striking out at his opponent.
Yi didn't retort, merely sending a string of gigantic "grapes" with a backhand, smashing them towards the center of Bai Mo's shadowy avatar.
A corner of the darkness instantly melted away under the conversion of mass and energy.
However, this was merely better than nothing.
Both sides were colossal beings, comparable in size to planets; destruction within a mere one or two hundred square kilometers was utterly inconsequential.
What low-tier superhumans considered world-shattering, unavoidable area-of-effect attacks, capable of moving mountains and filling seas, were no more than mosquito bites to them.
The small amount of mass Bai Mo lost was only equivalent to what he consumed within the Sun in a few seconds.
And the number of grapes he destroyed with each strike was roughly equivalent to what Yi consumed within the Sun in a few seconds.
Barring any surprises, the two of them could continue this battle for hundreds or even thousands of years.
The most likely outcome was that these two entities, devouring as they fought, would consume the Sun completely over centuries of continuous battle.
Bai Mo clearly didn't have that much time to waste on this Solar Star Spirit.
From the very beginning, he had never intended to kill his opponent on the Sun.
This was the Solar Star Spirit's absolute home ground; to truly annihilate it, even if he was several stages higher, he would still need at least a century.
If he truly were a True Immortal with a lifespan of ten thousand years, such a long expenditure wouldn't be too wasteful, but the curse of Daoization rigidly limited his time.
"Dao—Yan—"
In the endless war of attrition between Bai Mo, who at this moment represented darkness, and Solar Star Spirit Yi, who represented void, a layer of white light suddenly emerged, carrying a profound aura.
It seemed as though endless information was continuously emanating within these white flames.
"What is this?!"
From the moment the white light appeared, Yi stared intently at it, even setting aside the battle.
It could easily read the information within the white light.
It was an entire path, a road to continued advancement!
A road that had opened itself completely to it, without reservation!
Compared to what it "saw" before its eyes, Yi felt that the inherited knowledge within the Solar Star Spirit race was pathetically crude, even though most of that inheritance had been created by itself.
But it was hardly surprising; a primitive Solar Star Spirit civilization, which had not yet developed sentience for even a century, and whose species hadn't even matured its written or spoken language, relied solely on instinct and sensation for cultivation. There was no systematic summary or generalization, let alone the formation of a proper cultivation system.
It simply couldn't compare to the Human Form Transformation Dao technique, built by humanity through the convergence of countless intellects and collective exchange.
What Bai Mo was showing it was precisely the original draft he had conceived back then, one copy given to the Federation and another made public on the Land of White's internal network.
Subsequently, they had even utilized supercomputer simulations, in addition to countless cultivators working day and night to refine it.
Cultivators whose cultivation levels were insufficient might not have been able to directly manipulate this Human Form Transformation method, but by disassembling and simplifying it into countless small modules, they could still contribute to its optimization.
...
Yi struggled.
That path, laid entirely open before it, was so utterly damning!
It actually required reincarnation, even transforming its race into the opponent's likeness.
That was a complete change, from the inside out, at the True Spirit level!
And it had less than a fifty percent success rate.
Yet, there was one temptation it simply couldn't resist—lifespan.
Solar Star Spirits were extremely short-lived beings.
The lowest-ranked, Base-tier Solar Star Spirits had a natural lifespan of less than three years; their fiercely burning cores would slowly extinguish like candles in the wind, transforming back into a wisp of flame within the Sun.
Countless Solar Star Spirits revolved through life and death in this ocean of light and heat, at a rate of a generation every two to three years.
Even powerful beings like the Four Grand Solar Star Spirits only possessed a lifespan of a century.
Had it not been for these external enemies, perhaps their mindset would have been quite content.
Compared to their kin, who were like shooting stars, having a lifespan fifty times longer than theirs was already a considerably extended period.
But in all things, comparison was the greatest fear.
If one were to reincarnate as a human, even the lowest-tier individual would have eighty good years to live.
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