Chapter 1521: Join the Imperium!
Hearing that, Li Yao secretly felt alarmed.
It was doubtless that the 'trace of information streams' that Heiye Lan had detected was the distress call that the Nuwa warship had sent to the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector a hundred years ago.
He did not expect that the Imperium of True Human Beings' technology would be advanced enough to capture such insignificant traces.
Thankfully, she had only discovered the place with a broken, garbage starship. If the main force of the Black Wind Fleet had noticed the trace, the federation might have been doomed!
"What did you do after you crashed in the Ancient Sages Sector?" Meng Chixin asked.
With anxiety beaming out of her face, Heiye Lan said, "What I wanted most was, of course, to communicate with the mother fleet!
"Although the overall capabilities of the Star Glory Federation are not worth mentioning right now, they have the ultimate weapons that are the Colossi after all. Now that they are conspiring with the government-in-exile of the Star Ocean Republic, they might prove to be great trouble later!
"At that time, the entire battlefield was blocked by the interference indiscriminately. No messages could be delivered. Except for my 'Weary Tooth', all the other starships and Cultivators from the Imperium were killed or captured by the Star Glory Federation.
"It means that my mother fleet was not aware of the latest progress. I was the only one who knew the information!
"Now, the Star Glory Federation is lurking in the darkness. It has probably gathered tremendous intelligence about the Black Wind Fleet by interrogating the captives, whereas the Black Wind Fleet knows absolutely nothing about what was happening right in front of them except that one of the 'claw fleets' went missing mysteriously.
"Maybe they have searched the space zone where we went missing, and they might have found some of the remnants left by the fierce battle. However, there's no way that they could know what kind of enemy we were faced with!
"I needed to contact the mother fleet as soon as possible and deliver the vital military information!"
Meng Chixin's eyes suddenly glittered. "So, you tried to raise an emperor as your puppet who would help you repair the 'sacrificial altar' that was in fact an enormous array for you to communicate with your mother fleet?"
Heiye Lan breathed for a moment. She swallowed hard and continued. "At first, my plan was to repair the communication magical equipment on 'Weary Tooth' so that I could directly speak to the mother fleet.
"However, I'm a pure warrior, not a refiner. I can only perform maintenance with the assistance of the automatic mainframe crystal processor. The resources for maintenance that the mainframe crystal processor listed for me included a plethora of metals, minerals, fossils, and even biomaterials. There were hundreds of different kinds!
"At that time, I was heavily wounded by Blazing Tyrannosaur Ding Lingdang, and I was overly exhausted during the extreme jump. My capabilities had plummeted, and my Colossus was ruined. There was no way that I could complete the maintenance task!
"Having no other choice, I could only leave the maintenance of Weary Tooth aside and focus my attention on exploring the unknown world that I was in.
"But the result of my exploration was far beyond my expectations. It is true that even the most bizarre and ridiculous things could happen in the vast universe. Nobody knew that a primitive planet, which is tens of thousands of years behind the contemporary era, was hidden deep inside the dark nebula!"
"Primitive planet?" Meng Chixin, Qi Zhongdao, Han Baling, Ba Xiaoyu, and the rest of them frowned at the same time.
"Compared to the powerful, modern civilization of the Immortal Cultivators, the planet that you are on is indeed most underdeveloped in every way. I stand by my opinion even if I am completely at your mercy right now!"
Heiye Lan gritted her teeth. "However, underdeveloped as your world might be, the spiritual energy here is rather dense, the resources are abundant, and the concepts of sects, however immature, have already come into being. The Cultivators are able to collect and utilize resources in an orderly fashion. Countless treasures are kept in the royal treasury of the Great Qian Dynasty—which shed a new light for me!"
Emperor Phoenix could not help bellow, "So, you manipulated me to help you control the Great Qian Dynasty and collect the resources mandatory to establish the super communication array!"
Heiye Lan was silent for a moment, but she did not deny it. Not without regret, she observed, "Such missions to explore and infiltrate the unknown worlds should've been carried out by a team of elites whose jobs are clearly separated according to their specialties. There should be diplomats, warriors, camouflage masters, infiltration specialists, professional psychologists, experienced refiners, and so on.
"I was just a 'warrior'. The role of 'Deity Raincloud' should not have been played by me at all. The masters in disguise and psychology who have received professional training are much more fit for the job!
"If—cough, cough, cough, cough—If everybody in the elite squad were still alive, it wouldn't have taken so many years, and I wouldn't have exposed so many flaws!
"It's a pity that they were all killed during the extreme space jump. All dead. All they left for me were a shattered Weary Tooth, some magical equipment on board that could barely function, and the crystal suits that I took off their corpses!
"I spent an entire year observing your world in secret and your civilization, while I slowly drafted a full plan to repair Weary Tooth.
