Chapter 725: Progress itself, inheritance of civilization (8K chapter)

Li Qi began his journey.

This was somewhat similar to… everything he had done in the Immortal Heaven.

However, in the Immortal Heaven, he had manipulated things silently from behind the scenes, just like the original Will of Heaven.

But now, Li Qi was doing it with his own hands.

Seventy-five years.

Li Qi, with Mo Long's ideas, began his work in the Wasteland.

He built shelters, aided survivors, resolved food disputes, developed new technologies, and used various methods to rebuild this civilization.

This was actually very difficult.

If described in detail, it would be an incredibly grand adventure, because Li Qi could not undo his Seal, and he actually had no intention of undoing it.

He experienced all of this from the perspective of a Mortal.

He did not deliberately restrict his knowledge or intelligence; in fact, he fully utilized them to achieve many things that this world could not.

Other than sealing his cultivation, he did not deliberately restrict his actions.

During this process, he also met many native inhabitants of this world.

One after another, forces in the Wasteland were born, prospered, split, and perished.

Among them, some were former technology companies that still retained sufficient technology, even maintaining some production lines and technological research and development capabilities. What impressed Li Qi the most was an underground research institute. They had an underground laboratory from before the civilization's collapse, spanning three hundred floors, which allowed the institute to survive. They then became the absolute rulers of that region and were continuously dedicated to the revival of civilization.

Some were refugee gathering places, some only possessed the ferocity honed in the Wasteland, often serving as muscle and cannon fodder for technology companies, but they could also obtain some technology and supplies through this.

Some were military organizations, mostly former Patrol Officers from before the Wasteland, or even simply armies. They controlled violence, but they lacked the ability to replenish and maintain equipment, so… most could only plunder and rob, while a small portion chose to cooperate with technology companies, as they themselves were excellent pilots and thus still highly regarded.

There were also lone wolf squads, which were diverse and found everywhere.

In such a Wasteland, in just over a decade, Li Qi personally witnessed the degradation of civilization.

The Advancement Alliance's fifth-grade world foundation was buried, brilliant ideas were forgotten, magnificent buildings became ruins, and various books and manuscripts were burned to ashes for various reasons.

Many works were lost, technological methods gradually became 'technological myths,' and a large number of basic academic disciplines were lost due to the deaths of scholars. Even if there were electronic files recorded in storage devices, no one could understand them.

Yes, no one could understand them. Only a few surviving scholars, mostly within those technology companies, remained.

The outside world had completely collapsed. Survivors struggled for livelihood, and the most knowledge they could access were a few popular science books, from which they could glimpse the splendor of a decade ago.

In just over a decade, history had become legend, and civilization was completely cut off.

This was also a drawback of the Advancement Alliance, perhaps. They lacked top-tier experts who could say, 'As long as I exist, civilization exists.' So once too many people died, the entire civilization seemed to suffer amnesia, completely losing its former glory.

Beneath the cover of the ruins lay exquisite broken walls and remnants, which might conceal hidden treasures of the past.

Yet, there was still grandeur within.

Li Qi participated in many events that would influence the historical process of the entire world, even epoch-making events, in various places.

He once witnessed the cleansing flames of the Wasteland, where large-scale advanced weapons were deployed by the people of the Wasteland against a biotechnology company, destroying it. This former biotechnology company had begun extensive human experimentation, and the morality of the Wasteland could no longer restrain them. Moreover, they had a large number of test subjects—all the survivors of the Wasteland.

They captured many people, which led to the dissatisfaction of a lone wolf squad because they had taken a family member of one of the squad members.

After a series of adventures, this squad even caused a considerable stir in the settlement managed by Li Qi. Finally, they found the last nuclear arsenal.

With a boom, the Advancement Alliance's last remaining large-scale destructive weapons, along with a technology company that stored a large amount of biological data, were reduced to ashes.

Such incidents were extremely rare in the Wasteland, but this was not the only one.

