Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao couldn’t help but exclaim when he heard that. He seemed to understand why the Primeval Clan, which lived on Earth in the primeval era with no spiritual energy but only technology, could finally control spiritual energy and dominate the universe. “It sounds crazy to march toward the source of the meteoroid shower. The odds of success are close to zero. But the odds of success of all the other plans are not much higher than zero. It is a gamble after all. Why don’t we set the stakes and the benefits to the maximum?

The voice said, “Crystal has the ability to nourish everything. The spiritual energy contained in a few meteorites is enough to bring the dying wasteland back to life. If a planet made of crystals is the origin of the meteor shower, what a prosperous world it will be. Even if only a few survivors can reach the place, it is very likely that our civilization will be revived.

“After an entire year of discussions and arguments, all the seemingly safe plans have been proven to be impossible. Our civilization has finally abandoned all objections and united. We have burned all our wisdom and courage and paid the most important sacrifice toward this goal. In a short span of a hundred years, we have developed advanced enough technology for sailing in the sea of stars and hibernating in the human body. We have also created starships that can accommodate billions of people. We have embarked on a grand escape plan-no, a grand plan to march into the universe!

“Alright. I believe that you have a general understanding of what is going on now. Now, let’s continue the test. As the ‘Chairman’ of the Earth Council, you will control the power of the entire planet and complete the purpose of a long voyage by developing certain technologies and building super-large starships that can accommodate the minimum functioning of a civilization within a hundred years.

“Remember, every choice you make will determine the survival of our civilization and even change the future of the sea of the universe forever. Therefore, don’t let the so-called ‘justice, kindness, and mercy’ interfere with your judgement and make a choice that is truly beneficial for our civilization!

“Huh?”

mol

Li Yao did not realize what was going on for a moment. He thought quickly and shouted, “That’s—that’s absurd! I’m just an adventurer. I’m not a qualified politician or… a scientist at all. How can I be stronger than the billions of politicians and scientists of the Earth Era and make every correct choice in such a short amount of time? Isn’t it too unreasonable?”

“This is just a test. All the options are highly abstract and simplified. Of course, you are not required to know all the details of every technology.

The voice said, “We just want to make sure that your brand-new species, with keen technological insight and future perception, will not waste our heritage. Besides, you have three opportunities to make mistakes. As long as you listen to our suggestions obediently, the test will continue.

“Well—”

Li Yao still found it absurd. “Are all the adventurers of the hundreds of civilizations in the past going through such tests? No wonder they failed the test. It was simply a game, if not based on intuition and luck!”

“As I said just now, ‘luck’ and ‘fortune’ are perhaps the most crucial factors for the rise of a civilization.

The voice said, “It is not wrong to consider the test as a test of your luck.

“But,”

Li Yao was going to argue, but an astronomical amount of information flooded into his brain unstoppably like the terrifying volcanic eruption and avalanche not long ago.

The brand-new ‘passages’ were similar to the peak of carbon-based intelligent life through the manipulation of an ancient fungus and a spore in the beginning. The only difference was that countless ‘technology’ and ‘policy’ replaced the original direction of mutation. Every piece of technology and policy had mutual checks and effects, which could accelerate, unlock, or hinder the implementation of new technologies and policies. The overall complexity was hundreds of times higher than before. In the range of Li Yao’s vision, there was a glittering, blood-red countdown in the upper left corner. It was counting down rapidly from a hundred years ago. Every day seemed as short as a second.

In the upper right corner was a progress sheet, indicating that he had made 1% progress. He was still short of hundreds of key technologies to send human beings out of the solar system and cruise in the sea of stars for tens of thousands of years.

Various technologies, including the parameters of the beta version of Earth, such as the population, the energy status, the pollution index, the latest movements of the major forces, the citizens’ reactions to the ‘apocalypse’, and so on, were presented in the most chaotic and furious data.

As the endless options poured down like a waterfall, Li Yao didn’t even have the time to curse.

‘Hydraulic fracturing mining method’, ‘strengthened exoskeleton’, ‘Nano-level composite armor’, ‘ion thrusters’, ‘outer space ecological circulation system’…

Li Yao had to set the funding, personnel, facilities, and other resources for the development of the technology. He even had to veto the unnecessary technologies in order to determine the completion time of the technology.

