Evolution - Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Upon receiving the report, Brigadier General Xie'er whistled cheerfully.
Claire methodically issued a series of directives.
The first directive was to release a piece of information to the upper echelons of Blue Star's nations: based on a preliminary assessment of Blue Star, the average lifespan was projected to reach 180 years after cultivating mental power and physique techniques.
The second directive was to initiate the resource exchange negotiation plan, guiding Blue Star to carry out environmental modifications to construct an environment conducive to ABO evolution.
The third directive was to submit the collected lists of individuals who had violated Alliance law, along with the relevant evidence, to each nation. These individuals were to be blacklisted and permanently denied citizenship in the Galactic Interstellar Alliance. If the nations failed to properly handle those on the list, the exchanged resources would be reduced proportionally.
After issuing the three consecutive directives, the delegation began to execute the corresponding plans in an orderly fashion.
Only then did Claire open a communication channel with Brigadier General Xie'er to discuss deploying troops. They would be dispersed to monitor various locations on Blue Star, ensuring they could arrive in time to guarantee a safe differentiation process for anyone who evolved further.
The two of them went over the details of their previously agreed-upon plan, discussing them repeatedly until late into the night before finally ending the call.
When Ji Changqing logged back into the game twelve hours later, she found that the second stage was still a random draw. The difference was that now, you could team up with online friends before randomly selecting the instance for the second stage.
She silently opened her friends list. Pencil and The First were both online, but Zhong Lan's icon was gray. Just as she was about to send a team invitation, she received one from The First. “I have brains, you have brawn. Team up?”
Felt like a personal attack. Her face burned. Who said she didn't have a brain?! Did this person, The First, have any emotional intelligence at all?
Still, she clicked accept. Well, having a partner would give her courage.
After the system showed they had successfully formed a team, the first thing The First sent in the team channel was: “If Pencil invites you, will you team up with them or with me?”
Ji Changqing replied without a second thought, “The two of us will team up.”
They were both clear-headed enough.
During the twelve-hour wait for the second stage to open, official announcements were made worldwide. Blue Star was about to join the Galactic Interstellar Alliance, and a summit would soon be held in the Imperial Capital of Huaxia for a formal public meeting with the Alliance delegation. They would jointly discuss comprehensive and in-depth cooperation in technology, military power, and culture.
Normally, news that aliens had truly arrived would have sent the global public into a frenzy. However, after so many clues and coy, veiled hints had been dropped over time, subtly giving everyone a taste of high technology—a bombshell that could have instantly ignited public passion had been split into tiny pieces and fed to them over three or four months. The public was tired.
So, when the official announcement came, no one felt the slightest bit of shock. The internet was filled with comments like, “Hahaha, they finally decided to announce it,” and “Oh, we get it. The holographic game is the first joint project, right?”
The reaction was exceptionally calm.
But it made sense. Who could stay excited for several months straight? Their hearts would have gone on strike long ago.
This was precisely the outcome the world's governments had hoped for. They weren't afraid of calm; they were afraid of excitement. If things got out of control and someone stirred up trouble, that would be a disaster.
Both Ji Changqing and The First understood that if they teamed up with Pencil's group, they would have basically no autonomy and would have to follow passively. They were better off on their own. If they happened to run into them by chance, their teams could cooperate for a while if both sides agreed. Why tie themselves down?
“The Old Cadre isn't coming?” The First felt that a two-person team was a bit thin. She had gotten along well with Zhong Lan in the first stage, and a three-person team would feel less pathetic.
“Oh, she’s on a business trip recently, so her schedule is tight,” Ji Changqing said, also a little disappointed. No matter how addicted to the game Zhong Lan was, she was still a civil servant with a nine-to-five job. Occasional business trips and overtime made it too difficult to coordinate schedules. Ji Changqing, on the other hand, paid her own salary. As for a prodigy like The First, her current research project was said to be closely related to the content of the holographic game, so even if she spent all day in the game, she was still technically working.
Fine. Since the people they thought were suitable for their team weren't available, this was how it had to be.
Ji Changqing sighed dramatically. “Just a two-person team again. We can't even get enough for a game of Fight the Landlord.”
The First acted as if she hadn't heard. This person had been complaining about it all through the first stage, yet she didn't even play Fight the Landlord herself!
She calmly clicked to confirm the team and chose to enter the game.
The words “Welcome to the second stage” appeared before both of them simultaneously.
Team member qualification check in progress…
Strings of data flashed by, and one by one, previously grayed-out icons lit up. As they looked at the illuminated icons and the helpful tip displayed above—“Can only be lit if all team members have over 50% compatibility”—they couldn't help but exchange a glance and fall into a collective silence.
This… this game was such a trap.
This kind of design was aimed squarely at screwing over the big players. The move was so outrageous it was breathtaking.
Those large teams that had formed early, the second, third, and nth-generation rich or powerful kids who had hired people to escort them, hoping to get ahead—they were now being screwed over so badly they could be weeping tears of blood.
