Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

No one knew exactly how the lightning life-forms appeared, just as no one knew how the organic molecules such as the original amino acids were born from the crazy collisions and intense reactions of inorganic objects. In short, in the atmosphere of the ancient giants over the past billions of years, intense energy waves had been released and detonated in the form of lightning countless times. By unbelievable coincidences, the lightning captured some unusual particles, which were rare elements from the depths of the ancient giants or from outer space, such as the helium element, etc.

When the powerful lightning pierced through the core of the thallium, it was immediately vaporized by the high temperature into translucent, immaculate plasma balls. The free electrons that carried the negative charge formed its outer layer, and the ions that carried the positive charge formed its inner layer. The inner and outer layers formed an obvious boundary, but they also allowed the energy to circulate and transform freely. It was like the membrane and wall of a biological cell, a great yin-yang that could communicate with the heaven and the earth.

In other words, countless lightning strikes had created a miracle of life, a gaseous, pure-energy, plasma-like ‘cell’.

Of course, such ‘plasma cells’ were different from cells in the sense of a carbon-based life. They did not have any ‘genetic material’.

However, the life form was colorful in the first place. Genetic information did not necessarily need genes to be transmitted. The five definitions of cells—the ability to self-replicate, the ability to transmit information, the ability to metabolize, the ability to grow on their own, and the obvious boundary separating them from the outside world-were all met by the ‘plasma cells’.

Although its ‘life’ could only be maintained for a short period of time in the beginning, during its short and glorious life, it could absorb energy from the outside world and expand or even divide. It could extend the tentacles of lightning and absorb the neutral elements nearby, such as lanthanum, lanthanum, and even methane and ethane. It could add its own energy reactions and emit colorful brilliance. It could even divide itself into two different plasma cells, each of which carried the same electromagnetic features.

It could even transmit information by radiating the energy of electromagnetic waves into other plasma cells so that the atoms inside the plasma cells would be at the same frequency.

If it was not a ‘cell’ and not a ‘life’, what was the significance of the definition of life?

Li Yao noticed that such a marvelous lightning elf had not been around for long, far less than the hundred-thousand-year history of the human civilization. It was even less impressive than the civilization of the Pangu civilization or even the ‘Black Wall Manufacturing’ billions of years ago.

Their ‘history’ was only two to three thousand years old.

Two to three thousand years ago, it was the time when the two high-mass stars near the ancient giants entered the last years of their life and started blossoming violently, showing signs of ‘supernova explosions’.

Maybe, it was the intense spurting of materials and energy before the death of a star that injected new vitality into the atmosphere of the ancient giants and led to the birth of the elves of lightning

They were out-and-out ‘Children of the Sun’.

Although it was only three thousand years ago, it was a journey that had taken billions of years to complete. Their lives were short and intense. Every lightning bolt that pierced through the sky of the ancient giants could only last several seconds to ten seconds at best. In those ten seconds, billions of plasma cells were born in the lightning. The lightning was their river of life and their eternal home. They had to absorb the various elements inside the atmosphere and try new discharge structures and electromagnetic force fields in order to prolong themselves and the lightning. If they failed to do so, they would divide and proliferate crazily, trying to ‘jump’ to another lightning that had just been born before the first one was annihilated.

“Survival, survival, survival!”

Li Yao seemed to be able to hear the newborn plasma cells roaring in endless desire amid the spluttering electric arcs.

It was true that the meaning of life was much more than survival. But if one could not even survive in the beginning, one would not be able to find any meaning no matter how hard one tried.

At the origin of any life, especially at such a harsh and cruel place, survival itself was the only meaning

Every one of Li Yao’s brain cells was wreathed in lightning He ‘appreciated the poem of life that had lasted for hundreds of years.

He ‘saw’ that countless plasma cells were absorbing the elements around them and trying to build the foundation of their life with the vibration frequencies of various elements and atoms.

99.99% of the attempts ended in failure. The plasma cells that absorbed the wrong elements and used the wrong vibration frequency were annihilated instantly. Not even a ripple was left. In exchange, 0.001% of the lucky ones were able to extend their life by 0.001 microseconds.

Before they were annihilated, the lucky ones would immediately transmit the new elements, vibration frequency, and other information to their ‘compatriots’ inside the lightning.