‘Earth Core Mining’, ‘Self-discipline Robots’, ‘Super Logic Computers’…

In the meantime, he had to make breakthroughs in a series of advanced technologies.

Armored torpedo, nuclear fusion missile, pulse gun…

The development of such cutting-edge weapons seemed unnecessary, but who knew whether or not he would run into ancient alien species during his millions of years of wandering in the sea of stars? It was impossible for him to abandon the technological advancements in the field of weapon development.

Even though Li Yao was an outstanding Master Artificer in the era of 40,000 years of Cultivation, it did not mean that he could grasp the correct direction of technological advancement in a world without spiritual energy. The few meteorite fragments brought too few crystals. When applied to the escape of an entire civilization, they were simply like a drop of water in a bucket. Most of the starships and hibernation facilities of the escape fleet had to be resolved by conventional technology. Li Yao was not an expert in such matters at all. Just as the voice had said, most of the time, he could only rely on his ‘intuition’ and ‘luck’ to go on a rampage. On the other hand, it was different from the spore evolution procedure just now. Although he was the leader of the civilization right now, it did not mean that everybody would obey his command.

As the tests went on, Li Yao learned more and more of the hidden parameters of the Earth at that time, which gave him a deeper understanding about the complicated, unpredictable structure of the planet before the apocalypse.

Although the Earth Council became the nominal governing body of the entire civilization, the remnants of the old countries and the people did not disappear immediately. They went underground and were still active as fundamentalists and extremists.

“Those who are not of our species must have different intentions. Only we, the so-and-so people, are the representatives of the entire civilization. Only we are qualified to survive in the universe!

Such arguments were everywhere on Earth at that time.

Moreover, the technology of starship manufacturing and the hibernation of human beings had just begun. Ambitionists of different nationalities were arguing about the proportion of the population that could board a starship in the end, which could even lead to new conflicts.

Other than that, although the ‘Battle of Superpowers’ was over, the Radiation Clan and the modified people who used to live on the ground were not entirely wiped out. The muscular guys who boasted a lot of ‘superpowers’ were the best workers and warriors. They would be of great help to the plan of the entire civilization to march into the universe. But at the same time, they were also full of resentment and hatred for the underground people, or rather, those in power, and considered the Earth Council to be their biggest enemy. They did not hesitate to perish together with the underground people and sabotage the plan of the Earth Council’s starship production. “You bastards have made a mess of the planet and are planning to run away now, but you are leaving us here to die? Let’s die together!”

It was the cry of many radiationers and modified people at that time.

How to deal with the ultranationalists, the radiationers, and the modified people who were hiding in the darkness, was a headache for the highest authorities of the Earth Council, especially the latter. A hundred super experts could be crushed by a hundred heavy tanks easily in a head-on battle, but when a hundred of them snuck into various shelters and military bases in disguise, the damage that they could cause was too much for even ten thousand tanks to stop.

Although the spiritual war was over, the lucky survivors of the war had found the right way to utilize their abilities.

They were corroding the perilous escape plan like fatal viruses.

Politically speaking, Li Yao had always advocated for an open and aboveboard democratic and republican system. He believed that power absolutely could not be concentrated on a single person. It had to be supervised by the entire nation.

He had foiled the plots of the ambitious schemers who claimed that they were ‘saving the civilization’ countless times.

However, faced with the apocalyptic crisis of the post-Wasteland Era, his belief was clouded without him knowing. He had to admit that democracy could not save the planet that was riddled with holes and deformed. Only an iron-willed man could bring new life to the entire civilization.

“Maybe Boss Bai, Li Jialing, Long Yangjun, and even Ding Lingdang are more suitable for such tests than I am.

Li Yao laughed at himself.

There was another person who was perhaps more suitable for such a test than anybody else – Jin Tuyi, who was already dead.

If Jin Tuyi had been the leader of the Earth at that time, how would he have handled such a chaotic situation?

Li Yao recalled everything about Jin Tuyi in his head. He retrieved every piece of information about Jin Tuyi from the depths of his brain and condensed them together with his amazing computational ability.

He simulated his logical way of thinking into Jin Tuyi and resolved the problem at hand in Jin Tuyi’s way.