metaverse evolution.

The strong often have a blurred sense of time. A single period of seclusion can equal a lifetime for an ordinary person. In the blink of an eye, many years have passed since that person last closed their eyes.

The same is true for the present-day "Taibai City," which has undergone earth-shaking changes in just a few decades.

On this day, everyone in Taibai City crowded at the city gate. As the countdown ended, the heavy city gate slowly opened, and the barrier that had shrouded Taibai City for thousands of years began to fluctuate before gradually fading away.

An elderly man watched the barrier in the sky dissipate, his eyes filled with a complex mix of emotions and excitement.

Elderly people, especially Zhao Weiguang and Huang Shengli, were deeply moved.

That barrier is both protection and constraint. It protects the atmosphere and oxygen within Taibai City, ensuring the survival of ordinary people, but it also confines them to this small city.

Wealth can be inherited, but learning ability and cultivation ability are difficult to inherit. Furthermore, a large population base is needed to produce enough cultivators. Therefore, there are many ordinary people in Taibai City.

Today, this barrier is finally no longer needed. Thanks to newer, more powerful creation technology, the entire environment of the "Thousand Islands Basin" has been transformed.

A teenage girl, following beside Huang Shengli, watched the barrier in the sky rapidly disappear and asked excitedly, "Great-Grandpa, today's news said that embracing the sky is only the first step, and the next step is green mountains and clear waters. What do green mountains and clear waters look like?"

"Green hills and clear waters?" Huang Shengli looked at the reddish sky, his memory seemingly returning to thousands of years ago, back to the time of departure, and said leisurely, "Green hills and clear waters means extending your school's garden to the whole world."

Grass and trees cover the earth, flowers sway in the wind, and clear spring water flows over mountain rocks, converging into a rushing river. Green and brown aquatic plants sway in the river, and fish frolic. The wind carries the fragrance of flowers and the songs of birds; the tinkling of the spring water echoes through the mountain valleys.

"Isn't this a scene from virtual space?"

Huang Shengli: "No, virtual space is ultimately fake. That kind of real beauty is something that virtual space can never achieve."

"Oh..." The girl seemed to understand but not quite. "Great-Grandfather, I went on a trip yesterday and visited the place left behind by the Dawn Gods. It's very well preserved. But why did the Dawn Gods abandon it? They even left behind their belongings."

Huang Shengli thought for a moment and then asked, "What did your parents say?"

"Yes, Dad said they ran away at the first sign of trouble, they were afraid of us. Mom said I'll understand when I grow up."

Huang Shengli thought for a moment and said, "They have all disappeared into the long river of history."

"We even saw elves! Elves are so beautiful. Why didn't the elves disappear into the annals of history?"

Huang Shengli frowned slightly. "Because the Elf race has saints. Coco, you're about to start cultivating and enter high school. There are some things you should be exposed to."

Turning his head, Huang Shengli began communicating with Zhao Weiguang and the others, but they were using the Cosmic Brain to communicate, which ordinary people couldn't hear:
"Why is school education so fragile these days? Teenagers should be exposed to the cruelty of war."

Zhao Weiguang: "Sending them to visit the ruins of the Dawn Gods was exactly what we were planning to do."

"I see." Huang Shengli nodded slightly.

Zhao Weiguang: "Old Huang, the fifty-year term is up, and I'm going to report to the Rising Dragon Palace tomorrow. The new city lord of Taibai City, dispatched by the Rising Dragon Palace, will take office tomorrow. You need to change your temper."

Huang Shengli exclaimed, "So fast?"

"A fifty-year transition period? That's not fast enough. It's already taken two generations. We've fallen far behind."

With the arrival of the new city lord, a new cultivation method will be fully implemented. We old fogies will also need to undergo a complete overhaul.

Huang Shengli remained silent for a long time before finally just humming in agreement.

Everyone already knew that Taibai City had been integrated into the Ascending Dragon Palace. The Ascending Dragon Palace had relocated trillions of people, while Taibai City alone had less than twenty million. The Elven race, which came with the Ascending Dragon Palace fleet, had a population of one hundred million.

Now that the Temple of Ascension has taken root, Taebaek City has become part of the Temple of Ascension, though only a very inconspicuous part.

The blood-red storm howled high in the sky, but it could no longer affect Taibai City.

In such a world, there was no alternation of day and night in the past; people simply relied on a 24-hour system to determine the date.

However, artificial suns now provide warmth and light, with a distinction between day and night. In fact, these artificial suns are more like super light bulbs. But this light bulb can illuminate the entire Taibai City.

