"At that time, I had already forgotten everything. Everything that I am telling you now was only gradually recalled after I returned to the primeval relics when I was old and weak. But at that time, I was just an ignorant child."
The gravekeeper's voice came over. "Children are naturally ignorant and fearless explorers. Without guidance and lessons, no weirdness or fear could stop them from taking risks. I did not realize how bloody and terrifying the frozen battlefield was at all. I only thought that the ferocious beasts, giants, and war machines were very interesting toys.
"I walked through the silent City of Silver and played in the frozen bloody battlefield. I chased after the time bubbles that kept popping up from the void and captured the time gaps that were gradually cracking. Finally, I found some items that were consistent with my 'time curvature'. Food, nutrition drugs, all kinds of magical equipment, and even small shuttles. As long as I gritted my teeth, burned my soul, and tried my best, I could drag those things out of the twisted gray fog and drag them into my time curvature."
Pictures flashed in front of Li Yao's eyes again.
The bright gold child was just like him in the past — a little scavenger born in the magical equipment graveyard. He collected the resources that he needed to survive between the bloody battlefield and the time gaps.
The bright gold child swallowed the nutrition drugs and strengthening drugs that were pulled out of the gray fog, refining the precious energy while waving his arms and legs. Occasionally, he would take the super-compressed nutrition drugs that were not suitable for him and the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that were hard to digest. He would even hold his stomach and roll among the mountains of corpses and the broken walls. However, his natural immunity and tolerance allowed him to persist stubbornly time and time again, turning him into a wild child who was born and raised by nature.
When he grabbed a lot of magical equipment from the gray fog — chainswords, vibration sabers, crystal processors, Crystal Suits, and even the remains of starships — those things became his best toys again.
The bright gold young man often dismantled all the magical equipment into broken components with his mind, studied their structure carefully, and then pieced them together smoothly. At such a young age, he already had the expertise of a magical equipment expert.
After discovering the navigation system of a starship, he was even more attracted by the glamorous navigation map. He often sat at the center of the gray battlefield and gazed at the glittering sailing routes and the colorful wormholes in silence for a long time, deep in thought.
"I've almost forgotten everything — the memories of when I was still an embryo, the strength of the human civilization hundreds of millions of years ago, the annihilation of hundreds of civilizations, the civil war of the Pangu civilization, I've forgotten everything."
"But I vaguely remember that I promised someone that I would take a look at the outside world on her behalf and see if there was a more brilliant civilization deep inside the brilliant stars. I also know what it was that she was trying to protect with all her might.
"The promise was like a fierce lightning that activated certain segments deep inside my genetic strands. In a moment, infinite information streams flooded into my mind incessantly, allowing me to master part of the skills of starship maintenance and piloting without a teacher. With the wisdom deep inside my memories, the starships produced by the Pangu civilization were really the simplest toys.
"I repaired a small shuttle and modified it into a mode that only one person could pilot. Then, under the guidance of a certain power, I left the primeval relic and traveled in the vast sea of stars in the universe of Pangu."
In front of Li Yao's eyes, the City of Silver was falling apart. It was dancing like translucent butterflies and dispersing one after another, only to be replaced by the boundless sea of stars, the most brilliant stars, and the mysterious, unpredictable wormholes that contained infinite killing intent.
But a streak of vague golden brilliance was passing through everything, bringing the boy who had awakened 10% of his ancient bloodline to the center of the cosmos.
"I overestimated my abilities. Or rather, I am not a natural product but a freak born in a laboratory. From every aspect, my body is rather deformed," the gravekeeper said calmly.
But Li Yao heard vague sorrow from the extreme calmness. "I was stimulated by all kinds of messy experiments and awakened too much wisdom that I shouldn't have awakened and couldn't bear in advance, but my body was far from being able to keep up with the intensity required by the wisdom.
"The simplest example is that I did repair and modify a single shuttle with my naturally-endowed techniques without a teacher, but in my subconscious modification, I forgot to increase the intensity of the protective devices at all. The single shuttle was prepared for the real creators of the black wall and the people who had awakened 100% of their ancient bloodline. Those people who were as strong as deities could even travel freely in the surging tides of the four-dimensional space without any protection, controlling their every cell and every telepathic thought precisely. It was not hard to imagine that such people could pass through the wormholes easily without any 'protective devices'.
