40,000 Years of Cultivation

Li Yao picked up a handful of black sea water and found that the sea water was like a mixture of mucus and sand, spilling from his fingers in a very strange form.

It seems that the collapse of the Ethereal Realm has affected the core logic layer, and even the dynamic model of the sea cannot be kept stable, resulting in all kinds of weird changes.

This is a deserted world, and Li Yao didn't perceive the strong breath of life.

After walking along the beach for a long time, the only thing that can be called "life" is that it can be seen everywhere on the beach, like a deflated leather ball, but with countless tentacles, like the weird mixture of crabs and jellyfish. thing.

These weird big crabs are motionless, emitting a very unpleasant rancid smell, whether they are dead or "alive".

Naturally, they are not the virtual life produced by the virtual spirit world, but the artificial intelligence added when the virtual spirit world is constructed. The original plan is to use them to modulate the original ocean, monitor various data changes of the virtual sea, and accelerate the virtual life. Birth.

However, with the collapse of the virtual spirit world, not only did virtual life not be born, even these core artificial intelligence databases have become more and more verbose and cumbersome, with a large amount of data overflowing, falling into an infinite loop, and unable to run any instructions.

"Boom...boom...boom..."

In the purple sky, the zigzag-shaped dark clouds rolled feebly, and thunder was thundering one after another, but the thunder was only the first half but not the second half, like a rooster with its neck stuck, the sound of abrupt cessation, It sounds indescribably uncomfortable.

On the other side of the beach, there is an endless city. Li Yao looked far away and found that this ultra-modern city also seemed to have experienced the most severe earthquake and meteorite bombardment. There were ruined walls, explosions and blazing flames everywhere. The burnt traces looked even more desperate and deadly than the black sea.

"Hey--"

The virtual spirit world gave Li Yao a very uncomfortable feeling.

It seems that there is only this collapsed world left in the entire universe, and in this collapsed world, he is the only one left.

He couldn't help but shrink his neck and yelled loudly.

The expedition team members such as Long Yangjun, Wei Qingqing, and Professor Xie Wufeng actually landed on the beach not far from him, but no one responded to his call.

When Li Yao finally found the army and wondered why they didn’t respond to him, he found that whether it was the mysterious Long Yangjun, the well-informed Professor Xie Wufeng, or Wei Qingqing, a spiritual clan, and all the expedition team members, they all Facing the beach in a daze.

Li Yao craned his neck, looked at the beach, and slowly opened his mouth.

He saw that from the end of the beach to this end, there was a long scroll, or hundreds of sand paintings.

The original sand brush method was very immature. It was like a child picking up a branch and sketching it on the beach. He couldn't understand what was being drawn. It was a mess of lines.

Gradually, the sand painting had its own content and skeleton. Although it looked immensely immature, it had a rugged style that reminded Li Yao of the murals left by cavemen in the depths of the cave.

The content of the sand painting seems to be the depths of the primitive ocean, all kinds of bizarre fungal blankets, single algae, nautilus and trilobites, etc., strange things.

With the gradual evolution of various primitive marine creatures, the brushwork of sand paintings has become more sophisticated, and the content arrangement has become more and more refined. With fine sand, a long scroll of biological evolution is depicted vividly and vividly.

Marine life, reptiles, mammals, primates, the enlightenment of Pangu civilization, the birth of modern mankind, the division of mankind, war and development, the scale of sand painting is getting bigger and bigger, the structure is getting more and more complicated, and it develops from the plane When it comes to three-dimensional, until the end, it can no longer be called a "sand painting", but a large-scale sand sculpture-a male and a female two very cute children sitting alone on the surface of a devastated planet, fleshy With his little hand resting on his cheek, he seemed to be looking up at the stars.

But before them are densely packed tombstones-human tombstones.

In the eyes of the two children condensed of gravel, there is no light. There is no sadness or joy, no fear or anger on the tombstone that has drowned the entire world.

Li Yao swallowed hard, and he faintly felt that such a long scroll of sand painting was a bit familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere.

By the way, isn't this the entrance of the Tinder Base, it is also a half-step too illusory sand painting version!

It's just that, at the end of the "Road to Evolution" created by Professor Mo Xuan, what replaces humans are some large silver-white spheres that are similar to his body and are condensed from liquid metal.

But at the end of this sand painting, although the entire planet is covered with human tombstones, there are still two children looking up at the starry sky. What does this mean?

Li Yao was a little dry and asked Xie Wufeng softly, "Professor Xie, what does this mean? Who left this piece of sand painting, Professor Mo Xuan?"

