Chapter 327: Portraits of Past Leaders

In the rainforest at dawn, it had just rained, and the Mage's Climate Magic was steadily simulating the real conditions. Luo Qi was moving through the jungle; the sun had appeared now, but Luo Qi had observed that the glowing object above his head might not be the real sun. Highland Mages could make a Simulation Window so masterful that it was impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood, and Luo Qi really wanted to learn this trick of theirs.

Luo Qi stepped barefoot on the branches of the rainforest; although he was unwilling to admit it, he had learned a superb tree-climbing technique from the Alien. The sun had only just risen, and his three friends would not be up this early. He now knew that the Highland Mages' detection range here was terrifyingly large, so regardless of what exactly the Highland Mages were detecting or how the principle worked, using High-energy Crystals in his own room was not very safe.

The botanical garden was a good place, and after Luo Qi carefully appraised it, he discovered that many magical plants were hidden here. These magical plants were mixed in among ordinary plants; presumably, the Highland Mages relied on ordinary plants to help maintain the environment for the delicate ones, and most of the Highland Mages' magical plants carried unusual Energy Fields. When these Energy Fields were mixed together in a chaotic way, even Du Zhengyi admitted that his senses were confused and it was very difficult to measure them clearly.

The region of Chaos was Luo Qi's treasure trove; he climbed onto the thick branches of a tropical tree, and behind layers upon layers of foliage, it would be difficult for anyone to discover him even if they passed by below.

He was here, connecting with his hundreds of Yajian, controlling them within the Consciousness Space. For a while, he felt that the sensation of existing in the Consciousness Space was excellent; whether they were Mages or ordinary humans, the chaos of the world had nothing to do with Luo Qi. Even those reforms he had once hoped for, the things he had been confused and angry about, began to seem unimportant. He felt as if he had become a higher existence, looking down on the troubles of the world. In an instant, he could open an endless treasury of knowledge; the knowledge stored by the Ghosts was completely open to him. He could solve one difficult problem after another, and he could also see clearly everyone's secrets, understanding the structure of their thinking just as he could see their composition.

Sometimes he suspected that the only thing that could pull him back was Du Zhengyi.

However, being able to see the secrets of the Qionglin was still good. For the secrets of the Qionglin, which spanned several thousand years, to have a few chapters recorded in the memory of an Alien race was also an extremely amusing thing. Luo Qi spent a morning listing the several Qionglin leaders who had used Aliens.

With a very proud and open mind, Luo Qi accepted the fact that the first leader was not human.

That thing was very strange; its appearance was almost exactly the same as the Alien, except that it was taller, stronger, and a proportional enlargement of the Alien creature; in reality, it was more like a human.

This was the conclusion Luo Qi reached from the few conversations the Alien Queen had observed between it and other humans. Based on the short Consciousness Contact that occurred when the Alien Queen launched a mental attack on it, its biggest difference from the Alien was that it was an independent individual.

Aliens were a collective society with extremely high mutual dependence, sharing most memories and knowledge. This meant their brains could extend beyond the individual; human knowledge and memory existed independently in different regions of the brain—for example, some humans could have amnesia to the point of not recognizing their parents, yet a considerable portion of the knowledge stored in their brains would still remain. Alien groups shared brains, and some memories could be stored in different brains, which well compensated for the disadvantage of their actual brain capacity being insufficient as primitive organisms. Moreover, there were many copies of brains existing in the group; the death of an individual would not cause the complete loss of knowledge and experience, and newborns could be directly incorporated into the circle to receive ready-made knowledge and experience.

The first leader, however, was a completely independent individual; it had a fully developed brain, and its brain capacity must have been quite large. It communicated naturally with other humans, especially a female Ancestor Mage—so naturally that the female completely treated it as a person. It was as if a human had grown into an Alien, yet it was completely unrepulsed by this point itself.

That female Ancestor Mage might even have loved it a little; they turned a blind eye to each other's bodies, as if the flesh were not an issue at all, and they could see through the flesh to the essence of the soul.

The second leader was the decrepit old man Luo Qi had already seen; he had issued the order to slaughter the Jiangnan Du Clan. This point in time had already shifted to approximately the late Qing Dynasty of humans; Luo Qi found definitive evidence later when searching the Queen's memory, confirming this point. This could explain why Du Zhengyi did not have any particular feelings about the Qionglin executing his family; the time difference was several hundred years, and he was completely equivalent to having lived in a different family. Most importantly, the current Qionglin had not killed his parents.

However, Luo Qi was disappointed; after the Ancestor Mage, it took at least several thousand years before Mages truly used Alien Seal Beasts. It might be true that the Mages had forgotten about them; it was not until Treasure Hunters dug open their Seal Land that the Mages truly began to use them.

The third leader was also an old man; Luo Qi tried hard to compare the connection between him and the previous leader, but this leader had not yet reached the point of being senile. Therefore, he was very restrained, barely revealing any personal traits, and to say he was the previous leader was truly lacking in evidence.

However, the orders he issued were no different from the previous one; he also used Alien Seal Beasts to kill Mages. The Mage he wanted to kill this time was someone Luo Qi did not know, nor had he heard anyone mention. He wrote down the Mage's name, wanting to save it to check when he had the chance later.

The fourth leader—Luo Qi tried his best to restrain his discomfort; he was truly disgusted when Fan Shi's old face suddenly appeared. Moreover, it was not just Fan Shi; he also saw his own father's face.

Luo Qi did not want to explain in detail to Pei Shu, otherwise, he would have to write a long report summarizing the laws of using Psychic Beasts. Basically, this thing had never been used to purge humans; every time they were awakened, the ones to be purged were the Mages themselves. The "elegant" body of the Alien Queen had always been a good tool for Mages to eliminate dissidents.

Luo Qi watched his father in the memory, bored; Fan Shi left quickly, perhaps feeling that the Alien looked too dirty. But his father stayed for a while; he looked at his father from the Alien's perspective. His father had no aggression at all and looked a bit like a Scholar.

Luo Qi felt uncomfortable and wanted to exit this memory, but who would have thought that at this very moment, he suddenly heard his father say, "Keyword: Goldfish."

Luo Qi was stunned for a moment.

"Help me pass on a message," his father said suddenly, which gave Luo Qi a fright; he almost jumped up in the world of consciousness, and in the real world, he almost slid right off the tree branch.