Chapter 189: The Selfish Gene
"Do our genes harbor another latent consciousness?" He was suddenly struck by this rather chilling thought.
Bai Mo recalled reading a book that anthropomorphized genes as selfish entities possessing independent consciousnesses.
According to its premise, many human activities—including the obsession with procreation and the innate closeness felt towards blood relatives—were essentially the genes, deeply embedded, pursuing their infinite drive for self-replication.
Organisms were merely vessels for genes, and the true orchestrators of most so-called desires were the genes themselves. At the time, he had merely scoffed at such a notion, but now, recalling it, a shiver ran down his spine. This was because the previous unified and utterly baseless decomposition of DNA within his cells had been far too precise.
Yet, no matter how many DNA extraction experiments Bai Mo conducted using cell samples from other organisms, or even other people, a similar collapse never recurred. It was as if he were an isolated, special case, and all his conjectures remained unprovable imaginings.
Confronted with a problem that clearly exceeded his current capabilities and bore a strong tint of conspiracy theory, he decided to shelve it for now. He would only address it later, once he possessed greater power and more effective methods of inquiry.
"Furthermore, this path I've embarked upon seems somewhat disadvantageous. The Spirit Pictures I painstakingly gathered can only serve as fuel for the birth of my new body, and all currently developed Spirit Arts are predicated on human physiology. Perhaps I've taken too grand a leap with this step."
For every gain, there is a loss. This experiment shattered the shackles that had limited his continued ascent in power, but this excessively advanced evolution also led to a profound divergence. The data within the entire Contribution Point system suddenly became largely irrelevant as a reference for Bai Mo's new body. All further exploration had to begin from square one, step by painstaking step, relying solely on himself.
No one understood what Primal Matter was, nor was he about to offer himself up for dissection. Although his new body's thought and calculation speed had experienced another leap forward after the breakthrough, the research work, which had abruptly transformed from the collective wisdom of countless individuals into a solitary journey for one, still noticeably decelerated overall.
From that point onward, under his conscious control, the Primal Matter ceased assimilating the surrounding internal structures. Instead, it slowly consumed the body's excess moisture and absorbed ambient spirit qi to expand itself.
Bai Mo meticulously preserved the integrity of his body, for he couldn't be certain if the path he traversed was truly correct. As a safeguard, perhaps someone in the future might discover a new evolutionary route that didn't necessitate the destruction of the Spirit Hub structure. Possessing an original body would grant him the potential for a fresh start.
There were still far too many secrets within the Spirit Hubs yet to be unearthed. This instance was merely an accident, allowing him to "cultivate" a "Primordial Spirit," enabling survival detached from his physical form.
He had never believed there was only a single path. From the old man originating from Tianxuan Continent, he had also learned that even a mature cultivation system like theirs boasted five distinct paths to Immortality—the Celestial, Earth, Human, Divine, and Ghost Immortals. The earliest power systems, he mused, must have been far more a "contention of a hundred schools."
Within the new Ziliu Sea, the seven individuals who embodied the Federation's supreme authority commenced their routine daily meeting.
Over the course of the past year, leveraging the full human and material resources of the Huaxia Federation, every member of the Seven-Person Council had successfully entered the Unmelting Realm. They had become high-tier Ability Users, capable of awe-inspiring regional dominance through sheer power alone.
The emergence of new species, proliferating like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, was naturally the primary catalyst for several septuagenarian elders to enter the Unmelting Realm at a speed surpassing countless younger individuals in such a short span of time.
They provided abundant sources of heavenly treasures and earthly delights for humanity, the terrestrial overlords, enabling certain fortunate individuals to achieve meteoric success. Yet, behind these fortuitous encounters, how many had ventured into the wild, seeking fortune, only to find their bones bleached on the barren plains? Only Heaven truly knew.
Innumerable adventurers, yearning for overnight riches, perished either at the claws of mutated creatures or at the hands of fellow humans. The Secret Realms, both grand and minuscule, served as the burial grounds for countless dreams.
The period of mutation and evolution had not yet been extensive enough; the vast majority of creatures had not accumulated the capacity to directly withstand heavy thermal weaponry. Consequently, when confronted by the regular army's encirclement, even powerful, isolated mutated beasts would, more often than not, end up as someone's feast—becoming the sustenance required to maintain their cultivators' elevated status.
The acceleration of power acquisition through influence and wealth, followed by the use of this newfound strength to seize even more influence and wealth, had starkly exacerbated the fissures in social hierarchy. Even life's duration, once the sole bastion of fairness, began to tip precariously out of balance.
A minority had indeed, through sheer fortune, successfully defied fate and ascended to the upper strata of society. Yet, as a consequence, society was genuinely beginning to drift towards a paradigm where success stemmed from mutation rather than diligent effort.
"...The reconstruction efforts in the six newly integrated southern provinces are largely complete." Rong Jingya, serving as Ye Zi's secretary, reported on the affairs of the former southern nations to those present.
"Following a year of revised household registration management, the six provinces now collectively account for over 21.3 million households, with a total population of 83.22 million. Society has fundamentally stabilized."
"The primary managerial challenge remains linguistic communication. While methods of cross-linguistic exchange, such as mental fluctuations, exist, the minimum prerequisite for their use is a Life Field Stage Ability User; others can only perceive, not transmit..."
"Our long-term objective is to thoroughly assimilate these more than 1 million square kilometers of new territory within twenty years. Given the developmental trajectories of both the Sea Race and humanity, an increasing number of them will be able to make landfall, just as more and more of our Ability Users will be capable of underwater operations. The current stalemate will not endure much longer." Liu Zhen articulated his views, and the recorder beside him continued to write without pause.
"Furthermore, we must simultaneously contend with the pressure from the two great forest Secret Realms. The number of powerful mutated flora and fauna concealed within them remains unknown. Should they pour forth, I fear our entire rear will be overwhelmed and corrupted."
In the wake of the Spirit River Autumn event, numerous Secret Realms, both large and small, materialized across the world's landmasses. Most were the progeny of local unique environments fused with the seemingly omnipotent spirit qi, born from certain unidentifiable reactions. Among these were the four most colossal forest Secret Realms.
These were, respectively: the Dian-Yun Mystical Realm, stretching continuously from the Huaxia Federation's southwest into South Asia; the Boli Mystical Realm, extending from the Huaxia Federation's northeast across the entirety of Russian Siberia; the Soma Mystical Realm, spanning southern Africa; and finally, the Amazon Secret Realm in South America.
Almost all terrestrial mutated creatures, upon awakening, would migrate towards these Secret Realms. Having observed this peculiar phenomenon, humanity conducted extensive investigations, confirming the existence of an incomparably vast protective energy field enveloping each realm.
While humans could enter, various electronic devices proved inoperable within, and many metals rapidly denatured, leading to damage of mechanical components.
Researchers involved conjectured that the energy field was generated by the resonance of countless mutated plants, though definitive evidence remains elusive..
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