The future is an unknown to everyone.
Chen Cheng never got the chance to introduce himself in detail. After the toast, the program moved on to the drinking competition.
Zheng Jun, being a Northeastern boy, had an astonishing tolerance for alcohol. After defeating the unwilling Chen Cheng and Li Li, he still had the energy to duel with Wang Shuo.
Wang Shuo also gave it his all. For some reason, he was unusually brave today, managing to pull Zheng Jun into a final battle.
The result... was a double defeat.
All four of them drank until they passed out, and the first dormitory drinking competition at university ended in a tragic manner.
The only thought Wang Shuo had before losing consciousness was, "How can I drink so much today? Damn it, I'll never drink again..."
"Detecting host consciousness asleep, beginning judgment..."
"Judgment complete, host brain domain has been strengthened, strengthening coefficient 0.1326, meets the minimum system startup requirements... beginning execution... request from another dimension generating..."
"Injecting..."
Wang Shuo felt like he was falling into a black hole, continuously sinking... sinking, sinking until he didn't know when, and then suddenly, he stopped.
He looked around at the environment, a vast expanse of darkness without end, no movement, occasionally seeing beams of light, like meteors quickly streaking by.
Wang Shuo tried to reach out and touch these bright spots, but his hand felt nothing.
"What is this? Where am I?" Wang Shuo looked confused at his slightly glowing hands, "If this is a dream, it's too real, isn't it?"
He looked up and shouted at the surroundings.
"Is anyone there?"
"Is someone there?"
"Can someone explain to me what's going on?"
After shouting for a long time, Wang Shuo realized that he couldn't do anything except look at the dark space — he couldn't move at all, or maybe he had moved, but without a reference point, it felt like he hadn't moved at all.
"Why am I so unlucky today!" Wang Shuo wanted to cry but had no tears, somewhat doubting if he had left the house the wrong way today, maybe he stepped out with his left foot first?
After struggling for a long time, Wang Shuo finally gave up and quietly floated in place, watching the bright lights occasionally streak by. After calming down, he found that the view in front of him was actually not bad; it was not pure darkness, after all.
As Wang Shuo was observing one of the bright lights, it suddenly burst into a brilliant glow, causing him to instinctively close his eyes.
The next moment, a strange figure appeared in front of Wang Shuo.
Wang Shuo would bet his eighteen years of emotional experience that what he saw was indeed a figure that could only be described as strange. The reason for using the word "figure" is that the shadow in front of him also had a head, two... um... arms, and two legs, completely resembling a normal humanoid shape, but it seemed a bit inappropriate to say that it was human. This humanoid figure was dressed in a black tight-fitting suit, with mysterious patterns on the clothing that occasionally glowed with an unknown brilliance. The head was exposed, with two small protuberances resembling antennae on the forehead. It also had distinct eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and a rather delicate face.
But for some reason, Wang Shuo found the figure in front of him very strange.
As Wang Shuo was pondering, the figure opened its eyes, and he seemed to see a hint of confusion in its eyes.
"Is this... the new era? Did the startup... succeed?" the figure asked, and then seemed to fall into confusion again.
This... Wang Shuo widened his eyes as he watched the figure emit strange sounds that he couldn't understand and then ignore him as if he wasn't there, leaving him stunned. "Hey, don't get into your own rhythm yet, okay? Can't you see there's a confused little boy in front of you who just wants to get out of here?"
Fortunately, the figure didn't make Wang Shuo wait too long. After a brief moment of confusion, it turned its eyes towards Wang Shuo, looking down at him, and emitted a strange sound.
Wang Shuo indicated that he had no idea what it meant and could only look at the figure with innocent, wide eyes.
The figure seemed to frown, then appeared to have an epiphany. It raised its arm to touch the small protuberances on its forehead, then frowned and put it down, looked at Wang Shuo, shook its head, and then closed its eyes.
Wang Shuo: "..."
What does this mean? Is it looking down on me? Wang Shuo felt deeply insulted. If it weren't for the fact that everything here was formless and intangible, Wang Shuo would really want to jump onto the figure's chest, grab its collar, and ask if it knew what respect for the elderly and love for the young meant, ah, it's love for the young, right.
Wang Shuo was still thinking about how to regain his dignity when the figure opened its eyes again, its gaze shifted downwards, and it spat out a sentence that almost made Wang Shuo jump: "Your name is Wang Shuo?"