Think about it: all team members had to have over 50% compatibility. A solo player would have the hardest time passing, but they could choose a game world with the highest personal compatibility. Even if they failed the stage, with such high compatibility, they might encounter something inside that could significantly boost their strength.
Teams of two or three were still okay, unless one member was a total liability who dragged the others down.
The larger the team, if each member had different strengths, the more mediocre the available game worlds would be. It was like the saying: if so many people understand you, you must be incredibly mediocre. For every person to have over 50% compatibility, how bland and unremarkable must that world be?
The deadliest part was that the choice for the second stage was irreversible. Killing off teammates now would be useless. They had to at least see this choice through once, whether they cleared it or died trying, before they had a chance to start over.
The two of them, who had teamed up with the idea of complementing each other's skills, stared at one another. It seemed they had been trapped as well. Their mental power levels weren't too far apart, but the gap in their physique was quite large.
Just then, most of the selectable icons had lit up. The First glanced around. “These categories… they all look very familiar.”
“Of course they do. This is how web novels are categorized,” Ji Changqing said grimly.
The First took a half-step back, her expression blank, and gestured for Ji Changqing to do as she pleased. She was terribly sorry, but as a god-tier student, she wasn't familiar with web novel genres.
Ji Changqing scanned the options. Interstellar—they would soon experience that for real, so there was no need to choose it. As for ABO, Fantasy, Ancient, Apocalypse, and the others… although the domineering CEO style of “only children make choices, adults want it all” was popular now, she was no wicked, domineering CEO. So, she followed her heart and chose the one with the wildest imagination, the one that best fit the national aesthetic, the coolest of them all—Xianxia.
The First gave her a look that was difficult to put into words.
On the screen before them, the lit icons gradually faded.
Matching game instance…
Match successful!
Logging into the game…
While waiting for the game to load, Ji Changqing and The First carefully read the special notice that appeared after the match was successful. But the more they read, the more hopeless it seemed.
Special Notice:
1. Xianxia is a high-risk world. The possibility of complete soul annihilation is very real. Special protection is provided to players in the game for 2000 contribution points. (Can be paid on credit.)
2. The flow of time in the instance is controlled. You will automatically exit upon successful completion or death.
3. All instances can only be entered once.
4. The main quest is automatically assigned upon entering the instance.
5. Explore the game world on your own. If you are diligent enough, you may find surprising drops.
“High risk, high reward?” Ji Changqing tried to console herself and her only teammate.
The First just scoffed. “You must not have studied logic. High reward is always high risk, but high risk doesn't guarantee high reward.”
Killing a teammate as a sacrifice to the heavens was useless now. The two could only silently pray that the game wouldn't screw them over again and that their luck wouldn't be so bad.
The game actually loaded quickly. In what felt like the blink of an eye, their vision went black. A few seconds later, a completely different scene unfolded before them.
A blazing sun, low-growing shrubs running wild, a winding mountain path, and a massive, long queue of people… The lush, green vegetation and the oppressive heat under the scorching sun, aside from the sea of people, perfectly matched a summer in Lingnan.
Ji Changqing was a bit dazed. She quickly realized this was likely the classic scene from Xianxia worlds where a sect opens its gates to recruit a wide range of disciples. The problem was, where was the legendary ethereal, immortal aura? The towering, majestic peaks? The solemn, imposing atmosphere? The sheer, knife-edged cliffs?
Why was it that, aside from the massive crowd, none of the classic elements of a sect's recruitment from Xianxia novels were present?
“Forget it. Reality is always different from imagination,” The First murmured in a tone that suggested she had seen through the mortal world. Her eyes were glazed over as she stared at her own shrunken hands, still trying to process it.
The Tianyi Sect opened its gates once every ten years, and only those between the ages of six and fifteen had a chance to join.
So, the game had forcibly de-aged them. She was now a ten-year-old loli, and Ji Changqing was a fifteen-year-old girl. They understood, of course. If they had entered with their real ages, as mortals with no cultivation whatsoever after the age of fifteen, they would be considered trash in the cultivation world. They might have been turned to dust the moment they appeared. What would be the point of playing then?
They had just received the main quest prompt from the game. It was simple and blunt: before the world was destroyed by a man-made disaster in the Dharma-Ending Age, save as many people as possible.
There was no limit on the number, nor was there a minimum requirement for survival. But this simple, blunt message made Ji Changqing and The First smell danger. The humble request to save even one person if possible had to be accompanied by a terrifying outcome—no survivors, or extremely few.
Their hearts grew heavy. A death-trap instance with no hope of survival. Why was it so harsh on them? They were just game newbies.
The First couldn't help but sigh. But then she thought, hey, didn't they spend 2000 contribution points to protect their lives? They wouldn't really be annihilated. In that case, she could just find a way to get into the sect and hang out in the library—oh, wait, in a Xianxia world, it should be called a Scripture Pavilion. Wouldn't that be a chance to come into contact with a lot of new and interesting things?
The fifteen-year-old Ji Changqing touched her face and sighed inwardly, but she didn't say anything more to The First. In an unscientific Xianxia world, there was no such thing as whispering!
