Early the next morning, Xu Zhi got out of bed and looked outside. In the 100-acre sandbox, there were miniature mountains, rivers, and lush greenery. Even if guests came to the yard, they wouldn't see this magical miniature world in the nearby orchard. The bug nests were proficient in mental manipulation and could interfere with human minds.
After a few days, Xu Zhi seemed to be less lethargic. His hair, which had fallen out due to chemotherapy, was gradually growing back, and his dead white skin was becoming healthy. In the mirror, he looked handsome and sculpted, with distinct facial features and defined muscles.
"Stopping chemotherapy for half a month, the side effects have finally subsided, and my body has returned to its original shape. My physique, face, and even more perfect than before... This is the abundance of dead bug species, gradually nourishing my body."
In front of the mirror, he silently sensed everything. Grazing bug species in the sandbox, their life force energy could nourish Xu Zhi after death. The higher the level of the life species, the stronger their soul, and the stronger the effect.
This state was due to the first mass extinction of species in the "Dark Martial Chronicle" and the second mass extinction of species in the "Light Martial Chronicle" a few days ago. Although they were the lowest primitive organisms, the number of deaths was too many and could still have a significant effect, until he completely absorbed them last night.
"The most crucial thing is, my hair has grown back!"
"Now that the side effects of chemotherapy have been resolved and my body has improved, my body can't kill cancer cells, even if it is healthy. In fact, the healthier the body, the stronger the cancer cells."
He finally became very happy.
Leaving the sandbox in the yard, he rode his bike to the town far away and had breakfast. He rarely strolled around the village, planning to show off his newly grown thick and black hair, and see who would dare to look at his head with a sad expression.
The roadsides were fields, occasionally with cow dung, full of nostalgic rural flavors. Xu Zhi was suddenly stopped by a stout, dark-skinned auntie carrying a vegetable basket next to him. "Hey, isn't this Xiaozhi? Chen Xi said you came back, and I didn't believe it at first... Oh, I heard you got sick, is it cancer?"
"Yes," Xu Zhi nodded.
"Ah, that's not good." The auntie became excited and said, "You have a terminal illness, and our old Xu family has no descendants, what are we going to do? My daughter is actually quite good, look at this..."
???
After finding out that I have a terminal illness, she directly introduced her daughter to me as a potential partner. Ha ha. Perhaps she knew I had made some money in the city and had a large orchard left by my parents, and wanted to inherit it after I died?
Hair may have grown out, but it doesn't mean I've become weak. Xu Zhigang was just about to refuse. "Hey, ignore her!" Beside him, round-faced little girl Chen Xi rushed out with a few middle-aged women, in a hurry. "My mom told me that Pig Auntie is bothering you, and I knew Pig Auntie wanted to marry off a girl! Your girl is so ugly and hot-tempered, beating her husband and driving him away, and you still want Xu Zhigang to take over?" "It's you again, you smelly little girl, watch me teach you a lesson..." The short and fat Pig Auntie was very angry, but when she looked at the more imposing middle-aged women around her, she was taken aback and turned and walked away. Xu Zhigang was stunned. "Xu Zhigang, let me tell you, in our village, Pig Auntie is not a good person. There are always some shrewd and vicious women and bullies in every village... wow!" Chen Xi casually glanced at Xu Zhigang and suddenly froze, "What happened to you!? You weren't like this a few days ago, bald, especially bald..." Next to her, Li Auntie was Chen Xi's mother. She glared at Chen Xi and smiled, "Girl! Hasn't Little Zhigang always looked like this? He's changed a bit now that he's back after all these years, and he's become much more handsome! Come on, let's go to your Aunt Li's house." "Yes, let's go to Aunt Li's house!" Next to them, several enthusiastic middle-aged women carrying baskets called out happily. "No, Mom! He wasn't like this a few days ago, he was bald, had male pattern baldness, and was hunched over!" Chen Xi was left behind in the crowd, mouth agape, stomping her feet in anger. "Girl, who cursed Xu Zhigang like that? And called him bald!" Li Auntie was very angry. Xu Zhigang raised his eyebrows and suddenly felt relieved. He felt like he had regained his own ground. Is hair not a man's dignity? He didn't really have the heart to refuse the enthusiasm of his neighbors, so he sat down in the neighboring courtyard for a while. The passionate aunties chatted about family matters, knowing that Xu Zhigang had a terminal illness and felt sorry for him, also motherly and grandmotherly. Neighbors in the countryside are mostly simple and honest. He rarely came back after going to work, but now he suddenly remembered many childhood memories here and felt some warmth. He accompanied these aunties who watched him grow up, chatted, and felt comfortable and content.
