Chapter 701: Common Sense
The Human Sovereign Hall. The Tribulation Transcendence Stage cultivators and Immortals of the Nine Provinces were all gathered here.
Jiang Li, Bai Hongtu, Yu Yin, Immortal Elder Changcun, Commander Liu, Sword Sovereign, Li Er, and Old Dragon King.
The one convening this meeting was not Jiang Li, but Commander Liu.
Seeing that everyone was present, Commander Liu gave a brief opening statement before getting straight to the point.
“The exploration of the myriad heavens and worlds has been ongoing for a full year now. During this year, we have gained much. We have contacted other worlds, uprooted schemes left behind by the Immortal Realm, advised them on establishing order. Through the joint efforts of the Brahma Tower and the Lord of Saha, cross-world spatial passages are no longer limited in number. The connections between the myriad heavens and worlds are growing stronger by the day.”
“Worlds where technology and cultivation coexist are becoming increasingly numerous, benefiting countless people.”
“The cultivators of the Nine Provinces have also been tempered and have grown through the process of exploring these worlds. The number of cultivators who have gained insights and achieved breakthroughs is not small.”
“This is the positive side.”
“But we have also encountered many problems during this process, the greatest of which is the cultivation worlds.”
“This is the report just submitted by Qin Luan and Seven Kill Daozi. Everyone, please take a look.”
“The world explored by Qin Luan and Seven Kill Daozi is called the Xuanming World, and it is highly representative.”
“The Xuanming World is not an isolated case. Many cultivation worlds suffer from insufficient spiritual energy and resort to plundering resources.”
“When the Nine Provinces sent people to dissuade them, the other party argued with righteous indignation, saying it is the natural order for the strong to enjoy resources and the weak to contribute them.”
“As cultivators, one must exhaust all means to become stronger. If one does not act for oneself, heaven and earth will destroy them.”
“Many cultivation worlds operate on a fundamental logic: if resources are insufficient, go and seize them.”
Everyone took the materials and began to read through them.
The order in the cultivation worlds described in the materials was an utter mess, filled with burning, killing, looting, and committing every evil imaginable. If the Black Tide arrived, not a single one of these worlds would escape.
“A very familiar report. History is repeating itself,” said Immortal Elder Changcun.
“This is exactly what the Nine Provinces were like nine thousand years ago. One word: seize.”
“If you don’t seize, others will. If others seize resources and become stronger, then you will be the next to die.”
“In such an environment, everyone went mad.”
“Not only the Nine Provinces, but the Immortal Realm was the same. Does becoming an immortal mean one has no desires? Of course not. There are also class divisions among immortals.”
“To become stronger, one needs more immortal power.”
“For example, why is Qingwei Heaven, where the Immortal Emperor resides, so rich in immortal power? Because the amount of immortal power is a symbol of status and class.”
Immortal Elder Changcun’s words left everyone silent. They all knew, to varying degrees, what the Nine Provinces used to be like, a world of difference compared to now.
Why do technological worlds always pursue productivity? Because the higher the productivity, the more abundant the resources, the less social conflict, and the more conducive it is to building a stable world.
Pursuing stability is human nature. It’s just that insufficient resources force people to pursue resources first in order to attain stability.
“Listening to this, it seems Human Sovereign Jiang has never plundered others from the very beginning,” Li Er muttered, thinking of Jiang Li as an anomaly.
The Old Human Sovereign had once told Li Er about Jiang Li, saying the kid was strange. His origins were poor, with no powerful backing behind him. Yet, from the Qi Refining Stage all the way to becoming a Human Sovereign candidate, Jiang Li had never once worried about insufficient spiritual energy.
From start to finish, Jiang Li cultivated with integrity and uprightness.
This was too strange. If Jiang Li came from the Dao Sect, or the Tianyuan Imperial Family, or the Great Zhou Imperial Family, it wouldn’t be a problem—he wouldn’t lack resources.
But the problem was, Jiang Li was an ordinary person. How could he not worry about resources?
Looking through history, which great power who rose from humble beginnings didn’t steal or rob from others in their youth? It’s just that when they grew up, no one mentioned these things, as they were considered stains.