They had to keep their identities under wraps, get into the sect first, and establish a foothold before considering anything else.
Perhaps because they knew this was just a game and that dying would at most mean experiencing the pain of death once, with their actual lives most likely guaranteed, they weren't overly panicked. They just resolved to do their best with what they could.
This fearless calm was perhaps similar to that of second-generation rich kids starting their own businesses. Although it was just as hard, and the path ahead was just as unknown as they fumbled forward, they had a safety net—failure wasn't a big deal. At worst, the money they invested would be gone. It didn't matter. If it didn't work out this time, they could try again. After a few tries, they would gain experience and would succeed one day.
For an ordinary person with average means starting a business, it was more like a do-or-die battle. One failure might mean there would never be a next time. A single failure could be enough to destroy all possibilities.
The two of them moved slowly with the long queue, each pondering their next move.
Their current identities were orphans in the secular sense, or you could say they were vagrants. Their origins were untraceable. After a disaster in the mortal world, they had fled with their respective families. Along the way, people kept dying, and some were separated, intentionally or not. In the end, only the two girls were left.
When they met, one was twelve and the other was seven, two little girls abandoned by their families, whether actively or passively. In their backstory, the twelve-year-old Ji Changqing had fallen so ill on the road that she was on the verge of death and was thus abandoned by her family. She was found by The First, who had only survived because her parents had sacrificed their lives to protect her. The seven-year-old girl had no life-saving skills to speak of. The most she could do was give the barely-breathing Ji Changqing some water every day and occasionally some edible grass roots or tree bark. And then, the pitiful abandoned child miraculously survived.
After that, Ji Changqing, having recovered most of her strength and able to take down two or three adult men by herself, led the seven-year-old girl through a difficult life of wandering from place to place. They continued this way until they stumbled into a place where the cultivation world and the mortal world intersected. On their journey, they saw a massive crowd of people all heading in the same direction. Following the flow, the two girls overheard enough to learn that the Tianyi Sect was opening its gates. They thought they could try their luck at getting into the sect for food, clothing, and shelter.
It was clear the game designers had put some thought into it. The combat-ineffective The First was given the background of a girl from a scholarly family, while the rather martial Ji Changqing was made the daughter of a mountain hunter.
Completely in the dark about this world, the two of them employed the "silence preserves intelligence" strategy. Along the way, they listened more, watched more, thought more, and spoke less. By listening, they managed to pick up scraps of information from the idle chatter.
For example, there were Three Sects and Five Schools, and the Tianyi Sect was one of the three preeminent sects. The highest cultivation level in this realm was Spirit Transformation, and there were only nine such masters in existence—five from the righteous path and four from the demonic path. Of the five righteous Spirit Transformation masters, the Tianyi Sect had two, making it the traditional leader of the Three Sects.
When they arrived at this place, the sun was just rising. By the time it was their turn to have their spiritual roots tested, it was already dusk. And behind them, the line was still so long it resembled a dragon with no visible tail.
The results were both good and bad. The good news was that both of them had spiritual roots. The bad news was that their spiritual roots were terrible. Both had Five-Spirit Roots. The person conducting the test didn't even bother to look up. With a wave of his hand, a door suddenly appeared in front of them, and someone beside it gestured for them to walk forward.
As soon as they stepped through the door, both of them couldn't help but let out a "wow," viscerally feeling the profound meaning behind the phrase "the distinction between mortals and immortals."
With a single step, they went from the oppressive heat of a Lingnan summer directly into a place as warm as spring. All the heat and agitation in their bodies were instantly soothed. It was refreshing to the core, and with each breath, they felt a little lighter.
Before they could get a clear look at their surroundings, a map was thrust into their hands. “Go. A team of ten, that's just enough. Reach the sect within three days, and you'll pass the assessment.”
Alright, now the two of them finally understood why it lacked the atmosphere of an immortal sect from the novels. This was just the assessment ground. The actual sect gates were still very far away for mortals.
She glanced at the other eight people in their team. They were of varying heights, mostly around nine or ten years old. There was one who was clearly younger, perhaps only six or seven, and another who was about twelve or thirteen. As for the quality of their spiritual roots, one could guess with fair accuracy just by looking at their expressions.
The ten of them stared at each other for a while. The First yawned and tugged on Ji Changqing's sleeve. “Let's go.”
Whether it was to explore this world and find a way to clear the stage, or to successfully pass the assessment and enter the sect, they needed to get moving.
Even though the task was for two middle schoolers to lead eight elementary schoolers on a three-day survival trek through a mountain range no less dangerous than the Amazon rainforest, all while rushing to reach a designated destination on time, no one was willing to give up. Considering the sheer number of people who had queued up here, those with spiritual roots were truly one in a hundred. Since the heavens had bestowed upon them the primary talent needed to walk the path to the heavens, how could they shrink back from a small difficulty like the entrance assessment?
Next, they would be tested on the other talents required for success: patience and waiting.
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