Chapter 589: The Ninth Mother Planet
“The cultivation realms are wrong.” Bai Hongtu pointed out their error.
“The Qi Refining Stage should involve inhaling and exhaling Primordial Purple Energy. Only when the purple energy spans thirty thousand miles can one be considered to have entered the Qi Refining Stage.”
“Then comes the Foundation Establishment Stage. Refining forty-nine strands of Primordial Purple Energy constitutes Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment, while refining fifty strands constitutes Great Dao Foundation Establishment.”
“The ‘gold’ in Golden Core Stage signifies indestructibility through myriad calamities. Achieving the Golden Core means one can roam freely through the myriad heavens and worlds, travel the River of Time, maintain an indestructible golden body, and exist eternally…”
Jiang Li knocked Bai Hongtu on the head. “That’s enough made-up nonsense.”
Seeing this, Yu Yin retracted her half-extended hand.
Jiang Li had beaten her to the opportunity of knocking Bai Hongtu.
The Captain didn’t mind this scene either. There were plenty of eccentric Unity Stage experts.
Modifying one’s body to achieve the Unity Stage inevitably damaged one’s mind—this was the price of cultivation.
Jiang Li pointed at the scenery outside the window and asked, “Is that thing what you call the cameras in space?”
Outside the spacecraft window floated metallic constructs resembling giant bowls, with maximum diameters reaching hundreds of kilometers.
Similar metallic constructs could be seen everywhere. After flying for only a short while, Jiang Li had already spotted seven of them.
“Correct, these are called Cosmic Eyes, used for observing the universe. Cosmic Eyes are distributed throughout the entire cosmos. One reason for mining stellar iron ore is to manufacture these Cosmic Eyes.”
“How do you reproduce with that kind of body?” As a frequent visitor to the Joyous Sect, Bai Hongtu expressed his inability to understand the Captain’s behavior.
If one’s entire body were made of steel, without sensation, touch, feeling, or taste, then what meaning was there in living?
“What’s difficult about reproduction? Before merging with the spacecraft, I simply left my seed at the hospital. The hospital handles everything automatically.”
“What about the process?”
“Is the process important?” The Captain countered, leaving Bai Hongtu at a loss for how to respond.
The Captain continued, “Bedroom behavior is the result of humans being controlled by hormones and physiological reactions. As cultivators, we must discard such behaviors. As observers, we must always maintain rationality over emotion.”
“We’ve arrived at the port area,” the Captain announced.
Without even a tremor, the spacecraft silently arrived at the port area, which contained hundreds of vessels and was the largest port on this planet.
The port was bustling. The moment they docked, countless workers began unloading minerals from the spacecraft. Within just over ten minutes, all the stellar minerals had been transported off the ship.
“The CEO has expressed warm welcome upon learning of your arrival. Would the three of you like to visit Meteor Group?” The Captain had reported Jiang Li’s group to his superiors, and the corporate executives were very interested in them.
Even without the Captain’s report, the corporation would have known. The spacecraft was filled with cameras, and the corporation knew everything that happened onboard.
“Thank you, but since we’re new here, we’d prefer to explore on our own for now.” Jiang Li politely declined and disappeared into the crowd after disembarking.
The Captain wanted to persuade them further, but when he opened his mouth, he discovered the trio had vanished without a trace.
…
“Welcome to the Ninth Mother Star.” A massive electronic screen stood outside the port area, welcoming tourists from other planets.
The port area served both as a cargo transportation hub and an interstellar tourism transfer point, with countless people from other planets coming here for visits.
“The Ninth Mother Star?”
Jiang Li noticed that in the lower left corner of the welcome electronic sign, there was text explaining the origin of the Ninth Mother Star.
Initially, the Observer World had only three stars, called the Three Mother Stars. Later, as space expansion occurred and more people moved into space, new settlements gradually formed, which were called the Fourth Mother Star.
Eventually, an unwritten rule developed: whenever human settlement on a planet exceeded one billion people, that planet could also be called a Mother Star.
Thus, according to the sequence of Mother Star formation, there came the Fifth Mother Star, Sixth Mother Star… Ninth Mother Star… up to the One Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-First Mother Star.
“Even the trees here are cast from steel.” Bai Hongtu knocked on a tree trunk, producing metallic sounds.
The people walking on the streets, the puppies running playfully, the birds flying in the sky—all showed traces of artificial construction, either in specific organs or their entire bodies being man-made.
Most people living here belonged to the “Steam Cultivators” category. Their bodies appeared patched together haphazardly, quite uncoordinated.
For example, some people had mechanical arms, but both arms were right arms. Some walked with a limp because the weight distribution adjustment devices in their lower bodies weren’t sensitive enough. Others treated their bodies as storage containers—walking to a corner, opening their clothes, unlatching their abdominal panels, and pulling out various small items to set up a street stall…
In terms of physical constitution, these people were stronger than true mortals. Their mechanical organs gave them greater endurance and combat capability.
Jiang Li took out a microphone, pretending to be a reporter, and conducted a street interview: “Hello, I’m a reporter from Nine Provinces News. May I take a moment of your time for a brief interview?”
Seeing this, Bai Hongtu materialized a camera and hoisted it onto his shoulder.
The street vendor looked curiously at the ordinary-looking Jiang Li, then at Yu Yin who stood idly with her hands tucked in her sleeves, thinking that normally it should be a female reporter conducting interviews.
However, the vendor had no intention of refusing. After all, appearing on television might help his business thrive.
“Why did you choose to modify your body?”
“Because mechanical bodies are more practical than natural ones! If your heart has problems, you need surgery. If your intestines or stomach have issues, you need surgery. But with mechanical organ replacement, it’s different—whatever part has problems, you simply replace that part. Simple and convenient.”
“Our parents taught us from childhood to aspire to replace our entire bodies with mechanical parts and advance to higher cultivation levels.”
“When I was young, I thought I could replace my entire body. If nothing else, at least upgrade my power source from steam to electricity.”
“Now that I’m grown up, I’ve faced reality. I’m just an ordinary person. The cost required for Electric Foundation Establishment is beyond what we can afford.”
“Still, I encourage children to have ambitions and become Electric Foundation Establishment cultivators. I’m setting up this stall to earn money and save up so my child can have a better body.”
“No matter how poor we are, we shouldn’t shortchange our children’s bodies.”
The street vendor was quite talkative. He spoke eloquently into the camera about his personal journey, while the trio listened quietly, occasionally interjecting.
The vendor’s account largely reflected what ordinary life was like on the Ninth Mother Star.
“My child has talked about joining the military since childhood, and nothing we say can dissuade him. Really, how dangerous military service is! I know perfectly well that when great demons cross boundaries, soldiers are the first to rush into battle. That foolish boy still thinks military service is some kind of honor—it’s your life!”
“But then again, if soldiers weren’t protecting us, we would have long perished under the attacks of great demons. We wouldn’t have the lives we have now.”
“It’s really conflicting… Wait, this isn’t a live broadcast, is it?” The vendor suddenly realized his words might not be suitable for television.
Jiang Li smiled. “It’s not live. Could you elaborate on what these boundary-crossing great demons are?”