novel
| ← Ch.1017 | Ch.1019 → |
- Infinite Population
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Maxwell's attention was seized by this spectacular yet bizarre sight. In reality, everyone was observing this incident. No one could be bothered to work.
Personally experiencing the history of the evolution of mankind had a multitude of benefits, whether or not it enhanced one's general knowledge or trained one's heart.
However, when the living being evolved into the stage of a lungfish, there was not the occurrence of the process whereby the sea creatures climbed up the shore. Instead, they continued to evolve in the sea.
Mammals, primates... Until the first human embryo appeared...
Finally, groups of fetuses swam around in the sea which looked even more horrifying.
Thereafter, the fetuses grew up very quickly and changed into human forms before leaving the sea to walk on land.
Nonetheless, they wore blank expressions on their faces. They seemed like retarded idiots instead of innocent and playful children.
"They've been born humans, yet they aren't human..." Maxwell mused. The action of this group of migrants had surpassed the boundaries of human ethics.
With his previous position, he knew about the plan about spiking the human population made by Ren Ruofeng and his men. The plan was to use the River of Blood to nurture human fetuses.
Both procedures had shocking similarities.
In Ren Ruofeng's plan, however, the individuals involved would not spoil things through excessive enthusiasm. After developing the fetuses, the last process would be to let caretaker mechs nurture them. They would still grow naturally like normal human beings.
The humans who grew up would also be normal ones, unlike the mentally handicapped beings in front of him.
"Ok, Forefather of the Vitality Slaves, you can come out now." Zheng He addressed the group newborn humans with dull expressions.
Maxwell was stunned. What? Was the second eunuch and voyager Wang Jinghong still alive?
The group of newborn humans spoke collectively when they heard Zheng He's command.
"Controlling the consciousness of so many people at once is really taxing. It feels like my psyche is going to be split apart. With my current abilities, I can only control a thousand humans."
"That's why you need to continue cultivating. By the time you're able to control the consciousness of millions of people, you won't feel this discomfort anymore." Zheng He replied nonchalantly.
"Alright, I hope this day comes sooner."
"Mm, you can go cultivate now. I'll give you three days to get used to it. They have to start working three days later." Zheng He planned.
"Understood, leader."
When Maxwell saw this, he finally understood why Zheng He wanted to assign this role of "The Forefather of the Vitality Slaves" to someone else, and other people were reluctant to take up this role.
It was not an easy task to forcefully split one's consciousness apart and to control these puppets at the same time.
After all, human consciousness laid on a single thread and a person could only focus on one thing at a time.
From what he observed, there were exactly one thousand newborn humans in this first batch. If not for Wang Jinghong's status as a powerhouse among cultivators with a Lake-level cultivation base, coupled with the fact that the newborn humans were reproduced via himself, he would be incapable of controlling so many people simultaneously with his own mind.
Maxwell thought that he had partially uncovered the true nature of these people. Thus, he immediately recorded everything that he had experienced in his diary and uploaded it to the AJO platform.
When he first began to infiltrate the group, he even fantasized about rallying the oppressed citizens in the future and restoring justice to society.
However, the Era of Mystery told him mercilessly that the old methods of revolutionizing society were no longer applicable. The person he had been observing had just used a strange method from the mysterious side which shattered his fantasy.
"Looks like no one is a fool." He thought to himself.
"Sir Max, this house is allocated to you, and please finish your upcoming work on time. Time is of the essence and we can't waste time like humans in the past era, who spend their days on useless entertainment and endeavors. It's a sin against humanity."
A young man ran towards Maxwell and gave him a folder.
Maxwell accepted the folder and found the location of his house and his tasks according to the description in the files.
Together with five other people, they must build a Vitality Transformation Equipment in the coming month...
...
Earth.
Fang Ning flipped through the Heavenly Book and checked Maxwell's diary. He felt irritated after reading it.
"Dammit! These fellows are even bigger cheaters than me! Is there no more rule of law?"
