Chapter 71: I Found the Meaning of Transmigration

Chapter 71: Chapter 71: I Found the Meaning of Transmigration

"War accelerates the world’s development?" Yang Tianrui was completely baffled. "Little Junior Brother, war only causes untold suffering and leaves people homeless!"

"Sixth Senior Brother, you’re looking at this from the wrong angle." Li Ye shook his head. "The Wenda Alliance has gathered nearly all the world’s geniuses. They don’t just look at problems from a single perspective.

Let me ask you this: a lion eats a sheep, and a sheep eats grass. Which one do you feel sorry for?"

"The lion is fierce, the sheep is weak, and grass has no life," Yang Tianrui said after a moment’s thought. "Naturally, I feel sorry for the sheep."

"What if the lion eats the sheep to feed its cubs?" Li Ye said with a smile. "And did you know, Sixth Senior Brother, that when sheep graze, they pull the grass out by the roots? Without lions to control their numbers, the flocks would grow immense over time, leaving the land barren wherever they went.

The grasslands would turn to desert, unable to retain water, and even more animals would starve to death.

Because of this desertification, the sheep themselves would die off in massive numbers, even without the lions’ intervention.

The lions eat the sheep, controlling their population so the lions can survive. The sheep eat the grass, keeping it from overgrowing..."

"..." Yang Tianrui.

"...The world is, in fact, a giant food chain. Every species in that chain has a reason to exist. There’s no inherent right or wrong, no strong or weak." Li Ye smiled, continuing to embellish his idealized image of the Wenda Alliance. "Sixth Senior Brother, you need to break free from your conventional mindset and view things from a higher perspective."

"A higher perspective?" Ge Rui murmured.

Yang Tianrui froze.

"Yes, a higher perspective. This is why I long to join the Wenda Alliance." Li Ye sighed. He sensed his Eldest Senior Brother was nearby, but he didn’t stop his captivating speech. "The Wenda Alliance’s purpose is to seek immortality, but searching for Immortals is just one path. Most people in the Alliance are actually walking another: researching the very origin of the world, creating a path of cultivation from scratch."

Ge Rui jolted, his eyes widening in shock.

Yang Tianrui swallowed hard.

"That’s why the Alliance gathers elites from every trade and profession in the world. Through their eyes, their hands, and their minds, they analyze and make sense of everything," Li ye said. "The example I just used comes from a book by one of the Alliance’s naturalists, titled *The Food Chain and the Ecological Web*.

There’s a similar, even more famous book called *The Origin of Species*. It explains how all species, including humans, came to be. It contains a phrase I strongly agree with: ’Natural selection, survival of the fittest...’"

’Natural selection, survival of the fittest?’

The two of them froze on the spot, lost in thought.

The Eldest Senior Brother, who had been slowly approaching, stopped in his tracks.

’To learn the Way in the morning and die by evening would be no regret!’

Li Ye smiled faintly and steered the conversation back. "Let’s get back to the topic of war. If you look beyond the narrow view, winning a war requires more money and more advanced weapons. It requires training more skilled Warriors... This entire operation needs more people to get involved, and the relationships between them all are incredibly complex.

The Wenda Alliance has a book called *On War* that elaborates on how war drives social and cultural progress. It would take three days and nights to explain it all, so let me just use a simple example!"

"Go on, Little Junior Brother," Yang Tianrui said, his voice filled with urgency.

Li Ye’s words had sent massive waves crashing through the calm waters of his mind.

He felt a deep yearning for the Wenda Alliance that Li Ye described. ’What an incredible group of people they must be!’

"Fourth Senior Brother just told me that the Cyan Sun Sect holds a grand tournament for its disciples every three years, and the alliance of the Five Sects holds one every ten. The winners all receive handsome rewards." Li Ye looked at the two of them. "But whether it’s among the different peaks or between the sects in the alliance, disciples would never actually try to kill each other for those rewards, would they?"

"Of course not," said Ge Rui.

"And what if, instead of the tournament every ten years, there was an invasion by the Demon Sect?" Li Ye asked.

"..." The two of them froze.

