Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 816
Li Yao could not help it any longer. Pretending to be enlightened, he replied, "That explains a lot. I understand now. So, there is no such place as a 'hospital' in the Imperium of True Human Beings, right?"
"Of course, there are hospitals," Su Changfa said with a smile, "but they are mostly focused on external injuries! For the infection of viruses, cancer, and other diseases, we will simply inject some 'immune system activation drugs' into the patients to stimulate their own potential to cope with the diseases.
"So, in our hospitals, it eventually comes down to the patient's own immune system and resistance to deal with bacteria, viruses, and cancers. The doctors only help 'awaken' and 'enhance' them."
Li Yao was dazed. "Does it work?"
"Of course," Su Changfa said. "Although not as good as the hundred percent healing rate that the Medicine Fork civilization claimed, we have found that general tumors and infections can be killed by the patient's' own vitality!
"If they cannot be killed, we hardly intervene or perform other procedures because the patient's fire of life is too feeble to prove that they are qualified to live on!"
Rendered speechless, Li Yao could only prick his ears and keep listening.
"However, the Cultivators of the Medicine Fork civilization chose a different methodology from ours," Su Changfa said. "They believed that the civilization of mankind was a whole. All human beings were brothers and sisters. Regardless of their sex, age, and wealth, whether they were ordinary people or Cultivators, and no matter how many deficiencies there were in their genes and how low their immunity was, they were worth saving through whatever means possible!
"Therefore, they modified the entire planet at a huge cost, establishing an ecological system that was devoid of fatal bacteria and viruses and was therefore extremely vulnerable. They also injected tremendous hormones, antibiotics, and chemical drugs into every citizen's body, constructing an 'impenetrable' man-made immune system!
"At that time, the people of the Medicine Fork Sector would have injections from the moment that they were fetuses in their mother's womb. The moment they were born, they would be soaked in the tanks of medicine. That was the cost to trade for a seemingly long and healthy life!
"It was a pity that the health and longevity on the surface were actually founded on an extremely feeble foundation. It's like the Cultivators worked hard to build a greenhouse for all the ordinary people and kept them safe inside from the storms of the outside world.
"It was indeed an effective approach in the short term.
"However, the side effect was that everybody, including the Cultivators, became flowers in the greenhouse!
"As the saying goes, 'a country without an enemy will soon die of arrogance'. The same logic applies to human beings, too!
"Without the attacks of diseases, bacteria, and viruses, there would be no chance of 'drills'. Maintaining your health purely with medicine is like protecting your nation with foreign mercenaries. How could it possibly last long?
"Just like that, the people of the Medicine Fork Sector grew up in an enormous 'sterile room' generation after generation. Their immune system grew weaker and weaker until they lost the ability to survive on their own!
"The historians of the Imperium of True Human Beings, when studying the civilization of the Medicine Fork Sector, named their disease 'Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome'. Because their environment was too 'clean' and overloaded with interventional medicative defense measures, their immune system collapsed completely, and even their genes were changed!
"Their immune system, just like our 'appendix' and 'tail', became useless organs and slowly degenerated, eventually vanishing!
"Hehe. Because the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome caused by the Cultivators' 'unconditional love' for 'all the brotherly human beings', we also call it the 'spoil disease'!
"Everybody having AIDS was just part their problem. What was more horrible was that, under the Cultivator's principle that nobody should be left behind and everybody must be saved, many people who were unsuitable to survive because of their foul genes or, at the very least, unsuitable to have offspring were rescued by them and allowed to get married and have children like normal people, only to leave descendants that were even fouler.
"The Cultivators could suppress the ostensible symptoms of the carriers of foul genes with their incredible medicines and medication skills. However, it was impossible for them to address the problem from the source, which boiled down to the gene strands.
"As a result, the foul genes spread, lurking among the people of the Medicine Fork Sector. They were like an inactive volcano that was expanding incessantly and could wake up at any point!
"To suppress the symptoms of the foul genes, the Cultivators had to increase the dosages of drugs, but the increased dosages led to the escalation of AIDS. Such a vicious circle was utterly unstoppable!
