Chapter 457 Origin, Lost in the Mist of History
What exactly was the game?
Before he came here, Su Mo had a few speculations, but it could have been anything really
Was it a high-dimensional civilization’s entertainment broadcast channel for the masses?
Was it some sort of dimensional scavenger that had lost control?
Was it a smart system that developed self-consciousness and wanted to break free?
Was it a mad scientist’s creation to destroy the world?
In the end, all these theories were debunked as more and more evidence and facts kept surfacing
He had only been on the wasteland for three months, plus another three months inside for God of the Ocean’s group ruins, which added up to half a year at most.
The overall duration was too short. Amidst the constant rush for survival, Su Mo had not had any time to think or verify these theories.
It was only when Jiang Chu communicated with the talisman just now that something came to mind.
The game could merely be an exaggerated, worthless ruse created by humans. However, as Jiang Chu was about to get into the topic at hand, Su Mo did not hide his innate curiosity and prepared himself to listen to whatever Jiang Chu had to say.
“Before I tell you about the changes that have taken place over these brutally long years on the wasteland, I have to ask you a question first. Su Mo, do you know about the theory of parallel universes?”
Su Mo nodded, “I do know about it!”
Earth had no shortage of proponents for this theory.
Even renowned figures like Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking participated in the discussion on the theory of parallel universes.
It began from the thought experiment of Schrodinger’s cat, after which expanded into the realm of movie blockbusters and became a part of the world-building of many sci-fi novels.
A theory like this fulfilled many humans’ fanciful imaginations and their thirst for the unknown.
Even without including math-related concepts like string theory and high dimensional studies, there were already two theories famous for incorporating parallel universes.
The first was the bubble universe theory.
In this universe, every bubble had a different cosmological constant.
Those who supported this theory primarily consisted of enthusiasts of immortality, fantasy and magic, and even top-tier “civilian scientists”.
They fantasized that, in another universe that was exactly the same as Earth’s, light no longer traveled at a speed of just 300000 kilometers every second, and the said universe’s gravitational constant would be even greater than its electromagnetic force constant.
The bodies of humans who lived on this version of Earth would have much stronger cells and possessed endless power.
As long as they knew how to develop, humans could move a mountain with their bare hands and set off on interstellar voyages armed with nothing but their flesh and bones, regardless of technological constraints.
The second was M-theory. Based on the assumptions from string theory, our entire universe was just like a film or thin membrane, floating in a higher-dimensional space. Furthermore, in this space there would be other films or membranes corresponding to other universes.
Every membrane would be one side or face of the higher dimension, and this higher-dimensional world would be akin to a book.
The universe we lived in would be a page in this book, and there would be no communication or bridge between any two pages.
Those who supported this theory would normally be actual scientists and researchers.
There were very few among the masses who knew about it, resulting in this theory being not very well known.
Of course, outside these two theories, there were still the theories of the quantum universe, quilted multiverse, cyclic universe, holographic universe, and many more. “Then what do you think of the innumerable Earth space-time continuums? Do they count as parallel space-time continuums?” While Su Mo was pondering, Jiang Chu let out a grin and asked another question. Su Mo shook his head, “I think they don’t count. Parallel space-time entails that, in other dimensional spaces, there are living carbon copies of each of us doing different things and having developed differently. In our case, almost every one of Earth’s humans are different, and even things like history and countries are also different. Except for things like language that intersected to a certain extent, all other lines of development deviated into opposite directions and became wildly different!”
Clap!
“You guessed right! Sure enough, the basic concept that took researchers back then a long while to comprehend, you managed to crack just based on instinct!”
“This world really still needs geniuses like us to push it forward!” Jiang Chu laughed out loud while snapping his fingers. He then stood up and waved toward the void.
An aqua blue explosion of light appeared within the room following his gesture, which eventually transformed into something that looked eerily similar to a projector screen.
“The year I crossed over was around the year 2000 on Earth’s calendar. Thus, I’ve been in this world for about—1800 years!”
“As someone who has transitioned from being an outsider to a participant, from a participant to an observer, and finally from an observer to a participant once more, I’ve seen the rise and fall of this wasteland world.”
“Many of Earth’s humans who arrived here thought that this world was special, an intersection of unlimited parallel space-time continuums, and the most magical place in the entire universe. They believed that this world was the eye of the storm that would bring about change, and that we humans would therefore be the chosen ones to lead all the others in establishing a new world order.”
“In reality, our original status was lower than any pitiful mutant creatures on the wasteland. We were not even comparable to a single cell of their bodies!”
Wow! Accompanying Jiang Chu’s explanation were dazzling images flashing on the screen.
With one look, Su Mo felt that he had come to the right place after all.
To break down the history of the wasteland, one had to ask themselves which part of the wasteland’s history was the most mysterious and the most important. This was of course the period before the great war of the wasteland, as well what happened during the great war itself.
It was a part of history that not even Connie knew about! It fully documented the struggles of humans in line with the enormous changes to the wasteland! Right now, what Jiang Chu was showing him was this lost part of history!
“When we first got summoned to this world, the game had our backs! We had the identity of players and adapted to the environment like fish to water!
“In addition, we did not use our ability to revive to push the boundaries of this world. We actually obediently developed our own power and progressed in accordance with the missions issued by the game!”
