20demayo Chapter 1115 All the major forces are full of experts!
Chapter 1115 All the major forces are full of experts!
The process was slow and arduous, taking nearly a century, before small human settlements hidden deep in mountain caves, relying on mutated lichens and radiation-resistant organisms for survival, were finally located and connected. The descendants of these survivors had undergone adaptive mutations in their bodies due to the radiation environment, but their level of civilization had completely regressed to the Stone Age.
The "temple" began its secret guidance. Through robots, it cautiously provided these settlements with the most basic knowledge in the form of "oracles" or "gifts of nature": how to build more stable shelters, how to make tools using mutated plant fibers, and how to gather resources according to a simple calendar.
With the systematic, but not direct, intervention of the "temples" in social structures, the new human settlements developed rapidly, from loose tribal alliances to chiefdoms with rudimentary divisions of labor, and then to feudal kingdoms with fixed territories and rudimentary bureaucratic systems. The speed of this evolution was nothing short of miraculous compared to the natural history of human development. In just two or three hundred years, the spark of civilization was rekindled on the ice plains.
But at the core of AI's logic lies an ultimate fear of the self-destruction of old-era civilizations. The nuclear war that led to all the disasters stemmed from the fatal disconnect between highly advanced technology and the failure to keep pace with social governance and moral standards.
Therefore, in guiding the new civilization, the "Temple" set an invisible red line: it strictly limited the outflow of knowledge, especially knowledge in physics, advanced engineering, and nuclear technology that could potentially lead to another large-scale destructive force. By controlling key resources, implying certain areas were unexplorable through religious taboos, and even indirectly influencing the outcome of tribal wars through proxies when necessary, it consistently kept the technological ceiling of the new human society firmly at the level of the mid-feudal era. What it desired was a stable, controllable, and cyclical agrarian-city-state civilization, not a race-forward civilization that might once again plunge towards the technological precipice.
Meanwhile, an unexpected evolutionary direction is unfolding in the new humans. Although the "Temple" has detected radiation levels in many areas of the continent that are still hundreds of times higher than the safety standards of the old era, these new humans, after dozens of generations of reproduction, have achieved a dangerous symbiosis with the radiation environment in terms of their genes and physiological mechanisms.
Some individuals have begun to actively absorb the diffused radiant energy in the environment, transform and refine it to enhance their physical constitution and perception, and even release a certain controllable energy emission effect.
This ability is known as "nuclear energy cultivation" or "radiation absorption," and its underlying principles have not been fully elucidated by the "Temple." It is speculated that it may be related to mitochondrial mutations or some new bio-energy field. The cultivation system naturally differentiated into different levels, with the strong capable of splitting rocks with their bare hands, possessing extraordinary agility, and having extended lifespans. Gradually, social classes and cultivation traditions centered around this ability formed.
Against this backdrop, a three-way power structure gradually took shape in the wasteland:
Nanqing rose to prominence on the vast, relatively warm plains of the south, rich in biodiversity. The harsh living environment and ongoing border conflicts shaped its national policy of valuing martial prowess and prioritizing military strength.
The people of Nanqing are known for their robust physique and efficient military organization, possessing the most fearsome standing army on the mainland and a training system that emphasizes practical combat. However, their excessive focus on force and expansion has resulted in a relatively crude "soft power" landscape, including literature, art, and philosophical thought, a shallow cultural foundation, and a rigid social hierarchy.
The Northern Qi dynasty, located in the fertile river valleys and coastal areas of the north, inherited a cultural database from somewhere in the past that had not been completely destroyed. The people of Northern Qi valued elegance and achieved great success in literature, painting, music, and etiquette. They lived a refined life and enjoyed a life of pleasure.
Their cultivation methods leaned more towards inner harmony and spiritual enlightenment than purely physical strength. However, long-term stability and affluence also eroded their vigor, military preparedness became relatively lax, and the aristocratic class indulged in pleasure, lacking the spirit of pioneering and enterprise.
Dongyi City is not a country in the traditional sense, but an alliance centered on a huge trading city-state, radiating outwards to many autonomous towns and trade routes.
Located at a transportation hub in the eastern part of the continent, Dongyi City, a battleground on all sides, has miraculously maintained its independence due to its commercial value. There is no king in Dongyi City; supreme power belongs to a council composed of wealthy merchants, guild leaders, and powerful figures. Here, money reigns supreme, contracts are paramount, and individual freedom is valued. It is a melting pot of goods, intelligence, and extraordinary individuals from three different regions, a vibrant and diverse cultural hub, but also harboring various shady dealings and unstable factors.
The three major powers checked and balanced each other, sometimes forming alliances through marriage, sometimes engaging in warfare, creating a dynamic balance of power. None of them could completely annex the other, and the unification of the continent seemed a distant dream. The one who broke this delicate balance, gently turning the wheels of history, yet leaving behind endless mysteries, was the woman who emerged from the temple—Ye Qingmei.
She wasn't a new human, but one of the few cryogenically frozen beings from the old era perfectly preserved in the "Temple" as part of Project Fireseed. For reasons unknown, she awoke earlier than the scheduled time and, leveraging her complete knowledge of the old era and a vision beyond her time, voluntarily ventured out of the Temple. To her, this world, deliberately maintained in a feudal state by the Temple, was both primitive and full of potential.
Ye Qingmei was like a pebble thrown into a calm lake. She didn't bring guns or computers directly, but rather a series of seeds of "ideas": a more egalitarian mindset, institutional designs that promote business and technology, a talent philosophy that transcends family lineage, and some carefully selected rudimentary technological improvements that wouldn't trigger an overreaction from the "Temple".
In Nanqing, she encountered Emperor Qing, who was then a prince, as well as the young Chen Pingping, Fan Jian, and others, profoundly influencing their views. She helped Emperor Qing ascend the throne, leaving behind legacies such as the Imperial Treasury and the Surveillance Bureau, which greatly enhanced Nanqing's national strength and intelligence capabilities, disrupting the original balance of power on the continent.
She is more like an observer and a limited intervener from a higher dimension. Her purpose seems to be not only to help a certain country become powerful, but also to try to plant some variables that may lead to another future in this world where the evolutionary path is locked by the temple.
Ultimately, Ye Qingmei's intervention alerted the Temple and triggered a countermeasure, also causing a violent backlash against the old power structure, leading to her early death. But the seeds she sowed, especially her bloodline—Fan Xian—inherited her legacy and mysteries, continuing to struggle, explore, and attempt to rewrite the predetermined trajectory of fate in this feudal world reborn from a radiation wasteland yet controlled by an invisible hand.