Li Yao and Li Jialing walked to the bottom of a "towering tree".
The tree was hundreds of meters tall. It was located in the middle of dozens of stalagmites and stalactites of different heights. Countless' branches' extended out in all directions. There were also roots that protruded like ridges that spread out radially all the way to the underground.
Li Yao tore apart a few vines softly and wiped away a patch of moss. He could vaguely recognize the interfaces of a row of crystal cards.
The thing that looked like a giant tree was actually a very precise and enormous central control system. He had only seen similar systems on the bridges of certain super large starships before.
But right now, all the crystal processors and computational chips embedded in the central control system were rusted. Moss, vines, and bugs that looked like ants were crawling on their surface. There were even spore-like lives that looked like tumors among the vines and the moss, spurting out hazy mist nonstop.
It was hazy and seemed to be breathing, making it look like a monster that was a combination of life and precise machinery.
This place was the largest "playground" in the town. A lot of playful children had climbed to the branches of the "giant tree", which were also the transmission tubes of crystal wires. They caught the bugs that were bred from the crystal processors and put them on the heads and spines of their companions, teasing each other and laughing like silver bells.
Li Yao noticed that the children with transparent skin and slightly red eyes were also the few people in the entire town who could laugh.
Looking at the children, Li Yao was deep in thought. "The underground towns numbered after 10000 are the limits of the Imperium's statistics. So, the residents here are the oldest refugees?"
"No."
Li Jialing shook his head and said, "The refugees in the age of the ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago and when the demon race rose and declined are too far away from today after all. Most of them have been corrupted in the darkness below the ground because of time or 'melted' with the latecomers.
"Even if some of them are still alive, they have long forgotten their identity, the meaning of civilization, and even the most basic wisdom. They have degenerated into primitive barbarians or even human-shaped beasts that are ignorant, ignorant, and only have instincts.
"Those barbarians and humanoid beasts were all banished to the dark death zones that were deeper than the five-digit towns. Not to mention names, they did not even have numbers. Sister Long had gone down to those barbarians' tribes to mediate their conflicts."
Li Yao slightly frowned and asked, "Then, when did the people here escape to the underground world?"
"They must've escaped to the underground world when the Star Ocean Imperium collapsed ten thousand years ago."
Li Jialing said, "This place was an underground shelter in the age of the Star Ocean Imperium in the first place. The ancestors of most of the residents must've escaped to this place at that time, hoping to take shelter temporarily. Little did they know that they would hide for ten thousand years, struggling and reproducing in this place, never having a chance to return to the sunny world again."
Li Yao sighed and still asked in confusion, "Since this is an underground shelter built by the Star Ocean Imperium, it should've boasted all kinds of facilities and education systems, shouldn't it? The people who escaped to this place at the beginning, even if they were all civilians, should've grasped the basic survival skills and the tinder of civilization, right? Why do I feel that this place is lifeless and lifeless, and everybody has degenerated into the appearance of the medieval world? "
Li Jialing thought for a moment, as if he were recalling Long Yangjun's words. In the end, he said, "Sister Long said that the path of training is like sailing against the current. If you don't move forward, you will fall behind. The same goes for the continuation and development of a civilization. Only by sprinting and evolving at a higher and higher speed can a civilization be maintained.
"If you stop to catch your breath, it is very possible that you will be crushed by your own weight and embark on the decline and even death uncontrollably.
"However, the more advanced a civilization is, the more precise the social structure will be, and the more complicated the conditions to maintain the social form will be. The resistance to the environment will be weaker, too. Sister Long said that as a refiner, you must understand that the fewer components there are, the lower the failure rate will be. As the components that make up a piece of magical equipment increase, no matter how carefully it is refined and used, there will always be failures after a long time."
Li Yao nodded. In the circle of magical equipment production, there was a saying that the failure rate would be doubled with each additional component. Although it was somewhat exaggerated, it did make sense.
As the number of components increased, the difficulty of refining, assembly, and maintenance would increase exponentially. A piece of large-scale magical equipment made of millions of components was a chaotic system that was completely unpredictable. Nobody could guarantee that there would be no bizarre problems during the usage of the magical equipment. Even Li Yao could not guarantee that such a piece of magical equipment would not have any weird problems during its usage.
Perhaps, as the components and rune arrays broke the limits, the magical equipment would also boast some sort of life, and life was the most uncontrollable and unpredictable existence in the universe, wasn't it?
"Sister Long said that it is the same for both magical equipment and civilizations. A piece of super enormous magical equipment made of billions of components is destined to collapse one day however it is maintained. A highly-advanced and developed civilization, on the other hand, is more fragile than ever and can easily be destroyed by the tiniest problem."
Li Yao sniffed and said, "How can magical equipment and civilization be the same?"
