Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

It was a vast lake.

It was round, the water of the lake was pure, and it looked like a silver-white round mirror at the foot of the rolling mountains.

Once upon a time, this place was a place where countless living creatures gathered to drink water. It was also a hunting ground for ferocious beasts such as wolves, tigers, and leopards.

However, since the rise of mankind and the occupation of the mirror-like lake, no ferocious beasts dared to hunt in this place. The ferocious beasts that were too stupid to realize the horror of human beings had all turned into piles of bones by the lake, towers and tombstones of different shapes and sizes.

That night, the stars were particularly brilliant. Even the big, round moon could not cover the brilliance of the stars. The stars congregated into a vast ocean, like a silver storm that was raining down from the sky.

A bonfire had been lit in the tribe at the foot of the mountain. They were celebrating the hunting of another enormous prey. A tribesman, who had wrinkles all over his face and a hunched back, somehow left his tribesmen and went to the lake in high and low steps.

Behind them was a joyous and raucous celebration.

In front of him was a silent and deep unknown.

The tribesmen stared at their own reflection in the lake at first.

His forehead was slightly tilted back, and his nose was large and flat. The hair on his face had not entirely faded away, but two enormous canine teeth were protruding out of his lips. At first glance, he was still unable to get rid of the traces of antiquity and ignorance.

But his dirty eyes, which were slightly yellow, were absorbing the reflection of the lake water quietly. They gradually turned deep and sharp, adding darkness and silver.

The eyes of the tribe members gradually turned sharp. They licked the moon in the lake first, before they extended to the sky along the moonlight and the stars.

When billions of stars exploded in front of his eyes, he could not help but extend his hairy arms toward the endless sea of stars, as if he were trying to hold the entire universe in his hands.

“Hoho, hohoho!”

He began to howl, as if he were trying to break the darkness of the universe with his voice and give a name to the moon and every star. He also summoned his compatriots to the moon and the stars one day and see what the world in the sky looked like.

BOOM!

The moment the tribesmen extended their hands toward the starry sky and screamed, dazzling gold brightness burst out again, indicating that the tester had completed the second leap and evolved into the middle ages. A real ‘civilization’ had been born!

Li Yao watched everything quietly.

Like an omnipresent, omnipotent god, he watched the rise, struggle, and conquest of countless human tribes from above.

Then, he crawled into the body of the tribesman who was looking at the starry sky in front of the lake and sensed the indescribable joy and gratitude when human beings got to know him for the first time.

“That’s it?”

Watching ‘himself’ dancing in the lake, Li Yao mumbled in confusion, “Is this the so-called ‘ultimate test’?”

No wonder he was confused.

Although it was very difficult to make thousands of choices for the evolution of life and eventually the birth of a civilization in such a short period of time, the choices did not escape the basic route of human evolution. Li Yao only needed to make the choices based on his natural instincts, and he had basically completed the advancement from an ancient fungus carpet to a human tribe. Such a test did not seem to be compatible with the strength and mystery of the creator of the black wall, nor was it enough to stump a hundred ancient civilizations!

Li Yao pondered for a moment and realized that he had taken it for granted.

From his point of view, he naturally felt that the ‘ultimate test’ was too easy, because he was a pure human being and a clone of 100% of the original Master’s genes.

Therefore, he was very clear about the path of evolution that he, the Master, had taken. His instinctive reaction was the correct answer.

But what if the tester was not a human being like him but an intelligent life form with a carbon-based body?

For example, if the testers were born in rivers, lakes, and oceans like jellyfish and sponges, would they be able to tell that the ‘little silver fish’ were the species most likely to climb to the peak of evolution?

Or rather, would a test tester of the ‘Gonggong Clan’ choose to go to the land instead of exploring the ocean in search of the one billionth likelihood that a civilization would be born in the seawater?

By the same logic, the ‘Zhurong Clan’ was an intelligent species that was born in volcanoes and magma and lived on the high temperature and the ‘poisonous gas’. When a test subject of the Zhhurong Clan was in the undersea volcanic environment in the beginning, could he really resist the temptation of altering the structure of the membrane and absorbing the heat?

