With the city wall behind him, Gao Qi finally saw the wilderness.
There were no forests, no farmlands, and nothing but weeds half the height of a human.
After exiting the city gate, there was a cement road. The cement road led to a road with a high embankment. That was the former highway. On the highway, they could still see villages. Some were far, some were near, but now, they were definitely the ruins of an uninhabited village.
Not everything was taught in university, so there were many things that Gao Qi didn't understand, but he definitely knew some general knowledge.
For example, why didn't people farm near cities? That was because the second Cataclysm's war with the exotic beasts lasted for about five years, and cities were the exotic beasts' main targets. Every city was a battlefield, and countless exotic beasts died around every city.
The exotic beasts' deaths would pollute the land. It wasn't that the polluted land couldn't grow food, but that the food grown was poisonous, and people would go crazy after eating it. Naturally, the polluted land wouldn't be used again.
In order to fight against the exotic beasts, humans used all the weapons they could, including nuclear bombs, which was why nuclear radiation was the main source of pollution outside the cities.
The residual radiation from nuclear bombs wasn't strong, so the damage caused by nuclear radiation was ranked behind the exotic beasts, and further away from the city walls. However, the closer the land was to the city, the more unusable it was. This was a problem that every city faced.
Fortunately, the number of exotic beasts was limited, and the residual radiation from nuclear bombs couldn't possibly cover every inch of land. So, as long as it was far enough away from the city, there would naturally be land that could be cultivated.
What Gao Qi couldn't understand was why the city refused to accept and help the desolate people. In his opinion, even in the ancient times, humans knew that population was the most important resource. In this day and age, where population was extremely needed, why didn't the people in charge of the city accept the desolate people? Even those who were born and raised in the city, and had received higher education, had to be driven out?
Driving the people out of the city was also fine. Move a portion of the people out of the city, and let the rest of the desolate people live around the city. Organize the establishment of gathering areas around the city, and carry out basic management of the people in the gathering areas to establish basic order. Wouldn't human society naturally recover then?
This question seemed very simple, but Gao Qi still couldn't find an answer. In his opinion, the best way to solve this problem was that no one used it at all.
However, after experiencing three energy outbursts, Gao Qi had no choice but to leave the city. The moment he stepped out of the city gate, he suddenly understood what Professor Su meant when he said that meat-eaters were despicable.
After the two catastrophes, humans had returned to the city-state era. In Gao Qi's opinion, this was undoubtedly a regression of civilization. One of the important reasons for this regression was that everyone believed that the third catastrophes would definitely come and that humans would eventually perish, and it wouldn't be long before that happened.
People would become short-sighted after despair. If there was no future at all, then the majority of people would agree to enjoy themselves while they could. Of course, not everyone in this world would fall into despair. However, it was not a single person who controlled a city, but a group. When a group reached a general consensus, it was very difficult to change the direction of what would happen next according to the will of a single person.
Those who controlled the city had already obtained most of the resources. They only wanted the best living conditions and to enjoy the present, not to rebuild human civilization.
A city could be self-sufficient, but there was a limit to the number of people it could accommodate. Moreover, the speed of population growth was very fast. When the capacity of the inner city reached its limit, people would naturally be driven to the outer city. Those who were not needed in the outer city could only be driven out of the city.
Egoism was the mainstream value of human nature. People lived their own good lives behind closed doors. As for those unknown and dangerous desolate people, who would care about them?
Regardless of the reason, Gao Qi believed that the establishment of the Pioneer Group in Morning Dawn City and the establishment of farms outside the city was the first step in establishing contact with the desolate people. It was a good beginning to slowly establish order outside the city.
However, after the three energy outbursts, this good beginning was likely to come to an end.
At this point, it was necessary to explain the foundation of the city's existence, especially the foundation of why a city could continue to operate in isolation.
First, it was the first cataclysm. The first cataclysm was a sudden alien invasion.
A fleet of alien spaceships from an advanced civilization suddenly appeared. Three motherships stopped in outer space. Then, many small spaceships entered the atmosphere and launched an indiscriminate attack on the human race.
The aliens used energy weapons to attack the human city with some kind of microwave attack. The human race had no ability to fight back at all. Therefore, in just three hours, nearly half of the human race died.
The human race could not react at all. However, the human race survived because the alien attack lasted only three hours. The three motherships exploded in outer space, and the small spaceships in the atmosphere fell to the ground one after another.
When the human race angrily opened the first small spaceship that fell to the ground, they found that there were no aliens inside. The spaceships that entered the atmosphere to attack were only part of the alien weapon system.
As for the wreckage of the mothership, it was not until three months later that it gradually began to fall to the ground under the influence of gravity. For more than a year, the night sky would be illuminated by the burning flames of the wreckage of the alien mothership as it entered the atmosphere.
This was the first cataclysm. It made the human race realize their own weakness and ignorance. The human race was destroyed in ignorance and was saved in ignorance. They did not even know what the aliens looked like.