Li Jialing opened his hands and said, "Sister Long said that if it is a village in the world of ancient Cultivators, which is made of the simplest logs and rocks, and all the villagers live by hunting and farming, such a seemingly underdeveloped social form is actually easier to resist the erosion of time and the changes of the environment. Even if they migrate from the surface of the planet to the underground world, they can still maintain the original form and survive for a long time.
"But what if it is a modern town?
"Think about it. What is needed to maintain a modern town? On the surface, there must be an interconnected vacuum tube system and a high-speed crystal rail system above the head, interconnected tunnels and elevators below the feet, dense sewers, ventilation tubes, and information and energy transmission tubes to connect them to each other, and enough space to accommodate vehicles such as shuttles. Everything requires an incessant supply of energy.
"Assuming that the population is the same, the energy consumption of a modern town is a hundred times higher than that of a medieval town. In the barren underground world where there is barely any spiritual energy other than the geothermal energy, how can a modern town not collapse?
"There is also the human factor. Sister Long said that the civilians in the world of ancient Cultivators seemed to be weak ants, but ants were actually very good at survival. The ancient people were tough and hardworking. As long as they had a few bowls of the coarsest porridge every day, they could continue farming and hunting. Also, they believed that having more children meant more blessings. Even if most of their children died, their few descendants could still pass on their bloodline.
"However, although the powerful groups such as Cultivators and all kinds of bizarre magical equipment made life more convenient than ever in modern society, the survival abilities of human beings themselves were also weakened. Most people's stomachs were only suitable for the most delicate food, and they needed the air conditioning rune arrays to provide a cool, comfortable environment. Not just the lack of sewers and toilets, even the lack of the Spiritual Nexus would turn them into walking zombies.
"Modern people have long forgotten the skills of farming and hunting with the crudest tools and even bare hands in the harsh environment. Their jobs are crystal processor engineers, crystal train drivers, skyscraper builders, and storytellers. Such survival skills all require the support of a rigorous, complicated, and error-prone platform. When such a platform is gone, the survival abilities of 99% of modern people will be close to zero.
"Also, the more developed a civilization is, the more likely they are to be prejudiced. Some of them do not even have any offspring, which means that they do not have the ability to resist risks at all.
"This is exactly the case for the remnants of the Star Ocean Imperium who migrated to the underground world. Perhaps when they fled to this world in the beginning, the facilities in the shelter were very advanced, and the resources were abundant. The doctors, scholars, teachers, engineers, and other modern talents in the shelter were all available. It was enough for their small civilization to last forever.
"But it was just an illusion. Faced with the enormous pressure of the crustal movement, the seemingly indestructible walls of the shelter were no different from illusionary soap bubbles. A 'minor' earthquake was enough to destroy their entire modern civilization. Should the engineers in certain critical posts unfortunately perish, it would be difficult for them to raise excellent successors in the next few years.
"It was perfectly normal for dozens of earthquakes and magma eruptions to happen in the past ten thousand years. The remnants of the Star Ocean Imperium struggled to survive to this day in such a harsh environment without losing all their humanity. It was already very impressive that they still had language, thinking, and the basic abilities of social organization!
"Right. Sister Long also said that perhaps the Pangu and the Nuwa civilizations were both destroyed in the same way. The more advanced a civilization was, the more vulnerable its internal structure would be. Therefore, when the Pangu and the Nuwa civilizations were at the peak of their development, their internal social structure should've been a hundred times more vulnerable than that of the civilization of mankind today. They were classic examples of 'outwardly strong but inwardly weak'."
Li Yao scoffed at such a theory. He could've given a hundred counterexamples. Was the Tian Yuan Realm not as good at dealing with disasters as the Ancient Sages Sector? What a joke!
However, he did not intend to be picky. Looking at the hazy darkness above his head, he asked, "Are the authorities of the Imperium aware of the situation here? Why are they not doing anything about it?"
"Of course they are. Otherwise, how did the code '10084' come about?"
Li Jialing said, "However, why are they doing anything about it? Who is going to do anything about it? What's the benefit of doing anything about it? The Immortal Cultivators are the most selfish people. If there are no benefits, they … we won't do anything at all!
"If a rare mother lode or a precious relic of an ancient civilization is discovered deep below the ground, the Immortal Cultivators will naturally swarm over and fight each other, not even hesitating to wipe out the entire underground town.
"However, the barren villages in the 10084 district that make a living on the rock worms really do not have the slightest profit to be exploited. To collect one cent of tax from this place, a hundred bucks will be wasted. It is not a fair deal at all. Why would the Immortal Cultivators waste their precious training time on the insignificant ants and 'garbage'?
"Besides, the Empyreal Terminus Sector is theoretically a 'vacuum zone' where the four Kurfürst families are in conflict. This is the capital directly under the emperor's command. Which Kurfürst would want to help the emperor manage the untouchables and barbarians deep below the ground?
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