The next day, the city lord dispatched by the Rising Dragon Palace headquarters arrived and completed the handover with Zhao Weiguang. The new palace lord gave a public speech, stating his responsibilities and obligations and determining the future development direction of Taibai City.

In the afternoon, Zhao Weiguang boarded the spacecraft alone and headed into space.

The headquarters of the Rising Dragon Palace is not on the ground, but in space.

As the spaceship ascended, Zhao Weiguang saw a magnificent world—although he had seen it more than once, he was still awestruck every time he saw it, and each viewing brought new surprises.

Steel tunnels stretch across the desolate land; everywhere, paving machines, hundreds of meters high and thousands of meters long, move swiftly across the land, opening roads through mountains and building bridges across valleys.

High in the sky, there are flying operation platforms spanning tens of thousands of kilometers, inserting "steel rods" thousands of kilometers long into the ground.

The Ascending Dragon Palace is transforming the entire "Sorrowful Wind Continent" through creation-like means, which is also a massive-scale experiment.

The steel tunnels and the steel spikes driven into the earth are actually made of hadron materials. The raw materials are the most common mud and sand in the world. The lack of metallic elements doesn't matter; everything is made of hadron materials.

As for the channels that spread across the land and the steel spikes that penetrated deep into the earth, they formed a massive array.

However, this formation is not a fantasy formation, but rather "rune technology", "meme technology", it has computer logic, and even "creation methods".

The desolate land is being transformed into a vibrant place under the hands of the Rising Dragon Palace.

Zhao Weiguang could no longer understand the technology brought by the Rising Dragon Palace, but he knew it was awesome.

This is normal, though. After all, Zhao Weiguang's cultivation level is only 22.0, and he hasn't even transcended the tribulation yet. If a fight really breaks out, he'll at most be able to fight to a draw with the current elites of the Ascending Dragon Hall who are at level 20.0.

According to the initial realm classification of the Ascending Dragon Palace, the realm of 22.0 without undergoing tribulation is the same as the realm of 20.0 with tribulation. However, without undergoing tribulation, the foundation is ultimately inferior.

The current cultivation techniques are all so-called tribulation-crossing techniques, requiring one to undergo tribulation at the 20.0 realm. Even though the laws on the Sorrowful Wind Continent are incomplete, the Ascending Dragon Palace will still create artificial heavenly tribulations.

Tribulation is not a test, but an achievement. Under a controlled tribulation, cultivators can quickly identify deficiencies within their bodies, allowing their cosmic brain to undergo a transformation.

Over the years, the methods for transcending tribulations have become increasingly sophisticated. Those methods that didn't require transcending tribulations are no longer just outdated; they've become relics of the past.

The "old practitioners" in Taibai City have been given fifty years by the Ascending Dragon Hall to rebuild their foundation, mainly by relearning, especially the method of formatted reconstruction.

In reality, Taibai City is lacking in more than just cultivation; it's a gap in every aspect. Even a fifty-year adaptation period is still insufficient.

As the spaceship continued its ascent, Zhao Weiguang finally sighed and looked up at the endless storm high in the sky. In the past, this red storm was one of the sources of light for the Sorrowful Wind Continent; now, it was being weakened little by little.

The spacecraft easily navigated the storm and continued its journey into space.

Space isn't so peaceful either; debris is everywhere. Patrol ships can be seen frequently intercepting and towing away meteorites. Meteorites have a high metal content, which are important resources and shouldn't be wasted.

In space, one can see "iron chains" hanging down from the endless sky, passing through storms, and disappearing into the earth below.

This is a space elevator, shuttling between Earth and space to transport various supplies. Compared to spacecraft, space elevators offer more stable and efficient transportation.

Moreover, countless space elevators can be built. They stretch as far as the eye can see, seemingly without end. They appear like countless blood vessels connecting the sky and the earth.

High in the sky, an "artificial world" is taking shape. It is an artificial world with a diameter of over 100,000 kilometers.

According to the Rising Dragon Palace, since the environment here is harsh, we will build our own continent.

It's a crazy idea, but it's entirely feasible. With the current technology of the Rising Dragon Palace, it's no problem at all. It's just that the construction period might take about a hundred years, and right now everyone has to tighten their belts.

The "Temple," which was once built under the guise of creating a garden for the goddess of nature, was technologically incomplete. It was essentially an escape ship, and there were no "ordinary people" with a cultivation level below 20.0 on board.

