Free Web NovelChapter 345: Chapter 53: Beginning the Dive
What they didn’t know was that while Su Zhou had mastered the Thunder Technique, the Fire Technique, and the Wind Skill, he knew nothing about water—had they known, they likely wouldn’t have been so optimistic.
’He must be a fake Dragon.’
"It’s not a big deal." Su Zhou, however, was full of confidence. "I’ve already forged my skeleton and spleen with Spiritual Power. Most of my muscles are done too. Only my brain is left."
"Not to mention, that thing is only at the Flood Dragon Realm, weaker than me, and it hasn’t even formed its Dragon body. Even if it had already transformed into a True Dragon’s body, I could still obliterate it with a single punch."
Still, it was another question whether a fight would even break out. After all, having practiced Soul Communication, Su Zhou was confident he could use his formidable Willpower to immediately persuade the Flood Dragon to negotiate peacefully.
After reporting to his headmaster and receiving nominal clearance, Su Zhou took a car to the airport. He flew to the Celestial Capital, where he joined Zhengguo’s official exploration team aboard a special flight to Fusang. From there, they took a ship out of Guam, heading for the designated sea region.
The entire journey took less than half a day, bringing Su Zhou from Hongcheng to the open sea.
Zhengguo was naturally taking the lead on this expedition, followed by the American Federation and Fusang. Other nations, due to geographical distance and various other complex factors, couldn’t dispatch their own exploration teams in time and could only send a few personnel to accompany the mission in name.
Fusang’s government was a constitutional monarchy built upon an elite bureaucracy, with a Celestial Emperor as its nominal head. Leaving aside its original symbolic significance, the role of the Celestial Emperor’s lineage was to act as the inheritors of Fusang’s orthodox Ancient Classics. The Immortal Gods of ancient Fusang had granted them the right to manage these Classics, but not ownership, making their role similar to that of librarians.
Fusang’s internal political system was currently undergoing massive reforms due to the Spiritual Energy Revival. In essence, the ruling class didn’t want change, but the revival itself was a catalyst for upheaval and chaos. The oppressed lower classes, now empowered, were naturally unwilling to be ordered around by their superiors any longer. In turn, these superiors grew fearful as they watched their subordinates transform. Furthermore, the status of Fusang’s Mimic Dao Inheritors was low, and the suppression they faced was far more severe than that of Mimic Dao Cultivators in Zhengguo. This created immense internal conflict among Transcendents, splitting them into conservative and Reform Factions. The tension between them had long ago passed a critical point, held in check only by the previous era’s absence of Spiritual Qi.
It had to be said that if the pent-up animosity between the conservatives and the Reform Faction were to erupt, the resulting explosion would be no less violent than the great uprising that had toppled the old Fusang regime one hundred and thirty years ago.
This expedition to the Dragon King’s Remains was therefore of great significance to Fusang’s internal Reform Faction. If the mission succeeded and was properly publicized, it would surely clear the tarnished reputation of Mimic Dao Cultivators. The Reform Faction could then leverage this success to push for subsequent institutional changes.
In theory, Fusang’s conservative faction should have done everything in its power to sabotage the mission—but they didn’t dare. After all, the price of offending Zhengguo and the American Federation was far greater than the losses they would incur by allowing the Reform Faction to succeed.
As for why the American Federation supported making the Mimic Dao public, they had their own similar, yet distinct, objective.
Ultimately, the Mimic Dao was nothing more than altering one’s body to simulate the power of Extraordinary Creatures.
The essential difference between this type of Cultivator and a normal human lay in the physical body. While a demonized body possessed immense power, it looked different from a normal human’s. Its excessively monstrous appearance would undoubtedly provoke fear in ordinary people; after all, at their core, all human beings are slaves to appearance.
In that sense, what was the real difference between a person becoming a demon or a robot?
Though the two topics seemed completely unrelated, they shared the same fundamental core.
The American Federation, with its profound technological expertise in mechanical augmentation and even mechanical Transcendent Transformation, understood this perfectly. If everyone could be made to accept the idea that *’physical changes don’t matter; as long as the mind is human, the person is human,’* then all the ethical and public-opinion dilemmas surrounding mechanical augmentation would simply melt away.
After all, compared to a Demon True Body, a mechanical body was much closer in shape to a human one. For a species that instinctively judges by appearance, the natural repulsion would be far weaker.
To many, this might seem like an intractable ethical and moral problem. But as technology advances, human ethics and morals inevitably change with it. For massive entities on the scale of nations and civilizations, ethics and morality are merely tools for maintaining stability—and tools, naturally, must be adapted to the times.
"So, we’re taking a submersible down? I thought I’d have to physically dive down there myself."
On the top deck of the research vessel, Su Zhou was drinking coffee with Xuan Lu, the Patriarch of the Black Tortoise Xuan Family. After all, this was a meticulously planned mission; the chance of any mishap was practically zero, and the danger was minimal. Neither of them was nervous.
In fact, the old man and the young man had just spent a full twenty minutes bickering over the question: ’Is coffee a type of soy milk? If it is, and you add sugar to sweet soy milk and salt to savory soy milk, then shouldn’t you be able to add salt to coffee?’ The debate had been so intense that everyone else had cleared out, leaving only one of Xuan Lu’s secretaries behind.
It had to be said, this time Su Zhou had truly met his match. Xuan Lu may have been old, but his power was profound and his mind was sharp. When it came to life experience, Su Zhou couldn’t even hold a candle to him. If it weren’t for Su Zhou’s own prodigious Talent, he would have been completely outmatched.