Before leaving, the aunts stuffed some vegetables and food from their own homes into his hands and said, "You should rest and take it easy here, and maybe the illness will pass." "Yes," Xu Zhi replied with a warm smile.
"It's definitely a body double! They must have secretly edited the photos. It's fine if the hair has grown out, but the looks and demeanor have changed a lot... there's definitely something wrong!" Chen Xi lay on a wooden chair, muttering to himself and talking nonsense.
Xu Zhi pretended not to hear, and remained calm and composed. He was actually quite moved by the warmth of the neighbors. After chatting with them for a while and getting to know each other, he expressed his intention to recuperate at his old rural home and promised to meet with them often in the future. Then he rode his bicycle back to the yard.
As soon as he entered the house, he hurriedly went to the sand table to observe the group of apes and their evolution of civilization. The evolution speed had slowed down considerably - one year was equivalent to two on their side, so he adjusted it to a hundred times slower, meaning that one day was still equivalent to one hundred years.
"It's been half a day, so it's been over eighty years in their sand table world," Xu Zhi thought to himself. He picked up his telescope, stood on a chair at the door, and observed the distant apes in the sand table. He didn't want to go in casually because every time he entered, he caused enormous damage to the ecosystem. After all, for those ant-sized animals, the hundred mu sand table was already equivalent to half a province on Earth.
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"This is..." Xu Zhi was surprised to find that in just one night, these apes had already developed rudimentary tribal structures, lived in groups, and even had a primitive language and culture. They had even started wearing animal skins.
An authority in evolutionary biology once said, "Animals in nature will openly display their reproductive organs in front of the opposite sex to attract them, but when a population gives birth to intelligence, they will do the opposite. Because the first psychological trait of intelligent life is shame, and shame will cause them to shyly cover up their own parts in front of the opposite sex."
It sounds funny. When a species acquires intelligence, their first act is to wear underwear out of shame?
Covering up their reproductive organs does not benefit their survival from a biological standpoint. Instead, it inhibits the reproductive impulse of the opposite sex, which is detrimental to the species' reproduction of offspring.
According to the theory of evolution, a species that resists population reproduction should be naturally eliminated. But intelligence is unpredictable, and with intelligence comes many viewpoints that are not consistent with evolution, just like humans.
"Having shame means they have wisdom. I succeeded," he said with satisfaction, laughing. "Those apes that used to just shout 'bald, bald' have finally developed their own crude civilization, which is not so annoying anymore. Not bad."
But they were about to be on the brink of extinction. They were too weak.
Although Xu Zhi had already chosen the best primitive template for them, during the two days they were cultivated as guinea pigs, the sandbox continent still evolved at a rate of ten thousand times. Two days had passed for them, but it had been twenty thousand years. By the time they went back... they were already out of sync with the era.
Their ancient genes from twenty thousand years ago were not enough to withstand the attacks of beasts and tyrannosaurs twenty thousand years later.
"This won't work. Extinction is inevitable," Xu Zhi thought to himself. He had a slight expression change and went back to the room, got on his laptop, and opened the wireless network. He customized some things on Taobao, "It looks like I need to find a way to create some sparks of civilization for them!"
After placing the order, he turned off the computer.
The next morning, Xu Zhi came back from his morning jog, slightly sweating. He looked at the two online shopping packages on the table, which had arrived this morning, after all, it was urgent air transportation, only a little over a day.
One package contained a miniature potted pine tree: a welcome pine.
The other package was a finely crafted alloy sword, custom-made by a Taobao store, only a little bigger than a toothpick, with exquisite luxury.
At this moment, the ape clan had survived for a day and a half, which was one hundred and fifty years, and they were becoming increasingly scarce, struggling to survive, and almost on the verge of extinction.