More things happened in the settlement managed by Li Qi, such as being caught in the storm of war, being forced to fight two other factions for water resources.

Or, he personally witnessed the only hope for this world's recovery: the discovery of the network library previously built by the Advancement Alliance, which sparked a worldwide struggle. Ultimately, the technology company that unearthed it realized it could not protect it, so it simply destroyed it, completely obliterating all backup data of the entire Advancement Alliance.

Or, the final aftershocks of the Blood Meat Ovum erupted, with a large number of parasitic entities sweeping through all factions, and everyone had to face a massive parasitic impact.

The demise of the previous civilization, various major events.

No one recorded what role Li Qi played in all of this. After all, no one bothered to compile even a small portion of the events that occurred while Li Qi walked among their world.

Only Shen Shuibi stayed with him, the rabbit always by his side, experiencing various stories with him.

But…

The settlement he led preserved a great deal of knowledge.

His settlement attracted a large number of displaced people because it abolished slavery.

With a large workforce, he was able to start cultivating high-yield crops. Li Qi initially didn't know how to do it, but with the help of the aforementioned lone wolf squad, he obtained some data from that biotechnology company, enabling him to select and breed local species, which took him a lot of time.

But after more than a decade, Li Qi finally cultivated some local Geniuses.

With the help of some local Geniuses, he built a production line from scratch that could produce dried food. He originally wanted to build a canned food production line, but due to the local technological level and his sealed cultivation, he was forced to give up.

A canned food production line involves too many things: metal smelting, processing, personnel mobilization, and too many areas requiring automation, unlike dried food, where most steps can be replaced by intensive manual labor.

He could make a lot of canned food, but building a production line solely with local power was too difficult. Making canned food and making a canned food production line were two different things.

However, with dried food, his territory was able to expand.

Many other things happened in between.

Some wanted to rebuild civilization and sought to cooperate with Li Qi, but ultimately died from assassination.

Some wanted to dominate the Wasteland, but ultimately died from inflated ambition.

Some technology companies only wanted to live in peace, but were besieged because of the technology and equipment they still retained.

There were also some more bizarre cases, such as a middle-aged man with a little girl, who was a miraculously self-aware parasitic entity. The two struggled to survive in the Wasteland and eventually came to Li Qi's settlement.

Because they heard that Li Qi's place could accept everyone, that it was the only remaining light of civilization in the Wasteland, they risked everything, went through many adventures, were pursued by a technology company that wanted them as test subjects, and so on.

After all this, they finally reached Li Qi's territory, but the middle-aged man died on the last leg of the journey, unable to even meet Li Qi.

Li Qi eventually took in the parasitic entity and then discovered the secret to keeping parasitic entities conscious from her.

After that, Li Qi gained an army of parasitic entities. He awakened all the parasitic entities he found. These parasitic entities possessed strength equivalent to the ninth-grade and did not require additional supplies, behaving like normal people.

The Wasteland thus entered a new era. A large number of people voluntarily or involuntarily became infected by the Blood Meat Ovum, becoming parasitic entities, and then regained their sanity.

After a decade, everyone began to possess more or less the characteristics of parasitic entities: they moved faster, were stronger, and had better recovery abilities.

The native species of the Advancement Alliance seemed to begin a symbiosis with the remnants of the original Blood Meat Ovum.

At this point, people shifted from fighting over food, technology, and ancient legacies to searching for the Blood Meat Ovum that had been left behind.

Originally, the Blood Meat Ovum were nodes for the insect people to brainwash the entire world. They were mostly destroyed by the angry survivors of the apocalypse at the very beginning, with only a small portion remaining. Now, this small portion became a hot commodity, everyone was vying for them, leading to major wars.

By this time, few of the old generation remained; now, it was all the new generation of Wastelanders.

They had not seen the former glory of the Advancement Alliance. Perhaps they had only heard stories from their parents' generation, treating them as fairy tales. The entire civilization was gradually forgetting the past.