"Master, look at the bright side. These people have the support of the gods behind them, so it's natural they cheat big. Nevertheless, Axiom Daddy has even greater potential and it has a lot of special properties that the gods can't even compare to." The Heavenly Book baby consoled him.
"Yes, for instance, the gods are no better than it when it comes to being stingy." Fang Ning was seething with anger."No, we must speed things up and pass this piece of news to Ren Ruofeng's side to give them some pressure. The Population Explosion Plan should be executed earlier, or else, we'll be surpassed by these people."
Time finally entered a fast-forward phase.
Forces on each side seemed to have entered a period of stability. Aside from the occasional chaos, each major force did not pick fights but developed slowly.
Half a month passed and hundreds of the Whitestone people who descended had successfully completed reproduction on the Lunaette.
Fang Ning, who was informed about this, arrived on the Lunaette for another round of inspection. When he reached his destination, he saw the hustle and bustle below him. Clan leader Shi Gan was ordering his people to move into their allocated territories with their children.
Fang Ning looked down and saw Shi Da happily bringing his family along which included thousands of newborn Whitestone children. They settled down on a piece of land at the valley.
Fang Ning did not have to bother about the Whitestone children's food source for the three managers would take care of it.
The Whitestone people were simple folks and it was fine as long as their dietary needs were met. They did not need to live in nice houses, nor did they require additional products which made them easier to take care of than humans.
Fang Ning realized something when he observed the area.
The reproduction rate of the Whitestone people was much slower than that of the migrants.
The latter could reproduce by simply immersing themselves in the sea. There seemed to be no limit to the reproduction rate. The only limitation was the strength of the Forefather of the Vitality Slaves, Wang Jinghong's consciousness. In other words, he could breed as many humans as he could control.
The Whitestone People, on the other hand, had certain limitations.
Taking Shi Da, for example, he could not reproduce infinitely. In reality, he had to stop when he had reproduced 1000 Whitestone people.
A bigger population would only cause him to falter and he would not know how to allocate tasks to the clan members.
Furthermore, the Whitestone children birthed by Shi Da had to go through a period of natural growth that would take around three to five years before they gained the ability to reproduce as well.
Nonetheless, to regular humans, this kind of reproduction rate was still frightening.
After three years, these Whitestone children would enter an indescribable stage of maturity. One thousand multiplied by one thousand would be one million. In another three years, one million multiplied by one thousand would be one billion!
Shi Da was only one of them. There were still hundreds of original Whitestone people like him.
Simply put, in ten years at most, the population of the Whitestone people would suddenly expand from merely hundreds to a massive clan of hundreds of billions of members!
This figure was enough to please Fang Ning. To a cultivator, ten years was simply a process of cultivating in isolation.
This was the powerful weapon by which regular clans used to adapt to the Era of Mystery.
Unless the River of Blood was used to spike the human population, the reproduction rate of humans would definitely not cope with the Era of Mystery.
The Era of Mystery was unlike the Industrial Era of the past and it was demanding about the population of each clan. Clans with a low population would go extinct very quickly.
A large-scale, mysterious incident might lead to the extinction of most of a clan's members and the clan would lose half of its powers. The clan would need more than a hundred years for it to be restored, so that almost meant complete extinction.
On the contrary, for some like the Whitestone people, as long as there were a few stone people left, the clan could be repopulated within ten years.
Therefore, the clans of the Upper Realm might have special characteristics of their own, but to weaker clans, the ability to reproduce was their shared trait.
Even the mighty True Dragon had to sow its seeds around to prevent its kind from going extinct. When the Dragon Carp claimed it had the bloodline of the True Dragon, it was not bragging.
After observing the area, Fang Ning lifted his head to gaze at the boundless, starry sky. All of a sudden, he sneezed.
"Strange, why do I still feel cold right now?" He departed the noisy Lunaette with a feeling of puzzlement.
| ← Ch. 1017 | Ch. 1019 → |