chsdbacks Chapter 761 Exaggerated Ethnic Groups and Negotiations
Chapter 761 Exaggerated Ethnic Groups and Negotiations
The shock of discovering the factory lingered in Jemin's mind for quite some time.
However, he quickly suppressed that fluctuation.
No matter how many Level 9 beings there are, that's the collective wealth of a multi-race alliance, and it's not directly related to the matters he needs to deal with right now. Without looking any further, Jemin carefully stored the energy device into his inner space, then left the factory with Viola.
Inside the factory, the black giant priests continued to dismantle the remaining recyclable equipment with swift and efficient movements.
It was already dark when I walked out of the factory gate.
The pale purple sky was dyed a deeper purplish-red by the sunset, and the remaining smoke of gunpowder slowly dissipated in the wind.
The distant hills, their outlines undulating in the twilight, appeared exceptionally quiet.
As they walked, Jemin casually told Viola about his discovery of the native inhabitants of this plane.
After listening, Viola blinked, her expression suddenly becoming somewhat strange.
"No wonder."
She raised her hand, and the grayish-white laws of pain slowly condensed into a tiny bead of light at her fingertips.
The surface of the luminous orb seemed to reflect the emotional distribution map of the entire continent, with fine light patterns flowing endlessly within it.
"I've felt something's off ever since I came to this world."
She stared at the luminous orb, her eyes narrowing.
"The emotional aura is distributed very evenly across the entire plane. It's neither like the octopus people's, which are concentrated in strongholds, nor like the distribution of ordinary animals, which fluctuates with population density, but rather... it's present on every inch of land."
"At first, I thought those octopus-men possessed some special power, or that they were some well-hidden natives. But during the interrogation, we found out that the octopus-men didn't have that ability at all. Now it seems that it was simply..."
She didn't finish her sentence, but Jemin already understood.
He subconsciously glanced at the weeds remaining in the crevices of the rocks around the factory, then looked at the low shrubs that had miraculously survived the war on the edge of the distant depression, and his scalp tingled.
Vegetative state patients are individuals who form a group of tiny individuals, and this group then constitutes an independent vegetative state body.
If each individual vegetative state body is a miniature city, then what are the villages of the original inhabitants of this plane? And on what scale does their civilization exist?
And... why are you so sure they can only exist in a vegetative state?
Look around again.
Over 90% of the bare land in the entire plane is covered by lush green vegetation.
If "every plant is an indigenous species," then what they are standing on is not a battlefield at all.
Instead, it is a super metropolitan area spanning the entire planet, inhabited by trillions of tiny residents!
Realizing this, Jemin instinctively activated the Fate System, quickly checking for any abnormal disturbances in his own destiny rules. Only after confirming there were no problems did he slowly breathe a sigh of relief.
It's not that he's making a fuss.
Rather, it was the "Fungus Lord" he had encountered in the Triangular Dimension that left such a deep impression on him, to the point of triggering a reaction. That being, who embodied concepts and was nature itself, was simply too dangerous.
If it weren't for the seventh-level wizard leading the expedition reacting in advance thanks to a sign of fate, the entire expeditionary force would have been wiped out.
Although the sources of their wills are exactly opposite, the form of existence of these vegetative people is exactly the same as that of the fungus master.
Even though their temperaments seem much gentler than the host, no one can say for sure how long such "gentleness" can last when it comes to the life and death of an entire civilization.
"What are your plans for dealing with these people in a vegetative state?"
"Jeremy asked, his voice unconsciously lowering a few decibels," Jemin asked.
Viola withdrew the orb of the Law of Pain from her fingertip, crossed her arms over her chest, and gazed at a patch of bushes blackened by the flames of war on the edge of a distant depression, pondering for a moment.
"Let's talk to them after we've cleaned up the battlefield."
Her tone was calm.
"After all, this will be my world in the future, so I need to find out how many households live on my territory first."
In the following period, Jemin issued orders to both the Black Giants and the Tentacle Tree civilization to accelerate the cleanup.
The Tentacle Tree Civilization's fleet then dispersed into hundreds of smaller squads, conducting a comprehensive search of the entire plane.
Each abnormal energy reading point was marked and checked one by one.
Even with only a rough search, it still took several months to examine the entire surface of a plane.
During this time, they discovered many life energy collection sites and small to medium-sized outposts left behind by the octopus people, but no buildings of the scale of that factory ever appeared again.
The equipment in those facilities is all standard equipment; there are no level 29 creations.
After a rough cleanup, Jemin ordered the Black Giants and the Tentacle Tree civilization to evacuate the plane and return to the Infernal Sulfur Plane via a spatial rift. He then traveled with Viola to a basin deep within the plane.
The area is surrounded by mountains and has a concave terrain, so it was originally covered with lush vegetation.
In addition, the surrounding mountains blocked most of the aftershocks of the battle, making it the most lush area of vegetation in the entire plane after the war.
Inside the basin, large patches of purplish-red moss were spread out, interspersed with clusters of shrubs with spirally arranged leaves.
When a gentle breeze blows, the air is filled with a faint fragrance of plants.
However, faced with this vibrant scene, Jemin obediently unleashed his Great Light Phase.
Tens of thousands of magical artifacts formed a giant circular array behind him, like a scorching sun floating in the void.
The energy steady-state field of Guixu Jia then expanded, enveloping the entire basin in a protective shield.
His true form and Dharma form unfolded simultaneously, and his divine light form was activated at the same time, transforming his body into a semi-light state.
