Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

He saw that the Sect of Destruction was struggling painfully in the bright gold ’embryo’ and trying to break through the barrier, but to no avail.

At first, veins and nerves as thick as earthworms that looked like boas and dragons appeared on his body. Then, pink blood leaked out from the wrinkles on his skin. The blood quickly expanded into foam and covered him. At first glance, he looked like a statue made of foam.

The bubbles were larger and larger, emitting glittering colors. With cracking noises, glamorous, colorful butterflies flew out of the bubbles.

It was like the collapse of the genes of the Sect of Immortals. The cells all over his body turned into independent entities that were out of his control.

Li Yao recalled the tyrannosaur that he had seen in the periphery of the ancient relics.

After the tyrannosaur collapsed and died, a lot of butterflies burst out of its body, too.

The boundary of life lost its significance at this moment. Even the concept of ‘life’ itself needed to be redefined.

Li Yao did not know whether what he saw was an illusion or reality. He could not help but shudder.

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle... Deep swallowing sounds came out of the Cultivator’s throat. His brainwaves turned fuzzy like a gradually dispersing swirl. He tried to extend his arms, only to break them one after another. Before his arms hit the ground, they had already turned into countless bubbles and butterflies.

Very soon, he shrank, dimmed, and evaporated like water that had been splashed on a hot ground on a summer afternoon.

“It’s a pity that the tester performed quite well in the beginning. He realized that the form of human beings was the perfect direction for the evolution of carbon-based intelligent life. Before the civilization advanced into the third world war, he made only one mistake. He was among the best testers.

The voice said casually, “It’s a pity that he made an unforgivable mistake when he was trying to save our civilization in the face of the apocalypse. He was planning to develop the human brain, stimulate the brainwaves, and condense the consciousness of the bees with the strategy of ‘super collectivism’. He planned to turn our civilization into a giant swarm of insects so that most people would be willing to sacrifice themselves in order to save the lives of the queen bees, the soldiers, and the workers.

“From the very beginning, he devoted too many resources to the development of the human brain, the enhancement of brainwaves, and the transmission of the consciousness of the bees. Very soon, he wasted three precious opportunities and failed.

“Consciousness of the bees...”

Li Yao was aware that the Pangu Clan had a strong propensity for the civilization of the bees. Although every individual was essentially independent, the large-scale telepathic thoughts and the exchange of information had made them much more dependent and worshipful than the Nuwa Clan and the human beings. After the loss of their emotions and free will, they had become tiny screws on the machinery of the enormous civilization. The Exo was the supreme commander of the remaining soldiers of the Pangu Clan. The way he rescued the civilization had been marked by the Pangu Clan, too. It was not unusual that he thought of turning the entire Earth into a giant honeycomb.

Li Yao just didn’t understand. “Is the consciousness of the bees not allowed?”

“Yes, absolutely not.”

From the moment the voice appeared in Li Yao’s mind, it had been very calm and dull. But at this moment, it revealed intense disgust and even... fear. “The Primeval Civilization is a race that emphasizes free will. It is very appropriate to say that we are somewhat ‘selfish’. Even if every one of us decides to sacrifice for the collective, it should be done with 100% of our willingness. We cannot allow any ‘Queen Bee’, ‘Ant Queen’, or ‘Heart of Swarm’ to overstep their boundaries and make decisions for us. Can you understand the difference?

“All in all, evil existences such as the consciousness of the bees and the Insect Clan are the greatest enemies of the Primeval Civilization. Our successors can take any form. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have a body of flesh and blood, but it doesn’t matter if they upload their consciousness to the network or the supercomputing cloud. However, it is absolutely-absolutely not the consciousness of the bees or the insect clan. Absolutely not!

The intensity of the voice far exceeded Li Yao’s imagination. Li Yao also perceived the most important information from the soundwaves. “The consciousness of the bees is your biggest enemy... So, the ‘flood’ is a kind of consciousness of the bees, a large swarm of insects?”

There was a long silence.

“Of course, it’s not that simple.”

The voice said, “You don’t need to know now.

“Then, what about the civilization represented by the Cultivators?”.

Li Yao continued asking, “Will the Pangu Civilization be completely destroyed?”

“It depends on you, or rather, ‘you’.

The voice said, “Look, a new batch of testers are ready for the challenge. They seem to be your kind.”

