Chapter 288 The Journey of Cultivation Should Not End on the Surface

Above the nine heavens, the Heavenly Palace atop the clouds.

A strong wind swept silently past the white jade railings. Gu Qing, dressed in a green robe, stood alone on the floating island at the edge of the main hall, quietly looking down at the planet below, a blend of azure and gray-black.

In his view, the Earth is no longer a simple network of mountains and rivers, but an extremely dense network of faith and laws covering the entire globe.

At this moment, on this network, the beliefs of all beings, who were originally somewhat anxious and tense due to the shortage of high-level resources on the surface, are undergoing a very subtle convergence.

Gu Qing's gaze landed precisely on the vicinity of the equator.

There, there is an extremely thin black line piercing the sky—the space elevator.

Looking at this vital artery connecting heaven and earth, a deep smile slowly appeared in Gu Qing's eyes.

Since the docking ceremony, this space elevator, which embodies the culmination of human industrial achievements, has been gradually building its supporting industrial nodes in near-Earth orbit under his watchful eye.

But Gu Qing was well aware that for a long time in the past, these actions had not been a high priority in the overall strategic landscape of humanity.

Because the surface is too lively.

He unleashed relics to provoke hunters into a desperate struggle; he tacitly allowed the barbaric growth of the cyber cultivation system, watching powerful clans and the lower classes fight bloody battles in the wasteland for symbiotic spirit gold and demon cores.

But if the vision and limits of the cultivation civilization are forever limited to fighting each other over a few ley lines; if it merely regards Earth, its mother planet, as the only stage in the universe...

So, no matter how high the individual combat power of such a civilization is, or how many heavy exoskeletons that can withstand a third-tier demon are built, in essence, it is nothing more than a group of Gu worms trapped in a constant temperature chamber and becoming stronger.

Earth's resources are finite.

When every inch of their home planet is hollowed out, and the relics of the deep sea are devoured, the humans trapped on the surface will ultimately only be able to devour each other for the last bit of sparse spiritual energy on this closed planet.

True civilizational advancement should never involve frantically scrambling for a dwindling slice of cake on a plate of fixed size.

Instead, we should raise our swords, smash the plate, and demand from the outside!

"If one only knows how to fight for one's own small plot of land, then cultivating immortality is nothing more than another form of wild beasts claiming territory."

Gu Qing stood with his hands behind his back, his deep eyes reflecting the vast solar system. "Only those who dare to point their swords beyond the nine heavens, who dare to seize the creation of heaven and earth in the vacuum and the galaxy, deserve to be called a true immortal cultivation civilization."

Now, driven by the material crisis, humanity has finally turned its attention to space elevators and orbital resources, relying on its own wisdom and will to survive.

This represents an upward breakthrough in the boundaries of our understanding of civilization.

Gu Qing knew that this path absolutely could not be blocked. Not only could it not be blocked, but as the true mastermind behind this world, he was even happy to see humanity venture out.

But he did not intend to take action directly.

Excessive attempts to force growth will only stifle the resilience of this civilization itself.

The real breakthrough must be forged by ordinary people themselves, through their own blood, sweat, and wisdom.

However, Gu Qing could provide these "pioneers" who dared to risk their lives with just the right "east wind".

Gu Qing's gaze followed the space elevator upwards, landing on the high-risk area where the top of the troposphere meets the ionosphere.

That is a natural barrier created by the convergence and collision of Earth's spiritual energy and high-energy radiation from the universe—the spiritual pressure turbulence zone.

For spacecraft of the old era, this region posed no truly deadly threat, except for its complex weather. But now, with the intensification of the spiritual energy resurgence, the spiritual pressure in this high altitude is extremely violent. Once a transport capsule carrying high-intensity true essence fluctuations or high-grade spiritual materials enters, the chaotic spiritual energy storms will act like countless invisible flying swords, frantically cutting through the capsule.

Given the current pressure resistance level of the second-generation heavy-duty transport module, attempting to pass through it fully loaded in such a meat grinder-like environment is nothing short of a pipe dream.

"Since you have the audacity to defy the constraints of the atmosphere..."

Gu Qing slowly raised her right hand.

A ball of extremely pure golden light, exuding the charm of the Great Dao, danced at his fingertips.

His finger gently pressed down on the turbulent spiritual pressure zone below.

Om-!

This is a high-dimensional vibration that human scientific instruments simply cannot capture, and even a Nascent Soul stage cultivator cannot detect.

The instant Gu Qing's fingertips touched the ground, a certain extremely fundamental and grand rule in space was silently stirred.

With the main cable of the space elevator as the core, Gu Qing extremely skillfully reduced the "sharpness" of the spiritual energy collisions in the area within a radius of thirty kilometers, which was filled with violent spiritual pressure turbulence.

It's like covering extremely sharp hailstones in a storm with an extremely thin film of water.

The danger remains; a spiritual storm can still tear an old fighter jet to shreds in an instant.

If the anti-radiation coating inside the transport cabin is not thick enough, and if the cultivators responsible for escorting it do not have sufficient true essence to stabilize the cabin with an array, they will still die in mid-air.

But this is no longer an "absolute dead end" with no hope of survival.

Gu Qing used his supreme power to forcefully tear a crack in this despairing iron curtain of death.

After making this extremely slight yet world-changing step, Gu Qing withdrew his hand.

