Chapter 1 I'm Su Zhou

I am Su Zhou, 20 years old this year. I am a student with good character and excellent grades, raised under strict family discipline. My dream is to be a dark knight who plays dumb during the day and becomes a bat at night. Ideally, I'd inherit the family tradition of becoming a police officer and join the Serious Crimes Unit to handle my own cases. That way, I could catch myself and collect a salary, while perfectly misleading others so they wouldn't suspect me.

That's the perfect wish. I've been working towards it since I was a child, and the spiritual energy revival has brought me a great opportunity, as if realizing my dream is just around the corner.

But fate doesn't always go as planned. First, my strength seems to have become too strong. The authorities found me and gave me law enforcement power directly, so I don't even need to play the dark knight to catch people. I can even arrest officials if I apply, which fundamentally eliminates the possibility of creating conflict and contradiction. In a sense, this is also being a police officer, but it feels a little different.

Moreover, doesn't this mean I can't kill people at all? But I'm not a real dark knight, I don't mind being ruthless.

Although it's quite exhilarating to openly lead a squad of fully armed special agents from the Security Bureau to kick down doors, and detain people in their terrified and defenseless gazes, then swagger away. If the targets are large underground groups near the border, I can even call in a few helicopters to cheer and boost the momentum. There's also a dedicated team to clean up after me. But no matter what, this situation is a bit different from my dream.

As time gradually passed, I began to feel that this kind of life wasn't bad. After all, there's a free meal card at the cafeteria. When I'm bored, I can take a team out on patrol and see if I can find a few lucky little villains to play the criminal detention game with. On weekdays, I can work at the academy and argue with netizens online in between cultivation training, which is quite wonderful.

But suddenly one day, when I went to attend an internal meeting, the Thirty-Six Sages said to me, "The Committee has decided that you will be the Minister of the 'New World Exploration Department.'"

I said, please find someone else more capable. It's not that I'm being modest, but how can a young man of twenty be a minister? My peers are still studying at the academy. The bad influence on teenagers is simply immeasurable.

But Yan Sheng said that this was the result of research and decision-making by the Central Committee of the Thirty-Six Sages. It's a good thing for young people to work in new industries. Everyone doesn't know what the future holds, and we're all feeling our way across the river by touching stones. We need the adventurous spirit of young people.

I declined a few more times, stating that I wasn't cut out for this, but the Committee cited several examples, not only proving that I was cut out for it, but also that I could do it well.

Faced with the well-prepared Committee, I was defeated. I really couldn't refuse, so I had to accept.

Later, I recited two lines...

"What happened later?"

Shao Qiming asked with great interest. He was holding a glass of aloe juice. The juice of the spiritual plant aloe vera has a nourishing effect on the body, and the taste is very sweet. It is a popular spiritual plant juice product in the world today.

Similarly, there are also popular products such as spiritual coconut juice and spiritual grass juice. Because the tastes of transcendents will produce different dopamine secretions due to the 'amount of spiritual power', so as long as there is spiritual energy, even if ordinary people don't think the taste is very good, they like it very much.

At this time and place, it was September 25, 2016, at 4:39 PM.

It happened to be Su Zhou's 21st birthday today. After having lunch with relatives and friends at a restaurant at noon, Su Zhou found a teahouse private room with Shao Qiming to discuss matters related to the Litany Society, as well as topics about great beings.

Because he noticed that Su Zhou suddenly had a new model of personal agent terminal on his wrist, Shao Qiming asked casually, "Did the higher-ups give you this?" After that, he saw Su Zhou's somewhat terrible expression, and couldn't help but ask a few more questions.

Next, was the conversation above.

"What else could happen?"

Faced with his friend's questioning, Su Zhou said unhappily, "Later, I recited two lines of poetry - 'High or low, one's ambition should be firm, how can a man seeking achievement be idle?' Since the Committee has decided, then I'll accept it. Anyway, there's one thing they said that's right."

"That is, this matter is indeed indispensable to me."

With a sigh, the private room became much quieter.

After a long while, Su Zhou picked up his teacup with a somewhat complicated expression: "New world development is undoubtedly a project with a lot of benefits and a lot of dark shadows. The Thirty-Six Sages are not all flawless saints. Even Yu Sheng, who seems to have transformed half of his body into machinery for work, has his family occupying all the key high-level positions in the entire 'East Asia Aviation Group', not to mention the 'Zheng Guo Aerospace Bureau' that he manages like an iron barrel. This is human nature, and there's nothing wrong with it. Moreover, they do their work very well and haven't given anyone a handle."

"Now, the Thirty-Six Sages are divided into four major factions. One faction, led by Dao Sheng, has the strongest sect atmosphere and is biased towards cultivation, the 'Cultivation Faction'. The current affairs related to the spiritual energy revival of Zheng Guo, the disposal arrangements for transcendents, and the opening of some secret realms are all managed by this faction. Their main sphere of influence is the Security Bureau, the Dao Discipline Bureau, and part of the Education Bureau. Shu Sheng and Jiang Sheng are also in this faction, so they presided over the last Kunlun Mountain exploration."