In just one generation, they had already begun to lose their pursuit of the past. Technology companies gradually transformed into kingdoms, with coronations and enthronements. Settlements followed suit, gradually forming a new political landscape.

Truly, a new political landscape.

Some were slave states, some were feudal states, some were theocracies, and others were democratic councils formed by technology companies—it was very chaotic.

A large number of ideologies were mixed together. Some were extremely xenophobic, distrusting friendship in the Wasteland.

Some were willing to accept newcomers, as their territories were already home to many mixed ethnic groups.

Technology companies looked down on the outside world, considering them barbarians. The wealthy class within these major factions, who possessed their own production lines, lived lives almost comparable to pre-war times, with ample equipment, medical care, and entertainment. However, their self-sufficiency was relatively low, and their output was not high, so they could only support a smaller number of people.

Li Qi was one of them, only he did not establish a so-called 'feudal system.'

What he built was a school.

This school subtly showed a tendency to become a 'Wasteland Holy Land,' because many coveted this place, but they all found themselves unable to defeat the Dean's dilapidated Patrol Officer mecha.

It was clearly an old and poorly maintained ordinary Patrol Officer mecha, but it managed to stabilize this school through sheer force.

Those who left this place were very much like 'people of the past.'

They generally possessed knowledge for survival in the Wasteland, but they were not so cold-hearted. They all knew what the world was like before the Wasteland, and they knew why they lived in such a place.

They were perfectly clear about how this world should have been and what it had endured.

Legends lost elsewhere were not legends here; many relics of the Advancement Alliance were displayed in the academy.

Even if people came from other places, they would only believe that civilization had not been cut off, and that there was still a group of people inheriting the past of the Advancement Alliance.

Even if they had actually lost most of their technology and the underlying tech tree.

But at least they still remembered that their parents and grandparents came from a civilization called the 'Advancement Alliance.'

This academy did not support too many people staying there, so many, after completing their studies, would join other factions. The skills learned at the school made them very popular with all parties.

However, they would always feel that the outside world was a little different from the school.

Some people liked this difference, while others found it difficult to accept, but… the school was indeed different from the outside.

Hundreds of thousands of people joined and then left the school.

But Li Qi didn't care about these things. He still presided over this place, even though by now, everyone was a parasitic entity, and pure native inhabitants of the Advancement Alliance no longer existed.

Besides education, he was also constantly unearthing relics, searching for those artifacts of the Advancement Alliance. These things were always useful.

Although he still occasionally zoned out, he was much better. Playing different roles in the Wasteland brought him closer to being a Mortal.

No one knew that this 'Principal' had lived in the Wasteland for more than seventy years. They all thought he was just a middle-aged person in his thirties.

Yes, a middle-aged person. In the Wasteland, living past thirty was already considered long-lived. The average lifespan in this place had been severely reduced.

Seventy years. At the current pace of the Advancement Alliance, this was already several generations; if they reproduced quickly, it would be five generations. Yet, in over seventy years, Li Qi experienced more than he did in a thousand years in the Immortal Heaven!

Li Qi understood Mortals more and more. He lived through the history of several generations, witnessed the rise and fall of several generations, and personally participated in it.

Finally, by a stroke of Opportunity, he found—the hidden power of the Advancement Alliance!

An underground, deeply hidden base!

Inside were thousands of sixth-grade mechas, thousands of cryogenically frozen hibernating soldiers, many experts, frozen fertilized eggs, and, as a trump card, a fifth-grade battleship!

Most valuable of all, there was a database storing much of the Alliance's data.

All of this was prepared by the Advancement Alliance when it still existed, things that could allow civilization to be rebuilt.

After finding this ruin, Li Qi mobilized all his forces and sealed off the news.

Then, he, alone, walked into the ruin.

He awakened this base.

As blue light illuminated.

Li Qi stood before the base, watching the commander of this hidden base awaken from hibernation.

The middle-aged commander awoke and looked at Li Qi.

