Chapter 1 The Pacific Dragon King's Remains

The massive ruins formed from the remains of the Pacific Dragon King had, in fact, already been jointly explored and discovered by the Zheng and American Federations. Its precise location was in the crustal fissures around the Northern Mariana Islands, at the center of a dense cluster of hydrothermal vents on the seabed.

Su Zhou's previous perception had first confirmed the birth of a jiaolong (mythical dragon) on the Dragon King's remains. Secondly, it had surveyed the surroundings of the ruins, preparing intelligence for the more detailed exploration work to follow.

This exploration would be led by Zheng, and the reason for conducting the exploration publicly was to reveal to the whole world the evidence of the existence of ancient demon races and immortals, and their power.

No matter what country or region, myths and legends all contain tales of giant beasts and demons. Some can live normally with humans, while others are purely enemies. The governments of various countries that knew about the Mimicry Dao Inheritance (nidao chuan cheng) naturally understood the difference—the oldest method of humans using the Dao of demons to fight demons.

But the general public was different. Humans who grew up in the era of spiritual energy depletion knew very little about this and could easily confuse the two.

But Mimicry Dao (nidao) did exist. It was here, and in the future, powerful Mimicry Dao cultivators would inevitably appear on the public stage. Were they humans or demons? Druids, werewolves, vampires, or other alien beasts? Would they really not pose a threat to normal humans? Did they, like in the legends, greedily devour human flesh?

To explain this clearly and separate all Mimicry Dao cultivators around the world from this demonized public opinion, various groundwork needed to be laid.

And for Zheng, the 'Dragon', which had always appeared as a positive and totemic image, was the best example.

"Even if my identity as a Dragon Blood Holder is made public, no one thinks I'm not human—partly because I'm handsome, but most importantly, because Zheng has had a totemic worship of dragons since ancient times."

Su Zhou was very self-aware. He knew very well that even if he was handsome, if the bloodline he obtained was some bizarre beast like a taotie (gluttonous mythical creature), zhuyan (mythical ape), or qiongqi (chaotic mythical creature), or other jackals, wolves, bears, tigers, or leopards, the public opinion would not be so easily swayed. Everyone would subconsciously be somewhat repulsed.

But dragons were different—phoenixes were also the same. No one would hate a dragon or phoenix bloodline. This was the importance of reputation.

Therefore, choosing the Dragon King's remains as the target, taking this opportunity to publicly reveal the Mimicry Dao Inheritance (nidao chuan cheng), would not cause much rejection. And this demon god, basically confirmed to be the 'Tianchi Dragon King', was indeed a human who cultivated according to the records in the classics. Its remains, as an example of publicly revealing the Mimicry Dao, were indeed very suitable.

However, apart from this point, there was actually another problem—whether to reveal the power of the demon race and the former immortals so early. This had also caused debate at the joint meetings of various countries. Some people believed that revealing the power of the immortals too early would trigger public panic and turmoil, or uncontrollable blind worship. These were extremely unstable factors and were not good for the already shaky world order.

But the other side believed that rather than being forced to reveal the existence and power of immortals in the possible turmoil in the future, it was better to inoculate the public now, while the situation was still relatively stable.

As for the inevitable chaos... could it be avoided by delaying it?

Su Zhou was also present at the time, sitting behind the Wen Sheng (Sage of Culture) and Li Sheng (Sage of Ritual). He even took a picture of the United Nations General Assembly and posted it on an anonymous website—immediately sparking a shocked reply of 'You never know what kind of sand sculpture netizens you're chatting with' and 'X Island really has all kinds of people!'

Li Sheng (Sage of Ritual) was a pure official, a sixty-three-year-old man with a neat beard, full of energy. He did not deliberately cultivate, and his strength was not high, so he did not overlap with Su Zhou's daily circle of superhumans. That meeting was the first time they had met, and the exchange was quite pleasant.

Zheng's attitude was inclined to make it public as soon as possible. After all, Zheng had the most Mimicry Dao Inheritances (nidao chuan cheng) after Fusang next door, and the status of Mimicry Dao cultivators was not low. They had achievements in various fields, and their voices were also an important force.

Su Zhou also felt that immortals and demon gods were objectively real, at least in this world. Since this was the case, it was indeed better to do it sooner rather than being forced to show it when the situation was out of control.

In the end, the meeting also came to the conclusion that 'a short pain is better than a long pain', so there was this joint multinational exploration team led by Zheng.

Su Zhou was appointed as the leading professor, presiding over the Dragon King's remains exploration. The "Walking into the Ruins" program team would also follow the live broadcast. Unlike those small ruins, this program was listed separately and named the special episode "Barren Ancient Remains." In the future, if there were any large-scale ruin explorations worth publicizing, this name would be used for live broadcasts.

As for why Su Zhou was leading the team, it was not surprising because he was now the Dragon Blood Holder recognized by superhumans from all countries in the world. His existence itself was a reassuring pill. Even among the followers, many people breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that with a true dragon bloodline present, even if there were any accidents in the deep sea, at least their lives would be guaranteed.

