Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“What a coincidence!”

Li Yao found it hard to understand. He put on a dumbfounded expression and said, “Doesn’t that mean that it is completely random to be able to ascend to the top level of the Heaven’s Tower? It depends on luck, or… the joy of the founder—the creator of the black wall?”

“For example, if a civilization is handsome and vigorous, the civilization will be able to reach the top of the Tower of Heaven through the ‘VIP channel’, and if a civilization is ugly and wretched, they will be trapped in the hundreds of checkpoints until they die? T-t-this… Although I believe that the civilization of mankind is definitely the most handsome one among the hundreds of civilizations, and my own image and demeanor are definitely enough for me to walk through the ‘VIP channel’, it doesn’t make any sense at all!

“You’re right. But the ‘VIP channel’ or not, it will be the same in the end. Even if the seemingly lucky civilizations can reach the top of the Heaven’s Origin Sector safely, none of them will be spared when they are faced with the final problem.

The Observer continued, “According to the research of the experts of the Pangu civilization, there are hundreds of different checkpoints inside the tower, which means that there are hundreds of world fragments that are similar to the ‘Thunder Valley’, ‘Gravity Sea’, and ‘Snowy Mountain’. The frequency and even the order of the appearance of the world fragments are all random. It is very likely that the order to enter the tower is the ‘Thunder Valley’, the ‘Gravity Sea’, and the ‘Snowy Mountain’. The next time, the order will be completely reversed, or the traces of the checkpoints will be gone and replaced by other world fragments that are even more dangerous.

“Our experts have tried to attack the outer wall of the tower with brute force, but none of their techniques could damage it at all. It was like the wall of the tower was packed with extremely advanced energy-absorbing materials that could absorb all the destructive energy that was attacking it. It was also like the gaps between the molecules that constituted the materials of the tower that led to the four-dimensional space. All the energy that we launched was absorbed into the four-dimensional space. No matter how we attacked, the tower remained absolutely still.

“Some experts and scholars also tried to reach the miniaturized sea of stars on the top of the tower along the outer wall of the tower. But when they reached a certain height, they would be affected by the magnetic field disorder and the abnormal mental waves. Not only would their magical equipment be wasted, their brains and souls would be seriously affected, too, and they would fall from the sky one after another. According to the survivors, the closer they got to the top of the tower, the higher the tower seemed to be. The miniaturized sea of stars seemed to be more and more vast and deep, too. It was always within their reach, but they would never be able to reach it. The feeling was like they were taking a one-meter-long thread and cutting off half of it every day. They would never be able to finish

“Then, a primitive, primitive, and majestic voice would emerge from the depths of their souls, warning them to stop moving forward. Only by climbing from the inside of the tower would they be able to walk on the only path. Such opportunistic methods would be deemed as ‘test failures’ and bring disaster to the entire civilization.

“It can’t be helped. Faced with such a magnificent and unbelievable force, our experts and adventurers can only crack it from the inside.

“Over the past thousand years, we’ve finally cracked almost a hundred of the hundreds of world fragments. We’ve also found a lot of corpses of the testers of the ancient civilization in the world fragments, including their notes and wills. Almost every civilization has information storage magical equipment that is similar to jade chips. We were able to glean some of the weirdness and unreasonableness of the ‘ultimate test’ from the broken, mottled information.

“The so-called ‘ultimate test’ is not a hard indicator of wisdom, courage, combat ability, or deduction ability. It also seems to have nothing to do with the traditional sense of ‘kindness’ and ‘evil’. Among the hundred ancient civilizations, there were the ‘saints’ who were filled with kindness, advocated for peace and communication, and willingly destroyed all their weapons for the continuity of their civilization. There were also the ‘great carbon-basedists’ who grew up in the most extreme environments and advocated for survival of the fittest. There were the ‘Asuras’ who advocated for the survival of the fittest, who were cruel to the extreme. There were also the ‘mechanical ascendants’ who fought so hard in the civil war that their heads were bleeding, and all morality and order collapsed. After the main civilization collapsed, there were only a few timid, wretched, and despicable adventurers left. There were also those who were highly united and incomparably hot-blooded. Every individual was willing to sacrifice themselves for their civilization. The good ones, the evil ones, the timid ones, the brave ones, the despicable ones, the collectivists, the extreme ones, the self-centered ones, the ‘great carbon-based fundamentalists’, the ‘mechanical ascendants’ who advocated to get rid of their bodies of flesh and blood, and their souls to be implanted into metal boxes… There were all kinds of choices. But when faced with the ‘ultimate test’, they were all defeated. None of them were favored by their ancestors.