"Operation Code Jedi, greetings. Has the war ended? Has it reached the point where we are needed? How many years have passed?" The commander awoke and quickly walked towards Li Qi.

Li Qi replied with some emotion, "The war… has ended. It has been seventy-five years. The outside world now desperately needs you."

"More than seventy years… Can you tell me about the situation outside? You don't look very well; your equipment is severely damaged." The commander frowned.

Li Qi let out a long sigh of relief and said, "Of course, we can. We can talk about the situation outside first, and then... it'll be your turn."

— — — — — — — —

Underground.

Li Qi told the commander the truth, including the fact that he was an alien, the numerous feudal kingdoms spread across the wasteland, and that some places still maintained the tradition of blood sacrifices.

Many people worshipped the Blood Meat Ovum, believing it to be the source of power, and so they would often 'feed' it with captives.

However, there were also some technology companies, and many other forces, including Li Qi.

Li Qi recounted, word by word, some of what he had witnessed over these seventy-plus years.

The commander's expression changed continuously as he listened to Li Qi.

This commander, codenamed 'Jedi', remained silent after listening to Li Qi's words.

Finally, Li Qi said, "That's pretty much it. What do you think of your current civilization?"

Jedi pondered for a moment, then stood up, bowed solemnly to Li Qi, and said earnestly, "Thank you. If it weren't for you, they probably wouldn't be our descendants anymore, would they?"

"They are always your descendants, regardless of whether they inherited your civilization or not, aren't they?" Li Qi smiled.

Jedi looked at Li Qi. He seemed to want to say something, but facing such a world immediately after waking from hibernation still made him hold back.

Intense emotions brewed in his chest, but he couldn't vent them. There were too many words he wanted to say, but he couldn't utter a single one.

He had learned everything that had happened in the seventy-plus years since his slumber.

In these seventy-plus years, civilization had been annihilated, and the outside world had devolved into primitive and feudal eras. A group of high-tech primitives wielded ancient equipment for cold weapon combat, abandoning the glory of civilization and living like beasts for a morsel of food.

Past events seemed to flash before his eyes, all of them weighing heavily on his heart, leaving this man, capable of commanding a Fifth-Grade fleet, at a loss for words.

Finally, he covered his eyes, and his emotions finally burst forth, as he cried and laughed at the same time.

If it were the old Li Qi, he would have said nothing at this moment, quietly waiting for the other party.

But at this moment, Li Qi took the initiative to speak, saying, "As you can see, they have, by their own strength, established a brand new civilization, though it has little to do with your former one."

"But there's no need to be sad. This is something to be happy about, because what your descendants have continued is not just your habits and Bloodline, but Advancement itself," Li Qi said.

These words stunned Jedi, whose emotions were already intense.

Even Shen Shuibi, guarding the door outside, was taken aback.

In the past, Li Qi would never have said such words. The old Li Qi would have silently observed everything, then fallen into contemplation, ignoring anything about these people. He would only have treated this as his 'knowledge,' as fuel for his thoughts, and would not have cared about them personally.

But at this moment, Li Qi took the initiative to say such words, and surprisingly, he didn't fall into contemplation, but seriously communicated with the commander in front of him.

However, Li Qi only said that one sentence and did not continue.

The commander, codenamed Jedi, seemed to gradually calm down after hearing these words.

Then, he opened his wristband and entered a string of passwords.

Soon, a projection unfolded before him.

Li Qi glanced at it. This should be the scanning capability of that Fifth-Grade spaceship, projecting the outside world.

So, Li Qi also watched.

The commander looked at the outside world.

In the feudal kingdoms, he saw some crude, low-grade mechs assembled from scraps, probably not even at a graded level, and at the level of children's toys in the Advancement Alliance.

But it was precisely these self-made low-grade mechs that were swaggering and oppressing the peasants of the apocalypse.

The peasants were also comical, using various old-era sundries, such as clothes hangers, robot shells, and railings, modified into farm tools for their work, occasionally looking up with fear and reverence at the 'Knight Lords' wearing mechs.