"What the hell are you?" Wang Shuo carefully watched the figure in front of him as he floated back half-way.
Damn it, the figure had just spoken in perfect Mandarin pronunciation?
"Junior intelligent life Wang Shuo, after a primary brain domain enhancement." The figure's voice became more and more indifferent: "Primarily meets the core's bearing requirements."
"What is this?" Wang Shuo felt that he had really been confused all day today. Should he establish a holiday for himself in the future and call it the Day of Confusion?
"My time is running out, junior intelligent life Wang Shuo." A hint of sorrow seemed to flow out of the figure's eyes again: "Crossing the membrane wall has consumed too much energy, the core structure has been severely damaged, the intelligent emotional module is defective, and I can no longer persist for too long."
"But fortunately, the database has been preserved relatively intact. We, or rather you, still have a chance, junior intelligent life Wang Shuo."
The figure's voice was cold, yet Wang Shuo somehow detected a hint of reluctance in this coldness. But why could he understand every word the figure said, yet couldn't comprehend them when put together?
"Wait a minute..." Wang Shuo interrupted the figure with a face full of question marks: "I'm sorry to ask, but what are you talking about? What do you mean by 'you' and 'us'? What is the 'core'? Who are you? Most importantly, am I a 'junior intelligent life'? What the hell is that?"
"Junior intelligent life Wang Shuo, my time is running out." The figure looked down at Wang Shuo with a slightly cold gaze, speaking indifferently: "Are you sure you need me to give you a detailed explanation? It will consume the core's limited energy."
"Of course, I need you to explain it clearly to me." Wang Shuo shook his head. What did core energy have to do with him? But without understanding what the figure was, where he was, and what was happening, Wang Shuo felt he would go crazy.
"As you wish." The figure was silent for a moment, then extended its palm and rotated it slightly.
Wang Shuo suddenly felt the speed of the light points around him accelerate rapidly, converging together and bursting into a stronger light.
The scene that appeared again stunned Wang Shuo. Countless particles were rapidly settling, condensing, and forming irregular shapes in front of him. Many irregular objects collided with each other, emitting brilliant light.
Time seemed to be accelerated at this moment. Wang Shuo witnessed the birth of a planet right before his eyes. The initial mass continuously collapsed towards the center, and more matter kept coming, finally causing a violent explosion at the planet's core. The entire planet burned like a fireball, with various substances being thrown out, carrying enough energy to destroy everything, sweeping in all directions.
"This is..." Wang Shuo seemed to comprehend something.
The history of the universe's evolution seemed to be condensed on this bright pearl. After the new star appeared, the matter surrounding it seemed to find a leader and started orbiting it, colliding, merging, colliding again, and merging again, eventually forming irregularly shaped giant mixtures.
"Our universe has no name, but to distinguish it from yours, let's call it the Terminal Universe, and yours, in our terms, the New Era Metaverse."
"Our solar system was born on the edge of the entire galaxy cluster in the universe, which we call the Mu'er Solar System. Our race can be called humanoid—I couldn't find any other name in your language library. One day, trillions of years after the universe was born, our ancestral planet was born."
Before the figure finished speaking, the giant mixtures that were just merging underwent several violent collisions and shattered into pieces, throwing countless particles into cosmic space. The massive debris showed their power at this moment, pulling smaller debris and dust into their orbits, engulfing what they could and binding the rest to themselves. Gradually, a group of planets with regular shapes appeared before Wang Shuo's eyes.
The newly born young planet was very unstable, like a mischievous child, often injuring itself—land collapsing, magma and toxic gases spraying everywhere, resembling hell. Its neighboring planets were also affected.
Wang Shuo saw one of the smaller planets collide with another, both shattering into pieces, with a large amount of matter being pulled into the gravity of the small planet and falling onto its surface.
But like mischievous children, these small planets also grow up. After days of collapsing, absorbing, and喷射ing, this little troublemaker finally matured into a proper planet. It became more regular and stable, providing great warmth and care to the tiny parasites on its surface.
"Mu'er Star is located on the fourth orbit of the solar system, with a pleasant climate and is very easy to survive. After our ancestors appeared, they began to develop rapidly. In just seven thousand years, they developed technology that could break free from the planet's gravity. Since then, we have entered the era of interstellar colonization."