And the miraculous destruction of the aliens could only be speculated that it was the work of a higher level alien civilization or the help of God. There was no other explanation other than an idealistic conclusion.
The first cataclysm almost completely destroyed the human race, but it also promoted the development of science and technology. The human race obtained many key technologies, and one of the key technologies was controllable nuclear fusion.
With a near-infinite energy source like controllable nuclear fusion, the human race was able to make breakthroughs in many technologies, including agriculture.
The human race built buildings to grow food. Combined with the endless sunlight brought about by the infinite energy source, a factory that could grow crops without soil was born. Therefore, the human race had the foundation to completely shut down a city.
Therefore, after the first cataclysm, the human race actually entered a period of rapid recovery. The population grew, and key technologies made breakthroughs. The human race might even have entered a higher level of civilization.
However, after only six years, a door with a strange light appeared. Behind the door was a strange world, and countless strange creatures of all kinds poured out from behind the door.
Four stargates appeared in four places. Four extremely powerful exotic beasts appeared behind the four stargates. The four extremely powerful exotic beasts led countless other exotic beasts to attack the human race.
It also happened inexplicably. Then, two days after it opened, the four stargates began to disappear one after another. The four extremely powerful exotic beasts also died one after another. Moreover, they died for unknown reasons.
This was the beginning of the second cataclysm. After the four exotic beasts that could destroy the human race died, the remaining exotic beasts continued to attack the human race. The worst thing was that these exotic beasts could reproduce.
The war between the exotic beasts changed the world. The human race gave birth to ability users, and of course, there were also mutants. Furthermore, the human race built walls to protect themselves and their cities.
Five years after the war between the exotic beasts, another stargate opened, and another powerful exotic beast appeared. However, this time, the stargate only lasted for three seconds before disappearing. The fifth exotic beast also disappeared after it appeared. Some people said that the exotic beast died, while others said that it didn't die, but went into hiding.
This was the second cataclysm. Because it was caused by the exotic beasts, it was also called the Exotic Beast War. The human race gave birth to ability users in this war, and of course, there were also mutants. Also, after many years of eliminating the city walls, the human race once again enclosed themselves within the city walls.
Strictly speaking, the second cataclysm hadn't ended yet, because the exotic beasts still existed. The most important reason why the human race returned to the era of city-states, and also the most fatal reason, was that the human race had lost the sea.
The sea had been completely occupied by the exotic beasts, the land was shared between the human race and the exotic beasts, and the sky was controlled by the human race. However, it was obviously impossible to maintain the demand for transportation between the continents by air. The land was also extremely dangerous due to the widespread distribution of exotic beasts that couldn't be completely eradicated. Therefore, the various cities were actually isolated islands. Under such circumstances, it would be strange if city-states didn't appear.
The origin of city-states was more or less like this. Now, it was time to explain the origin of the Desolate People.
When the city residents were also the protectors of the city and fought the exotic beasts for five years, no matter what the reason was, the Desolate People were absent from the war. Therefore, when the war ended, these people who didn't contribute anything to the city wanted to enter the city and share the resources with the city's protectors. The result was obvious.
The city residents looked at the Desolate People as protectors, which was the original sin.
In the eyes of the Desolate People, the abundant resources for survival were the original sin of the city residents.
The city residents were organized, had resources, and were the victors of the exotic beasts' war. They had an overwhelming advantage over the Desolate People and were bound to occupy a dominant position. Therefore, although the Desolate People dreamed of entering the city and didn't mind attacking the city and taking everything away from the city residents, they could only struggle to survive in the wasteland.
After the two cataclysms, the human race who had lost hope were driven by human nature to build a new world on the wasteland. It was a strange but very reasonable world.
Not everyone could clearly understand this world. Most people just passed their days in a daze, waiting in fear for the arrival of the third cataclysm. However, Gao Qi was one of the few people who could clearly see the nature of this world. He was also one of the few people who could clearly understand his own position.
Gao Qi's position was that of a person who had been abandoned by the city. He knew how to survive, but he didn't know how to change his fate.
But now, after the three energy fluctuations in three days, everything was different.
These three energy fluctuations were very likely the precursors of the third cataclysm, or it was possible that the third cataclysm had already happened. However, these weren't important to Gao Qi. What was important was that he was at the center of the explosion during the first energy fluctuation, and he was still there during the second one. Moreover, he had experienced very strong hallucinations during both energy fluctuations. If this could be considered a coincidence, then it was too much of a coincidence.
However, hallucinations were the opinions of others. No matter how reasonable Han Ruofeng and Huang Fei's explanations were, Gao Qi still didn't believe that everything he experienced was an illusion. The overlapping world, the vortex, and the light spots in the void, everything was so real.
Most importantly, it wasn't a vision, but a feeling. A brief feeling of regret and sadness.
The regret and sadness was only for a short moment, but it was engraved in Gao Qi's heart. It was impossible for him to forget, and it also made him believe that it couldn't be an illusion.
Since it wasn't an illusion, Gao Qi could only insist that he had awakened. It was just that he hadn't awakened as an ability user.
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