The Knight Lords supervised the peasants.

Adjusting the view further, he saw a slave-owning theocratic state.

A person dressed comically, in the flamboyant artist costumes of the old world, was receiving the worship of countless people.

This seemed to be a primitive sacrifice, where many people carried a huge battleship, a handmade toy made of wood and metal scraps, representing a battleship of the Advancement Alliance. This seemed to be their 'idol.'

Wealthy and powerful religious leaders sat inside this wooden-framed battleship, receiving the worship of tens of thousands.

Their worship was also comical; they imitated the art parades of the Advancement Alliance, turning the art parade floats into religious ceremonies, with "divine objects" constructed from wood, grass, and sheet metal, which were actually various pre-civilization sundries, including washing machines, flying cars, beverage cups, etc., though the most striking was still the battleship.

They recited scriptures. In their religious legends, the past era was a golden age favored by gods, and as long as everyone was devout enough, they could return to that era.

They only needed to constantly worship and praise, offering everything to the priests, to wait for that day, to return to the ancient golden age where the old could regain youth, without sickness, with endless food without farming, and countless ancient relics would descend upon the world, fulfilling everyone's needs.

Everyone devoutly believed all of this.

He twisted the perspective again, this time the scan came to a technology company. Technology companies were where the most pre-war technology was preserved, but most were only fragments, as the entire world's industrial system and basic science had been completely lost. The technology they now retained, even they themselves only 'knew what it was, but not why it was.'

They knew how to use these devices, but not why they were useful, yet they were still diligently learning how to use these ancient, long-obsolete devices.

They had lost the ability to manufacture these large devices, and also the ability to understand and analyze them. All they could do was patch them up, barely maintaining the operation of these ancient machines, guided by the crooked theories they had concocted, and using them in various ways.

This even included anointing them with holy oil, tapping them at different rhythms, or chanting spells in different languages.

Initially, these technology companies could still understand these creations, but now their descendants basically only knew how to use them, and in extremely awkward ways, like using a juicer to stir engine oil.

It wasn't that it couldn't be used that way, but the method of use was clearly problematic, yet they thought it was all normal, because when they interacted with their parents, their parents used them that way.

These technology companies meticulously maintained their only equipment, treating it as a family heirloom to be passed down, preserving these devices in what they believed to be the best way.

Then, looking outside their facilities, there were numerous human experiments. These technology company technicians regarded themselves as 'superior' and the people outside as 'barbarians,' which led to their widespread contempt for the outside world, and they often captured them for experiments.

Although, to this day, such experiments have essentially become a routine, they don't know what to experiment on, nor what to record; it's purely torture.

The commander couldn't bear to watch anymore, and then he changed the scanning perspective again.

This time, he saw a most ordinary refugee settlement.

This was a place where wild refugee groups, whom no one was willing to take in, gathered.

And this place was still in the Stone Age.

They struck stone tools, or picked up metal pieces and tied them to wood, relying on their bodies to hunt. They were completely illiterate, some even having degenerated language abilities, only able to speak simple words.

This wasn't because they had become stupid, but because no one taught them. They could only develop language on their own, and now... the development process was still quite difficult.

They had no writing whatsoever, and were basically indistinguishable from savages. These people had become like this in just two generations.

However, their bodies were generally robust, and the parasitic entities were well-integrated within them.

It wasn't that there was some power in the wild that made bodies stronger; it was simply that those who weren't strong enough had died. natural selection was precisely that.

They hunted, ate raw meat, lived in simple nests, only used simple tools, and were also captured by technology companies as test subjects.

Seventy years ago, everyone was indistinguishable.

This was only three or four generations.

Seventy-plus years, only seventy-plus years.

The entire world had already become like this.

However, Jedi did not stop there; he continued to zoom out the view.

The view zoomed out to the sky, allowing him to overlook the entire world.

The entire world had not become desolate; instead, it was full of vibrant life.