"Then, I interfered with the dream of Zhu Zongyou, an unappreciated prince that I had carefully chosen, with an oriented brainwave disruptor. I implanted some information into his subconsciousness along with the urge to find the debris of Weary Tooth in the depths of the Rumbling Thunder Mountains.
"The most advanced training chamber of the Imperium had been installed in the warship. I let Zhu Zongyou train himself inside, only hoping to slightly increase his capabilities and better convince him of my identity. It didn't occur to me that he was really a rare genius. His training speed was even higher than the best of the Cultivators in the Black Wind Fleet, and he advanced unstoppably from the Core Formation Stage to the Nascent Soul Stage!
"At that time, I was greatly shocked and pondered on the reason for a long time. I speculated that, perhaps because the Cultivators in your world had never touched modern magical equipment, drugs, and training facilities, such things worked much more effectively on your bodies!
"However, emperor, I truly meant you no harm, and I sincerely treated you as a student. After all, the stronger you were, the more likely my plan would work out!"
Emperor Phoenix gnashed his teeth and clenched his fists hard. "Do you think that I will believe anything you say right now?"
"Believe it or not, it is the truth." Heiye Lan breathed heavily. "I was sincerely supporting you to ascend to the throne and control the entire Ancient Sages Sector. It was not just because I needed your help to collect the necessary resources to repair Weary Tooth but also because, even if the Black Wind Fleet did arrive later, it would still require a local 'spokesperson' so that we could cooperate at the highest efficiency!"
"Spokesperson?" Emperor Phoenix's head was particularly clear at that moment. "I think you mean 'puppet'!"
"Continue." Meng Chixin changed the topic back. "What did you do after the emperor claimed the crown? Why did you shift your attention to the 'Divine Palace'?"
"After I planned thoroughly for five years and helped Zhu Zongyou seize the throne, I dismantled the communication magical equipment on 'Weary Tooth'," Heiye Lan replied, "hoping to assemble a super communication array that could send messages to the mother fleet with some components I crafted in the Ancient Sages Sector.
"However, I really can't say that I'm the smartest person when it comes to refining and maintenance. Some of the rare materials were extremely difficult to find out, too. Therefore, the construction progress of the communication array was quite slow.
"With each day that passed, the Star Glory Federation and the government-in-exile of the Star Ocean Republic lurking in the darkness could've concocted a new scheme against the Black Wind Fleet. Every time I thought about time, I would feel that my heart was burning in anxiety!
"Right then, I accidentally learned the news about the 'Divine Palace' when I helped the emperor strip Lead Eunuch Wang Xi of his power. Judging from the traces that they described, I was pretty sure that the so-called 'Divine Palace' was a starship from the primeval era!
"I was thrilled by the discovery. If I could find the prehistoric starship, chances were that I could get more useful units and materials that had been refined, which would significantly increase the speed of constructing the communication array.
"Even better, it was possible that intact communication units were still inside the primeval starship. In such a case, I would be able to communicate with the mother fleet after slight modifications!
"You know everything that happened later. I disguised myself and followed the emperor into the depths of the Land of Eternal Night. I found the Divine Palace and even a Colossus that looked rather dominating!
"I was best at piloting the Colossi in the first place, and my own Colossus had already been destroyed by the Blazing Tyrannosaur. How could I resist such temptations? So, I immediately boarded the Colossus, hoping that—"
Wu Suiyun interrupted her coldly. "Hoping that you could suppress the entire Ancient Sages Sector with the unparalleled might of the Colossus, right?"
"I didn't want to suppress the Ancient Sages Sector. I only wanted to cooperate with everybody!" Heiye Lan raised her voice. Every vein on her face was bulging again, as she said in a hurry, "I have been speaking the truth. Everything I said is true. You can sense it! I really don't mean any harm to the Ancient Sages Sector. I sincerely hope that this Sector can be merged into the territory of the Imperium and that the Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector can become the glorious Immortal Cultivators who walk on the only righteous path of the civilization of mankind and fight for the future of humanity!"
The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators were not used to the way Heiye Lan talked yet. The weird phrases such as 'future of humanity' made all of them frown.
"I have told you everything without any reserve as a gesture of the sincerity of the Imperium!"
Heiye Lan struggled hard, the veins on her neck and her forehead jumping crazily. Her face red, she shouted at the top of her voice, "Join the Imperium of True Human Beings, the most powerful nation in the sea of stars! The Imperium values meritocracy. Everybody here is at least in the high level of the Nascent Soul Stage. You are the elites of the elites! The Imperium is in dire need of experts such as you.
"After you join the Imperium, you will definitely receive a hundred, thousand, million times more training resources and powerful magical equipment than you can possibly get from the Ancient Sages Sector! It is definitely going to be a win-win!"