What we are building now is a base that ordinary people can live in, which requires higher technology and is more complex to construct.

Beside this massive man-made continent, there was a "pearl." Zhao Weiguang knew that it was a flying machine custom-made by the Ascending Dragon Palace for a saint named "Yuanyang Daozun."

Further away, a super spaceship, 70,000 kilometers long, was being dismantled. That was the Temple.

The Temple is actually an unfinished spaceship, and from a technical standpoint, it's somewhat outdated, with many technologies dating back three hundred years. The Temple's only remaining value is its materials; the metals used to build it are currently being dismantled and recycled.

In this desolate land, metal is extremely scarce!

Although the current technology of the Rising Dragon Palace theoretically does not require metal, it would be better to have it.

As the spaceship continued to ascend, Zhao Weiguang saw spaceships shuttling back and forth in the distance, exploring the surrounding continents.

The Rising Dragon Palace is now the undisputed ruler of this region. Many smaller factions once existed on the Sorrowful Wind Continent, but they have since vanished.

However, these smaller factions were not completely wiped out. Because they dared not.

The main reason is that Yuan Yang Daozun seems very upright. If he knew that the Ascending Dragon Palace was committing genocide, I wonder if things would go wrong.

For the time being, the conquered tribes were relocated to the surrounding worlds by the Ascending Dragon Palace, where they were provided with some living support.

Of course, these groups were defeated in battle and could only be "forced" into the management of the Ascending Dragon Palace, contributing their wisdom to its development. In general, the Ascending Dragon Palace wouldn't engage in a losing proposition.

But there is only one fundamental reason for all of this: the Rising Dragon Palace currently has no saint of its own!

In the inner world, without one's own saint, nothing can be done well.

The spaceship continued its journey and docked next to a massive spaceship that was 30,000 kilometers long. This was the temporary headquarters of the Rising Dragon Palace.

A spaceship traveling 30,000 kilometers is beyond imagination. Once inside, you can't even feel its presence; it's just a bustling world.

Zhao Weiguang met with Wei Yunfan, who was currently in charge of political affairs. After a brief exchange, Zhao Weiguang's arrangements were finalized: he would be sent to the settlement of the alien race to be responsible for communication with them.

During the difficult times in Taibai City, Zhao Weiguang managed to lead everyone to survival, so his methods of communicating with other races are naturally excellent. Now, with the support of the Ascending Dragon Palace, Zhao Weiguang faces no difficulties whatsoever.

However, Zhao Weiguang did not set off immediately. Instead, he chose to undergo entirely new training here, aiming to completely transform his cultivation. As a great hero, Zhao Weiguang received excellent treatment, with a dedicated team assisting him in a complete overhaul of his cultivation, and he had ample time.

Amidst his busy schedule, Zhao Weiguang managed to meet with Chu Fei, but Chu Fei was too busy at the moment, so the two had a brief exchange that lasted less than an hour.

According to the timeline, 180 years have passed since the two hundred years agreed upon by Daoist Yuanyang. Now, the flying machine that the Ascending Dragon Palace customized for Daoist Yuanyang has also been completed.

However, a problem arose. The technology of the Rising Dragon Palace was developing too quickly!
Technology from 180 years ago is definitely different from technology today.

Over the years, guided by the research philosophy and development concept of "small steps, rapid progress, and parallel development," the technology of Shenglong Temple has made great progress.

Science and technology have a characteristic: after a period of accumulation, there is a high probability of a surge in development.

This kind of breakthrough occurred twice during the exploration of the Azure Lotus World. First, it encountered a bottleneck, then it quietly developed and accumulated over thousands of years, finally achieving a breakthrough with a major burst of energy.

It's about the same now.

From the moment Chu Fei began publicly preaching, he accumulated a vast amount of knowledge and information, and later obtained the Heavenly Book through transactions. During this time, he also gained considerable information through exchanges with the Goddess of Nature and the Heavenly Emperor. Later, he participated in wars at the Saint level, and even faced off against the Chaos Beasts, testing his technology in the process. His methods of creating artificial black holes allowed the Ascending Dragon Palace to glimpse a corner of the "Heavenly Dao."

During the subsequent great migration of about 20,000 light-years, they unexpectedly received a gift from Yuan Yang Daozun; after reuniting with Zhao Weiguang, they also obtained a lot of independently developed technologies and research ideas. During this period, they also had a lot of contact with Pixiu Xuanxiao, and the technology of Shenglong Palace finally entered a new period of explosive growth.

