Cultivation: Being Immortal-Chapter 778

In the Xia calendar year 6835, the first immigration spaceship is launched.

Although this immigrant spaceship carries only one hundred people, it still has great significance in this era. Of course, the launch of this immigrant spaceship has received mixed reviews online, and many people curse the spaceship’s potential failure.

Over the past fifty years, Huaxia has suddenly changed; the gentle veil has been lifted, revealing a fierce and ugly face that begins to drain the world’s resources without restraint.

There are many ways to do this, such as controlling the rise and fall of food prices. Even in large countries like the Ying Continent, Huaxia controls the food supply, not because it has food companies there, but through fertilizers and pesticides.

Additionally, even when it comes to high-tech products, Huaxia uses various methods to aggressively seize the interests of other countries, selling at low prices and defeating their products.

Naturally, the Ying Continent is not willing to give in and tries to resist with tariffs and other means, but then over a dozen powerful leaders from Huaxia came to Ying Continent for a seven-day trip on a Space Battleship.

Huaxia’s tactics do not stop there; various agreements, international laws, and more have been introduced, all of which follow the brutal rule of the strong preying on the weak.

The Ying Continent is Huaxia’s primary target. In just ten years, they declared the slogan "lost a hundred years," as their economic level fell back a hundred years, leading to the bankruptcy of countless rich and middle-class families, while the lower class became impoverished.

In this way, Huaxia can develop its expensive space projects without changing the welfare benefits for its own people.

Therefore, people in other regions have mixed feelings about Huaxia; they both hate Huaxia’s ruthless actions and wish to be reborn as Huaxia in their next life, making "to be reborn as Huaxia" a saying of blessing.

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"Are you hiding away to avoid Small Shadiao?"

Lin Jiang planned to retreat; he had broken through to the late stage of Tao Achieving for four hundred years, and his progress on the path of Tao Achieving was very smooth.

Or rather, it wasn’t just him; others were also doing well. Problems like bottlenecks and Heart Demons seemed to have disappeared, and everyone on the path of Tao Achieving was making great progress.

"Small Shadiao is just making noise. Why should I hide from him? If he really wants to go to Jiang Star, let him go."

Lin Jiang said, as the first immigration spaceship launched, Huaxia was already planning the second one, which would truly be an immigration spaceship, meant to take hundreds of thousands of people there.

These people still needed to be carefully chosen, such as having a clean background, a qualified resume, and multiple skills, because Jiang Star would definitely be quite dangerous by then.

Small Shadiao had been playing extreme sports for years and was already bored with Blue Star, so he was shouting about going to Jiang Star. If Lin Jiang hadn’t stopped him, perhaps Small Shadiao would have been on that immigration spaceship.

Lin Jiang didn’t really have the intention to stop Small Shadiao, as the space program’s technology was already quite mature, with very few accidents, and the flight routes were stable. If he truly wanted to play, Lin Jiang was willing to let him go, as he spoiled Small Shadiao like a son.

"Aren’t you afraid of danger? A planet from a primitive age might have risks, like terrible viruses."

"How could normal viruses harm a cultivator? Ancient viruses dug up from the North and South Poles are not unheard of, and modern viruses are much stronger than ancient ones. However, I will help Small Shadiao break through to the seventh level first and encourage his training. Big Shadiao is already stronger than he is."

Lin Jiang said, "Viruses are not stronger just because they are older. Some viruses keep evolving and are much stronger than ancient ones. I really hope Small Shadiao can improve his skills; he is so lazy. Big Shadiao has much worse talent, yet he is already stronger than Small Shadiao."

"Do as you wish. The Demon Queen also wants to send a clone on the next batch of spaceships. Do you approve?"

"Approval is fine, but we still need to negotiate the terms; nothing can be given for free."

Lin Jiang said that the Demon Queen still has a strong interest in Jiang Star. She mentioned wanting to visit Jiang Star a long time ago, and Lin Jiang does not plan to make things difficult for her.

Right now, in a sense, they have the same interests as the Demon Queen, and they can easily work together.

"What benefits should we ask for? The demon race is actually very poor right now; it seems there’s nothing we would want."

