When he thought of it, he acted. Qin Jingzhou once again began to search patiently: the two low-level hives and two mid-level hives nearby had all been ransacked by him. Within the span of his divine sense, the closest thing he “saw” in the starry sky was… a high-level hive, half hidden in the secondary dimension, half exposed to the stars.
If an interstellar force came to observe, they would only think this was a mid-level hive.
Although the queen mothers of mid-level hives were already pretty smart, a high-level queen mother would definitely be easier to talk to.
Qin Jingzhou chuckled and said, “Alright, you’re the one. After all, you’re the closest.” With that, he called for Ling Jing and his son Xuan Qing, who was stabilizing his breakthrough recently, and all three headed off to chat with the queen mother of the high-level hive.
On the way, Qin Jingzhou explained to Ling Jing and Xuan Qing, “Once the queen mother of a low- or mid-level hive settles down, she basically has no chance of leaving. But it’s different for a high-level hive queen. They show combat power at the Divine Transformation Stage because the local World Will suppresses their actual strength. You can tell they understand some Space Law just from the fact that they can open up a secondary dimension. So, if things don’t go their way, they can really just turn around and run, escaping this entire universe.”
Xuan Qing responded with a simple “Oh.” “In my last life, even when I reached the Divine Transformation Stage, I didn’t even qualify to touch Space Law… Plus, I wasn’t really interested in Kitchen Dao.”
To be honest, his son didn’t actually like cooking; what he liked was cooking for him. Qin Jingzhou ruffled his son’s hair. “Trying to master too much at once won’t work out. Dad’s advice is for you to lay a solid foundation first. By my standard, you haven’t even completed basic education in the Spiritual Realm.”
“So I’m a total noob…” Xuan Qing grinned brightly. How could he not hear the hidden meaning in his father’s words? If he hadn’t finished basic education, how could he be independent? “Mhm!”
Ling Jing laughed too. “And here I get to benefit again, so I won’t be polite about it.” Unlike Xuan Qing, she had the System and could use task points to exchange for all the common cultivation knowledge she wanted. Still, broadening her horizons was always good, so why not?
The family of three traversed the starry sky, drawing the attention of the Empire’s outpost stations stationed at every regional node in space.
News traveled back to the imperial capital star, and a certain State-Guardian Expert who had once met Qin Jingzhou took the initiative to get in touch, wanting to ask where he was headed.
Qin Jingzhou wasn’t trying to hide it anyway. After all, if he wanted the high-level hive queen to cooperate, there was bound to be a stir. It would be nearly impossible to keep it from the interstellar imperial powers stationed around what appeared to be a mid-level hive but was actually a high-level one.
As soon as the State-Guardian Expert heard, he wanted to cheer in his heart: Supreme Immortal Lord really was about to flatten that weird hive beyond the border! And it really was high-level!
To clear out a mid-level hive, it would require two experts like him plus two main fleets for a decent shot… but to take on a high-level hive, it would need the Empire’s main forces to go all out, and even then, it would only temporarily halt the hive’s expansion.
He suppressed his excitement and carefully asked, “May we come and witness Supreme Immortal Lord’s prowess and broaden our own horizons?”
Qin Jingzhou replied breezily, “Sure. I’ll give you twelve hours.”
Near the high-level hive he had chosen was a star fortress, currently housing a detachment of the main fleet.
While waiting for the State-Guardian Expert to bring people for a field trip, he took Ling Jing and Xuan Qing to stroll around the fortress, which was the size of a supermassive city.
In less than ten hours, all the experts eager to watch in person had arrived.
The Zerg were enemies of all civilization, so the Empire’s State-Guardian level experts didn’t keep it secret. Instead, they contacted peers of the same realm or one or two sub-realms below, inviting them all to come see for themselves.
Qin Jingzhou didn’t hold back with praise. He told the State-Guardian Expert, “You’re quite good.” Then he leapt alone into the hive, like a meteor plummeting into it.
In everyone’s view, as he plunged into the hive, that sickly-looking blue-gray flame inside started to burn from the core outward, climbing the hive’s outer shell unhurriedly.
Ling Jing, more knowledgeable now, had spent a lot of points last time after seeing the Supreme Yin true fire, to study up and fill the gaps in her understanding. “He keeps using the Supreme Yin true fire. That’s because it’s gentler compared to true fires of other types. Use the Supreme Yang true fire, and all of us watching would get roasted too.”
Xuan Qing rested his chin on his hand. “I know, owning both Supreme Yin true fire and Supreme Yang true fire makes things more stable, right?”
Ling Jing nodded. “Right.”
The interstellar experts quickly jotted down this tidbit.
As for Qin Jingzhou’s charge into the hive, there’s not much to describe. He bulldozed through, whether there were tunnels or not—it didn’t matter, he simply took the shortest path straight to the hive’s core, where he found the queen mother, shaking with fear.
After hearing Qin Jingzhou’s intentions, the queen mother was utterly dumbfounded: he wanted her to help with troop training, to use as many psychic barrages as possible, and she was forbidden from eating the corpses of any rookies sent in for training…
She had lived for hundreds of years and had never heard of such a request! But, man held the knife and she was the “meat,” so there was simply no way she could refuse. If she refused, she would be killed on the spot and turned into insect meat. Even as a giant spider, with four legs broken, she could only agree.
She was dragged out of the hive and, in full view of the two-legged beasts, signed a contract she found monstrously humiliating.
