Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

BAM!

After one last moment of brilliance, the thousand lackluster seals ran out of spiritual energy and splashed like ice before they melted into nothingness.

Losing the support of the seals and barriers, the rocks that were full of cracks immediately crumbled without a sound, as if they had always been made of sand. They poured out like water, revealing the deep, dark cave behind them.

Hu!

Freezing wind blew out of the cave immediately, mixed with some dark gas that lunged at everyone like erratic devils.

The members of Operation Archaeology were long prepared for that. They knew that tremendous venomous air must have accumulated underground, as it had only been briefly opened once or twice in the past hundreds of thousands of years. Besides, the environment hundreds of thousands of years ago could have been vastly different from the present. The air on the planet possibly contained a lot of impurities that modern people were not aware of or adapted to.

They had already completely blocked the head of the Nuwa warship and installed the most advanced air test and filtration system. Everybody also activated the internal circulation mode on their crystal suits, not touching the unknown gas of the outside world at all.

As they expected, the air test system beeped nonstop, implying that the gas spurting out from the underground space contained almost a hundred bizarre elements, some of which could never have possibly existed on this planet. How strange!

Thankfully, none of the elements were too toxic or corrosive. With everyone’s Cultivation that was no lower than the Core Formation Stage, they could breathe normally inside the cave. It was needless to mention the beast puppets, the Grand Illusionary Soldiers, or the spectral Cultivators, which did not require such a thing as air in the first place.

After a minute, the speed of the flowing black gas was much lower, suggesting that the internal air pressure and the external air pressure had reached a balance.

The heat examination devices and the biochemical activity examination devices did not report any signs of living creatures inside the cave.

The first to be projected into the cave were the spider-shaped beast puppets that carried highly-precise crystal cameras and soundwave collection facilities. They could be remotely controlled through telepathic thoughts.

However, they encountered exactly the same problem here as Li Yao once had during the exploration of Kunlun. The vast Pangu laboratory was filled with vague, black mist, which posed huge interference on the transmission of signals.

The beast puppets were all out of reach when they were a certain distance away. Even when they were still within reach, the videos that they managed to send back were fuzzy and obscure. It was impossible to tell what was on them exactly.

So much for remote control. Eventually, it required human beings to enter the cave in person to figure out the truth.

Li Yao, Long Yangjun, and the other experts of the Ancient Sages Sector looked at each other. They turned on the power rune arrays of their crystal suits and floated at a low altitude half a meter from the ground. Then, they flew into the dark, narrow pathway without touching any part of the building.

The Grand Illusionary Soldiers and the spectral warriors followed them closely as the main force of ‘Operation Archaeology’, and the hundred Core Formation Stage Cultivators were responsible for covering the retreat. They were closest to the entrance. Should anything go wrong, they could escape in time to ensure their own safety.

The pathway led straight down. There was no telling how far they had gone, but the black mist around them grew thicker and thicker and came at everyone like tides.

The black mist was indeed weird. All the waves—regardless of whether they were from the searchlights of the highest power, the Cultivators almost in the Divinity Transformation Stage, or the mobile Spiritual Towers that they deployed—were absorbed with absolutely nothing left after they were transmitted to two hundred meters away at best, making it impossible to get a general picture of the Pangu laboratory.

However, from what they could see in the limited range of exploration, the scale of the Pangu laboratory indeed far exceeded their imagination.

Any random pathway could be almost thirty meters wide and fifty meters tall. Also, the pathways were full of branches, many of which leaned downward. There was no telling how deep they went.

There were also gates that were carved with primeval runes, which were locked tightly as if cages where primordial beasts were sealed were behind them. They appeared even more mysterious in the middle of the black mist.

The exploration team of a thousand members, plus ten times more beast puppets and Grand Illusionary Soldiers, was like a handful of pebbles thrown into a vast lake after they entered the palace of giants. They were as good as nothing and could not raise the slightest wave.

Faced with such tricky mist and such unexpected enormity, even Li Yao and the rest of them did not have a satisfactory solution.

Thankfully, they had prepared rather sufficient resources for the operation. By establishing a mobile Spiritual Tower every hundred meters, and even opening the reels of crystal wires with the most stable wired connection, they were finally able to keep in touch with the reinforcement team and specialist team outside.

Led by Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun, the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators who had once visited the Pangu laboratory, everyone continued going downward.

What they saw on their way was actually similar to the underground black city that Li Yao had come across on Kunlun. Everything was strictly horizontal or vertical without the slightest error, implying high disciplines and indifference. It was almost like a cold, lifeless grave.

