Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Wait—”

The Fist King said, “On human beings’ journey to explore the sea of stars, they have encountered a lot of alien species, many of which boasted advanced technologies a long time ago. Some of them were even capable of crafting starships and roaming in space.

“The starship remnants of the aliens, although rare, do not seem to deserve such attention. Why are you so cautious about this particular remnant and call them ‘alien humans’ instead of ‘alien species’, Boss Bai? What’s the difference between ‘alien species’ and ‘alien humans’?”

“Because the guests from the other side of the grand universe are too similar to us.”

Boss Bai said, “I did not find their corpses, but before the remnant of their starship was obliterated, I had a quick glimpse at their looks from some mottled light and shadow in it. The individuals of the extraterrestrial civilization had similar heights and body sizes to ourselves, if not identical. The only difference was that their skin was relatively fair and crude. Half of them had blonde hair and blue eyes, while the other half had a myriad of hair and eye colors.

“The color differences of the skin, the hair, and the eyes are genetically insignificant. Ignoring the tiny differences, they are almost like our duplicates, our ‘mirror version’ from the other side of the grand universe.”

“Is that so?”

The Fist King said, “Both the Pangu civilization and the civilization of mankind craved to leap out of the swamp of the three thousand Sectors and explore the unknown on the other side of the grand universe, but the exploration teams found nothing after they were billions of lightyears away from the three thousand Sectors. It was even determined that there was a ‘desolate area’ beyond the three thousand Sectors where the resources were highly insufficient and even the stars had completely died out. It’s like a thick, overwhelming black wall that caged Pangu, mankind, and all the civilizations to come.

“But Boss Bai has claimed that a starship of alien humans crossed the ceaseless black wall from the other side of the grand universe and reached our world, with an appearance very similar to the human beings in our place?”

“Exactly.”

Looking at the distance, Boss Bai sighed. “I’ve been keeping it a secret for a long time, but the suffocating blast is still coming back to me when I recall it today. Even if those extraterrestrial guests were mud monsters that had tentacles all over their bodies and could transform freely, I wouldn’t have been as surprised. But they were humans, humans that were almost identical to us, except that their skin was white and their hair was blonde.”

“Boss Bai, have you ever heard of ‘habitable zone’ and ‘standard planet’?”

Right then, Fist King interrupted Boss Bai and said, “The biologists and cosmists of the Imperium of True Human Beings have reached the conclusion after studying the hundred stellar systems in the three thousand Sectors that life—at least carbon-based life—has strict demands on the environment in order to be born. Carbon-based life can only be born in medium-sized planets with a stable structure. The planets can’t be too far away or too close to the star, and the star must be on the relatively peaceful trajectory in the larger system, in order to reduce the radiations from the center of the system and the scourges of space storms, while absorbing energy incessantly from the center of the system.

“Although the universe is vast, the planets that are qualified for carbon-based life to be born are few. The space zones and trajectories that those planets are located at are known as ‘habitable zones’.

“Then, according to the biophysical features of mankind, Pangu, and Nuwa, the scholars of the Imperium have proposed a ‘standard planet’. A standard planet is not a planet that exists in reality but an illusionary planet that has a theoretically perfect environment in every aspect, including temperature, atmosphere, gravity, air elements, light, distribution of mountains and oceans… All the circumstances are favorable for the exponential growth of carbon-based life and the rapid development of civilizations.

“The scholars have set tens of thousands of parameters to rate the planets in reality and evaluate the rank of different Sectors. The planets that are closer to the conditions of the ‘standard planet’ in parameters are of higher ranks, and it is easier for a powerful carbon-based civilization to be born. The main planets of the three thousand Sectors are mostly very similar to the ‘standard planet’. The match rate of their parameters is above 90%. That’s why Pangu, Nuwa, and the civilization of mankind were born.

“Although the Pangu and Nuwa civilizations are more than ten meters tall and have distinctive features such as multiple heads and arms, they are basically in the same appearance as human beings on the scale of the grand universe. Even 95% of their genes are the same. That’s why we say the Pangu civilization is a ‘father’ to the civilization of mankind.

“The environments that are vastly different from the ‘standard planet’, say, a pure gaseous or liquid planet, or the stone belts far away from stars, can possibly conceive carbon-based life or even give birth to a carbon-based civilization, but such carbon-based civilizations often have all kinds of fatal flaws. They are absolutely no match for the ‘standard civilizations’ that are born in environments similar to the ‘standard planet’. Then, after the ‘standard civilizations’ such as Pangu and mankind rose, other carbon-based lives and civilizations tended to be conquered and destroyed. In the end, there would only be one victorious carbon-based civilization, which is exactly what mankind looks like right now.