But they didn't know that Su Zhou knew thunder magic, fire magic, and wind magic, but he didn't know water magic—if they knew, they probably wouldn't be so optimistic.

He's probably a fake dragon.

"No problem." But Su Zhou himself was full of confidence: "I have already condensed the spiritual power bones and spleen, and most of the remaining muscles have also been condensed, leaving only the brain."

"Don't say that the jiaolong (mythical dragon)'s realm is weaker than me, and it hasn't even transformed into a dragon body. Even if it has been transformed into a true dragon body, I can still blow it up with one punch."

However, whether they would fight was another matter. After training for a while in soul communication, Su Zhou was confident that he could use his powerful willpower to persuade the jiaolong (mythical dragon) at the first time and let it voluntarily negotiate peacefully.

After reporting to the principal and obtaining nominal permission, Su Zhou took a car to the airport, went to Tiandu, and then took a special plane with Zheng's official exploration team to Fusang, and then took a boat from Guam to the relevant sea area.

The whole process didn't even take half a day, and Su Zhou had already come from Hong City to the sea.

This exploration was naturally led by Zheng, followed by the American Federation and Fusang. Due to geographical reasons and other complex factors, other countries could not send exploration teams immediately and could only nominally send a few accompanying personnel.

Fusang's system was a constitutional monarchy based on elite bureaucrats, nominally with an emperor. Not to mention the original symbolic significance, the role of the emperor lineage itself was to inherit Fusang's orthodox ancient law books. The Fusang immortals of the ancient era handed over the management rights of the classics to them, but did not give them ownership. It was a status similar to a librarian.

Fusang's internal political system was undergoing large-scale reforms because of the spiritual energy recovery. They themselves essentially did not want to change, but the spiritual energy recovery itself was a catalyst for change and chaos. Those who held power and the suppressed lower class naturally would not be willing to continue to be used by their superiors, and the superiors who saw the changing subordinates would naturally feel panic—in addition, the status of Fusang's Mimicry Dao inheritors was not high, and they suffered far more suppression than Zheng's Mimicry Dao cultivators. The internal contradictions of the superhumans were extremely large and were divided into conservatives and reformers. Their contradictions had long passed the critical point, but they had always been suppressed by the major environment of spiritual energy depletion.

It must be said that if the accumulated hostility between the conservatives and reformers erupted, it would probably be no less than the great riot that subverted the old Fusang a hundred and thirty years ago.

This Dragon King's remains exploration was of great significance to the reformers within Fusang. If the action was successful and the publicity was in place, it would definitely sweep away the somewhat tarnished reputation of Mimicry Dao cultivators in the past, and the reformers could also use this to promote subsequent institutional changes.

In theory, the conservatives within Fusang would definitely try to sabotage this action—unfortunately, they did not dare. After all, the cost of offending Zheng and the American Federation was far greater than the losses they would suffer from watching the reformers succeed.

As for why the American Federation supported the public revelation of Mimicry Dao, it was for another similar but different purpose.

In the final analysis, Mimicry Dao was nothing more than changing the body and simulating the power of transcendent creatures.

The difference between this lineage of cultivators and normal humans essentially lay in the physical body. Although the demonized body had great power, it looked different from normal humans. That overly ferocious appearance would undoubtedly induce fear in ordinary humans. After all, all humans were essentially members of the appearance association.

In that case, what was the difference between a person becoming a demon or becoming a robot?

Seemingly irrelevant topics actually had the same essence.

The American Federation, which had extremely deep technical foundations in mechanical modification and even mechanical transcendence, knew very well that as long as everyone could accept the view that 'the change of the body doesn't matter, as long as the spirit is human, then it is human', then all the ethical and public opinion problems of mechanical modification would be solved.

After all, compared to the true demon body, the shape of the mechanical body was more similar to the human body, and the inherent rejection of humans as members of the appearance association was smaller.

Perhaps in the eyes of many people, this seemed to be an extremely difficult ethical and moral problem to change, but with the progress of technology, human ethics and morality themselves would change, and for large aggregates such as countries and civilizations, ethics and morality were just tools used to maintain stability, and tools naturally had to adapt to the times.

"So, we're going down in a submersible? I thought I would need to dive physically."

On the top deck of the sailing research vessel, Su Zhou was drinking coffee with Xuan Lu, the head of the Xuanwu Xuan family. After all, this was a well-prepared program, and it was basically impossible for any accidents to occur, so the danger was minimal, and the two were not nervous.

In fact, because just now, this old and young man had a twenty-minute discussion on the point of 'Is coffee actually soy milk? If it is soy milk, then sweet soy milk is added with sugar, and salty soy milk is added with salt, can coffee also be added with salt?', so there was no one else around except for Xuan Lu's secretary.