In just a short time, the newly formed Mu'er Star began to launch numerous sesame-sized small spaceships. Some quickly accelerated and left the planetary orbit, while others landed on nearby satellites and began to rapidly construct bases.
Thus, under Wang Shuo's watch, satellite exploration bases appeared like magic on satellites that were previously empty.
At the same time, more and more advanced spaceships emerged from the interior of the small planet, with faster speeds, larger volumes.
Finally, a huge spaceship appeared on the planetary orbit, comparable in size to Wang Shuo's fist, its massive body seemed to block out the sun.
"When we reached eight thousand years of development, we mastered gravity wave navigation technology and simultaneously built the first deep space carrier in orbit, the 'Hope'."
Wang Shuo was deeply amazed. The impact of condensing the history of a civilization and presenting it directly was beyond words, and the way the figure in front of him was doing it was simply incredible.
"When we reached nine thousand years of development, our race split into three parts, and they began to fight each other. This war lasted for a hundred years."
The evolution of the scene continued, and now the perspective had widened to show that the humanoid race had occupied the entire Mu'er Star System.
"Because of the vast territories we occupied and the fact that we were still in the primitive stage of gravity wave navigation, we could only communicate through established interstellar routes. However, the prolonged war seriously threatened the safety of these routes, and the reckless actions of some of our kind caused severe damage to various star regions."
The figure didn't elaborate on the extent of the damage, and Wang Shuo didn't ask.
The figure turned his palm again, and the scene around Wang Shuo began to develop rapidly.
"Over the next ten thousand years, we discovered the wormhole effect and created large wormhole generators. We also started to research space. We succeeded because of wormholes; we escaped the small canyon of the star system and reached the large lake of the star cluster. With the jump technology, we greatly increased our navigation speed and achieved miniaturization of the entire group. We developed new communication technologies that allowed for lossless and delay-free transmission of information across light-years. We optimized our own genetic structure, unlocking some incredible abilities as a result. We built large space stations that could rival planets. We colonized countless planets, providing a solid foundation for our population explosion. Our civilization was thriving, and we believed that we would continue to conquer more star clusters and planets, and develop even better technologies."
Wang Shuo listened with great interest and asked eagerly when the figure's voice trailed off, "And then?"
"We succeeded, but we also failed." The figure fell silent, and then turned his palm again, this time accelerating even faster than before.
The scene around him whirled rapidly, as if thousands of years passed in a flash.
When it stopped again, everything around had changed. If the universe before was a middle-aged person in the prime of life, then now it had become an elderly person at sunset, suffering from a serious illness and on the brink of collapse, as if they could fall and die at any moment.
"This is... what happened?" Wang Shuo looked at the scene in disbelief.
"The end of the universe." The figure fell silent for a moment before speaking, "After hundreds of thousands of years of development, our race occupied every corner of the universe, touching its edge. No cosmic disaster could destroy us. We could even enslave stars, preventing them from radiating any energy; we could turn white dwarfs and neutron stars into our weapons; we could instantly annihilate a planet; collapse matter from three dimensions to two; preserve our information on a core for tens of thousands of years; collect dark energy through sub-dimensions; and even breach the cosmic membrane. But in the end, we are not the rules. We are living beings, not gods. We could not conquer the universe itself."
Wang Shuo's eyes widened. What the figure was saying seemed to surpass his understanding. In fact, everything that had happened today felt beyond his comprehension. After being repeatedly overwhelmed, Wang Shuo felt as if he had developed some immunity, or perhaps numbness.
"You cannot understand, junior intelligent life Wang Shuo." The figure spoke with sorrow, "What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, and there was nothing you could do to avoid it?"
Wang Shuo blurted out, "I would do everything I want to do in that one day."
"Finish everything you want to do, and then die peacefully?" The figure looked at Wang Shuo, "Would you still strive for a glimmer of hope, even if the struggle was futile, knowing there was no hope at all?"
"Of course, I would. It's the instinct of intelligent life." Wang Shuo nodded seriously.
The figure fell silent again, then continued, "At the peak of our development, we accidentally touched the imprint of the universe, the realm of the rules. We glimpsed our race's destiny and learned about the universe's inevitable end and its irreversibility. We... went mad."
"Just like you said, intelligent life Wang Shuo."
Wang Shuo listened intently, seemingly not noticing anything unusual in the figure's words.
