Chapter 286: A Dark Hand and a Hidden Undercurrent in Huaxia
The number of all manner of geniuses that would emerge by then would be calculated in millions and tens of millions.
If the rate were to be calculated according to the base population of Huaxia, those who had once been considered geniuses in previous eras would have been considered common people in the era to come.
Only those who were the best among the best, the ones at the very cutting edge, could be considered geniuses by then.
All of that raised the bar of what was considered “genius” by several orders of magnitude one way or another.
The reason was simple—there were too many people around by then. People might have been considering themselves geniuses because they were only a handful of them found in any clan or sect out there.
Yet, when viewed through the scope of the entirety of Huaxia, there would be tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people like them out there. So, there was simply no way they could be considered geniuses by then.
Compared to fighters nurtured using basic methods of other clans, it would be difficult for them to compete with those of the same level.
In short, the ones who were selected from widespread cultivation throughout the nation were likened to people who were selected from those undergoing mandatory education. Conversely, those nurtured in clans and sects were akin to those who had undergone elite education.
While the elites who emerged among those from said clans and sects would be somewhat more powerful, compared to the terrifying competitors they needed to compete with, which were found in hundreds, thousands, and maybe even tens of thousands of times over, one would wonder how many among those elites would be able to make it out on top.
A month or so was all that it had taken to completely crush the egotism prevalent among the cultivators, dragging all those people down to the ground from their supposed pedestals.
As time passed, the edge they once had gradually worn out.
Back in Lu Xuan’s past life, the competition between the government and the cultivators in general never ceased. Even when cultivation became commonly propagated among the people, the government still did not manage to gain a true upper hand. That was due to while the government commanded a great many cultivators, the effort of propagating widespread cultivation remained for too long in its preliminary stages, causing the powers of cultivators to emerge from such national effort to be comparatively limited.
The bulk of the most formidable cultivators were still found among the original world of cultivation.
A fragile balance between both sides was achieved as a result.
After basic methods were propagated, the government became able to completely put everything under control and turn the tables to their favor before the original world of cultivation was able to truly gain the upper hand.
The effort was so effective that the government could overwhelm the commonly found sects and clans.
The world of cultivation was thrown into a panic before long in the face of such a predicament.
The effects were so severe that everything that happened for the past month or so, including Lu Xuan’s return and him annihilating the Guimen Sect, was reduced to an afterthought.
What was happening before them was something that could threaten the entire world of cultivation.
The Huaxian cultivators were not the only ones in shock. All the surrounding nations around Huaxia were completely stunned by the heavy-handed effort employed by the Huaxian government.
Everyone had their jaws dropping to the ground.
Being the first to promote cultivation throughout the entire nation, Huaxia gained the upper hand. There was only that much Spirit Qi to go about, and the earlier a nation embark on the path of cultivation, the stronger they would become in the future.
Except for one country, all those surrounding nations had all been going against Huaxia once, or even more than once before, and wolves appeared to be everywhere.
None of those countries hoped to see Huaxia rise further. It was bad enough for them to see the Huaxian economy skyrocket. At present, things were further working against them, given that even the common quality of the Huaxian population was rising in all aspects as well.
Everyone was in a panic of what to do, especially the cultivators from said countries. All of them were at a loss for what they should do from then on out.
If Huaxia were able to get on with widespread propagation of cultivation among the people, the future would have been very bleak for all those countries.
Huaxia would become powerful enough to crush them all in one go after all.
Even if those cultivators were nowhere near Huaxia, they were still able to easily sense just how bad things were for the Huaxian cultivators.
Things were shifting aggressively beneath the waters all of a sudden.
The cultivation forces began to ally with one another.
Not only were the Huaxian cultivators not willing to see such propagation effort come to fruition, but the governments and cultivators of all the other countries did not want to see the same thing, either.
If such an effort were to be carried out in full force, the only ones who would benefit would only be the Huaxian citizens, which had nothing to do with the aforementioned parties.
In a meeting held somewhere on a teleconference website.
Faces of some familiar great figures appeared in the meeting.
“We absolutely cannot let the Huaxian government get away with such an effort, or we will all be doomed soon enough!” One of them held their fists tight and shouted in rage.
“We definitely cannot let them succeed. I hear that they are now amending the second version of methods. We have to stop them, and we have to take out the ones playing a key role in this.”
“We need to kill all those who are participating in the compilation effort of cultivation methods. We’d need to kill every single one of them. We can’t leave anyone behind!”
“We’d spare any who’d be willing to yield. Anyone who doesn’t, we get rid of them. This would be the warning we issue to the Huaxian government. We are absolutely not allowing them to propagate widespread cultivation among the people.”
Those people sported all sorts of features and traits: blonde hair and blue eyes, dark-skinned, people speaking with thick accents, as well as those black of hair and eyes alike. All of them were shouting in rage.
The world’s powers were uniting at an unprecedented rate.
Powerful fighters from all walks of life were lurking in Huaxia.
Lu Xuan, who was in the Heavenly Palace at the moment, sensed something was amiss right away.
“Lord Lu, I would like to withdraw from the compilation of the second version of the ‘Basics of Cultivation’,” a man who looked like a Taoist priest went up to Lu Xuan and said with a rather troubled expression at that moment.
He was an elder of a Taoist sect, who was very powerful and was at the Celestial Realm.
Due to being of such a level in cultivation and very knowledgeable of the Taoist records and texts, the man was able to familiarize himself quickly with all manner cultivation theories.
That was why he was selected by the central government to participate in the compilation work of the “Basics of Cultivation.”
“So, even you wanna back out?” Lu Xuan said plainly. This was the second person to make such a request. It was the second person within the day to come to him, requesting to withdraw from the compilation work.
The first to withdraw was some revered master from the Shaolin Temple.
The master had submitted his resignation to Lu Xuan not long ago.
The Taoist priest flashed a bitter smile and said, “Lord Lu, we won’t actually be of much use staying around. The others out there thought that we of the committee are the ones responsible for compiling the ”Basics of Cultivation,’ yet we all know very well that it’s actually all your work alone. In comparison, all of us are knowing so little that it’s difficult for us to add even a single word into it. Having us stay around will only waste the country’s resources.”
The eldest priest was all reverence when he looked at Lu Xuan as he spoke. He was thinking the campaign to be some sort of a fluke before he joined the committee.
He thought that widespread cultivation among the people was little more than a pipe dream, as the physicality of people varied greatly from one another, and one could imagine just how massively varied the physicality of a population of 1.4 billion was.
Compiling a book on cultivation that would benefit all was seen as a wild goose chase.
Being able to compile a book on cultivation that would be suited to just 10,000 people would already be seen as a grand undertaking like no other, at least from the eyes of the older generation of cultivators.
Yet, what Lu Xuan did slapped them hard across their faces, letting them know what it meant to be superfluous and ignorant.