That did make sense. If all the members of a civilization sealed their feelings and emotions, it would be hard to imagine that they had any culture or art. The buildings that they established in the end could only be square and unattractive like that.

As they went deeper, it could clearly be seen that the upper levels of the laboratory had been seriously damaged.

Most of the branches were blocked by the collapsed rocks. Traces of explosions and corrosion were obvious, too.

Corpses of giants in bizarre shapes were also found. They were identical to the ones on the Nuwa warship, except that their death was much more gruesome.

All the bodies were holding each other, broken. A lot of sabers and swords had been stabbed deep into each other’s bones, suggesting that they did not stop fighting each other until their last breath.

After hundreds of thousands of years of corrosion, their flesh and blood were long gone. But their remains and their weapons were melted in a weird form, informing the latecomers of the perilousness of the great war hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The members of the exploration team hurried to scan the paths that they had been through and the appearance of the corpses, adding them up to a giant model in the crystal processor. A virtual Pangu laboratory was gradually outlined.

“It seems that our speculation at the beginning was correct.”

Looking at the virtual Pangu laboratory on the light beam that had been added with a lot of details, Li Yao remarked, “At the last years of the primeval war, the situation of the Pangu Clan looked rather unpromising. For the succession of their civilization, a lot of members of the Pangu Clan initiated plans similar to our Monument Plan or ‘Tinder Plan’.

“The planet of the Ancient Sages Sector deep inside the dark nebula was the best spot for secret experiments. The Pangu Clan established an enormous underground laboratory here. Or rather, the entire planet was a laboratory for them. They shipped, or procreated here, countless human beings as test subjects, searching for ways to pass on the Pangu Civilization through genes.

“Later, a Nuwa fleet accidentally discovered the secrets deep inside the dark nebula. Perhaps because it was practically impossible to send the message out due to the interference of the dark nebula, or because it was too urgent for them to summon reinforcements, they decided to attack the Ancient Sages Sector on their own and demolish the place.

“The fleet of the Nuwa Clan had a fierce fight with the guards of the Pangu Clan who were stationed on the planet. Both parties were exhausted and suffered heavy losses. That’s why there are so many relics of primeval battlefields on the surface of the planets as the source of strength for the locals of the Ancient Sages Sector, and how they were dragged into the vicious circle of counting on only the primeval treasures instead of their independent development.

“Eventually, the last Nuwa warship, which had run out of supplies, finally found the biggest and most critical laboratory that was hidden below the ice.

“The Nuwa warship launched a suicidal attack. After adjusting to a certain collision mode, it crashed into the Pangu laboratory from the sky like a shooting star and penetrated through the laboratory’s defenses.

“The most elite warriors of the Nuwa Clan crowded into the underground laboratory and fought the guards of the Pangu Clan. Although they failed to completely demolish the laboratory, they were able to seal it for hundreds of thousands of years, until it was accidentally opened by Fellow Cultivators Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun a hundred years ago. At the same time, a certain alarm system inside the Nuwa warship was triggered, and a warning was sent to the direction of its base.

“After hundreds of thousands of years, the dark nebula that enshrouded the planet was already much thinner. The warning finally penetrated through the darkness and was received by the Star Glory Federation. Now, we have come to this place to finish what the Nuwa Clan started!”

There must be a lot of errors and missing parts in Li Yao’s analysis, but in general, such a deduction was certainly the most self-consistent one.

Right then, a squad that had spread to the left edge of the Pangu laboratory discovered what appeared to be the remains of a ‘giant crab’ for the first time.

The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators including Li Yao arrived as quickly as possible, only to discover that it looked like an obsidian ball more than one meter in diameter that was embedded in the dilapidated debris.

No changes of temperature or spiritual waves were detected from the item at all, as if it were a fossil that had been dead for billions of years.

However, along the uneven surface, it could clearly be seen that more than ten long tentacles were curled up and that a limb that was similar to a tail was spiraling back into the body.

“Is this a living creature or dead?” One of the spectral Cultivators was bold enough to approach it to get a closer look.

“Watch out!”

Intuitively, Li Yao felt that something was not right.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

The biochemical test system on everyone’s crystal suit shrieked ear-splittingly at the same time. The index of living creature activity soared abruptly, implying that a living object with tremendous vigor was right before them!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The surface of the fossil of the giant crab broke apart into pieces. The dried shell fell off, revealing another gray, damp shell inside. The tentacles and the tail that had been curled before were all stretched out.

The ‘fossil’ had come back to life!