It was the same for the ‘Pangu’, the most successful, most powerful, carbon-based intelligent life form. Compared to human beings, the Pangu Clan was closer to the giant reptiles. Many of the Pangu Clan members looked like tyrannosaurs in human form. Perhaps, on the original planet of the Pangu Clan, the giant reptiles such as dinosaurs had never encountered the scourge of meteoroids or the abrupt changes of climate, which resulted in the unique appearance of the Pangu Clan today.

Then, when a candidate of the Pangu Clan was faced with a choice between a reptile and a mammal, could he choose a mammal as naturally as Li Yao did and persist through all the difficulties and setbacks? It was impossible. The logical thinking of every kind of carbon-based intelligent life was greatly influenced by the form of their body, which was the environment of the original planet. Even though they had retrieved the cells of the Master and analyzed the gene segments of the Master, which gave them a general idea of how the Master evolved, they could not help but be marked by their own civilization when they had to make hundreds of choices in the ever-changing environment.

In other words, the mutations of the Gonggong Clan, the Zhurong Clan, the Pangu Clan, or the ‘mechanical civilization’, the ‘black iron civilization’, the ‘half-energy civilization’, and so on were definitely not what Li Yao was seeing right now.

From this point of view, the experts and scholars of the Heavenly Palace were on the right track. Only by replicating a real human being could they completely see through the thoughts of the Teacher and even complete the test of the Teacher without any trouble.

However, this was just the beginning.

From the bottom of the ocean to the land, from ignorance to wisdom, from the spirits of all creatures to the king of the universe, mankind still had a long way to go. The ‘path to heaven’ that led to the universe along the stars was probably the real test. As he expected, when the thought flashed in his mind, another dull, deep, and ancient voice echoed.

“You’re here.”

The voice said.

The way the voice communicated with information was similar to that of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, except that it employed a very special structure of information compression and encryption. The amount of information contained in a syllable was dozens of times more than that of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan. As a result, Li Yao’s mind was filled with thousands of waves. It took him a long time to digest the three short syllables.

Manipulating the tribesman, Li Yao took a deep breath and sat down next to the lake.

The bright moonlight, the brilliant stars, the tranquil lake, and the laughter of his compatriots behind him were perfect places to discuss the mysteries of the primeval era.

“How should I address you?”

Li Yao tried to remain calm. Ripples appeared on his consciousness. “Was it ‘Progenitor’, ‘Black Wall Creator’, or ‘Primordial Human Beings’?”

“Naming does not mean anything to us. ‘Progenitor’, ‘Black Wall Creator’, or ‘Primordial Human Beings’ are all fine.

The voice said, “A long time ago, in what you call the ‘Primeval Era’, our species created the first civilization in the sea of the universe. Even though it was not the first civilization in the truest sense, the civilizations that were older than us were conquered and swallowed by us. Therefore, we call ourselves the ‘Primeval Civilization’. You may also call us the ‘Primeval Clan’.”

“The Primeval Clan of the Universe Sea?”

Li Yao did not let go of any opportunity to get to the bottom of the matter. “What does the Universe Ocean mean? Does it mean the multiverse?”

“Have you ever seen ‘grape’?”

The voice not only uttered the syllable ‘grape’ but also showed Li Yao almost a thousand kinds of plants that looked like grapes. “If every universe is a grape, a cluster of grapes will be a ‘cosmic ocean’, or a ‘mother universe’.

“But-“

Li Yao’s soul suddenly constricted. “There are more than one bunch of grapes on one vine. There are hundreds of thousands of grapes. Are you suggesting that there are more than one ‘multiverse’, but countless ‘cosmos’, ‘cosmos’, and ‘mother universes’?

“Good question.”

The voice said, with a hint of rejection in the syllables as well as an explanation. Even if Li Yao managed to answer, he would not be able to understand it at all. Instead, it would only consume his attention and make him lose himself in the vastness of the universe. “However, I cannot tell you the answer. The answer above the sea of stars is far beyond the scope of our information exchange.

“Then…”

Pondering for a moment, Li Yao realized that the voice was not trying to keep him at a distance. He changed his direction and asked, “Do you admit that you are the ‘Primeval’, the ‘Progenitor’, or the creator of hundreds of generations of civilizations in the Pangu Universe? That we are all your descendants, and that your bloodlines and mutations are, in a sense, your creations?”

“Yes.”

The voice admitted frankly.

“Then, did you create us and… destroy us and the civilization of hundreds of generations?” Li Yao’s soul was burning furiously. His bright gold telepathic thoughts were shivering violently.