Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

An image appeared in Li Yao’s brain.

One weirdly-shaped, magnificent warship after another transported the warriors, wise men, researchers, and academic authorities of the Pangu Civilization to the entrance of the ancient relics.

Before they left the starship and entered the primeval relics, they had all signed a contract and made a solemn vow. From now on, they would be isolated from the world and explore the mysteries of the primeval civilization with all their lives and souls. They would not be able to return to their hometown until the riddle of the primeval civilization was cracked and the ‘black wall’ that bound the civilization was overturned.

In fact, the first batch of experts and scholars were very clear that, with the profoundness, mystery, and complexity of the primeval relics, they would not be able to achieve their goal even if they spent their entire lives. The best they could do was build new steps with their dead bodies so that their descendants could step on their shoulders and climb up to their destination.

Even so, they had no regrets. They abandoned everything they had in the mortal world and fled into the quarantine zone known as the ‘Heavenly Palace’.

“The so-called ‘immortals’ of the ‘paradise’ are, of course, the ‘original ancestors’, or the makers of the black wall. But as time went by, our compatriots in the outside world misunderstood that it was our way of addressing ourselves.

The Observer sighed. There was sorrow that did not fit his young face. He continued, “It was understandable. I didn’t know until a long time later that the life in the Heavenly Palace was so different from the life in the central area of the Pangu Civilization. After thousands of years of development, the civilizations on both sides were developing in two completely different directions. They were almost two entirely different species and two civilizations that were deeply divided.

“Inside the Heavenly Palace, although the environment is ever-changing and full of dangerous and unpredictable fatal traps, the residents here are mostly experts and their descendants. Everyone’s heart is relatively pure, and they are all carrying the same mission. There are not many internal conflicts. The social order is very simple. It is like a paradise.

“However, outside of the Heavenly Palace, in the central area of the Pangu Civilization, due to the failure of the great expedition, as well as the existence of the ‘Great Flood’ and the ‘Progenitor’, all kinds of rumors and scaremongers have been spreading. Society is in a mess, and everybody is anxious. Almost everybody is worried about the ‘Armageddon’ all the time. Besides, due to the limited resources, a lot of them have to be sent to the ‘Heavenly Palace’ for us to study the secrets of the ancient civilization and the ‘Progenitor’. Therefore, social development has come to a halt. Internal strife and strife have been going on all year round.

“In order to suppress the unrest and free the citizens from the fear of ‘end of the world’, many people in the highest authorities have come up with ways to ’emotional seal’ and ‘mind control’. However, as I said just now, their emotional seals and mind control are misguided and will only further diminish the will and creativity of the citizens. Naturally, more resistance will be aroused. “However, the Pangu Civilization has developed for almost a million years after all. It is the well-deserved dominator of the Pangu Universe and is deeply rooted. It will take a long time for the disease to spread to the bones. Before that, the relationship between the Heavenly Palace and the outside world was still stable. The outside world provided the Heavenly Palace with endless resources, including abundant crystals and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, as well as the most excellent talents in the outside world. The Heavenly Palace excavated and analyzed the secret treasures inside the ancient relics. After figuring out the mechanism, it received a lot of new technology and magical equipment replicas and exported them to the outside world to maintain the last bit of vitality of the Pangu Civilization.

“Although we haven’t figured out the purpose of the Forerunners and the technology they employed, the hundred ancient civilizations that perished in this place have evolved at the same level as us. With countless scholars and adventurers burning their souls, sacrificing their lives, and working day and night, we have made great gains. “The first thousand years after the ‘Heavenly Palace’ was established passed peacefully. It was both the golden years of the Heavenly Palace and the last glory of the Pangu Civilization outside.

“It was the era of my parents and grandparents, and I was born in the second millennium after the Pangu Civilization discovered the ancient relics.

“In the second millennium, there were more and more conflicts between the Heavenly Palace and the outside world. The atmosphere was more and more intense, and the situation was more and more unpredictable. A dark haze seemed to be looming over the two parties.

“First of all, after the great excavations over the past thousand years, we’ve found all the technologies and magical equipment that are easy to analyze and copy in the Heavenly Palace. What comes next is going to be a tough nut to crack.

“Since you are also a refiner, you should have a certain understanding about materials science, spiritual energy science, aerodynamics, and other fields. You should know that the problems in the cutting-edge academic fields are not something that can be solved step by step. Often, the proof of a formula and the discovery of a law not only require the inspiration of a genius but also mysterious luck.