Finally, the thousand-meter-tall dark golden giant crouched in the center of the basin, with a five-hundred-kilometer-high dual-image phantom floating behind it, solemn, calm, and full of oppressive power.
It can be said that Jemin is now fully armed, having completely unleashed all his fighting power.
Viola, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have changed much.
She simply tied her long hair back into a neat ponytail, and the solidified domain of laws unfolded beneath her feet.
The grayish-white light was gentler than during the battle, but its coverage area was much larger, like a thin mist spreading silently, encompassing the entire basin.
She hovered at shoulder height above Jemin's real body and took a deep breath.
Then, based on the local language of the vegetative state that Jemin had deciphered over the past few months, she used her own solidified domain as a medium, combined with the portion of the plane's origin control she had previously seized, to evenly transmit a message to every plant in the entire plane.
In the message she conveyed, her "words" were very straightforward:
"I have acquired ownership of this plane. You vegetative beings are now my property."
"Next, we need to have a formal discussion."
After the information was sent out, all the plants in the basin moved.
Every shrub, every patch of moss, every towering tree disintegrates its form at the same time.
Leaves silently fall from the branches, bark gently peels from the trunk, and all plant tissues begin to recombine before even hitting the ground. A green wave converges from the periphery of the basin towards its center, as microscopic individuals reassemble their bodies at a speed beyond the limits of the naked eye. Trunks, vines, and leaves recombine in the blink of an eye, gradually forming a completely new outline.
It was a towering, enormous vegetative state patient.
Its size was so large that Jemin's 1,000-meter true form could barely reach its knees.
Its body is formed by the aggregation of all the plants in the entire basin, and its surface is covered with a dense vine-like structure. The branches and leaves on top sway gently under the purple sunlight, and each leaf has a healthy emerald green sheen.
Its facial features were clear yet gentle, and its eyes, composed of petals of different colors, quietly gazed down at Viola and Jemin. Viola didn't wait for the other to speak first.
She repeated the information that had just been transmitted through the origin of the plane in the language of a person in a vegetative state.
"I have acquired ownership of this plane." Her voice was calm. "From now on, you are no longer the unclaimed natives of this plane, but a subordinate group belonging to me."
The towering, enormous plant silently bowed its head, its giant eyes, formed by its petals, staring at her without blinking, without making a sound immediately.
Viola didn't care and continued, "As the master of this plane, I will provide you with a suitable living environment, resources, and technical support according to the standards of wizarding civilization, protect you from foreign invasion, and do my best to restore your people to a better state."
"In exchange, you will need to pay a certain amount of resources as tax each year. When necessary, you will obey my orders, participate in dimensional defense, or assist my research."
She raised her eyes and met those giant eyes made of flower petals. After thinking for a moment, she added the last sentence.
"In addition, you can serve as my experimental assistants and participate in some of my research work. The knowledge you gain during the research process will still belong to you."
Standing to the side, listening to his senior's "negotiation," Jieming couldn't help but cover his face.
Although when communicating with people of different customs, it is important to be as straightforward as possible to avoid misunderstandings.
But... isn't that a bit too blunt?
It was so blunt that it didn't even bother to embellish the statement, "You are now my property," which was simply laid bare.
He originally thought that once these words were spoken, the two sides would most likely turn against each other and start fighting immediately, and the great light behind the Dharma image had even begun to secretly gather its strength.
But the person in a vegetative state remained silent for a long time.
The giant eye formed by the two petals blinked slowly, and the rustling sound of the leaves rubbing together emanated from it.
It did not answer immediately.
But from the vegetation surrounding the basin and connecting with the giant, tiny green specks of light continuously rose up along the connecting vegetation and merged into its massive trunk.
Jemin could clearly sense an extremely large flow of information being transmitted at high speed among the plants.
It seems these people in a vegetative state are not unresponsive.
They are simultaneously calculating and discussing using the consciousness of all ethnic groups in the entire basin.
The conditions offered by Viola, their previous battle records with the octopus-men, as well as the battle records of Jemin and Viola with the octopus-men, the difference in strength between the two sides, the costs and benefits of resistance...
And her final statement, "The knowledge learned during the research process belongs to them,"...
Every detail was repeatedly analyzed and weighed within that vast green ocean.
Finally, the giant plant spoke: "We accept these conditions."
Jemin's fingers, which were hovering over the Dharma Image's chest, slowly loosened the trigger rune of the Extinction of Fire Divine Light.
This choice made by a person in a vegetative state is understandable.
They shared information about the octopus-men's battles as observed by other plant-based beings, essentially witnessing firsthand how this group of "wizards" crushed the entire octopus-men's expeditionary force with just two people.
In this situation, accepting the conditions and becoming a subordinate race is far wiser than resisting and being completely exterminated.
Standing to the side, Jemin couldn't help but feel a little envious.
Based on what we just saw, these people in a vegetative state are exactly as he analyzed before.
Their intelligence increases exponentially as the size of the aggregated population increases.
While the intelligence of a single micro-individual is not high, when trillions of micro-individuals are connected together through a neural network, their collective intelligence is comparable to that of a top-tier level six wizard.
Viola was willing to take them in as experimental assistants, rather than simply as a race of servants, precisely because of this potential.
Thinking about how he had cultivated a new generation of vegetative-human active tissues in the Purgatory Sulfur Plane laboratory, Jemin couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation.
Although it is still small in scale.
But given enough time and a suitable environment, those little guys will eventually grow into towering giants like the ones before us.