"If you couldn’t fend off the Demon Sect, the Cyan Sun Sect would be utterly destroyed. Wouldn’t the disciples then desperately try to raise their cultivation level, research more powerful Magic and Dharma Artifacts, and even develop stronger Arrays for the Sect?" Li Ye asked.

"Of course they would," said Yang Tianrui.

"And there’s the point. On one hand, you have a reward you could take or leave. Disciples with no hope of placing might just go through the motions. On the other, you have a matter of life and death. If you don’t fight for your life, you won’t survive at all. In which case is the will to fight stronger?" said Li Ye.

Ge Rui fell silent for a moment before saying, "The latter, of course."

"And for the victors, war also means a redistribution of resources," Li Ye said. "Sixth Senior Brother, you only see the untold suffering and homeless people that war creates.

But from a macro perspective, war promotes the development of technology and science, drives reforms in social systems, and fosters exchange and fusion between different cultures. That is the true significance of war!"

"I understand now." Yang Tianrui nodded in sudden realization. "The people of the Wenda Alliance truly are geniuses."

"Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs," Li Ye sighed. "The elites of the Wenda Alliance view this world from the perspective of the heavens. They are indeed geniuses.

This is why I said earlier that there’s a problem with cultivation in this world.

The people of this world have long lifespans, yet they only focus on their own cultivation. They’d rather enter seclusion for years, even decades, than actually try to explore the world’s origins or pursue the meaning of existence.

Perhaps that’s why, after the Path of Ascension was cut off, the entire world of Cultivators has been trapped here for ten thousand years!"

"Little Junior Brother, you’re right." Yang Tianrui sighed emotionally. "I used to think that your world, a place without even a single Cultivator, was far inferior to ours. I thought you were lucky to have come here. Now, it seems we’re the lucky ones."

Ge Rui was still in a daze.

Clearly, everything Li Ye had just said had struck him with immense force.

"Sixth Senior Brother, you think too highly of me." Li Ye smiled and shook his head. "The truly great ones are the pioneers of the Wenda Alliance. Perhaps it was the very backwardness of our world that gave rise to people like them!"

"Little Junior Brother, you mentioned wanting to establish a Wenda Alliance here. How do you plan to do it?" Yang Tianrui asked.

Ge Rui snapped out of his trance and also turned to look at Li Ye.

"We’ll copy the Wenda Alliance’s model: secretly contact and recruit this world’s geniuses, set aside all Sect loyalties, and together explore the world’s mysteries to unravel the secret of Ascension..." said Li Ye.

"I’m in," Yang Tianrui said excitedly.

"Little Junior Brother, that will be incredibly difficult," said Ge Rui. "A Cultivation Technique is the very foundation of a Sect. If it’s discovered that a disciple has leaked one, we’ll be hunted relentlessly. Not even Master could protect us. Moreover, you want to set aside Sect loyalties. The moment we contact the Demon Sect, we’ll truly become outcasts, condemned by the entire world."

"Fourth Senior Brother, I know it’s difficult. But I still intend to do it." Li Ye looked at the two of them and spoke slowly. "Coming to the Cyan Sun Sect, meeting you and Master... I’ve already been very fortunate.

I could just cultivate in peace and safety, eventually gaining a long life. But I refuse to waste my limited time just sitting cross-legged in meditation, only to find I can’t ascend and am trapped here to die.

I know the path ahead is a dead end, and I refuse to just keep walking down it.

My dear senior brothers, what I seek is Ascension to become an Immortal, not this kind of pointless cultivation.

If cultivation is only about adding a few hundred or a thousand years to my lifespan, I would rather be like the pioneers of the Wenda Alliance and try to achieve something truly grand. Even if I ultimately fail, at least I will have planted a seed of hope in this world.

I believe there are wise people in this world, too. Someone, somewhere, will understand what I’m trying to do.

As long as the ideals of the Wenda Alliance are passed down, even if I die, countless others who follow will benefit.

Perhaps one day, the Wenda Alliance will discover the path to Ascension, and I’ll be long gone. But those who ascend will remember my name. In that way, I’ll live on.

I won’t just be a name in the Cyan Sun Sect’s records after cultivating for a few hundred years, remembered only as an Elder or a Peak Master.

Some things just have to be done. ’Perhaps... this is the real reason I was brought to this world!’