“There was even a civilization with immeasurable wisdom that ranked first among the hundred ancient civilizations, far more developed than the Pangu civilization and the human civilization. It was said that they solved all the mysteries left by the ancestors and made every correct and complicated choice. Their performance was flawless, but after they solved the last problem perfectly, they were still judged to have failed the test and ruthlessly obliterated by the ancestors.

“Therefore, the last words of the testers of many civilizations were full of resentment and complaints. They roared unwillingly and questioned the rationality and authenticity of the ‘ultimate test’. They suspected that it was not a test to retrieve the heritage at all but a cruel joke, a fatal trap, and a ‘blackhole’ that attracted countless civilizations. “The ancient civilization, whose wisdom was immeasurable, left very detailed last words before its destruction and came to a terrifying conclusion. They believed that the so-called ‘ancient heritage’ did not exist at all. Or rather, the Primeval Lord of Heaven did exist, but it was not a friendly civilization at all. The Primeval Lord of Heaven did not intend to give his heritage to the latecomers at all. On the contrary, it was a trap. The Primeval Lord of Heaven was a malicious civilization. The purpose of the trap was to attract the newborn civilizations in the future so that they could deliver their new, ever-changing possibilities into the Primeval Lord of Heaven and become the freshest ‘nutrition’ for him.

“Do you see what I mean? The Teacher is like an evil dragon that has fallen into a deep sleep. Maybe a long time ago, it was seriously wounded for some reason and had to hide in the depths of the Pangu Universe to hibernate and repair itself. But in order to repair its damaged functions, it needed a lot of fresh flesh, blood, and nutrition. As for us, the civilizations that have been marching forward and walking into the trap, we are like ignorant rabbits and lambs that have jumped into the mouth of the Teacher.

“Be wary, my friends. There are no ancient treasures at all. We are the greatest secret treasures ourselves’—these were the last words that the intelligent civilization left for all the civilizations in the future.

“Starting from the civilization of wisdom, countless civilizations warned the civilizations of the future with their own experiences not to move forward, not to take the ultimate test, and not to become yet another sacrifice for the perverse psychology and evil purposes of the ancestors.

“However, it is not hard to imagine that, at this point, no civilization will stop or turn back.

“They were always full of confidence. They thought that they were different from the rest of the world and that they would definitely grasp the key to the knowledge that their predecessors failed to find and that they would be favored by their predecessors.

“Then, just like their predecessors, they failed, screamed, and moaned for the last time, condensing their bodies into pathetic tombstones.

“Including us, even though we knew that our ancestors were not ‘kind’ and that it was very likely that they were an evil existence as cruel and merciless as the flood, did we have any other choice except to go home?

“It’s impossible. Our home no longer exists, at least as far as the Pangu civilization is concerned. But once the last survivors of the Pangu civilization decide to take their chances, do the explorers of the human civilization have any other options except to march forward?” Li Yao was silent for a long time.

Lu Qingchen and the mental devil were silent, too, while they pondered.

“Yes. We don’t have a choice.

Li Yao gritted his teeth and said, “We knew that there were tigers in the mountains, but we still chose to go there. Whether the founderthe maker of the black wall—was kind or malicious, we had to get its heritage. Whether it offered it to us or we snatched it ourselves, we had no other choice!

“Besides, “Now that the civilization with the highest wisdom and combat ability has failed, perhaps the standard of the ‘ultimate test’ is not about wisdom, courage, or combat ability but whether or not an individual of the civilization is handsome enough!

“If so, won’t my chances be limitless?”

“…I admire your courage. Perhaps, when faced with the unpredictability and endless mysteries of the vast universe, only you, who are always full of courage, can be fearless of the risk of mental breakdown and be confident every second.

The Observer played with his long tail and said, “Although I think that the structure of the limbs of human beings is very abnormal, and your appearance is not worth commenting on from an aesthetic point of view, who knows? In terms of genes, you are indeed the closest to the primeval ancestors, or even the clones of the primeval genes. Therefore, the heirs that the primeval ancestors have waited for billions of years might really be you. “That will do!”

Li Yao was refreshed. He clenched his fists and shouted, “What should we do next?”

The Observer listened to the thunder above the valley and said, “The noises above seem to be dying down.”

Li Yao stuck his ear to the ice wall, too, while he sensed the quakes deep inside the snow mountain. He nodded and said, “Yes. Almost all the energy inside the snow mountain has been spurted out. The hot and cold energies have been neutralized and annihilated. The power of the avalanche and the eruption of magma has passed the threshold and is failing.