Civilization's Development Is Like Rowing Against the Current

"I reiterate: the Alliance needs more powerful weapons."

"The defeat in the Bogu Grand Nebula campaign fully demonstrated how outdated our military equipment has become."

"According to the accounts of the survivors of that battle, the warships' heavy armor could no longer provide even the slightest defense. The Swarm creatures' psionic power could pass through solid armor without restraint and crush the crew inside into balls of flesh, while every counterattack from our fleet failed to inflict any substantial damage on the enemy."

"The Alliance's soldiers do not fear sacrifice, but they need victory. They cannot afford to lose, because behind them stand countless compatriots, countless people they must protect... and everyone present here."

At the Galactic Alliance conference, all manner of aliens had gathered in a conference hall constructed in virtual space.

With so many participating species, and the need to accommodate their real-time expression of political demands, a virtual conference hall had become essential.

The focus of this conference's dispute was the modernization of the Alliance fleet's armaments.

In the battle of the Bogu Grand Nebula, the Swarm led by Lu Shang had won with overwhelming superiority. It was as though they had been wildly dancing atop the Galactic Alliance's most sensitive nerve, leaving every member faction of the Alliance severely lacking in a sense of security.

The Galactic Alliance's member factions urgently needed a force.

A force capable of contending with the Babel Swarm and defending their civilizations and species.

But there was a problem: how exactly should the new armaments be developed? And who should develop them? Toward whom should the Alliance's resources be concentrated?

And while the Galactic Alliance argued endlessly over resources, their opponent was also undergoing changes.

Bogu Grand Nebula, white dwarf system.

An asteroid drifting within the stellar system suddenly shattered without warning, as if some external force had crushed it to pieces.

On Nestworld, Lu Shang, connected to the Swarm network, opened his eyes in disappointment.

"Extending it to a hundred million kilometers is the limit. Just like before."

"It seems a simple physical connection can't bypass psionic tiers."

Psionic power had a range of influence. Like gravity, it diminished with distance. The farther one was from a psionic brain, the weaker its influence became.

The higher the psionic level, the greater its range of influence.

Although Lu Shang could have multiple psionic brains concentrate their psionic power at a single point, producing physical effects far beyond those of Level Ten psionic power, those brains were still only Level Ten psionic brains. Their effective range remained limited to that of Level Ten psionic power.

So Lu Shang had wondered whether, if these psionic brains were connected in parallel, they could be regarded as a single brain.

As everyone knew, a brain was composed of brain cells. So if these Level Ten psionic brains served as the "brain cells" of a super-brain, could they achieve a higher psionic level?

Lu Shang had conducted an experiment with that question in mind. Unfortunately, the effective range was still at the Level Ten psionic threshold, and the physical influence was much the same as when they were not connected in parallel.

"Why is that? These brains are connected to one another now. In theory, they should count as the same brain..." Lu Shang frowned in thought.

"Could it be that psionic level is no longer determined by size, but by the brain's structure?"

Lu Shang raised a brow. This line of thought seemed to fit the experimental results best.

Some individuals in the Swarm had brains about the same size as Lu Shang's, yet their psionic power exceeded Level One, while he himself had not even reached Level One. That meant the reason could only be the structure of the brain.

"Forget it. I'll leave this matter to other Swarm individuals to study."

Lu Shang shook his head, abandoning any plans to investigate further. Other matters were waiting for him.

Lu Shang emerged from the cave where he had long resided and entered the large cavern excavated during his last address to the Swarm.

He walked along the path cleared by the densely packed worker bees inside the cavern and once again climbed onto the granite platform.

Lu Shang gathered himself, swept his gaze across the worker bees below, and asked, "You all have brains now, right?"

The worker bees looked at one another before focusing their gaze on Lu Shang once more.

Lu Shang asked again, "Is there anyone who still hasn't hatched a main-brain for themselves?"

No one answered through the Swarm network.

"No answer." Lu Shang nodded. "Then I'll take that as your acknowledgment that all of you have hatched one."

"Then for what I'm about to discuss next, I won't need to worry that any of you can't even understand the basic concepts."

The worker bees looked at Lu Shang in confusion. Every individual in the Swarm under Lu Shang's leadership was also watching through the worker bees' sensory organs, curious about what this main-brain, so vastly different from the Swarm's previous main-brains, intended to tell them.

Lu Shang paused, then asked, "What do you think has always been the Swarm's ultimate goal?"

"Survival. The continuation of the species."

A Swarm individual swiftly answered Lu Shang's question through the Swarm network.

Lu Shang nodded and asked again, "Right, survival. Then if something blocks the Swarm's path to survival, what should be done?"

"Destroy it! Eliminate it! No matter the cost, we must continue down the path of survival!" the Swarm individuals answered.

Lu Shang continued, "Then what if it is the Swarm's ruler that wishes to destroy the Swarm?"

At once, the Swarm individuals led by Lu Shang fell silent. The Swarm network suddenly went quiet.

After a while, one individual denied it. "That is impossible."

After a ruler died, the Swarm would choose a new ruler. If the Swarm recognized it and it became ruler, there was no reason for it to lead the Swarm toward destruction.

That was what all Swarm individuals believed.

"Nothing is impossible. Even if the ruler does not intend it, good intentions can still lead to bad results," Lu Shang said.

Lu Shang spoke slowly. "Whenever I sleep, I inevitably recall, through the Swarm's memories, those 430,000 years before the Babel Swarm encountered the Void God and gained psionic power."

"The entire Babel Swarm had been utterly unable to find a direction for its species' development. It had been obsessed with collecting the genes of living creatures, and in the end, could only make the slightest progress by using stellar radiation to randomly mutate genes before selecting from them."

Lu Shang looked earnestly at the worker bees below and said solemnly, "You chose me. As your main-brain, I must live up to that choice."

"I have constantly wondered: what caused the Swarm to remain trapped in its home star system for 430,000 years? Why were the civilizations on the Galactic Alliance's side not trapped in their home star systems for 430,000 years? Why was the Swarm, which could optimize its own abilities through genes, instead inferior to species that evolved naturally?"

"If you fall behind, you will be beaten. Cruel competition for survival is the law of the universe, and stagnation in development itself means going against survival. During the Swarm's 430,000-year period of stagnation, who had stood like an insurmountable barrier, blocking the development and survival of the entire Babel Swarm?"

Now that they had acquired main-brains, complex thought was no longer a problem for the Swarm led by Lu Shang.

After Lu Shang's methodical questioning, the reason the Babel Swarm had remained trapped in its home star system, its development stagnant for 430,000 years, gradually became clear.

Lu Shang continued, "I thought about this question for a long time. Not until we encountered the main-brain chosen by the Swarm's new ruler did I finally understand the reason."

"What blocked the Babel Swarm's survival was precisely the ruler and the main-brain it chose. But ultimately, the problem still lay with the ruler, because the main-brain was chosen by the ruler."

Lu Shang's deeply shocking words stirred up considerable turbulence throughout the Swarm network.