The outbreak has occurred, which is certainly a good thing. However, the outbreak happening too quickly also presents problems. Although the spaceship customized for Yuanyang Daozun is excellent, the gap is obvious compared to the 10-kilometer artificial continent currently under construction.

Although the artificial continent is still under construction, it has already shown remarkable promise.

Modifying a spaceship that has already been built is very difficult. Therefore, the best solution is to build a completely new spaceship. To meet the deadline, Chu Fei had to personally take charge.

During this period, Chu Fei had to use the creation techniques he possessed in version 24.0 to manually produce some items. Some new technologies were difficult to mass-produce industrially for the time being, and could only be produced in small batches; especially those involving quasi-saint level technologies, Chu Fei had to personally provide guidance.

Everything was for the purpose of obtaining more information from Daoist Yuanyang.

Furthermore, to prevent any interaction between Yuanyang Daozun and Pixiu Xuanxiao, the Ascending Dragon Palace has been doing its utmost to conceal Xuanxiao's aura over the years. Although Xuanxiao claims not to know Yuanyang Daozun, what if Yuanyang Daozun does know Xuanxiao?
Years passed.

In the midst of his busy work, Zhao Weiguang encountered a problem with his formatted revision.

As one of the original elites, Zhao Weiguang had experienced too much suffering, and his foundation was severely damaged. He had a curse within him, soul toxins, and his foundation had been injured. He also had seals left from healing his wounds, blessing methods, demonic methods, curses upon curses, sacrificial methods, and so on.

Furthermore, Zhao Weiguang also had some strokes of luck that ultimately allowed him to survive.

But the price of survival was that Zhao Weiguang's body was almost transformed into a magical artifact! In other words, Zhao Weiguang refined himself into a magical artifact.

Zhao Weiguang himself was unaware of this change, and neither were those around him. It wasn't until Zhao Weiguang's formatting and refactoring caused problems, and Chu Fei personally inspected it, and also invited "Xuanhai Daojun," a cultivator of both immortals and demons, to examine it, that the problem was discovered.

"So, Old Zhao has become a flesh and blood magic weapon?" Chu Fei was somewhat shocked after listening to Xuan Hai Dao Jun's analysis.

Xuanhai Daojun looked at Zhao Weiguang with some shock in his eyes, "President Chu, what's most shocking isn't becoming a flesh and blood magic weapon, but the pain involved. To forcibly refine oneself into a magic weapon, without even using cultivation methods, not to mention the luck and coincidence involved, the pain of the process alone is unimaginable."

This didn't happen in a day or two, but for thousands of years! To have survived is truly a miracle. For so many years, his soul and consciousness have struggled to survive amidst the curse of death and its mystical blessings.

However, this might be an extremely valuable treasure for the Rising Dragon Palace.

Big data cultivation has been studying the soul, consciousness, and will, but has yet to find good examples. Perhaps, Lao Zhao is such a treasure.

Moreover, Lao Zhao himself is a practitioner of big data, so he can express his feelings very well.

This is a treasure bestowed upon the Chinese civilization by Heaven. A gem that might only appear once in trillions of people.

Chu Fei's eyes lit up.

Recently, my cultivation of big data has been stuck at the quasi-saint stage. Besides the problems with science and technology and mathematical theory, the most important issue is the problem of consciousness and soul.

At this stage, it is necessary to truly address the issues of consciousness and the soul.

In the past, people have used concepts such as negative entropy and the cosmic brain to explain the soul and consciousness, but these explanations are not perfect.

I have also studied the primordial spirits of other cultivators, such as Xuanhai Daojun, but the results were not ideal, after all, they are not from the same civilization system.

Ultimately, the issue boils down to two seemingly incompatible parallel lines: science and technology, scientific theories, and the existence of the soul and consciousness. Therefore, some wonder if the path of big data cultivation is a misguided one.

Although big data cultivation and scientific and technological development have reached a very high level, the inability to break through to the level of a sage is definitely problematic.

Zhao Weiguang didn't refuse to be studied; he was willing to open his soul up for everyone to study. His appointment to a post outside the capital was suspended, and he was instead promoted to a core researcher—even though he was the one being studied.

But if he wants to better conduct research and be studied, Zhao Weiguang must first continue learning. He needs to be able to use science and technology to accurately express the condition inside his body, and even autonomously detect the condition inside his body.

Several years passed in the blink of an eye. Little Pixiu Chu Lei woke up, played around with Chu Fei for a while, and then went back to sleep, cultivating in his slumber.