Different places built different things in their respective cities: some were farmlands, some were statues, some were roads, some were imperial palaces.

No matter what they were doing, whether good or bad, they were, in any case, doing something.

The entire civilization, after having its legs broken by the sudden arrival of the battleship, still writhed in its own way, or rather... crawled, in an extremely unsightly posture, struggling to move forward.

Why is the Advancement Alliance called the Advancement Alliance?

Initially, when the entire Alliance was not even at the Seventh Grade, it ignited its own world and migrated with great difficulty through the Void Realm for hundreds of thousands of years, finally reaching the Illusion-Reality Domain and achieving its current accomplishments within the Illusion-Reality Domain.

Yes, this new generation of the Advancement Alliance did not inherit the technology possessed by the previous civilization. They didn't resemble descendants at all; the technological discontinuity brought not only complete regression but also total amnesia.

History was severed here, all records lost. If Li Qi hadn't found this battleship, the Advancement Alliance might not have reappeared in the world for a very, very long time.

However, these descendants, on the wasteland, were still advancing.

Jedi looked at all of this, seemingly somewhat relieved. He said, "Yes, I am actually very comforted... Look at them, look at these children. After everything of civilization was destroyed, they actually independently developed into a feudal era, even forming new customs! And—"

He stopped there, momentarily speechless, with nothing more to say, only silence.

After all, it all happened too fast.

Only seventy-plus years, too fast.

At that time, Li Qi said that the Advancement Alliance was very fast, and perhaps could help him view the Mortal perspective. (See Chapter 704 for details)

One must know that seventy years was actually only enough for Li Qi to go into seclusion; he had previously just taken a nap and it passed.

Now, looking again, the Advancement Alliance was indeed a very 'fast' civilization. Li Qi had only been here for such a short time, yet he had witnessed the Peak, decline, and current state of a Fifth-Grade civilization. In seventy years, a Fifth-Grade world rapidly experienced many things, so fast that it was dazzling.

Li Qi, however, stood up and patted the commander's shoulder, saying, "Alright, now, it's time to teach your descendants. Tell them what your civilization should have been like, where your glory truly lies, tell them what kind of world you once built."

"Thank you..." The commander thanked him, seemingly wanting to say something.

But Li Qi waved his hand, signaling that he didn't need to say anything more.

Li Qi had already gotten what he wanted.

In these years, Li Qi's work intensity was extremely high. Although he seemed to hold a respected position, his workload was even greater than that of a slave.

Files piled up like mountains, and he approved them twenty-four hours a day without rest, but they only increased, never decreased.

Whenever he went out, it was always for war and disaster relief. The development of the entire camp had to be left to him. These tasks were not difficult for his wisdom, but they were very troublesome.

The reason for the trouble was that Li Qi couldn't leisurely use his life to slowly contemplate; every matter was urgent, every matter concerned a large group of people, so he was always rushing, even working while sleeping. For this precarious apocalypse, he basically had no life to speak of.

These people, the former Li Qi would have directly ignored.

For example, when he was in the Immortal Heaven, centuries would pass in a blink of an eye. How many people's rise and fall, life and death, turned into dust?

At that time, Li Qi never paid attention to such matters, because he felt it was unnecessary. As long as the 'changing of heaven and earth' was ultimately completed, then all of this would be valuable. He didn't need to interfere too much.

He was the will of heaven; what he needed to control was the ultimate goal, silently twisting the entire world. This was in line with his power.

But in these seventy-plus years, he learned to no longer focus on those vast, grand goals, but instead to deal with these trivial matters.

Initially, Mixin told Li Qi: "No matter how grand a thing is, it is ultimately composed of smaller parts." (See Chapter 299)

Li Qi used to think he understood, that he knew to take things slowly.

But now, he truly understood.

What 'small constituent parts' meant, he had touched those truly small parts.

If one cannot see the small parts, then the grand parts are also illusory.

These seventy-plus years were Li Qi's first step in putting this into practice.