"After surviving for one hundred and fifty years without extinction, there is some potential. It's time to go check on them," Xu Zhi stood up and walked towards the yard. "Adjust their cell division flow rate to normal, one to one."
...
In the southern part of Mesopotamia, there is a huge valley where humans live. The valley has large forests with fruits and edible plants growing in them.
Ahead was the Tigris River, where there were countless schools of fat and plump fish. The rich resources allowed the insect apes living here to survive, but now it was the final hour.
There were ruins and corpses scattered everywhere. The thatched huts were destroyed, and the ground was littered with the bodies of insect apes.
"Run! We can't hide here anymore. The Arla are coming!"
Several black, hairy, and armored chimpanzees, who seemed to be walking armor, with immature vocal language, roared and ordered the women and children behind them to retreat. They themselves wielded unknown wild beast's huge horns and charged towards several skinny, black, and sneaky giant beasts like robbers.
"We have to survive!"
The women ran along with despair on their faces. They seemed to have become accustomed to fleeing. Several male insect apes rushed forward to resist, but soon there was a lot of bloodshed, and they were chewed up and turned into food.
Fear spread.
Xu Zhi sighed when he saw this scene. He felt some sympathy. The casualties of the primitive tribe were too severe.
The Nest Intelligence Brain next to him said, "The insect race is a highly reproductive species. They are meaningless mass-produced evolutionary spores, with brief and fleeting lives like plankton, unless they can transcend."
"Transcend? How can they transcend?" Xu Zhi asked.
The Nest Intelligence Brain explained, "It means to break free from being cannon fodder, enter the realm of insect heroes, awaken, break the passive evolution, control their genetic lock, and adjust their own genetic evolution... Under the billions of species spawned on each planet, there will always be a few who can transcend and become leaders, open the genetic lock, and become swarm heroes, entering the upper echelon."
Xu Zhi understood. After all, it was impossible for a huge race to be controlled by only the mother nest. There were various powerful upper echelons - the insect heroes.
The insect race is a passive evolution, survival of the fittest. Just like in the Dark Age, after absorbing the moonlight, the plant Blue Moon Grass died by the billions before evolving into a plant that could perform photosynthesis with moonlight.
This was passive evolution, with too many sacrifices, based on a huge death toll.
But those insect heroes were strong individual lives. They could control their genetic chains independently, achieve active evolution, adjust their own gene sequence, and the difference was night and day.
"You think, will the insect apes I created give birth to heroes who can break free from their genetic chains?" Xu Zhi laughed, "Will there be heroic figures among the races?"
"If the potential is sufficient, it is feasible."
The Nest thought for a moment and added, "The genetic makeup of the species in this land is very unique and distinctive. For example, after absorbing the chimpanzee genes in front of us, this insect ape has become somewhat strange, with great potential. It is not impossible."
'Insect apes might be possible? Well, I'm pretty happy about that,' Xu Zhi chatted while taking big strides forward.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground trembled.
In the ancient, wild-smelling forest, countless beasts were startled and flew out, and many species ran away.
Mountains and rivers were flattened, and some powerful creatures didn't even have time to react before they were crushed into a pile of flesh by a foot descending from the sky.
"Even if they accidentally get stepped on by me, it's just bad luck. It's survival of the fittest," Xu Zhi said.
One foot.
A large area of forest collapsed.
Ssshhh! In the forest, the terrifying beasts called "Ala" that were eating the bodies of the just-dead insect apes were also crushed by a foot, without even a whimper.
Xu Zhi caught up with the fleeing insect ape in front of him.
"Oh my god! What is that..."
"How could there be such a huge creature!"
"He's ten thousand times bigger than the largest hundred-meter beast, Fimba! He just stepped on the terrifying Ala!"
"At least it's a super giant over a thousand meters long that can't be seen from the top!"
The insect apes turned their heads and screamed at the towering, sky-piercing, ancient giant that seemed to break through the white clouds in the sky, collapsing to the ground in an instant.
Xu Zhi understood their crude language through the insect nest, but he didn't mind.
What do ants feel about humans?
Ants can't even reach the one centimeter of shoes, and when they look up, the shock of seeing a towering, sky-piercing, ancient giant that seems to touch the sky is unimaginable.
To them, he is like a god."