“We’ve used up all our luck in the first millennium. In the second millennium, the technical difficulties in front of us are like mountains that pierce through the clouds. They cannot be overcome in a day. It will take generations and hundreds of years of hard

work.

“However, the clansmen outside could not wait that long

“Over the last thousand years, they’ve been used to dealing with each other in the same way. They’ve been pouring tremendous resources into the Heavenly Palace, and the Heavenly Palace has been sending a lot of advanced, mature, and practical technologies and magical equipment to them every once in a while so that they can comfort the anxious and restless citizens temporarily.

“But right now, after a hundred years, we haven’t delivered many valuable technologies and magical equipment to the outside world, and the outside world has to maintain the input of a lot of resources. It is inevitable that the leaders of the outside world and those in the highest authorities of the Pangu Civilization will feel discontent and doubt.

“Well, now that I think about it, when we were building the Heavenly Palace and recruiting researchers and explorers, we made a very serious mistake. We recruited the top experts, scholars, and researchers in the cutting-edge fields of the entire civilization into the Heavenly Palace. Those who were left outside were all the top politicians and soldiers. Of course, there was an ‘academic committee’ as a bridge of communication between the two parties, but the scholars who stayed in the committee were all second-rate.

“The mindset of the experts, scholars, politicians, and soldiers are completely different. No matter how we explain the difficulties of our research to them and the importance of maintaining the continuous investment of resources, they will simply turn a deaf ear to us and demand that we produce our research results as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will have to reduce our investment in the Heavenly Palace. We might even have to send a team of inspectors to liquidate the work of the Heavenly Palace over the past thousand years. There was obvious disappointment and regret on the face of the Observer.

But Li Yao did not think so.

The Observer had been living in the primeval relics since he was a child. He was a pure scholar who grew up in a laboratory. Naturally, he did not know the complexity of the world or the perils of human beings. Li Yao, on the other hand, had dealt with the federation, the imperium, and the Sanctuary Alliance before. His wife had been the Speaker of Parliament, too. He was well aware that it was not as simple as playing a game named ‘Civilization’ to be in charge of a civilization.

Those who are not in charge do not know the value of firewood and rice. The Observer thought that ‘continuous resource delivery’ was a very easy thing to say, but in the outside world, it could cause a riot, or even a struggle between the imperial court and the underworld. Thousands of people would have to tighten their belts or even starve to death.

More importantly, Li Yao knew that the great expedition across the black wall into the multiverse had consumed most of the resources and potential of the Pangu civilization. It was the turning point of the Pangu civilization’s rise and decline. In the thousands of years to come, the resources of the Pangu civilization would certainly be running low. Besides, the rumors that ‘the flood is drawing near and the end of the world’ were corrupting the social order. Resentment would be brewing, and evilness would be spreading everywhere. The control of the supreme authorities would be greatly undermined.

Under such circumstances, not only did they have to maintain social order and force the citizens to tighten their belts, they also had to send tremendous resources to the ‘paradise’. The supreme authorities of the Pangu Civilization must’ve been racking their brains, too.

If the Heavenly Palace could produce research results continuously, the highest authorities could still manage to maintain such a ‘deal’. But when the Heavenly Palace failed to produce any valuable research results for a hundred years, how could the highest authorities convince all the citizens to cut their belts, which had been stretched to the limit, further?

The experts and scholars of the federation and the imperium had examined the political system of the Pangu Civilization before. For most of the time, the Pangu Civilization did not have an arbitrary ruler. It was still a republic that was negotiated by various tribes. Therefore, there was not a single dictator who could make a decision to provide resources to the Heavenly Palace unconditionally, unprincipled, and unlimitedly. Any supply of resources would certainly be scrutinized and scrutinized by… institutions such as the parliament.

On the other hand, there were too many secret treasures inside the Heavenly Palace that could potentially destroy the world. No civilization with a perfect system would allow such a force to be controlled by a small group of people. Even the Observer himself had said that, after a thousand years of development, the scholars inside the Heavenly Palace and their compatriots in the outside world had drifted apart and almost evolved into two different civilizations. Therefore, when their compatriots in the outside world grew suspicious of them when the Heavenly Palace failed to produce anything of value for a hundred years, it would not be strange at all for them to march into the Heavenly Palace and conduct a thorough investigation.