“What choice?” Xia Fei asked.
Qin Mang chuckled. “You must pick your faction. As you grow stronger, it’s a decision you’ll have to make eventually.
“You chose not to sign a contract with the Heaven Execution Training Camp’s faction, meaning that you’ve never liked being restricted, but once you’re tied in with the terrifying upper levels of the Alliance, there’s no way that you can continue to enjoy your current freedom.
“If you don’t join a faction, it means that everyone will be your enemy. I don’t think that’s something you want to see,” Qin Mang said in a deep voice.
His words made great sense. Humans were not a united species. There were many small organizations within the Alliance. If Xia Fei did not belong to any one of them, he would be seen as an enemy by everyone.
The higher he got in this intergalactic society, the more he needed a faction and an organization to belong to; it was either he joined an existing faction or he created a new one.
Xia Fei chuckled. “I understand where you’re coming from, but I’ve never liked being controlled, and joining a faction will come with restrictions, which may force me to do things I don’t want to do.”
Qin Mang slightly shook his head. “Not necessarily. Although there are some constraints from the faction, you’ll also gain protection, better than wandering in space alone at least.”
Xia Fei thought for a few seconds before smiling. “Sorry, I still don’t want to join any factions. I value freedom more than any benefits I can gain from joining; I don’t want to be fettered by anyone or anything—not now, not ever.”
Qin Mang had a slight smile on his face as he stared at Xia Fei profoundly.
He then sighed softly. “Just as I thought; you’re incredibly stubborn. Do you know how many wish I would help them, yet you rejected my offer when I placed it right in front of you?”
Xia Fei smiled. “Old man, our relationship will never change. I respect you and am grateful for your teachings about the advanced technology of the ancient civilizations, but I really can’t join the faction you’re in and put a lock around my neck. Life will get boring if I have no freedom to do whatever I want.”
It was as if Qin Mang knew that Xia Fei would reject his offer. He was slightly disappointed yet glad. He had been searching for someone who was as stubborn and persistent as he was. Xia Fei, today was incredibly similar to him in his youth; both of them were incredibly stubborn.
“Xia Fei, do you want to know what the important item is?” asked Qin Mang.
Xia Fei said directly without thinking, “Of course, but it must be incredibly important. I’ll be more than willing to listen if you’re open to telling me about it, but if you’re not willing, I won’t try to speculate.”
“Sly bastard,” Qin Mang jokingly scolded Xia Fei. He then said after clearing his throat, “There are many sentient lifeforms in the universe, and nobody knows how many different races there are, but all these sentient lifeforms have one thing in common: They have a similar brain structure.”
This caught Xia Fei’s full attention. He had heard of a similar theory from the mad scientist, Harris. Thinking about it now, ever since day one of stepping into the Alliance, he had felt that everything had a weird connection to the mysterious seventh brain region. The extinct ancient civilization and the weird, sentient lifeforms… It appeared in most things that happened.
This was now something he could not get out of his life, like a prison that he frequented, becoming a problem that seemed to follow him wherever he went. It was almost as though the fates had decided that Xia Fei would constantly have these weird encounters long ago.
“However, of all sentient life, only humans managed to keep their seventh brain region, the other beings have lost theirs long ago. Outside of this, humans are no different from the rest of them.
“I’ve been looking into the ancient civilization and the other relatively unknown sentient beings since a long time ago and I realized that, outside of our similar brain structure, there’s only one other thing that is incredibly similar: technological advancements.
“No sentient being had been able to reach a new height in terms of technology. The ancient humans were destroyed by robots, the ancient Charlottes were destroyed by war, and so on and so forth. That’s incredibly weird. In the long history of sentient beings, how was none able to achieve the next great technological advancement? This had greatly troubled me.
“Therefore, I spent a large amount of time looking for traces of the ancient civilization, not just the ones left by humans but also those by other intergalactic races. Just as you said moments ago, becoming an interstellar traveler to understand the ancient civilization’s technological limits had once been my desire as well.”
Xia Fei fell into his thoughts. The universe had existed for tens of millions of years, and the earliest sentient lifeforms had existed for countless years. If it was as Qin Mang described, that it was a norm for the ancient civilization to destroy themselves once they reached the extremes of their technological advancements, it would just be absurd.