"And the other faction is the 'Authoritarian Faction' of the Zheng Guo military, such as Jun Sheng and Bing Sheng. I don't need to tell you their sphere of influence. Although Gong Sheng is not openly involved, he secretly supports them. And their purpose is to use various means to allow Zheng Guo to take the lead in the upcoming era."

"Next, there is the 'Development Faction' led by Nong Sheng. There's no need to say much. They are the group of people who say, 'If you don't provoke me, I'll farm. If you don't let me farm properly, I'll make sure you don't live through the year.' From the looks of it, no one is hindering them from farming."

"As for the last faction, it is the 'Technical Faction', or the Reform Faction, led by Sheng Sheng and Yan Sheng. They are committed to using new technologies in the new era to create new social forms. Yu Sheng and Wen Sheng are both in this faction, and their core idea is that the current life form of humans is actually no longer suitable for 'multi-world development and space development'. They are the most radical of all the factions."

"--Amazing, A Zhou, you can actually see this? This is not something ordinary people can do!"

After listening to this passage, Shao Qiming opened his eyes wide. He looked at Su Zhou with surprised eyes, as if he had seen another side of his friend that he didn't know: "Or did someone tell you about this power relationship?"

"I can just use the divine power of the Devouring Evil Demon Lord to scan them, and I'll know by looking at the light above their heads. The ill will and goodwill between them are as clear to me as traffic lights."

Although he used divine power to cheat, Su Zhou didn't like this kind of surprised look, as if he regarded him as a barbarian who couldn't see interpersonal relationships and couldn't understand the atmosphere. He slapped the table and emphasized, "My EQ is very high - even if I don't use the Devouring Evil Demon Lord's divine power, I can easily see the differences between them!"

Regardless of Shao Qiming's 'I mostly believe it' expression, Su Zhou talked eloquently: "In short, new world development is a 'big project, big plan' that all four factions value. Whether it is profit, benefits for cultivation, Zheng Guo's future hegemony, Zheng Guo's future development, or the promotion of new technologies, all have great value - no faction will give up this big cake, especially since this cake belongs to all mankind, and there are major foreign forces that will compete with us."

"Although they have their own internal problems, and they also have to face the same internal factional competition as us, in the final analysis, everyone has to compete with each other."

Having said that, the problem is very simple.

Since everyone cannot give up and will never allow others to monopolize it, then there are only two results. One is that the Sages will fight an internal war without smoke to compete for power in this area, or everyone will let go and no one will take it.

And Su Zhou is the 'middleman' who was finally selected in the series of secret games.

His personality, strength, and past experiences have made everyone believe that if he is in charge of this department, he will not be biased towards any party because of factional reasons.

Secondly, he does not have relevant power, like Yu Sheng, turning the entire New World Exploration Department into his own sphere of influence... Perhaps he can do it with his own strength, but that is at least an independent neutral faction, and not other factions with conflicts.

In short, based on many political factors that can be written but cannot be written, Su Zhou has become the youngest ministerial cadre in Zheng Guo's history.

It's a pity that the youngest dean-level was the dean of Daoyi Academy in the early days of Zheng Guo. During the civil war, the Zhang family's inheritance of Daoyi Academy was almost cut off. A nine-year-old boy inherited the position of his elders without knowing why and became the youngest dean-level - this wartime history is basically impossible to break.

Many people may not understand why the Sages value Su Zhou so much, to the point of being a little too good to him, but in fact, this is the most normal reaction.

A super cultivation genius is an infinitely precious resource for a force. He can rely on his own strength to directly and simply raise the upper limit of a country's strength - and in the past, if you wanted to raise the upper limit of a country's strength, you not only needed technological progress, but also industrial development, and economic strength could not be left behind. Even if all three rise at the same time, you must also pay attention to the domestic population, the number of people in trained professions, and whether the relevant industries are developed, whether they can fill the raised upper limit.

And a genius, as long as he can cultivate to the transcendent high-level, his threat and potential destructive power to enemy forces is no less than an army, and if he reaches the Overlord level, he is comparable to a strategic weapon.

The further up the line, the overlord can suppress the national fortune with his own strength. A country on Earth that has an overlord is theoretically impossible to destroy. The ancient immortal and divine civilizations also retreated and left because they encountered the multi-universe-level catastrophe of spiritual energy severance, otherwise, they would definitely be able to rule the world until now.

If you give up such a precious resource, and others don't give up, then it is tantamount to suicide. What's more, most of them are special individuals who can make the cake bigger, and there is no reason not to treat them well.

"I see, you are a buffer zone."

After understanding all this, Shao Qiming nodded slightly as if he suddenly understood: "It's much easier to understand this way. It is indeed indispensable to you. If it were someone else, who knows how much resource consumption would be generated due to internal conflicts."

"There aren't many things to do, because the framework has already been set up, and I just need to take my briefcase and take office."

Su Zhou didn't care about this. Anyway, as long as he had the strength, others would only try to win him over, and not the other way around: "Isn't Zheng Guo saying that it will launch a new batch of lunar explorations around this time next year? I'm one of the first batch of transcendent lunar explorers. To be honest, that's the only thing that appeals to me in all their words."