Advanced Cultivation Civilization

              ACC Chapter 19 Off The Rails

Chaos had erupted the moment Miller had revealed the specifics of the project, even providing additional data to the public at large.

Livia had secured me by the arm and dragged me out of the room, with an almost angry and irrate crowd almost pouncing on us. None of us answered any questions as we headed towards the hangar.

At some point, Miller, the agent of chaos had slunk away, to prevent us from taking out our anger upon him.

"Miller, Miller! Miller! The Sects got us this time." Livia spoke with a heavy sigh.

I was just seated there, cradling my forehead within my palms, trying to calm my tense nerves.

"They had never used the 'public opinion card' before."

Words left my mouth even as my head rose up from its resting place between my palms, with my gaze piercing through the glass and into the void of space.

"Is the Deity Maker project really that dangerous?" Lily, another person I had forgotten about, asked, alerting me to her presence. I had been so caught up within my mind that I hadn't registered her existence.

"It isn't. But until the public is pacified, the machine won't be activated. Just a few more days and we would have had our first Deity Transformation cultivator!" Livia answered for me.

"What are we going to do now?" Livia posed the question. It was just a subconscious act on her part, as we all knew what we were going to have to do already.

"Is Nikolai okay?" I asked Lily as she had been accompanying Milla.

"He's a tough old man. There is nothing that would shake him." Livia dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"Many people have been trying to contact you, Sir. Would you like me to reactivate communications?"

I took a deep steadying breath. I had calmed down enough to start accepting questions, but first, there were a few colleagues that needed to be first contacted.

"Connect me to these names..." I asked Lily as she worked the console within the ship.

With a thought, I accessed the onboard processor, creating a virtual conference room, which I infiltrated with my divine sense to create a spiritual copy that sat at one of the chairs. Within a couple of seconds, Livia and the others I had asked Liliy to get into contact with materialized upon the other chairs. 

"So, the cat got out of the bag before we could even let it out." 

"Ultimately, there is no difference." 

"My dear, Loraine, there is a difference between the cat being dragged out by someone else and us getting it out ourselves. Because of the former happening, we are now dealing with a lot of backlash." 

"Everything you're talking about is pointless. What we should be doing is discussing a way to combat this situation. How can we allow the opinions of the public to stop our noble goal?" another voice interjected. 

Around 50 people had appeared, all between the Nascent Soul later stage and the Core Formation Early stage. Each was a genius within the field of array technology. Though, I loved bioengineering, I had still dabbled within arrays, with my Auto-Cul invention speaking for itself.

Even though I had arranged this divine sense virtual meet up, I didn't speak first. I let them do whatever they wanted.

The man of the hour finally appeared. Just by being in his presence, our strands of divine sense were bearing immense pressure. It was akin to resting a rock on a pillow.

He had a burly body, fair complexion, crimson rimmed pupils whose gaze was electrifying. His face was now marred with a frown in contrast to his usually friendly expression. And the moment he appeared, he plopped down onto his seat, releasing a sigh that contained immense stress.

"Ming must have planned this."

"The old coot with one foot into the grave?" Someone asked.

"Could he be planning something drastic now that his lifespan is almost exhausted?" 

"Don't even speak of it." 

"We need to face reality here. Could he sabotage our work?"

"The public is going to have to be invited to the machine. If his goal is sabotage, then that will be the only window of opportunity." The president answered.

"Mr. President, what do you need us to do? We can't allow all our work to go down the drain. Besides, if the sabotage messes with something critical, we will all die!" I spoke out for the first time.

-----

How long had it been since I had visited this part of the planet? 5? 20 years? I don't really care to recall as there had never been anything significant even when I had come here.

A few days had passed and we were back on Earth, specifically in Switzerland.

I was enjoying a nice relaxing time at the moment, seated upon a floating luxury platform, high above the earth, while admiring the Alps, a mountain range having the tallest peak Earth.

The Everest was something that many a climber had tried to reach the peak of, in search of a thrill, only to fail and die or become severely injured. Unless you were in the Nascent Soul, the chances of survival upon attempting the feat was closer to zero.

"Do you want to attempt a climb?" asked Livia, seated across from me, dressed warmly, and sipping from a cup of tea with steam rising upwards, visible due to the chill within the air. 

"Am not masochistic enough." I answered with a chuckle.

"...or crazy." mumbled Lily.

"According to recent statistics, the spiritual energy on the planet has continued to rise in concentration to the point that places with extreme climate have become dangerous even to us."

The rise in spiritual energy concentration was because of a project that consisted of multiple floating solar spiritual energy gathering platforms up in space beaming it down to the planet with minimal loss. But advantages also had a reverse side to them.

The terrain, climate, flora and fauna, were all evolving at a high speed. Now, a plain rock couldn't be shattered by someone without cultivation, no matter how much they tried! 

"It would be beneficial to those with variations of water attuned spiritual energy."

"Provided they can survive the harsh conditions. Right now, it has reached a stage where even flight is restricted. If an avalanche is triggered, even I don't think that I could survive."

"We wanted the planet to evolve. We will have to deal with the repercussions of such a thing."

"We might have to temporarily halt the harvest and beaming down of solar attuned spiritual energy in the future."

"That can only happen when we manage to get rid of all the hidden threats."

"By the way, how long are we going to wait for congress to end?" 

"Livia, that white fur coat matches your eyes." 

Someone occupying another table complimented. 

"Jason, she ain't interested in you." 

"Anna, it was just a compliment."

"We both know that there is something deeper."

"Anna, how come you managed to appear personally?" I asked. 

"... The President himself asked. And I couldn't refuse."

"These Sect bastards really created a huge problem for us. Has anyone managed to track down Miller?" Jason asked. 

Everyone around us shook their heads.

"I tried, but those cretins must have dropped him on an island somewhere. But we will eventually find him." a creepy laugh made its way out of Nikolai's mouth.

"Judging by the current chaos, the President might have to pay out a large sum in order to keep multiple parties quiet." Loraine spoke.

"That's why I will never dabble in politics."

There was a collective nod from all of us at those words.