Xia Fei was never a big fan of conspiracy theories, but Qin Mang’s words could not help but make him feel that something completely unreasonable was afoot. Humans were destroyed by robots when they reached incredible technological levels, and other races were also destroyed by disasters, natural or otherwise.
‘Was it all just merely coincidence?’ The more developed a civilization, the closer they were to destruction. This made no sense as there was no direct correlation between civilizations and their destruction.
Qin Mang took a few moments before continuing to speak. “Although I didn’t get to the bottom of this mystery, one time when I was at the ruins of an ancient civilization, there was a tombstone that said:
‘Civilization starts from sentience, as is destruction with the God of Titan, only by seeking asylum with the God of Titan can lives be saved from the the claws of demons.'”
Xia Fei was shocked at the mention of the word, Titan. The massive warship that Xia Fei discovered in the Black Abyss was called Titan.
That Titan was destroyed by other Titans, and the civilization that produced that warship may well be extinct.
‘Destruction and the God of Titan… Could they have anything to do with these massive warships?’ This got Xia Fei quite uneasy, devoting 110 percent of his attention as he listened in attentively.
Qin Mang looked at Xia Fei. It was unexpected that Xia Fei would be so interested in his story, and there even seemed a bit of surprise in his eyes.
“From what I deciphered, the grave belonged to was once an incredibly important person. He seemed to have something to do with the interstellar development. I’ve only taken a quick look at the epitaph and I didn’t take it seriously, but I completely changed my opinion of that when I later found ruins of an ancient human civilization.
“It was the ruins of what was once the ancient humans’ strategic research institute. When I discovered it, I saw a familiar name: Titan.
“I carefully read through the confidential files in the institute. Turns out that the ancient humans had predicted that their lives were coming to an end, so they were giving it their all in researching a warship called Titan. They used a large amount of manpower to search for traces of Titan.
“It’s almost as if the ancient humans were certain that some unknown power would soon annihilate them, and in order to preserve themselves, they were seeking the legendary Titan blueprints to produce that superwarship in mass quantities,” Qin Mang described in detail.
Xia Fei was completely shocked yet again.
Old Porter had also discovered an ancient human base that was built to find the blueprints of the Titan-class warship.
This matched Qin Mang’s statements, but Old Porter did not know that the human civilization had been using great amounts of their resources to find the location of the blueprints of the superwarship. He and Xia Fei both thought that they were driven by curiosity.
It was incredible to hear Qin Mang talk about this.
It turned out that the ancient human civilization had frantically sought the blueprints of that Titan because they knew that their destruction was imminent and were trying to change their fate.
Xia Fei could not help but be excited; his finger was shaking and he was extremely unsettled.
“I finally realized after getting my hands on this confidential document that the God of Titan on the epitaph isn’t a god worshipped by other sentient races but a superwarship that can destroy the universe.”
Xia Fei asked after a few moments of thought. “Old man, could there be an inevitable connection with the Titan and the end of a civilization?”
Qin Mang shook hish head. “Unfortunately the information I received isn’t complete. Moreover, even the ancient humans themselves were unable to explain why they’re looking to produce Titan as if it’s the only way to prevent the destruction of the human race.”
“That’s unfortunate.” Xia Fei slapped his thigh. The lack of an answer to the riddle left Xia Fei unsatisfied.
“Same here. I’m quite dissatisfied that I couldn’t solve this secret mystery, and that’s why I gave it my all to search all over the universe for traces of it wherever I could. This was also how I ended up becoming afflicted with the six-winged skylord’s poison in my body.
“Although I couldn’t find any evidence regarding the destruction of human civilizations, I found my master along the way. Back then, I was just a silver-star Adjudicator in the Union then, living the carefree life. It was my master who brought me into the Headquarters and helped me climb the ladder.
“Back then, Thuram would always look for me there in the headquarters. Although he was stubborn, he wasn’t a bad person; thus, my master took him in as well. Technically, we are senior and junior, but because of a strict order from the master, we’ve never told anyone of our relationship. Our habit of taking in disciples was also influenced by him.”
Xia Fei nodded. There was no need to go through how many disciples Qin Mang had, and Thuram even more so, but what was weird was that the seemingly shrewd Qin Mang always had terrible disciples, yet the brash Thuram had disciples who were decent, which was also funny in its own way.
“When I met my master, he stopped me from traveling around and gathering data about Titan. I was sad about that until decades ago when my master told me something before he died. It was then when everything made sense,” Qin Mang said mysteriously.