"The desire for survival is an instinct of all life, including us. A part of our race couldn't accept this reality and deluded themselves. Due to our means of communication, this delusion affected a significant portion of our kind, and they... went completely mad; another part of our race accepted this reality but were unwilling to just disappear. As mentioned earlier, they wanted to fulfill all their dreams, without regard for whether these dreams conformed to the rules of our race; there were also those who had no reaction, having lost hope in their lives, waiting at home for the cosmic apocalypse; and then there was... us."
A glimmer of light burst from the figure's eyes, and it suddenly emphasized its words, no longer in a cold voice but seemingly filled with an excited emotion.
"We, the most distinguished explorers of our race, possess ninety percent of the knowledge, technology, and resources of our race. We are the strongest resistance against the cosmic judgment!"
"We were also unwilling to follow the universe to its demise, but we needed to save our race, not join the ranks of the destroyers."
"Our space exploration technology had reached a certain level. In our previous explorations of the universe's edge, we discovered the existence of the cosmic membrane. Research on the cosmic membrane had been ongoing, but due to resource allocation issues, there hadn't been much progress. The cosmic judgment gave us an opportunity, and our race provided us with sufficient resources."
"We speculated that the positive universe is finite, like a fruit or a room, with its own maximum limits. Since the birth of the universe, it has been growing and expanding, from chaos to order. But when it grows to touch other fruits or rooms, it begins to collapse into itself, entering a phase of destruction. Just like a fruit that rots after reaching fullness, or a room that is demolished after expansion. This process may take tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even tens of billions of years."
"We are unfortunate, but also lucky. Unfortunately, our race was born too late. We are like the brilliant fireworks that burst forth in the instant before the universe's destruction, dazzling but brief, so brief that we had no time to continue optimizing our race and finding a way out.Fortunatelyour ancestral planet was gentle enough to give us the shortest time to grow, a mere hundreds of thousands of years, which is very short on the cosmic scale, but for a race, it is a time equivalent to eternity."
"If the universe is truly as we speculate, then after it begins to collapse, its membrane wall is at its weakest, just like the shell of a rotting fruit, which is not as hard as usual. This is also our best chance to open it and pass through. We spent a thousand years preparing two plans: First, we gathered all the resources of our race, concentrated all explorers, and at a great cost, created a set of equipment that spanned several star systems. If everything goes well, it can open a hole in the spatial membrane wall large enough for an adult to pass through, allowing our people to carry the prepared heritage of our race to a new era."
Wang Shuo broke out in a cold sweat upon hearing this. If it had been a person falling on him... with their physical constitution, they might have been fine, but he might have been done for. And the sudden appearance of an alien, oh, no, a being from another universe, with technology and equipment dazzling enough to blind Earthlings with 24k titanium alloy eyes, would definitely be worshipped as a god by some.
Thinking of this, Wang Shuo actually felt a hint of joy?
"Second, we gathered all the explorers of our race to create a super core!"
At this point, the figure looked up at Wang Shuo.
Wang Shuo blinked innocently. What do you mean, the core wasn't stolen by me, what's with that look?
"This core uses the latest biotechnology, made from materials that can fuse with the human body, and can operate using multiple types of energy. After fusing with the host, there is no way to remove it."
In front of Wang Shuo's eyes, a crystal-like object the size of an apricot pit was floating quietly, with a beautiful, soft blue glow. It seemed more like a masterpiece of nature than an artificial creation.
"Using structured light to transmit information is a mature technology for us, but structured light is too fragile, too fragile to protect our information from crossing the membrane. We had to think of another way. In the end, we decided to use soul information to transmit data."
"Compared to ordinary methods, soul information has better expandability, stronger stability, and a certain level of intelligence. In the worst-case scenario, the controlled soul can replace the artificial intelligence to some extent. Our core size does not allow us to set a high level of intelligence sequence."
The figure fell silent for a moment before continuing, "So, after a round of cruel selection, only I could be modulated into a controlled soul, serving as the first sequence of the core itself, while eliminating most of my memories and emotions to store the valuable data and information of our race."
"The information library, which collects all the technology, humanities, and geographical data of our race, is incredibly vast. Even if we develop my brain to ninety percent of its potential, it cannot contain it all. This would sacrifice over ninety percent of my emotions and memories, but we had no choice. We had to focus on technical data and discard most of the humanities and geographical information."
