Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The ghosts of the Primeval Civilization were all frozen.

“What did you say?”

The female captain found it hard to believe. “You came to this place after a lot of trouble and passed all the tests. Wasn’t it for the legacy of the primeval era? It was the only hope to save your civilization. But you are going to... refuse it?”

“That’s right. I refuse.”

Li Yao was calmer and more at ease. He smiled and said, “Don’t get me wrong. It was not a spur-of-the-moment decision to risk the survival of the entire civilization, nor was it a game of cat-and-mouse. I thought that the so-called ‘ancient heritage’ would do my civilization no good. Or rather, my civilization was not ready to accept such a generous gift. The time was not right yet!

“Why?”

The female captain stared at Li Yao and asked, “Can you explain?”

“Since the very beginning, I’ve been pondering what the real purpose of the ‘ultimate test’ is. What are you testing and weighing exactly? Are ‘justice’ and ‘evil’ really black and white?

Li Yao shook his head and said, “No. I don’t think so. On the path of civilization, the concepts of good and evil are changing all the time. There is more than one way to save a civilization. Who can say that they are always right?

“For example, in the civilization of mankind, there are people like Ding Lingdang and me, but there are also people like Long Yangjun, Boss Bai, Li Jialing, Li Linghai, Lei Chenghu, and the Spring Breeze... There are thousands upon thousands of different personalities. Everyone adheres to different ideologies and temperes their different beliefs. In their own way, they strive for the rise of the entire civilization. Do I have to be more right than them? Do I have to be more able to save the civilization? Or do I have to change everyone’s personalities and ideologies to be like me? Do I only have one voice, one ideology, one path? Even if it seems like a path of light and justice, is such a world necessarily better than the present?”

“Even I wouldn’t dare say that.

“I’m afraid that’s why you said ‘no correct answer’ in the beginning.

“I believe that, even after thirty thousand years of suffering and reflection, the survivors of the Primeval Clan will not agree unanimously that their ancestors were wrong, will they? Just as there are ‘Cultivators’ and ‘Immortal Cultivators’ among human beings, there must be two or even many of you who believe that their ancestors were not wrong. The ‘Great Extinction Order’ and the ‘Sun Defense Line Plan’ should have been more brutal.

“Therefore, ‘righteousness’ and ‘goodness’ are not what you value most at all. At the level of a ‘quasi-god civilization’, your belief has long surpassed the concepts of ‘righteousness’ and ‘goodness’. You may know that there is no way out if you dwell on the issues of good and evil.

“What you care about is not the difference between good and evil, but the attitude of a civilization when faced with a sudden expansion or a falling force.

“From the past on Earth in the beginning to the struggle and rise of the Primeval Lord of Heaven in the sea of the universe, you’ve hinted to me countless times that the manipulation and utilization of any kind of power is not without a price. The ‘Heavenly Dao’ has marked the price of every kind of power in secret. The more powerful the power is, the heavier or even more miserable the price will be. If I am too obsessed with the strength, not only will I not become the master of the strength, I will also become the slave of the strength.

“The mammoths and the saber-toothed tigers seemed to have received the blessing of evolution and grasped unparalleled strength in the environment at that time. They became the dominators of their respective regions, but the price they paid was that they shut themselves in and lost the motivation to continue evolving. In the end, when the ‘mutated species’ of human beings appeared, they were exterminated in the blink of an eye.

“The same tragedy happened to the alien species in space such as the ‘Void Hunters’ and the ‘Mountain Crab’. They originated from natural paradises with abundant spiritual energy. Their strength was thousands of times higher than that of the saber-toothed tigers and the mammoths, and the price they paid was thousands of times more painful. Had the flood not appeared, they would never have known what real wisdom and civilization looked like.

“What about the earthlings who entered the industrialization and the information society? They seemed to be in control of the advanced technology and the extraordinary civilization that no other living creatures on Earth could grasp, but the price they paid was that they lost their self-control and stimulated the self-destruction tendencies deep in their genes to the extreme. The first world war, the second world war, and even the thermonuclear war that turned the atmosphere into a black curtain and turned the earth into a wasteland. The third world war was the price that the earthlings paid for their strength.

“What about the Primeval Race, the descendants of the earthlings? Of course, you paid a higher price than the earthlings, the saber-toothed tigers, the mammoths, the void hunters, the giant crab...

