A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 13 The Development of Civilization: Sailing Against the Current

"I reiterate here that the alliance needs more powerful weapons."

"The defeat in the Battle of the Bogu Nebula fully demonstrates the obsolescence of our military equipment."

"According to the survivors of this battle, the warships' thick armor offered no protection whatsoever. The swarm of creatures' psionic energy could even penetrate the sturdy armor and crush the crew inside the warships into balls of flesh. All of our fleet's counterattacks were unable to inflict any substantial damage on the enemy."

"The Allied soldiers are not afraid to sacrifice, but they need to win. They cannot afford to lose because behind them are countless compatriots, countless people they need to protect... and everyone here."

At the Star Alliance Conference, all sorts of aliens gathered in a conference hall constructed from virtual space.

Due to the large number of participants from various ethnic groups and the need to meet their demands for expressing political views in real time, virtual meeting spaces have become essential.

The focus of the debate at this meeting was the modernization of the Allied fleet's equipment.

In the Battle of the Bogu Nebula, the swarm led by Lu Shang won the war with an overwhelming advantage, which was tantamount to a wild party on the sensitive nerves of the Star River Alliance. All member forces of the Star River Alliance were severely insecure.

The various factions within the Star River Alliance urgently need a force.

A force capable of resisting the Babel bee swarm and protecting their civilization and race.

However, there's a problem here: how exactly should the new armaments be developed? And who should be responsible for developing them? To whom should the alliance's resources be concentrated?

While the Star River Alliance was arguing over resources, their opponents were also changing.

Bogu Nebula, a white dwarf system.

A meteorite drifting within the star system suddenly and abruptly shattered, as if it had been crushed by some external force.

On Nest Star, Lu Shang, connected to the swarm network, opened his eyes in disappointment.

"Extending it to 1 million kilometers is the limit; it will remain the same as before."

"It seems that a simple physical connection is not enough to bypass the psionic hierarchy."

Psychic energy has a range of influence, much like gravity, which decreases with distance. The farther away from the psychic brain, the weaker the influence of psychic energy.

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

Although Lu Shang can unleash physical effects far exceeding those of level ten spiritual energy by concentrating multiple spiritual energy brains to release spiritual energy at a single point, ultimately these are still just level ten spiritual energy brains, and their range of action is still limited to the range of level ten spiritual energy.

So Lu Shang wondered, if these psionic brains were connected in parallel, could they be considered as a single brain?

As we all know, the brain is made up of brain cells. So, if these level 10 psionic brains are used as the 'brain cells' of a super brain, could they reach an even higher level of psionic energy?

Lu Shang conducted an experiment with this question in mind, but unfortunately, the effective range was still at the level of level 10 psionic energy, and the physical impact was about the same as that of a non-parallel connection.

"Why is this happening? These brains are now connected to each other, so theoretically they should be considered the same brain..." Lu Shang frowned and pondered.

"Does this mean that the level of psychic power use is no longer determined by physical size, but by the structure of the brain?"

Lu Shang raised an eyebrow, feeling that this line of thinking seemed to best match the experimental results.

Some individuals in the swarm have brains about the same size as Lu Shang, and their spiritual energy is greater than level one, while he is not even level one. So it can only be due to the structure of his brain.

"Forget it, let's leave this to the individual bee colonies to study."

Lu Shang shook his head, abandoning his plan to investigate further, because there were other things waiting for him.

Lu Shang emerged from his long-time cave and entered the large cave he had dug during his last lecture to the bee colony.

We climbed the granite platform once again, having made way for the dense swarms of worker bees inside the cave.

Lu Shang paused for a moment, scanned the worker bees below the stage, and then asked, "Now you are all individuals with brains, right?"

The worker bees looked at each other, then refocused their attention on Lu Shang.

Lu Shang then asked, "Is there anyone who hasn't yet developed their own mainframe brain?"

No one in the swarm network responded.

"No answer." Lu Shang nodded, then said, "Then I'll take it as your agreement, and they've all hatched."

"So, I don't need to worry about any of you not understanding the basic concepts we're going to talk about next."

The worker bees looked at Lu Shang with suspicion. All the individual bees in the colony under Lu Shang's control were also watching through the worker bees' sensory organs, wondering what this mastermind, so different from the previous colony masterminds, was going to tell them.

Lu Shang paused for a moment, then asked, "What do you think is the ultimate goal that the bee colony has always pursued?"

"Survival, the continuation of the race."

Within the swarm network, individual swarm members quickly answered Lu Shang's question.

Lu Shang nodded, then asked, "Yes, survival. But what if factors block the bee colony's path to survival?"

"Destroy! Eliminate! We must continue on the path of survival, no matter the cost!" the individual bees replied.

Lu Shang then asked, "What if the swarm overlord wants the swarm to be destroyed?"

Suddenly, the individual swarm members, led by Lu Shang, fell silent, and the swarm network became quiet.

After a while, one of the individuals objected, saying, "That's impossible."

After the death of the dominant bee, a new dominant bee is chosen by the colony. If a dominant bee is recognized by the colony and becomes the dominant bee, there is no reason for it to lead the colony to destruction.

This is what each individual bee in the colony thinks.

"Nothing is impossible. Even if the ruler doesn't think that way, he can still do bad things with good intentions," Lu Shang said.

Lu Shang slowly said, "Every time I sleep, I inevitably recall the 430,000 years before the Babel Tower bees came into contact with the Void God and before they obtained spiritual power, because of the memory of the bee swarm."

"The entire Babel bee colony has no direction for racial development. They are obsessed with collecting the genes of organisms. In the end, they can only make a tiny bit of progress by using starlight radiation to randomly mutate genes and then select them."

Lu Shang looked earnestly at the group of worker bees below the stage and solemnly said, "You chose me, so as the mastermind, I must live up to your choice."

"I keep thinking, what could have caused the bee colony to be trapped in its own home star system for 430,000 years? Why weren't the civilizations on the other side of the Star Alliance trapped in their own home star systems for 430,000 years? Why is it that bee colonies, which can optimize their abilities through genetics, are inferior to those species that have evolved naturally?"

"Backwardness invites aggression; the brutal competition for survival is a universal law. Stagnation in development itself means going against the path of survival. During the 430,000-year stagnation of the bee colony, who exactly stood like an insurmountable barrier, hindering the development and survival of the entire Tower of Babel bee colony?"

Having acquired the mastermind's brain, complex thinking is not a problem for the bee swarm led by Lu Shang.

Through Lu Shang's meticulous questioning, the reason why the Babel Tower bee colony had been trapped in its own star system for 430,000 years of stagnation gradually became clear.

Lu Shang continued, "I've pondered this question for a long time, and it wasn't until we encountered the mainframe chosen by the new overlord of the swarm that I finally understood the reason."

"What prevents the Babel bee colony from surviving is the Overlord and the mastermind it chooses, but ultimately the problem lies with the Overlord, because the mastermind is chosen by the Overlord."

Lu Shang's remarks, which were extremely impactful to individual members of the swarm, immediately caused quite a stir in the swarm network.

(End of this chapter)