His gaze continued outward from the space elevator, past the Chang Geng resource storage depot, past the industrial debris in near-Earth orbit, and into the deeper, colder depths of the solar system.

Humanity's vision has only just reached near-Earth orbit, but Gu Qing's ideas have already spread to the stars and the sea.

He seemed to already see, in the not-too-distant future, cultivators wielding magical artifacts traversing, fighting, and seizing resources in the asteroid belt.

This is the true ultimate form that cyber cultivation civilization should have.

"Let's go."

Gu Qing stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the planet below, his eyes as deep as the sea.

"I'll be right in front, waiting to see how far you can go."

……

At the same time.

The second fortress city of Kyoto, the joint control hall of the Coordinating Agency and the Supreme Academy of Sciences.

The sky was already bright, but no one in the hall showed any signs of fatigue. The proposal, titled "Space Elevator: A Wartime Extreme Recovery Plan for Orbital Resources," had accumulated into a massive data stream thanks to the frantic, all-night collaboration of the four departments.

However, progress was stuck at a critical bottleneck.

"It still doesn't work!"

A chief engineer from the Military Industry Department, his eyes bloodshot, slammed a simulation report onto the control panel. "The design margin of the second-generation heavy-load pod has been squeezed to its limit! We worked overnight to cut all unnecessary life support modules and piled up the armor to its thickest possible thickness. But according to the environmental simulation team's data, its survival rate through the spiritual pressure turbulence zone is still less than three percent!"

"The spiritual energy storms there are too violent!" Wu Di wiped the cold sweat from his face. "Even if we send three late-stage Foundation Establishment sword cultivators up there to forcibly maintain the [Zhou Tian Locking Spirit Array] with their true essence, the array's spiritual energy shield will be completely torn apart by that frequency of storms within three minutes!"

An extremely oppressive silence fell over the entire control room.

This is the deadlock high in the sky.

They can risk human lives, they can gamble with luck, but in the face of absolute power, simply fighting desperately seems extremely pale.

"Are we really going to just watch this plan rot on paper?" Professor Wang Mingyuan stared intently at the screen, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.

Just then.

"drop--!"

One of the supercomputers in the environmental simulation team suddenly emitted an extremely piercing alarm sound.

The young researcher in charge of monitoring the near-Earth orbit psionic band suddenly jumped up from his chair, as if struck by lightning, staring intently at the data that had just been refreshed on the screen.

"Professor Wang!!"

The researcher's voice trembled violently with utter disbelief. "Look at this frequency! Just now... just a few seconds ago!"

Wang Mingyuan and Wu Di rushed over, shoved the researcher aside, and got close to the screen.

On the screen, there was originally a chaotic, deep red high-frequency spiritual energy storm cloud map representing a deadly predicament.

But now, within a 30-kilometer radius of the space elevator's main cable, the deep red storm has strangely become "calm" a little.

"The peak spiritual pressure hasn't decreased..." Wu Di compared the data with historical data extremely quickly, his voice filled with a sense of disbelief. "But... the sharpness of the storm's cutting has decreased! The frequency of spiritual energy collisions has entered an extremely, extremely small period of smoothing!"

"How is this possible?" The chief engineer of the military industry gasped. "How could a natural storm of this magnitude suddenly exhibit such a regular change?"

Wang Mingyuan remained silent, his gaze fixed intently on that extremely subtle change in the data.

This extremely tiny smoothness is insignificant in the face of the vast cosmic storm.

But he knew all too well what that meant for the current second-generation heavy-duty transport pod!

"Re-import the latest environmental parameters into the stress model of the transport module!"

Wang Mingyuan whirled around and roared hoarsely, "Hurry!"

The entire control room instantly erupted into chaos, with the sound of keyboards clattering as dense as a torrential downpour.

Thirty seconds later.

"The simulation results are in!"

The engineer in charge of the simulation was shaking so badly he could barely grip the control lever. He abruptly looked up at Wang Mingyuan with extreme fervor: "The pass rate... the pass rate has risen from three percent to thirty-five percent!"

Thirty-five percent.

In the old days, this number would have been considered extremely substandard by space agencies, and no spacecraft would have been allowed to take off.

But now, in the eyes of this wartime cultivation alliance, which is being pushed to the brink by the depletion of surface resources.

This number is not considered suicide.

This is called a glimmer of hope.

That once utterly hopeless dead end, where even fighting was not an option, finally, incredibly, a perilous path opened up from the cliff face, allowing people to climb it with tremendous difficulty.

Wang Mingyuan took a deep breath, feeling his entire chest trembling violently.

He didn't delve into why nature would so suddenly show such mercy; he only knew that this path to heaven had finally changed from "impossible" to "tryable."

That's enough.

Wang Mingyuan slammed his fist heavily on the control panel, his gaze sweeping across the entire room with sharp intensity.

"Incorporate the latest approval rate parameters into the proposal."

"Immediately begin pre-screening the first batch of monks and engineers for the [Wartime Orbital Recovery Task Force]! Tell them this is not a peaceful sightseeing trip; it's a tough battle!"

"Notify all relevant departments to cease all theoretical discussions and fully enter the highest level of wartime preparedness!"

Wang Mingyuan grabbed the already extremely heavy data board, turned around and strode out, his eyes burning with an extremely intense flame.

"This road to heaven is open."

"We're about to start climbing."