Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“If it is Jin Tuyi…”

Dark gold waves were gradually spreading out of Li Yao’s soul, which looked like hidden, sharp demonic energy.

At first, he chose to bow and scrape to the magnates and magnates of the old days so that they would believe that he was their most loyal spokesperson and lackey. Also, in the escape plan in a hundred years, he would definitely fight for the most positions for their families and forces, which would be supported by the magnates and the rich.

Then, he infiltrated the academic world and took control of several top research institutes. On one hand, the propaganda greatly reduced the difficulty of building starships and developing hibernation technology. On the other hand, he even invented several habitable planets dozens of lightyears away without any evidence. They were all worlds with abundant resources and abundant crystals and spiritual gas. In such a way, he got everyone’s support and forced a lot of projects that were destined to consume tremendous resources and were almost black holes.

He even arranged for people to bewitch the public and spread the message that, dozens of lightyears away, it would be everyone’s “Land of Hope, Land of Rebirth, Land of Eternal Glory”. As long as they could sleep comfortably for a few hundred years, they would be able to start a new happy life on a planet that was hundreds of times better than Earth, provided that all the citizens could grit their teeth and squeeze out every penny in their pockets as well as every drop of blood in their body for the sake of their plan to march into the universe. On the other hand, he had also raised a private army made of old soldiers, radiationers, and modified people in the darkness. He bared his sharp fangs at many of his opponents.

His private soldiers pretended to be the remnants of the superhumans who had been defeated in the ‘Battle of Superpowers’. They assassinated a lot of people who opposed him in the Earth Council. Then, they pretended to be the most extreme nationalists and ‘pure humanists’ and attacked the nests of the superhumans wantonly, raising the fire of hatred between the two parties. In such a way, the superhumans, the extreme nationalists, and all the opponents suffered heavy losses and further concentrated the power in their hands.

He had also secretly established a lot of state-of-the-art weapon research centers and transmitted the most advanced military technology to his private soldiers in order to improve his own combat ability and gradually corrupt the regular army.

Faced with the apocalypse, the leader of the Earth was like a bandit in a mountain of blades and a sea of flames, cruel and bloody.

And Li Yao knew that, under the advancement of history, there were even more unacceptable and inhumane details.

Thankfully, it had happened billions of years ago. Thankfully, it was just a test or a game. Thankfully, he did not have to deal with the vivid details and victims. Otherwise, his belief might have collapsed at this moment.

His ruthlessness and independence had finally paid off.

Stimulated by the apocalyptic crisis, the wisdom and courage of mankind were boosted by a hundredfold. Together with the discovery of spiritual energy and the emergence of superpowered Cultivators, the tanks of the civilization that had stagnated for decades finally started functioning again. The golden era turned into the platinum era. The technological boom continued unabated. The fields of astronomy, aeronautics, energy, materials science, human science, and so on experienced rapid breakthroughs. Almost every three to five years, groundbreaking, groundbreaking research was put into the field of application. Glittering cities of silver, vacuum tubes, anti-gravity devices, unmanned floating discs, remote sensing systems, and other technologies that represented ‘future’ and ‘hope’ entered every household. Like the mini-computers decades ago, they were everywhere and nothing unusual.

When there were only thirty years left in the countdown, the first large-scale immigration starship modified from an old carrier was finally built. It was successfully freed from the shackles of gravity and entered the orbit of the moon. The first batch of volunteers for the hibernation project woke up successfully after ten years of hibernation!

Everything seemed to be developing in the best direction.

But Li Yao’s heart was still in the air. Because he was very clear that sending tens of thousands of people into space was absolutely different from sending everyone on Earth into space. The difficulty was exponentially higher.

Right now, although Earth had been savaged by the third world war and the super battles, after decades of rest, it had regained the population of 2.5 billion.

It was an impossible task to send 2.5 billion people to an immigration ship thousands of lightyears away in the unknown sea of stars.

Even so, Li Yao still tried his best to save as many people as possible.

Among the billions of options, Li Yao keenly grasped an option named ‘Death Education’.

Among the countless technologies that were waiting to be developed, he chose a technology named ‘disciplined machine teaching’ which, together with ‘auto-driving’, became a key research project.