Wang Shuo also fell silent. Even with his playful nature, he couldn't find it in himself to gloat at this moment. What kind of desperate situation would lead to such a choice, where an entire race would try to modulate their own souls, abandoning ninety percent of their emotions and memories just to store more data? Was this not a cruel and inhumane act? To kill a person, the cruelest thing would be to not even spare their soul.
"After the modulation was successful, in order to give the core certain permissions while I was dormant, I listed the second sequence, which you could call the logic sequence. It doesn't have my autonomous emotions and consciousness, similar to your fixed programs, but it has a certain level of logical judgment. I didn't find its shadow in the core module you obtained after I awoke; it must have been damaged while crossing the membrane."
"This... is the whole truth, intelligent life Wang Shuo." The figure fell completely silent, looking quietly at Wang Shuo floating in front of it.
"I... still have a question." Wang Shuo raised his hand as if to ask, then seemed to find it meaningless and put it down again. "The random stuff popping into my head today, is that related to the core?"
"Yes, the core needs energy to operate, even weak biological energy. The most concentrated place for biological energy in the human body is the brain. The higher the degree of brain development, the faster the biological energy operates. During the fusion process of the core and your brain, your brain has been strengthened once, and some sequence permissions and database access have been opened to you, which is why you can see me in your brain."
Wang Shuo opened his mouth, "I... my brain?" He looked around the space, somewhat incredulous. "Here?"
"This is your brain, intelligent life Wang Shuo." The figure paused, "Or what you could call your thought touch space. After your brain is strengthened, it can barely meet the standard for independent operation, and the thought touch space can rely on your brain to generate."
Wang Shuo felt like he was understanding less and less, "Does that mean you can enter my brain at any time and know what I'm thinking?"
"I can't do that." The figure said indifferently, "At my full strength before I was modulated, I could have turned you into my puppet directly through your brain domain, but now, my duty is as the core's first sequence, and I'm about to dissipate. I can't enter your brain domain to peek at your thoughts."
Wang Shuo wanted to say something, but the figure didn't give him the chance, continuing, "I just tried to communicate with you directly through brain waves, but your brain domain is tightly guarded, and I couldn't succeed. I had no choice but to learn your language from the core, although I really dislike this low-level and inefficient way of communication."
Wang Shuo couldn't help but feel a little smug, it seemed he did have some advantages after all.
"You can't receive my brain waves because your brain domain is well-guarded and highly individualized; and secondly, your brain domain development is too low. I can't force brain waves on you, although I can control it, there's an 80% chance you would become an idiot." The figure paused, "The core can't be entrusted to an idiot. We need your brain."
The smug look on Wang Shuo's face disappeared as he wanted nothing more than to pick up the thought he had just dropped and beat the huge head in front of him into a huge pig head!
"My time is running out, intelligent life Wang Shuo." The figure lifted its head slightly, its tone returning to its indifferent state, "I will represent the highest sequence of the End of the Universe Salvation Group, the last ruler of the humanoid civilization, Lord Haiyiku, and all the members of the humanoid civilization, to convey the final request of the humanoid civilization."
Wang Shuo looked at him dumbfounded, somewhat at a loss, "You... just say it, there's no need to be so formal."
"Intelligent life, I am the supreme leader of the civilization, Haiyiku."
The figure's mouth suddenly emitted a different voice, and Wang Shuo seemed to see a black figure standing on the highest throne speaking to him through the barriers of two universes.
"Our universe is about to be destroyed, taking with it the glory of our civilization that has lasted for tens of thousands of years. Unlike the countless disasters we have faced, this time, we have nowhere to hide, but we also have nothing to fear."
"If you can see this conversation, it means that our last resort has failed, our struggle has been mercilessly crushed, and our race... there are no survivors."
"What you are merging with is our race's last hope, the hope that our greatest warrior, Mu'er, sacrificed everything to bring back."
"The sequence has been executed to the last process, and everything is irreversible. My time is running out. Intelligent life, I represent all our compatriots to request you, if you merge with the core, please find an opportunity to let our civilization be known, to let others know that outside your universe, there was once a civilization that challenged the universe! Even if we are crushed to dust, let the light of civilization shine through the cosmic membrane!"
"We are all warriors, this is the war between our race and the universe. We may not win, but we have nothing to fear!"