Not mentioning them doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. But Jiang Li truly hadn’t done such things.
This indicated that from the very beginning, Jiang Li’s thinking was different from others. This was precisely what the Old Human Sovereign admired about him.
What Li Er wondered was: Could this kind of thinking really be cultivated by the Jiang Family of Qingcheng?
Or was Jiang Li a born sage?
Previously, Li Er would just think about this question and let it pass. This time, he tried to think more deeply.
“If resources are insufficient, then why don’t we give these worlds some spiritual energy?” Sword Sovereign suggested, after all, the Nine Provinces had abundant spiritual energy.
Yu Yin shook her head. “Do you know how many worlds this involves? To make these worlds stop fighting over spiritual energy, we’d have to empty out more than half of the Nine Provinces’ spiritual energy. Do you still want the cultivators of the Nine Provinces to cultivate?”
Sword Sovereign shut his mouth, knowing it was a terrible idea.
He didn’t have the brain to solve big problems. Better not to speak.
“What about you, Hall Master? What do you think?” Commander Liu noticed that Jiang Li, from the moment he saw the report until now, had been frowning and hadn’t spoken.
Jiang Li raised his head and asked in a tone full of bewilderment, “Why does the phenomenon of competing for spiritual energy even occur? Don’t they all believe that spiritual energy can be created from nothing?”
As soon as he said this, everyone laughed, especially Bai Hongtu, who laughed the hardest. “Jiang Li, do you think everyone is like you, able to create spiritual energy themselves?”
“Isn’t that the case?” Jiang Li was still frowning.
The noisy meeting suddenly fell silent. Everyone looked at each other, all sensing that something was off with Jiang Li.
Jiang Li didn’t seem to be lying. He genuinely believed everyone could create something from nothing.
Li Er suddenly asked, “Human Sovereign Jiang, there’s one thing I’ve never understood.”
“Ask away.”
“I heard from the Old Human Sovereign that from your start at the Jiang Family in Qingcheng, all the way up, you never once worried about spiritual energy. Why is that?”
Jiang Li answered without thinking. “Why worry about spiritual energy? I believe spiritual energy can be created.”
Li Er paused, not quite grasping Jiang Li’s meaning.
Yu Yin vaguely sensed the root of the divergence in how they and Jiang Li viewed the problem and followed up, “Then how exactly should one break through to the Mahayana Stage?”
Jiang Li answered again, “Use infinite spiritual energy to impact the realm. The Mahayana Stage will come naturally.”
“That’s impossible!” Every time Bai Hongtu heard Jiang Li talk about how to break through to the Mahayana Stage, he was left confused. This time, he was so angry he slammed the table.
Bai Hongtu thought the Mahayana Stage was like the Tribulation Transcendence Stage—something that couldn’t be explicitly stated, as speaking of it would mean one could never break through. So he always thought Jiang Li was joking. Now he felt Jiang Li was serious.
There was a huge problem here!
Bai Hongtu no longer kept the question to himself and asked directly, “How could we possibly achieve infinite spiritual energy!? Among the nine rules, there is one rule of energy conservation!”
Jiang Li retorted, “If energy is truly conserved, then where does the energy destroyed by the Black Tide go? And how are parallel worlds born?”
This left Bai Hongtu dumbfounded. Indeed, if energy were conserved, then the Black Tide couldn’t possibly destroy worlds.
If energy were conserved, then where does the energy for the birth of parallel worlds come from? The appearance of parallel worlds essentially doubles the energy.
“Wait, that’s not right either. You didn’t know about the Black Tide or parallel worlds before. Why did you think energy wasn’t conserved?”
Jiang Li was also stunned. “Have you all always believed energy is conserved?”
Bai Hongtu finally understood where their disagreement lay. Jiang Li had always believed energy was not conserved, and he thought others thought the same way.
While the fact that energy is conserved is common sense even a child knows.
Previously, the two of them had never discussed this issue because both thought it was common sense, like one plus one equals two. Who would be bored enough to discuss such a thing?
But Jiang Li’s common sense had been different from everyone else’s from the very beginning!