"But I couldn't.
"I had only awakened 10% of my ancient bloodline. My body and my soul were too immature. I hadn't fully recovered from the double damage of the long hibernation and the freezing of time. I couldn't withstand the squeezing of the wormholes and the tearing of the four-dimensional storms at all.
"When I realized that I had made a grave mistake, it was already too late. I was involved in the turbulence of the four-dimensional space and completely lost my direction. After a series of soul-stirring, life-threatening squeezing, tearing, spinning, shattering, and condensing, I was thrown out of another unknown wormhole and lost at the edge of the sea of stars.
"It was my greatest misfortune, but it was also my greatest fortune.
"Unfortunately, after the consecutive heavy blows, my abilities were further compressed. The gold brilliance around my body was entirely gone. Most of the time, I was no different from the most common human child.
"Fortunately, when I drifted to a chaotic asteroid mine with the debris of the starship, I met my foster parents, two very kind human beings.
"It was … ten thousand years ago, at the end of the 'thirty thousand years of the Great Dark Age'."
Li Yao exclaimed in shock.
He knew that from this moment on, the 'Legend of the Supreme Emperor' would truly release the first dazzling light on the dark stage.
"That was a slave mine under the control of the Demon Race. At the end of the Demon Beast Dynasty's reign, the oppressive laws and racial oppression became more and more serious. The working conditions and living environment in the slave mine were extremely bad. The human race was like a withered leaf that could be blown away by a gentle breeze."
The tomb keeper continued. "My foster parents were both common miners in the slave mine, but my foster father was particularly good at steering the outdated mining starships to pursue the rare minerals with the highest radioactivity in the meteorite storms. Therefore, he received special permission from the owner of the mine to go to the places far away from the main mine to 'pick up the scraps'. It was there that he found me.
"At that time, the only child of him and my foster mother had just died because of malnutrition. My foster mother was grieving, and my foster father was sighing in melancholy, too. When he found me in the broken debris, and I was still breathing and beating, he couldn't help but be overjoyed and consider me a child that the heavens had bestowed upon him.
"Without any hesitation, he made up his mind and secretly hid me among the humming components of the mining starship. He secretly brought me back and lived in the name of my brother who died young.
"Although the environment in the slave mine was harsh, as long as the mining quota was fulfilled, the owner of the mine and the supervisors did not care about the life and death of a little child. Everybody was left to fend for themselves. Occasionally, a few miners learned my real identity, but they were all very kind people and considered my arrival a gift from the heavens to all the miners. They also helped my foster parents and raised me together.
"Just like that, I grew up among the … dirty, rude, passionate, and kind miners, and I became one of them.
"Although I gradually awakened all kinds of unbelievable abilities during my growth and vaguely sensed that I was different from the people around me, my past had long been obliterated in the time freeze and the wormhole storms. I still did not recall who I was exactly. Or rather, I was defining my brand-new self with brand-new experiences, family, and partners.
"There is one thing that may be difficult for you to understand after ten thousand years. The so-called 'slave miners' were not just human beings but also many demons. In the dark, cruel asteroid belt, 'race' was meaningless at all. It was even a weapon that the rulers used to sow discord and divide.
"It was perfectly normal. The slave masters and rulers were so cruel to human beings that they regarded the living intelligent lives as dust and ants. Would they be nice and full of the brilliance of humanity when they treated the demons that were one level lower?
"No. At the end of the Demon Beast Dynasty, the so-called empire of demons had long collapsed. The governors and generals of the demons everywhere declared themselves kings and attacked each other. The losers in such a chaotic war of warlords were even more miserable than the human slaves. After all, in the eyes of the leadership of the demons, human beings were the most docile beings who would never resist. Therefore, they posed no threat to them at all.
"The captives of the demons who were defeated were often deprived of their techniques. Some of their organs were even cut off. Then, they were shackled to hundreds of kilograms. Finally, they were sent to the slave mines and tortured in the darkness together with the human miners.
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