[At the entrance, He Xiangdong made a welcoming gesture toward you.]
["Mr. Chen Dong, welcome to our underground base."]
["There are even traitors?"]
[Formations were everywhere, maintaining environmental stability.]
[The Torch Society generally wouldn't let these mortals leave the base to fend for themselves. As long as they were willing, they could stay and continue living in the base.]
["It seems no one on Blazing Star gave you information about this. Over there it's all single-line contact, so conversations like ours are indeed rare. If you'd like to understand, I can explain it to you in detail."]
[Sometimes during busy farming seasons, they also had to do farm work alongside the residents.]
["But you've carried on for so many years, surely you have a defense mechanism."]
But our ancestors divided divine marks into three categories based only on three different levels of difficulty.
[Once they reached the appropriate age, they had to both cultivate and complete their studies, running back and forth between the two, not planning to fall behind in either, with people supervising them.]
["Aren't you in great danger when you encounter betrayers?"]
[Some put down roots outside and never returned.]
[If you didn't want to spend too much time learning, you'd study the simplest human marks. If you wanted to learn the strongest and hardest, you'd study heaven marks. That's all there was to it."]
[Finally, you got to a topic you'd wanted to understand from the very beginning.]
["I think I've guessed a little..."]
They even divided the learning of divine marks into ranks and grades.
[Of course, it wasn't barter anymore. Each base had its own currency system.]
["Yes, yes, yes."]
[And gave you a brief introduction to the base's basic situation.]
["Divine marks are divided into heaven marks, earth marks, and human marks. They were originally created by our Human Race's ancestors so that even low-grade cultivators could borrow a portion of divine ability power.]
["Mr. Chen Dong, there are many things here that you couldn't possibly have known about in the outside world before. Why don't we sit down and talk slowly."]
[About seventy percent would choose to leave.]
["Traitors or not, the cause we pursue is equally dangerous."]
[On the cliffs at the edges, countless karst caves were scattered about, with strange birds lurking inside, like guardians of this space.]
[The Torch Society didn't always hide away in frustration. They also organized certain battles to seize cultivation resources from the alien races.]
[The Torch Society's original goal was to protect geniuses from persecution by the alien races.]
[He Xiangdong first brought you and Ah Dou to settle in at the base.]
[From He Xiangdong's words, you heard yet another new term.]
[You looked around, and thanks to the effect of "Reverse Engineering," you could see this place was filled with countless cultivation artifacts.]
["These are heaven marks."]
[Some of them later became stronger and came back, continuing the Torch Society's will.]
["Of course there are. Human nature is complex, and temptations are countless."]
[Some fell on the road of experience.]
[This base was like a utopia, with no rulers or ruled.]
[Everyone simply did what they were good at and improved their lives through barter.]
[The base "property management" was constantly changing. There was simply a set of positions, and whoever had time to stay at the base would take on the role.]
[The aptitude of the Human Race was like opening a blind box, so even the descendants of geniuses could turn out to be ordinary mortals.]
[Ah Dou sat on horseback, marveling.]
["'Great Turmoil'?"]
["Naturally, but each base has its own methods. I'm not at liberty to disclose ours. If you can stay here long-term, you'll learn them yourself."]
[The Torch Society's upper echelon would assign some people to manage base order, but they couldn't be called rulers, at most like neighborhood property management handling some public affairs.]
["Uncle Chen, you were right, they really are an underground organization!"]
[And a small number became traitors, leaking the base's secrets.]
[You loved gathering intelligence more than anything.]
[Add to that the growing number of mortals providing ample labor, and all living materials could be self-sufficient.]
[It was just that the targets the Torch Society chose were basically small factions on second-tier stars. They'd organize a group of experts to go blow up some fish, then run after blowing them up.]
[Coming to this Torch Society base was truly the right move!]
Those alien races stole our divine marks and changed them into emperor marks, noble marks, and civilian marks.
That way, even those with poor aptitude could have the power to protect themselves.
[The younger ones attended school with ordinary children, memorizing ancient texts, learning arithmetic, understanding astronomy and geography. If they didn't finish their studies, they'd get their palms smacked by the teacher.]
[The cultivators here had basically all mastered divine marks. You could see many cultivators using divine marks to help farmers and workers labor, or to speed up the efficiency of building bridges and paving roads.]
[The divine marks they used actually came in three colors: golden civilian marks, red noble marks, and a kind of black emperor-level divine mark that you had only seen once before, in your last simulation, when Second Sister Chen Yue used it.]
[Since Torch Society members, once they encountered mission changes or identity exposure, would be unable to return to the base for a long time.]
[In this base, you saw the Human Race geniuses who were being protected.]
[The glowing sphere at the top was a primal spiritual treasure, and behind it there was another slightly smaller sphere that wasn't currently glowing, also a primal spiritual treasure, presumably used to imitate the moon.]
[The place where these Human Race geniuses and seized resources were gathered was the Torch Society's base.]
[Although the Torch Society's base was underground, after formation modifications, it could still farm, tend sheep, raise fish, cultivate silkworms, and so on.]
[There were many such bases across the universe. Vermilion Violet Star was just one of them.]
["Heaven marks?"]
["Then you shouldn't let them out."]
[A bit older, once their studies were complete, cultivation was an endless path, so dedicated cultivation masters would guide them one-on-one.]
["On our side, we call that event the 'Great Turmoil.' On the alien races' side, they call it the 'Great Counterattack.'"]
[Even later, when cultivation hit a bottleneck or life became confusing, there was only one option, go out and gain experience.]
["Then what would this place become, a prison?"]
[He Xiangdong patted your shoulder.]
[The Torch Society also understood the principle that sturdy flowers cannot be grown in a greenhouse.]
["Someone here uses emperor-level divine marks?"]
[Through the help of certain capable and righteous people, like Ji Wuqing, someone from a major faction who "betrayed her own kind," they gained resources to supply geniuses for cultivation.]
After the 'Great Turmoil,' our Human Race was instead forbidden from learning divine marks.
[But protection alone wasn't enough. Once you took someone in, you had the responsibility to cultivate them.]
[There was nothing particularly special about them.]
[He Xiangdong nodded.]
[They allowed these protected geniuses the right to choose to leave the base.]
[He Xiangdong led you on a walk around the base, introducing all sorts of things along the way.]
[He Xiangdong stood on the base's long street, looked up at the primal spiritual treasure light sphere mimicking the sun hanging in the sky, let out a long sigh, and then began to speak.]
["All of this has to be traced back to the Celestial Emperor era..."]

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