A switch of the image displayed the exact moment Jiang Chu was summoned. The person on the screen was still an immature, young kid.
The location from which he emerged was not unfamiliar to Su Mo, it was one of the major cities he raided inside the God of the Ocean’s group ruins. Based on the image displayed, he looked just like a normal native inhabitant. The addition of humans in frightening numbers to this grand, vast world had yet to cause much turmoil.
It was thanks to their hardworking nature and cavalier attitude toward death, in addition to their helpfulness (receiving missions), that humans quickly received a unanimous warm welcome from the native inhabitants on the back of their fine qualities. They got settled into a plethora of different industries and were employed in different fields of work.
With the passage of time, the status of humans changed when more and more people managed to climb to the top.
To be precise, it was when the first god from the human faction ascended that this “voyage of discovery” reached its absolute pinnacle!
“He was the first of our kind to become a god! The God of Bravery, Wei Jun!”
Ion
“It’s funny to talk about! This man started out as just a normal guy, but he accepted an extraordinarily-rewarding mission from the game. As long as he died during an adventure while everyone was watching, he would complete the mission and receive the prize.”
“What people couldn’t take was that even though he participated in two hundred and thirty adventures, every time he was about to kick the bucket, he would miraculously survive for some unknown or ridiculous reason. These miracles could never have happened a second time, even if the situation was repeated ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand times.”
“Over time, because he soldiered on and kept going on adventures, despite countless injuries and wounds all over his body, without fearing death or failure, his fame grew among the people. He obtained the favor of the preceding God of Bravery and ended up succeeding him as the first human God to ever exist.”
The images displayed a jacket-wearing man that exuded none of the sense of majesty a god should possess. The amazing part was that, beneath where he stood, countless members of the populace were worshiping him to pray for safety and peace.
“Before Wei Jun’s success, we humans could not do anything crazy to this world without the permission of the game’s missions. As such, Wei Jun’s success led to many of us seeing an opportunity for redemption!”
Jiang Chu continued speaking as the images on the screen changed again.
This time, the wasteland was no longer as peaceful as before. Some humans, who were self-conscious of their lower status, started feeling inferior and marginalized by Wei Jun’s good fortune.
They started abusing their identities as players and initiated slaughters to satisfy their deepest and darkest desires.
The originally peaceful world started progressing toward war under the instigation of such people. The God of Slaughter, God of War, God of Desire, God of Terror, God of Malice, God of Death, God of the Undead, and God of Plague all emerged one by one…
More and more negative-attributed gods ascended, who started abusing humans’ immortality to magnify the scope of their schemes.
They started to incite even more mayhem through war, and made sure that the whole world descended into chaos!
At the start, the native-inhabitant gods thought that it was just a passing trend; one that they could reasonably stop within their control.
At the end, when they were forced to react, the whole world had completely gone out of control!
“As such, this war was actually started not because of the oppression of the inhabitants of this world, but rather by our own selfish actions and desires?”.
Seeing that the scenes on the screen had become more and more outrageous, Su Mo’s eyes did not express much confusion, but instead clarity and understanding.
From a logical stance, this kind of thing had happened many times in the history of humankind, and the probability of it happening once again here was not small at all.
As they had their player identities, not everyone could restrain the dark and selfish desires. Of course, they knew that they were in the real world too, and not in some GTA game.
Wei Jun’s success had stimulated their desires.
“Su Mo, I want to remind you of one thing.”
“To the native inhabitants, creatures, and their Gods, we were the ones who started this war of blood and fire.”
“For us humans, however, do you think we regarded this as a war?” Jiang Chu tapped the back of his hand and the images stopped at a statistical chart detailing the ratio of human gods.
On the displayed data, one could immediately see that the number of human gods had inexplicably grown exponentially within 20 years (wasteland time).
Especially during the final year, where human gods comprised 35% of the wasteland’s gods. It was surely a miracle!
Su Mo shook his head slowly after dwelling upon and contemplating the meaning behind Jiang Chu’s words, “No, since we could not die, it would be fair to say humans felt like they were just playing a simulation game.” “Those native inhabitants who died were nothing but the game’s NPCs, while the gods they worshiped were just the stronger versions of bosses among those NPCs.”
“For human players, their deaths would be akin to data or numbers, it couldn’t really be considered as a war!”
He factored in the perspectives and thought processes of the human players at the time.
From a different perspective, if Su Mo were one of these players, he most likely would have done the same thing, and used this “invasion” method to become a god.
He would become a god within this realm and enjoy the “immortality” it brought to him.
“Now that we’ve reached this point, can you guess the game’s role?” Jiang Chu nodded and waved his hand again so the images continued playing on the screen.
The very next image displayed the moment when every human player was caught by surprise as they found out that they lost their most precious ability to respawn. Looks of panic could be seen on everyone’s faces.
Including the human gods in the equation, all humans would now be standing on a level playing field as the rest of the wasteland’s living beings, without any extra privileges.
The real war had just started.
“It couldn’t be…”
Su Mo took in the images of the first-generation Expeditionary Army from their space-time opening up door after door into different space-times, along with the outpouring of human armies into the wasteland.
After connecting the dots from what Jiang Chu said, a horrifying speculation arose from the depths of his heart!