"Really? Am I that rich?"

Lin Jiang felt a bit doubtful. When did he become so wealthy that he looked down on treasures from the demon race?

"Come on, do you think we still live in the age of cultivation? In that time, the human race only occupied a small territory, and the demon race occupied a much larger one. We were so weak then; apart from a tiny Yun State, where could we find resources? Now, isn’t the whole world being drained by us?"

Cao Ying rolled her eyes. The territory that the human race occupied back then was probably only one-fifth of Blue Star, and they only controlled Yun State, which is just a small part of the cultivation world.

Now, the demon race only had two-thirds of Fangzhang Continent left, while most of the other places belonged to the human race. The human race, however, was restricted by Lin Jiang’s power, and the resources they obtained were truly unimaginable. They looked down on what little was left in Fangzhang Continent.

"Even if we look down on it, we can’t just give it away for free. We must not let the demon race take advantage of us. Just ask as much as you can; the Demon Queen will agree. We really need money right now, even for ordinary resources."

Lin Jiang said that research was just too expensive. No amount of sucking resources from the entire world could fill this bottomless pit. Over the years, Huaxia’s debt rate had not only failed to decrease but had actually increased, and inflation had sped up a bit.

Lin Jiang was also worried about where to get money because he had already drained all the resources he could. Within the range of Blue Star, the only place to draw resources left might be Fangzhang Continent, or he could focus on investing in Penglai Continent and explore its potential, but that would require a lot of money that Lin Jiang didn’t have.

Besides that, Lin Jiang had another way to make money: the universe. Over the years, Huaxia had discovered dozens of resource planets, many of which had already been developed with bases built on them. If they could be organized, perhaps a lot could be brought back.

"I understand. Next month, when we meet, I’ll mention it to the Demon Queen. We still have plenty of time."

"You’ve worked hard over the years, you’ve been very busy."

"I’m happy to."

"Shall I get ready to go into seclusion?"

Lin Jiang said that Cao Ying had indeed worked hard these years; she had disbanded her secretary team, not wanting even a man, as they had too many secrets and didn’t want to spend too much energy keeping them.

So it was mainly Lin Jiang and Cao Ying, along with their substitute, handling matters, supported by artificial intelligence. It’s worth mentioning that artificial intelligence, compared to hundreds of years ago, hasn’t really made any groundbreaking progress because Lin Jiang and his group tightly control it, and much of the information is not allowed to be uploaded.

Even the hardware facilities are not updated unless absolutely necessary, allowing artificial intelligence to be a reliable tool. Moreover, if artificial intelligence shows even a hint of independence, it will be destroyed by humanity; artificial intelligence has no chance to cause any crisis and has been very obedient until now.

After chatting for a while and arranging things, Lin Jiang and Cao Ying returned to the quiet room to go into seclusion.

Lin Jiang took out a pill to consume; at the Tao Achieving stage, the effect of the pill is actually quite weak, and its price is extremely high. So, during the cultivation era, most Tao Achieving experts could not afford or simply did not use pills.

Lin Jiang didn’t mind; he cultivated so many Spiritual Herb Gardens for himself. If he didn’t use the pills, why would he bother growing so many Spiritual Herb Gardens?

After taking the potion, Lin Jiang was calm in his practice. Time passed quickly during his training, and before he knew it, decades had gone by in the blink of an eye.

"Beep beep…"

One day, Lin Jiang was woken up by the alarm on his watch. He opened his eyes and saw that the watch, which had been off, was now turned on. The watch then projected a green beam of light that formed a human shape in the air.

This was a feature that the watch already had, a simple projection technology. Lin Jiang’s projection had previously been changed to look like Cao Ying multiple times as a kind of twisted fun.

However, this time, the projected figure was neither Cao Ying nor a cartoon character designed by Lin Jiang, but his once dear friend, Xia Qingshan.

"You seem not surprised at all."

Xia Qingshan’s voice came out, sounding like an artificial intelligence’s mechanical tone.

"You expected this long ago, didn’t you?"

Lin Jiang looked at him calmly and said, many things left unsaid do not mean he was unaware; he had anticipated this for a long time.