Chapter 763: The Lukewarm Third Discourse

“Another round of discourse on the Dao has begun. We have already discussed communication, as well as computation and storage. As you have all seen, many disciples reaped bountiful rewards. Many Celestial Lanterns have been lit for our Celestial Spirit in these past few days! I trust all you fellow Daoists have also had profound insights! Many disciples must be eagerly anticipating the rest of the conference. So, what shall we discuss for our third topic? Let us now invite our friend from the Celestial Universe to introduce our third topic.”

As Sect Leader Dang Jun’an finished speaking, Shang Tingjie’s figure materialized, replacing him on the stage. He began, “For the first topic, considering it was the opening, we chose an issue that both our sides needed to address. Now, for this third topic, let’s discuss an issue facing my Celestial Universe. After all, this is an exchange conference; the point is to learn from each other. Our third topic is: Array Dao Transmission! Because traditional Celestial Universe Magic Arrays and Hongmeng Rune Arrays can no longer be used for teleportation—the possibility has been completely cut off—we in the Celestial Universe have spent recent years researching quantum teleportation, human information teleportation, and Thought Remote Sensing. However, the results have not been very good, as we keep running into obstacles. In contrast, Hongmeng’s Grotto Heaven Transmission is exceptionally mature. Therefore, we wish to discuss array-based teleportation and hope to learn from our Hongmeng friends’ expertise.”

Shang Tingjie’s words made the few people around Zhang Deming frown in unison.

“Teleportation? Aren’t they trying to build momentum for their discussion on intelligent life?” Guk Liancai asked with a frown.

Gan Zili also frowned slightly and said, “First communication, now teleportation… the trend seems very clear. Are they focusing entirely on long-distance connection? But this has nothing to do with their so-called ‘intelligent life.’ Have they already built a sufficient foundation in that area? They don’t need to steal our techniques anymore?”

Zhang Deming smiled. “That topic of intelligent life was mainly something our own Array Department wanted to explore. The other side already has weak artificial intelligence. Plus, given the culture of the Celestial Universe, they understand the difficulty of creating true intelligent life. It’s normal for them not to go all-in on this. Besides, the Celestial Universe Federation isn’t nearly as excited about the birth of intelligent life as we are here in Hongmeng!”

Guk Liancai was taken aback for a moment. “Oh? Why is that?”

“If you have time, Senior Brother Guk, you should watch some of the so-called movies and shows from the Outer Realm. While the events in them are fictional, you can still get a sense of the general sentiment.

The Celestial Universe’s Network Dao is comparable to our Hongmeng’s Technique Path; both dominate more than half their respective skies. Without any means to guarantee that an intelligent life form would be obedient, their anticipation is mixed with dread.

After all, their culture isn’t centered around cultivation. They have very few Cultivators. If something were to appear that could obliterate their technology with devastating ease… fear would be the normal reaction.

It’s like if someone suddenly told you that the Spirit of Daoist Technique in the Hongmeng Holy Land was going to turn on all Cultivators. Wouldn’t you be afraid, Senior Brother?

Besides, their current weak artificial intelligence is already barely sufficient for their needs. It’s not like us in Hongmeng, where creating a single Artifact Spirit requires a Classical Level Spirit Nurturer to act, and even then, it only succeeds through a stroke of luck.

While there’s no comparison in terms of quality, we can’t compare to them in terms of quantity, either! Under these circumstances, it’s not an urgent necessity for them at all. The main topic was something we slipped in on the side; it’d be a miracle if they gave it their all.

What I’m more interested in is the focus of their topics: teleportation, communication… Heh, what an interesting trend,” Zhang Deming said, looking down with a faint, enigmatic smile.

‘What I didn’t say is that their plan actually hinges on us in Hongmeng developing the path of Rune Life. And it’s still questionable whether they truly intend to develop their own intelligent life through this conference!’

Yuee Mengsheng, who was beside them, paused slightly, glanced at Zhang Deming, and said, “The exchange conferences with the Outer Realm in recent years have mostly focused on this theme of long-distance connection. Do you think there’s some special meaning to this, Junior Brother Zhang?”

With that same faint, enigmatic smile, Zhang Deming replied, “Who knows? But this trend does show one thing: the Celestial Universe Federation is exceptionally eager to communicate with us in Hongmeng, eh?”

Hearing this, the others fell silent and looked down toward the stage.

“As everyone knows, we in the Celestial Universe Federation primarily focus on the two Daos of Arrays and Artifacts. Outside of these, many other paths are not well-developed.

Even our fundamental cultivation, while having numerous paths of potion-based enhancement, doesn’t really produce true Cultivators. Therefore, the number of Cultivators is not very large.

As a result, long-distance interaction has become a major problem.

This is especially true for interstellar—ah, that is, inter-realm—travel, where a single flight often takes ten, or even several tens of years.

For us people of the Celestial Universe, that’s more than half a lifetime. It severely impacts our interactions with the outside world, such as our exchanges with all of you from Hongmeng.

Because of this, we have started to focus on the Dao of teleportation in recent years and have now branched out into several directions. The first is quantum teleportation, but because it bears some resemblance to array-based teleportation, it is affected by the Sealing, making research difficult.

The second is human information teleportation. Because this requires a certain level of Cultivation—quantizing a human body generally requires the support of a Law-Level Technique—it is exceptionally difficult to popularize, and research has been slow.

The third is teleportation via Thought Remote Sensing, which is the main direction our Celestial Universe is currently developing. We use the Code Array Dao as the guide and the Cloning Dao as a supplement to create clones in multiple locations. Then, we transfer our consciousness to these clones to achieve long-distance remote presence.

We have already achieved decent results with this path…”

Shang Tingjie continued to lay out the topic from the stage below.

Zhang Deming was slightly stunned as he listened. ‘Thought Rumor Teleportation?’

For no particular reason, Zhang Deming was reminded of his first encounter with the Outer Realm agent on the back mountain with Panx Juan’er.