In the meantime, the ‘compatriots’ were either splitting crazily and increasing the number of the lightning balls exponentially, or jumping out of the lightning like moths to a flame, trying to find another newborn lightning in the ocean of methane and helium so that the entire species could have a few more seconds.

It was in such a crazy attempt that tens of thousands of generations of ‘people’ struggled and sacrificed themselves in less than twenty seconds. Gradually, the survival time of the plasma balls was improved from a few seconds to almost one second. The lightning that they lived in was modified to be different from ordinary lightning and could be maintained for several minutes, dozens of minutes, or even longer. They were even able to attract a few lightning bolts together and weave them into a marvelous 3D geometry in unbelievable ways. Everything they did was for the purpose of improving the survival time of the lightning in the atmosphere and the long-distance transmission ability.

They were building their own ‘space warships and spaceships’. They were refining the lightning into their own starship! Li Yao ‘saw’ that the plasma cells that upgraded the lightning into ‘battleships’ gradually developed self-organization abilities in the intense battlefield of life. Their exploration of the entire planet was no longer limited to the places where the lightning was most intense. Instead, they drove the lightning around the magnetic field and spread to every corner of the ancient star.

Then, they discovered the place where life could leap forward and evolve into a ‘civilization’, which was the most obvious red spot on the ancient giants.

The Great Red Spot was a super cyclone more than a thousand kilometers in diameter that could last more than a hundred years.

Inside the super cyclone, the intense changes in the air pressure could make the electric reaction of the lightning more violent, faster, and more possible. The super cyclones were stirring the materials nearby. A lot of materials that had been absorbed by the ancient giants were spurting out, too. They brought abundant energy and materials from the core of the planet like a volcanic eruption in a primitive ocean and became the cradle of life. They could also bring more abundant elements to the plasma cells.

The ‘red phosphorus’, the special material that constituted the red spot, could even release glamorous, unpredictable flames in the high-speed friction of lightning. It was the carrier of the ‘civilization’.

It was true that every ‘fire of red phosphorescence’ could only last several minutes and a few hours at most. It was ‘in the blink of an eye’ when measured in the time scale of human beings. But for the plasma cells, which could pass on their knowledge to the next generation after only several seconds, the burning of a single flame was long enough. It could be used to make ‘books’ and pass on their wisdom like paper that could not decay for decades.

Just like that, the plasma cells, riding the lightning, looked for the Great Red Spot one after another and thrived, establishing the real ‘Lightning Civilization’. Of course, their civilization was completely different from the civilization established by the intelligent carbon-based creatures. At the very least, 99% of the information that Li Yao read was incomprehensible. He had no idea what the plasma cells were doing, what they were building, or what they were chasing after. On the other hand, if the ‘Lightning Civilization’ could observe the debauchery, love and hatred of human beings, the rise and fall of a nation, heroes and epics, and so on, they wouldn’t be able to understand what the highly self-organized carbon constituents were doing, would they?

However, there were some things that all civilizations shared.

Li Yao ‘saw’ that the plasma cells had ignited red phosphorous flames one after another in the depths of the red spot and recorded specific information with the bouncing flames.

Maybe, it was the discovery of their major research, their understanding of the universe and the universe, their secret arts to pass on their life, and the method to build a ‘lightning warship’ that was even stronger.

It was also possible that the poems in which they chanted ‘belief’ and ‘love’ were merely glamorous, useless show-offs, or even spells based on their origins that were based on the superstitions of the sun.

Just like the lightning that they had tried to modify in the past, they were now modifying the super tornadoes that they were in right now. They controlled the electric current, electric charge, and voltage precisely, the clouds made of helium and methane, and the speed and angle of the storm, just so that the big red spot they were in would be larger, more stable, and last longer. Also, they could absorb more elements from the depths of the ancient giants and carry the more glamorous fire of red phosphorus.

The natural Big Red Spot could only last a hundred years, but after their modification, it could last three to five hundred years. For the Lightning Civilization, it was almost eternal.

Then came the war.

Wars, especially civil wars, were an integral part of the growth of all civilizations.

The war between two large red spots, billions of lightning bolts, and immeasurable plasma cells had begun!