“I’ve talked so much about ‘habitable zone’ and ‘standard planet’ because I want to tell Boss Bai that if there were indeed a powerful civilization capable of crossing the sea of stars on the other side of the grand universe, they would probably be like human beings as long as they are a carbon-based life. It is not a coincidence but a necessity for survival. So, there is no need to be too concerned about that, Boss Bai.”

Boss Bai nodded his head and said, “Exactly. I studied the concepts such as ‘habitable zone’, ‘standard planet’, and also ‘stand civilization’ that derived from the standard planet later and got more or less relieved. This is exactly what they say, ‘winners are all the same whereas losers are always in different shapes’.

“But at that time, I was truly shocked by the blonde-haired and blue-eyed alien human civilization, because not only did they look like us, the Pangu humans, but our languages and cultures seemed to share a lot of similarities too.

“Here, the crystal chip I gave you just now must’ve been carved with their language. This is a very weird language system that has melted a musical rhythm in the language. As long as you master a certain simple rule, you will know the pronunciation of a word the moment you see it, and you can even retrieve the energy from the void according to the pronunciation, unlike us, who have to learn the pronunciations of words by heart, because a slight change of intonation will change the meaning of the word. Isn’t it amazing?”

The Fist King’s manmade eyes were glittering as he remarked, “Then, have Boss Bai understood the language of these… blonde-haired and blue-eyed humans or even their cultural and social system?”

“Not exactly.”

Boss Bai shook his head with a bitter smile. “Like I said just now, I only discovered a tiny bit of debris, and it quickly decayed into nothingness after it fell to my hands. Apart from the information that I scanned in time, nothing was left at all.

“I was even suspicious that it was not regular weathering but a certain safety measure. The defense mechanism of those blonde-haired and blue-eyed humans erased their traces on its own after detecting the existence of us. In the end, this almost melted chip was all that was left!”

“Oh?”

The Fist King’s eyes beamed with interest. “But Boss Bai still found something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have known the name ‘Gaoists’.”

“There were indeed discoveries.”

Boss Bai said cautiously, “But they were mostly my speculations. I can even say that I only found 1% of facts and inferred the remaining 99% randomly like a blind person feeling an elephant. Even the 1% might not be unreliable and could be my misinterpretation…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

The Fist King said, “Why don’t you tell me where those alien humans came from, why they came to our world, and how they are related to me, according to your ‘random deduction’?”

“Then I’ll just say it out. Just consider it as a meaningless story.”

Pondering for a long time, Boss Bai said, “Although they look almost exactly like us, those blonde-haired and blue-eyed humans are entirely different from us, the Pangu humans, in terms of social form and energy utilization.

“For us who live in the world of Cultivation, including mankind right now and the civilizations in the primeval age, we are all three-dimensional carbon-based lives, and we absorb energy from the universe to survive and develop based on our own strength. It is safe to say that our sole reliance is ourselves!”

The Fist King nodded his head and said, “Exactly. Mankind and Pangu are in the same lineage. They are even in the different phases of the same civilization. They train themselves and evolve with the strength of themselves—the three-dimensional carbon-based lives.”

Boss Bai said, “But the humans from the other side of the universe are different. Although they are a three-dimensional carbon-based civilization, they are living in peace with another life that is in the four-dimension or even higher dimensions in a certain symbiotic relationship.”

“What—”

The Fist King remarked, “There are truly four-dimensional lives? Three-dimensional lives and four-dimensional lives can communicate and even form a symbiotic relationship? There are indeed infinite mysteries in the vast universe!”

“This is just my speculation. As I said, it is still far from the truth. Just consider it a story.”

Boss Bai paused for a moment and said rather in despise, “Their symbiosis is more like slavery and tyranny for me. Those blonde-haired and blue-eyed humans seem to worship the four-dimensional lives very much because the four-dimensional lives have granted them a lot of methods to make use of energy and guided them in the evolution of their civilization. So, they worship the four-dimensional lives as archmagi. The four-dimensional lives were their master!

“Their civilization is founded on the will of the gods. They have to abide by the law of the gods in all social activities and even the fiercest wars in order to make use of the powerful strength. They have even defined the impetus of their starships as certain ‘wizardry’. I have given a name to the loyal dog of the four-dimensional lives. They’ll be called ‘wizardly civilization’.”