Published at 13th of April 2026 6:30 am

Chapter 4031 Life Everywhere

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The negotiations grew smoother from that point as they ironed out the trade agreements more concretely. The details could be left to negotiation teams, but the core stuff was things that representatives and leaders needed to negotiate.

The two leaders negotiated the extent to which they were willing to engage in free trade. The difficulties were that their civilization was extremely far away from Gaian Civilization, making it much more difficult for such exchanges to occur, but the distance problem was hardly insurmountable, given that the Laminar Civilization had managed to deploy their world ship to Sol from that great distance away.

As the leaders of the two civilizations continued deliberating, the final agreement took on a clearer form as the two sides understood better what the other side wanted, often managing to side-step speed bumps with alternative proposals that got at the heart of what the other party wanted.

A consistent theme that kept coming up in the negotiations was the matter of Paths and Pathwalkers. The Tendril of Light kept bringing it up over and over, at any opportunity it got. Which meant that it was constantly thinking about Paths and Pathwalkers. Rui sensed how willing Rui would be to concede to Rui if he could somehow help them obtain the power of Path.

It constantly pushed for more test subjects and fewer research restrictions, which Rui only agreed to for the worst of their criminals arrested and convicted by the judiciary of his Void Order Regime. One of the more absurd claims was their desire to maintain a colony of human test subjects that could self-replenish their population. That was not something that Rui could agree to, criminals or otherwise. Not only did he find the notion sick, but the dehumanization of his own species was not something that was politically tolerable. That proved to be a continuous, recurring theme in the negotiations. Because the laminar integuments couldn't hide their thoughts, their desire for a large enough population of pathwalkers and humans more broadly kept coming up, forcing Rui to just start ignoring them at some point.

"I believe it may be possible for me to 'create' Paths for you," Rui remarked. "However, that would entail fundamental changes to the very biochemistry defining your species. I highly doubt that you would be willing to let an alien alter your genetics."

Naturally, this was not an acceptable proposition. It would be beyond insane to allow their species to be altered at the level of the gene by an alien. Even if the Laminar Civilization and the Gaian Alliance were shaping up to have a good relationship, it was still far too much.

"Are. Willing. To. Test. Solutions. On. Outcasts."

From his talks with the laminar integument, they didn't have the concept of criminals, for they didn't have a strict concept of law, the way that humans did. Because of the fundamentally different nature of their sociology, due to being able to read people's minds, laws weren't needed.

All that was needed was consensus.

On top of that, consensus, for them, had a very different meaning for human beings. For them, consensus was simply the ability to inherit light from others, and those who could not inherit the light, defining how they ought not to act, were booted out of the civilization.

They weren't allowed to reproduce, either, which Rui learned occurred through a hermaphroditic exchange of genetic materials between two laminar integuments, where they would lay a single laminar egg upon fertilization. Because the very act of thinking was communicating, it meant that the civilization necessarily needed much more homogeneity in their behavior and thoughts for them to maintain social cohesion.

Humans relied on deception that served as a lubricant and allowed them to maintain social cohesion despite the diversity in thought and behavior; laminar integuments had none of that. That meant that if outcasts were allowed to reproduce, they could create non-aligned laminar integuments that could easily fissure their species.

Rui found it surprising that the laminar integument was so open about their civilization, but it actively thought and thus volunteered more and more information about the basics of their civilization.

The Laminar Civilization was based within the Milky Way. Their civilization was a nomadic interstellar civilization that had completely forsaken fixed structures, refusing to even rely on Dyson Spheres to harness the power of the stars because it would leave them much more anchored than they were willing to be.

Generational trauma, passed down in the form of lights of the same color as when they experienced the destruction of their world, made the entire world averse to settling on an exoplanet. However, they occupied the other end of the Milky Way Galaxy, slowly expanding their civilization as their numbers grew.

Every time their civilization increased enough, they would create a new Laminar world ship to host the new population, allowing their numbers to expand. Rui was happy about the fact that their civilization was on the other side of the Milky Way, which made expansion through the galaxy much easier; they could do so without running into friction.

Or so he thought.

"Life. Everywhere." The laminar integument corrected him. "Will. Run. Into. Life. As. Expand."

That made their journey through the galaxy more complicated, but Rui had no intention of holding back. They had threats to their civilization that were incoming, and they couldn't afford to hold back from growing stronger as a civilization.

The Tendril of Light had also proven to be very forthcoming about the threats that Rui and the Gaian Alliance shared with him, including the identity of alien entities that could pose a threat to Gaian Civilization.

Rui's ethereal eyes sharpened as he documented all the known information that the laminar integument was willing to think of and divulge to him on the spot as a token of goodwill. Every ounce of information that he could get his hands on was a precious piece of life-saving information that could be the difference between survival and destruction for Gaian Civilization.

Soon enough, their negotiations came to an end, and they had arrived at the broad structure of an agreement.

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