In Li Yao’s vision, more than ten golden fetuses appeared one after another in the place where the Sect of Doom turned into foam butterflies. Countless humanoids were crouching inside them like babies.

Li Yao’s soul immediately shrank to the minimum.

Ding Lingdang, Long Yangjun, Boss Bai, Yan Liren, Li Jialing, Li Linghai... The human experts had finally broken through all the obstacles and marched into the black stargate for the ultimate test!

Li Yao felt that his mouth was dry, and his heart was almost jumping out of his chest.

“What if...”

He stammered, “They’ve made more than three mistakes in the test. Will they make the same mistakes as the Cultivators?”

“Of course.”

The voice said, “Their corpses will raise the height of the tower by one millimeter, and the Pangu Civilization and your civilization will be the 101st and the 102nd civilization to fall here.

Unless I pass the ultimate test and receive the legacy of the primeval era, will I be able to stop their test?

Li Yao asked, “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

The voice said, “Are you ready to push forward our civilization?”

Li Yao was silent for a long, long time.

Then, his soul flowed toward the only option and touched the bright gold one.

As the bright gold options turned into streaks of brightness, all the options and deductions that followed were accelerated. Li Yao did not even need to pick any of them. Everything was rushing forward naturally.

No. This was not a test or a game at all. It was something like an animation. The voice was telling Li Yao the real history of Earth—the last events of the ancient Earth in the primeval era.

“You made the right choice, the only choice.

The voice said, “In the real history of Earth, the supervisor of the ‘pushing into the universe’ project was ‘Wan Zanghai’, the fifteenth chairman of the Earth Council. He was an iron-blooded man who was almost perfect.

“Before he embarked on the path of ‘Savior’ and ‘Devil’, he was active in the post-Wasteland Era as the ‘Ultimate Executive of the Water Purification Industry’.

“After the three wars, the entire Earth was polluted. Clean drinking water became a hard currency. The water purification technology, which was efficient, reliable, and low-energy, was also something that could determine life and death. At first, Wan Zanghai developed a lot of water purification technologies and equipment as an outstanding inventor. When he made his first bucket of gold, he displayed an amazing business acumen and united all the water purification companies into the second-to-none force on Earth at that time. What was even more remarkable was that he also had a noble personality and a holy heart. He did not monopolize the water purification technology to make excessive profits. Instead, he gave a lot of the technology and precious water purification technology at a low price to those who needed it for free. As a result, he established a good image and a distinguished reputation among the underground people, the Radiators, and the modified people. He was regarded as a ‘saint’ by almost everyone regardless of his faction or position-at least at that time.

“Therefore, nobody had any objection to Wan Zanghai becoming the Chairman of the Earth Council. Most people even believed that only ‘saints’ such as Wan Zanghai could supervise the grand plan to march into the universe.

“However, all this is just a disguise. The so-called holiness and kindness are just preparations for a deeper and darker purpose. Wan Zanghai is not a saint at all. He has been in cahoots with the nobles and the rich for a long time. He is even a spokesperson co-produced by the nobles and the rich. He is an ‘artificial saint’. His purpose is to win the trust of the ordinary people with his so-called generosity and selflessness so that they will believe that he is capable of supervising the plan to march into the universe. That way, he will know his place and not cause any trouble.

“Think about it. Without the support of the rich and powerful, how could Wanzang Hai squander the precious clean water resources without being hindered by any interest groups?

“In short, the rich and powerful have long been prepared to abandon the majority of the public and flee on their own. The Thousand Hide Sea is just a puppet that they carefully packaged for this purpose.

“However, the nobles and magnates who claimed that they were in control of everything underestimated the ambitions of Wan Zanghai.

“The rich and powerful make use of him, and so does he.

“At that time, an organization named ‘Deva Society’ rose up quietly. Its believers were mostly radiationers, modified human beings, and mutants who were influenced by spiritual energy.

“They advocate the ‘genetic superiority’ theory and believe that only those who are most sensitive to crystals and spiritual energy are qualified to survive with the best genes. “No matter whether it is money, status, or power, only genes are most important—this is the slogan of ‘Devaism’.

“I believe you must’ve guessed that the man behind the curtain of the Deva Society is Wan Zanghai. On one hand, he is using his power in the Earth Council to cover the activities of the Deva Society, and on the other hand, he is using the Deva Society to recruit a lot of superhumans and spiritual energy-sensitive Cultivators to serve as his personal soldiers. He is hiding his claws and wings in secret.