“Too fast. Your civilization has evolved too fast. You are not the natives in the center of the universe but ‘mutated species’ that have invaded. Before you came to the center of the universe, you had never been in contact with spiritual energy on such a large scale. Isn’t the abundant and intense spiritual energy in the paradises a free source of power for you?

“With the help of the ‘completely free strength’, you completed the transformation from an ordinary civilization to a quasi-god civilization in only tens of thousands of years. You were also lost in the overwhelming strength without exception.

“In the fleeting moment just now, I also scanned your social form and technological development. I discovered that you are a rather abnormal civilization with a lot of faults. In certain fields, especially the military technology of bloody slaughter, you have developed to the point of perfection and even insanity. However, in some other fields related to the humanities, the legal system, and the ethics, you are not much better than those of the Earth. In fact, because of the coldness and darkness of the sea of stars, you have regressed to the feudal and tribal level of the Middle Ages on Earth. The division of technology and humanity is too weird.

“I believe that the forces that corrupted the alien species such as the Void Hunters and the giant crab and kept the low-level civilizations in the slave society have started corrupting the Primeval Civilization, too.

“Therefore, why did you behave so badly on the road to the rise of a civilization? Why did you issue the ‘Great Armageddon Order’? Why did you start another brutal civil war when you forgot the lessons of the Earth Era after slaughtering most of the civilizations? Why did you throw out the ‘Sun Defense Line Plan’? It is meaningless to blame it on the moral standards of certain people. The root of the reason is that you are lost in forces beyond your control and cannot free yourself. Your growth is so fast that your moral integrity cannot keep up with the progress of technology. You are too greedy. You tried to control what you could not control and achieved billions of years of glory in only tens of thousands of years.

“In the face of absolute strength and fatal temptations, is it possible to keep a clear head and make rational judgments? This is what you are really concerned about, right?”

The female captain listened quietly. Hearing that, she and the ghosts of the Primeval Lord of Heaven finally put on ashamed, regretful, and painful expressions.

The female captain’s lips were trembling. There was no telling whether it was because there was no corresponding answer in the pre-programmed procedure or because there was a certain truth that was higher than the procedure, but she remained silent.

“The new generation of human civilization in the Pangu Universe is lucky.

Li Yao’s smile was brighter and brighter. “Although we are a man-made civilization by accident, and although our ‘father civilization’, the Pangu Clan, and the Nuwa Clan, have left a lot of legacies for us, for a long time, the legacies have been buried under the yellow sand and floating in the sea of stars. We have made our way to where we are today by overcoming all obstacles with nothing but our own hands. Not only have we developed advanced technology and developed powerful techniques, our citizens also have a sound mind and body, a stable moral code, and a general consensus between the strong and the wise. Our civilization has been thriving and full of fearless hope.

“Under such circumstances, we discovered the relics left by the Pangu Civilization one after another. Since the gap between the Pangu Civilization and us is not too large, and the technology of the relics is sporadic, it will not have too much of an impact on our social form and ethics. Even if there are some subversive things, we can slowly digest them.

“It is safe to say that such a legacy is the most beneficial thing for the civilization of mankind at this moment.

“However, what about the ‘ancient heritage’ from the Primeval Civilization? According to you, it is at least hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us. It is unbelievably advanced and can bring our civilization to the level of a quasi-god civilization. Hehe. That’s too unbelievable. Just like it is impossible for an ordinary person to turn into a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator after taking an elixir, I can’t imagine what it would be like if an ordinary civilization suddenly turned into a quasi-god civilization.

“Let’s say, for example, that a poor man suddenly won a lottery worth tens of millions. Do you think he has enough knowledge, ability, and willpower to control the windfall instead of losing himself in the materialistic world?

“The ordinary people who used to live a simple life, although mediocre, had a drastic change of personality after they became rich overnight. Corrupted by their own desires, they went on a rampage and returned to poverty. They could not accept such an ending and fell into an even more painful abyss. I’ve heard a lot of similar stories.

“Even myself, who used to be a healthy, cheerful young man, is now suffering from ‘chronic mental derangement’ because of the immense strength that I gained after only a hundred years of training. My brain is seriously damaged, my wisdom is fluctuating, and I’m even suffering from schizophrenia. Those are all painful lessons!