The gathered interstellar experts felt like they were in a dream: so it was possible to sign a truce deal with the Zerg…
Once the contract was done, Qin Jingzhou found a small asteroid near the hive and reset the Resurrection Point. When the players all came online, he announced, “Your spirit is too weak. I’ve set up a special training session. You need to take it seriously and give it your all.”
All eight thousand online players were then wiped out by the Zerg.
Qin Jingzhou and Ling Jing sat side by side on the asteroid, sipping tea and enjoying the spectacle. Xuan Qing, sprawled out on their laps, covered his eyes with his fluffy paws. “That’s just embarrassing.”
Ling Jing tried to comfort them. “They grew up in peacetime. It’ll take some time for them to adjust.”
With the Resurrection Point right next to them, the players began reviving one after another, all with deep fear still etched on their faces.
Qin Jingzhou gave them a moment to recover, then explained why he’d done this. “We’ve traded technology with the interstellar powers, but in ten years, you won’t be able to fully digest it. Still, ten years is enough for spiritual energy to revive at home to the point it can support Nascent Soul Stage. By then, interstellar pirates will definitely smell opportunity and come looking. At your current level, never mind producing a Nascent Soul cultivator to fight the pirates—even back home, you wouldn’t last against Su Huaizhen, who’s practiced the Soul Splitting Technique.”
He briefly explained what the Soul Splitting Technique involved, and then pointed out its weakness: the stronger your soul, the harder it is for you to be affected. If your cultivation is equal to that of Su Huaizhen, the Soul Splitting Technique won’t work on you.
That explains why in the original plot, even though spiritual energy had revived for over a decade, there were so few at the Foundation Establishment Stage. To be precise, most of those who started cultivating early got possessed or spiritually controlled by Su Huaizhen.
When the interstellar pirates came to Blue Star, the first thing they did was instantly destroy Su Huaizhen’s original soul. Having mastered the Soul Splitting Technique, Su Huaizhen had lost his original soul, but he still had several projections. If those projections gathered together, they could reform a body, yet the new body would definitely be weaker than before.
Swearing revenge, Su Huaizhen was yet again instantly killed by the interstellar pirates.
When Su Huaizhen got stubborn for once and tried a second comeback against the pirates, he died again. This time, he learned his lesson and ran away, only to die without suspense amidst the sea of stars.
With the Fate’s Son going down in such a brazenly self-destructive way, Qin Jingzhou had never seen anything like it before.
As he marveled, he explained to the players in simple terms. Still, very few had reached Foundation Establishment, and most were only at the Qi-gathering stage, so they didn’t quite understand, but were deeply shocked nonetheless.
Sensing this, Ling Jing offered a detailed analysis to help them out, ending with a reminder, “The Principal only wants students who are both virtuous and talented. But, what do you think, are there more people like that in the world, or more who are talented but without virtue? When spiritual energy officially revives, where will all those gifted but unrighteous people go to find their own opportunities?”
This time, most of the players got the message. They’d long known Su Huaizhen was a threat, but they’d never imagined he could be this dangerous!
An Qi snapped fiercely, “Isn’t he basically a humanoid Zerg? No, that’s overselling him. He’s just a parasite!”
Ling Jing laughed. “That’s right. But without the Principal’s permission, don’t approach him rashly. If you get yourselves killed, we’ll just have to save you.”
Qin Jingzhou added, “Anyone who doesn’t follow instructions will be expelled.”
The players immediately dropped any other wild ideas, like trying Su Huaizhen’s methods themselves.
During that “game time” session, the players collectively died a total of six times.
They say facing life and death brings great terror, but it also brings great opportunity. Dying six times in a row left everyone with some small insights.
Over on Su Huaizhen’s side, ever since he’d perfected the Soul Splitting Technique and successfully sent three projections to “inhabit” several key individuals—he’d even tried to inhabit some players, but when he tried with Xiao Jin and Xiao Wan, or had even a brief brush with Xiao Jingzhou, his soul projection was wiped out on the spot.
Now he was extremely cautious, only extending small feelers toward those who regularly interacted with the players.
He soon discovered with astonishment that the players’ soul strength was skyrocketing… and instantly knew Xiao Jingzhou was rigging up a side gig for them!
The stronger the cultivator inhabited by his soul projection, the stronger he became, and the more soul projections he could produce. But if more people strengthened their spirits, this would cut off his path completely!
Helpless, he could only follow Xiao Jingzhou’s crowd-gathering example and started holding classes himself—if nothing else, it was a good way to put his messy collection of cultivation techniques to use.
Those techniques were costly to practice and had a low upper limit, but they caused no end of trouble for the righteous players and the Officials. The only hitch was he had to supply the initial cultivation resources for all those students himself—it was like bleeding himself dry.
But a man must risk something to achieve his goals, so he accepted it without complaint.
After posting his enrollment info on the darknet and other underground channels, Su Huaizhen really did attract quite a few people to come study with him or even pledge allegiance. Spiritual energy revival was no secret, and there were plenty of families with vague heritages.
Barely a month after the Initial Training Class started, the Officials suddenly announced spiritual energy revival to the whole nation, encouraging citizens to test their innate talent at official outlets and collect free copies of the Official Practice Method and Official Knowledge Guide. Both the testing and the books were free, and there were no real barriers—just don’t have a criminal record.
The Officials even launched the slogan “Cultivation for All” on social media for this launch.
Su Huaizhen: …
He was only a hair’s breadth away from getting so angry he went into Qi deviation.