It must be said that Su Zhou was truly evenly matched this time. Although Xuan Lu was old, he had profound skills and clear thinking. In terms of life experience, Su Zhou could not keep up with him even if he tried. If Su Zhou was not a genius, he would probably be overwhelmed.

The Xuanwu bloodline was born to control water. Zheng's officials also knew that Su Zhou had not shown water-based spiritual power, so they sent this veteran to lead Su Zhou. Nominally, Su Zhou was indeed the leader, but Xuan Lu was actually responsible for the entire exploration plan—Su Zhou naturally had no dissatisfaction with this. He didn't understand the relevant procedures anyway. On the contrary, Xuan Lu had to manage affairs and was not the leader. If he was not old and didn't care about this false name, he would probably feel a little awkward.

"It's a submersible, but it's a newly built model. After testing, it's easy to dive even to the deepest part of the ten-thousand-meter trench, let alone the six-thousand-meter seabed—if you want to dive physically, it's not impossible, but the Chilong has escape devices similar to torpedo launches, and you can enter the sea at any time."

Xuan Lu chuckled and took a sip of the black sweet soy milk in his cup. Just like the Northwest Bai family with the metal bloodline shined in various materials science and professions that required sensitivity to various metals, the Xuan family naturally knew the details of this deep-sea operation, and even the submersible was designed and manufactured by them.

This old man proudly flaunted his achievements to the strong young man in front of him: "The Chilong's design intention is to explore other worlds or outer planets in the future, those 'supernatural environments' that exceed the Earth's environment. Its strength standard far exceeds any exploration needs on Earth."

At this time, five multinational research vessels had arrived around the Mariana area, and many exploration instruments were operating to collect relevant data from the surrounding area.

The program team in front was filming the opening remarks, and the 'Chilong submersible', which was shaped like a shuttle and was completely white, was also being displayed. It had smooth wave patterns on it, and in the sea breeze, it flickered with a light blue water light.

From Su Zhou's point of view, what Xuan Lu said was not boasting. Not to mention the rune structure above the submersible, the special transcendent alloy material alone was probably as hard as, or even exceeded, the golden feathers of the Garuda's main body. If he didn't show his true strength, it would be difficult to destroy.

At this time, he could vaguely hear the opening remarks of Zheng's program team in the distance.

[Dragon and jade, dragon and phoenix, are synonymous with Zheng's culture. Apart from dragon and phoenix, there is no such single and long-lasting totem worship. Apart from jade, there is no other mineral that is born with such divinity.]

[Spiritual energy has been revived, and the divinity of jade has been proven. Wearing a good jade pendant made of high-quality material can condense spiritual energy, relieve fatigue, and nourish the mind. Our ancient ancestors must have discovered this, so they used jade as the representative of their civilization.]

[But, what about dragons and phoenixes? Where did their divinity originate? Are there really creatures like dragons and phoenixes in this world? Where did our ancient totems come from? In ancient times, dragons and light agreed that the term dragon and phoenix was used together. What are their true faces? This question is too deep and too broad for anyone to answer.]

[But today, we will reveal the secrets of the dragon and show everyone the true face of our totems hidden behind history—we will excavate the ruins from the barren ancient times and restore the truth of history from the fragments of the ancient sites.]

[Large-scale outdoor live recording program, Walking into the Ruins special episode·Barren Ancient Remains, Dragon's Trace, is about to show you all the secrets.]

[Please look forward to it.]

Next was the commercial break, and at this time, Su Zhou and others also began to prepare for the dive. The Chilong submersible, which had just been safety-tested by various staff members, had been confirmed, and all accompanying personnel had put on protective equipment.

It could be seen that the other research vessels from other countries were also following the corresponding procedures. They would dive into the seabed in different order—naturally, the Zheng exploration team led by Su Zhou took the lead.

The Chilong submersible was a large manned submersible that used a 'spiritual power conversion battery' as energy—this was a very mature technology that had been researched. Shao's Photovoltaic, owned by the Shao family, also had relevant research in this area.

Compared to ordinary deep-sea submersibles, the Chilong was very large, 18 meters long and 7 meters wide, with a deep-sea escape function. There were a total of twelve seats, including three operators, Su Zhou and Xuan Lu, and two other official superhumans, a total of four people as security, two people from the Walking into the Ruins program team, responsible for accompanying filming, and three other researchers, collecting underwater survey and exploration data.

Entering the submersible, Su Zhou sat in seat number eight, which was closest to the 'escape device'. After all, if he encountered any huge sea beast, he would escape the submersible and fight the opponent as soon as possible. The others also took their seats in turn. They had all undergone relevant training, and their actions were very skilled and efficient.

Soon, with the program team's explanation, the Chilong's hatch closed and began to dive.

The white submersible was smoothly placed underwater and began to sink... The sunlight gradually disappeared, and the blue-green sea became deeper and deeper until it turned black.

Under the gaze of everyone and tens of millions of viewers around the world, they went to the seabed.