But this time, the two options did not proceed smoothly. Instead, two streaks of redness were emitting earsplitting beeps.

Li Yao was dazed, not knowing what was going on.

“I’m sorry that you made the wrong choice. ‘Death education’ and ‘discipline machine teaching’ are not antidotes for our civilization.

The voice echoed inside his brain. “You’ve lost your first opportunity. But before you propose a reasonable proposal, I’m interested to know why you are doing this. What is your plan?”

Had he made the wrong choice?

He had lost one of the three opportunities. In other words, he had lost one of the three ‘lives’.

Li Yao took a deep breath and reminded himself not to panic. He had built the first immigration starship and only lost his first ‘life’ at this point. It should be a performance beyond the average standard. He still had two chances. Don’t be hasty. Take it slow.

“Based on the resources and the progress of my research, it is impossible for me to run away with everybody in the next thirty years.

Li Yao said calmly, “No matter how hard we try, the best we can do is run away with three to five hundred million people on board. In other words, we can only save one out of five.

“Yes.”

The voice said, “Your judgement is correct and even overly optimistic. Only one out of five can be saved. It is indeed the biggest problem for our civilization. The human heart is even more terrifying than the scourge of meteorites and black holes. How are you going to solve the problem?”

“I can’t. I am just a tiny human being and not an omnipotent god.

Li Yao smiled bitterly. “I can only try to think of the fairest and most reasonable way to decide who is qualified to board the immigration starship in the end.

“In my opinion, ‘the old, the weak, the women, and the children’ are the priority. It is a natural law. Considering the uniqueness of saving a civilization, the old and the weak, who don’t have much time left, cannot be the priority. Therefore, women and children are the most qualified to board the immigration starships. In a ratio of five to one, we might be able to save all the women and children.

“Fair enough.”

The voice said, “The women and the children are the hope of a civilization. The males are just consumables and reproductive tools. One male is enough to impregnate a hundred females and give birth to an entire tribe. Conversely, a hundred males and one female can only give birth to a few offspring no matter how hard they try. It is not enough to maintain the functioning of a civilization.

“Therefore, the immigration starship does not need to carry too many men. Theoretically speaking, it is. The question is, how did you do it?”

“Therefore, I chose the ‘Death Education’ strategy. Li Yao explained, “It is not a piece of technology. On the contrary, it is more like a philosophy. It teaches everyone how to face death, how to think about the relationship between an individual and a civilization, and how to look at their short life and the long journey of a civilization. In the end, I hope that people can look at their own life more calmly and peacefully, and I hope that they can be more willing to sacrifice themselves and pin all their hopes on the next generation.

“In the end, when the migration fleet sets off, all the children, pregnant women, and young ladies will be allowed to board the starship according to their age in the census. If there are empty cabins, they will line up according to their age. “I see.”

The voice said calmly, “That is to say, in your ideal state, the main passengers of the immigration fleet are women and children. Then, how are they going to steer the starship and colonize it when they reach their destination?”

“Sailing in space is not as complicated as it seems most of the time. Li Yao replied, “99.99% of the space zones in the universe are vacuum where there is nothing. It is much more peaceful than sailing in the ocean. In the worst-case scenario, it doesn’t matter who is controlling it.

“Since 99% of the passengers are hibernating, does it matter whether they are children or adults?

“Besides, in a situation where all kinds of cutting-edge weapons are popular and spiritual energy and crystals can significantly change the human body, I don’t think that women are necessarily weaker than men and cannot play the roles of soldiers and scientists. For example, I know a woman whose toughness… you won’t understand even if I tell you. “Besides, I’ve decided to devote a lot of resources to the development of ‘automatic education robots’, or fully-automatic education systems. When the children wake up from their long hibernation, they will be able to learn how to steer a starship and save the civilization with the help of supercomputers and fully-automatic robots.

“The stronger a young man is, the stronger his civilization will be. Although I know that there are still a lot of loopholes in the plan and even a lot of wishful thinking, I sincerely hope that the young men can start a new era of the Primeval Civilization—the civilization of Earth. I wonder, where have I gone wrong?”