"I don't know, but it's... very strange."

Professor Xie Wufeng groaned, "Everything in the virtual spirit world is calculated in real time, and it is constantly changing like the real world. You see the ebb and flow of the tide here, although it is weak and slow, but still exists, and from the beach From a morphological point of view, not long ago, the rise and fall of the tide was much violent than it is now, and the seawater at high tide was enough to submerge the sand paintings."

"Yes."

Wei Qingqing also said, "Although the virtual spirit world in the past collapsed, it was not completely still, but it was running more violently, with no rules at all. It was a mountain collapse, lightning flashes, thunderous winds, and stormy waves one after another. The world, if this piece of sand painting is left at that time, it will definitely be erased, in other words,'deleted'."

"In other words—"

Li Yao pondered for a moment, "This sand painting was left after the ‘vitality’ of the virtual spirit world was gradually exhausted not long ago and turned into a dying and still world?

"That was almost the critical moment when Professor Mo Xuan was preparing to launch the final plan. What did he leave behind such a weird trace here at that time? If he had to'express' something, the illusory realm of the Tinder Base is enough to explain him. The concept of it.

"Furthermore, the initial naive and rough brushstrokes weren't quite like Professor Mo Xuan's style, but rather like an innocent child.

"The question is, besides Professor Mo Xuan, is there anyone else in the virtual spirit world? Will such a painting remain?"

"Brush strokes and styles can be simulated."

Professor Xie Wufeng said, "It is not complicated to create such a piece of sand painting. Both the technology and the computing power are a piece of cake. As long as the database is large enough, input a command to the crystal brain and it can be completed in an instant.

"The point is, who actually gave this ‘instruction’ to whom, and what purpose does it have?"

This question silenced everyone. Every expedition team felt cold on the back of their heads, as if there were two pairs of shiny little eyes hiding among the gravel, looking at them grinningly.

Li Yao knelt on one knee, carefully observing the sand paintings. For some reason, he had a very strange feeling. He felt that these sand paintings gave him an unwarranted...intimacy?

It was like a faint electric current sweeping through his body, making him feel numb from eyelids to lips. It couldn't be said whether it was pleasant or uncomfortable.

How to put it, he suddenly felt that these sand portraits were from his own hands, or that if he were allowed to describe the evolutionary path of life, he would probably have painted them like this.

Li Yao was taken aback, settled, and continued to ask: "Have you found the fragments of the '17th' and the '18th'?"

"not yet."

Professor Xie Wufeng said, "That was originally some fragmented, illusory runes and data fragments, even if it is completely obliterated by the virtual spirit world, it is not surprising.

"Why, do you suspect that this piece of sand painting was left over from the '17th' and the '18th'? It is also possible. Suppose Professor Mo Xuan first embedded a piece of sand painting-related instructions in their bodies. Under certain conditions The download is automatically activated, driving them to leave these things. Well, this is a fairly reasonable explanation.

"Let's go, take a look in the city."

The expedition team walked along the stairs full of cracks and weeds into the once majestic, now dilapidated city by the sea.

Li Yao discovered that this city is a collection of all cities in the history of human civilization. Antique pavilions and modern glass-wall skyscrapers are closely integrated.

There are strange peaks and waterfalls splashing over there, and here are the vacuum orbits that pierce the sky and the sunken square hundreds of meters deep.

However, after the collapse of the virtual spirit world, this "city of ten thousand cities" was completely turned into ruins. No matter the pavilions or skyscrapers, they were all entangled by weeds and vines, waterfalls dried up, pipes broke, and sunk. The square is full of debris and dust, which resembles the tomb of human civilization.

"Professor Mo Xuan once talked to me about his idea of ​​creating virtual life."

Looking at the deserted streets and the boneless cities, Professor Xie Wufeng said with emotion, "At that time, Professor Mo Xuan firmly believed that a new virtual life would be born, but he did not want to create a kind that humans cannot understand or understand. Human beings are virtual beings that are not under human control and are enemies of humans.

"How should I put it, he hopes to create a virtual life that has human ideas and emotions, recognizes human morals and values, and even regards himself as a'son of man,' or an evolutionary version of mankind.

"So, while creating that piece of'virtual primitive ocean', he also built this glorious city, bringing together the essence of human civilization, including our technology, law, morality, art, and the epic heroic stories. All condensed in it.

"You can think of this big city as a combination of a'historical museum' and a'big library'. The entire civilization is in it, and virtual life will be bred, born and constantly bred under the shining of this'civilized city'. Evolve and become a'good boy' in a sense."