The staff at the Ascending Dragon Palace continued their busy work. The agreed-upon time of two hundred years had arrived, but Daoist Yuanyang had not yet appeared.

After discussion, the Ascending Dragon Hall decided to continue waiting—after all, that was a saint, someone they couldn't afford to offend. The spaceship customized by Daoist Yuanyang was temporarily sealed, and the newly built spaceship entered its final stages of construction.

In recent years, the Rising Dragon Palace has made breakthroughs in science and technology, its industrial production capacity has begun to climb, and it has started to expand cautiously outwards, but its overall expansionist ambitions are not great. This current expansion is actually a military strategy of using war to promote peace.

Right now, scientific research remains the most important task. We haven't even deciphered one-tenth of the Heavenly Book yet, which is already quite fast, thanks to the data left behind by Daoist Yuanyang.

Occasionally, some forces would try to attack the Rising Dragon Palace, but they would immediately experience what "industrialization" meant. The Rising Dragon Palace, which was ramping up its industrial production capacity, was like a strong man with a hammer in his hand, wanting to smash everything in sight.

Besides scientific research, there is also the search for traces of other aspects of the Yanhuang civilization, but the situation is not good for the time being.

Now we're on an extraterritorial battlefield, theoretically in the same spacetime as the Temple of War, but quantum communication is completely down. I don't know if it's because of the great distance or some other reason.

Another century has passed in the blink of an eye. For the powerful, this amount of time may be insignificant. But for the Rising Dragon Palace, it is enough to bring about earth-shattering changes.

The 10-kilometer-long artificial continent has been completed. Though called a continent, it is also a kind of super spaceship and super industrial base. Now, this artificial continent, named "Panlong," has become the main survival base of the Ascending Dragon Palace.

But the continent of Sorrowful Wind did not give up.

Taibai City and the Thousand Islands Basin have truly become places of blue skies and green waters, and the entire "Sorrowful Wind Continent" has transformed into a "Continent of Life." The technological means of creating this world are becoming increasingly wondrous.

Zhao Weiguang has already made significant progress in his studies and is able to discuss scientific research issues with Chu Fei, and has begun to participate in the research on consciousness.

As for the second spaceship built for Yuanyang Daozun, it has also been completed.

However, Daoist Yuanyang still hadn't arrived.

Since Yuanyang Daozun was not present, the Ascending Dragon Palace thought about it and began building the third ship—the rapid development of technology also brought its own set of problems.

More than thirty years later, the third "life spaceship customized by the sage" was completed.

At this moment, according to the time records of Taibai City, time quietly arrived at the year 6336 of the Fourth Era—the time when Chu Fei and Zhao Weiguang made contact was the year 5947 of the Fourth Era, when Chu Fei was still in Changqingtian.

389 years have passed since then, and it has been about 330 years since he met Yuanyang Daozun.

Two more experts in big data have now surpassed the 23.0 limit and are now striving for the 24.0 level.

They are Wang Guowen and Zhang Ying, disciples whom Chu Fei and Shangguan Qinghong took in when they were in the Qinglian World. These two are indeed very talented.

Unfortunately, building the foundation of 24.0, the information field, requires constructing it algorithm by algorithm, like building a mountain grain by grain – incredibly inefficient. Using this cumbersome method, building an information field would take a billion years! Just thinking about it is disheartening.

More efficient methods for achieving a breakthrough are still under research and not so easy to master. After all, we are only at the quasi-saint stage.

However, if we can find a way to break through to the Quasi-Saint level, we are already ahead of 99.9999% of civilizations.

The people of the Rising Dragon Palace remained calm in the face of this – there was no use in panicking, they could just take their time to study it. This mindset was like an ordinary person knowing a nuclear bomb would arrive in a minute: no need to panic, panicking wouldn't help, they might as well take a picture with their phone.

Think back to the days when the emperor was always in power, even saints were hunted down. Now, I feel incredibly happy.

That day, Chu Fei and the others were discussing whether to begin building the fourth spaceship for Daoist Yuanyang when Chu Fei suddenly had a thought and spoke up: "Daoist Yuanyang has arrived! But..."

Everyone suddenly looked up at Chu Fei, including the Nature Goddess who was just standing by.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Chu Fei said somewhat uncertainly, "It seems he's injured and sent a distress message."

Everyone looked confused.

A saint, high above us, is asking for our help?
Could it be that you're imagining things?
Should we pretend we don't know? (End of Chapter)