"Although the Medicine Fork civilization was on the brink of destruction, it still looked prosperous and brilliant on the surface!
"They were not as foolish as the people of the Curly Dragon Sector. They had developed rather advance space cruising technologies after several hundred years, which were excellent enough to support space jumps across different Sectors!
"That was the peak of the golden era of the Medicine Fork civilization. When they gazed at the boundless sea of stars, every citizen was confident that they could conquer every enemy including nature!
"However, they never thought of one thing.
"While their immune system was deteriorating, the bacteria and viruses, their most dangerous opponents, were mutating or… evolving!
"The medicine and antibiotics that the Medicine Fork people produced could kill 99.99% of viruses. However, the surviving one, under the stimulation, would have shocking mutations and become even more sordid, mysterious, and fatal!
"Hehe. Survival of the fittest is the law of the universe. The Medicine Fork civilization led by the Cultivators stomped on the rule arrogantly, but the bacteria and viruses in the Medicine Fork civilization had always abided by the rule. Bolstered by the medicine and antibiotics, they were struggling, mutating, and evolving at a speed hundreds of times higher than before!
"Cultivators of the Medicine Fork Sector noticed that the bacteria showed more and more resistance and the viruses were mutating faster and faster, too. A newly-discovered disease could mutate into dozens of variants in only a couple of months.
"However, they still did not realize their mistake. They simply produced even more drugs, vaccines, antibiotics, and interferons crazily. It's like when you are faced with a blocked flood, you simply want to increase the height of the dam for temporary safety, but you never foresee the damage that the collapse will cause in the future!
"For a while, their strategy seemed to be working.
"All the bacteria and viruses on the land were thoroughly examined by them. They had also developed pertinent vaccines and antibiotics for everybody.
"But they overlooked the ocean.
"Just when the first space fleet of the Medicine Fork civilization was about to set off to explore the sea of stars, an undersea volcano located at the west of the planet suddenly erupted and threw tremendous materials at the bottom of the ocean into the sky.
"The materials included an ancient virus that had hibernated for hundreds of thousands of years in the sulfur and mud near the undersea volcano.
"For the past hundreds of thousands of years, such a virus had never appeared on the planet before. The Medicine Fork civilization did not know the first thing about it or have a targeting vaccine.
"The virus swept across the entire planet like a hurricane. Mixed with the bacteria and virus that hundreds of generations of drugs and antibiotics had failed to kill, it led to a calamitous pestilence!
"The 'greenhouse' that Cultivators built for the Medicine Fork civilization after almost a thousand years was finally shattered ruthlessly. The 'flowers', with tremendous foul genes lurking inside their bodies and without an immune system, were exposed to the terrible storm!
"In only three months, the Medicine Fork civilization lost one fifth of its population. The social order was on the verge of collapse. It fell to the deepest level of hell from the clouds!
"In fact, at that time, the civilization could still have been saved."
With a cruel face, Su Changfa made a chopping gesture as he said, "Kill! Kill! Kill! Establish quarantines and gather the Cultivators, whose resistance is higher. They will maintain the basic order and kill all disease carriers and suspected carriers, thereby purging the entire planet of the civilization of the Medicine Fork Sector!
"Half of the population, or maybe even three quarters, may be lost. But so what? The civilization exists as long as Cultivators are there! Later, the crashed immune system can be recovered slowly, and the civilization will be rebuilt from scratch!"
Chapter 1249: Destruction of the Martial Meritocrats! |
"If the Medicine Fork civilization had survived from the calamitous pestilence, which seemed to be an unavoidable doom at that time, I believe that they would've been much stronger and even become a dominator in the sea of stars!
"However, under the leadership of the Cultivators with their petty kindness, nobody was resolute enough to make such an 'unpardonable' decision!
"On the contrary, the belief of 'protecting all the ordinary people' had melted into the bones of every Cultivator, which decided that they would not give up anyone, not even the carriers and the suspected carriers!
"As a result, the calamitous pestilence got worse and worse. In only one year, the Medicine Fork civilization lost four fifths of the population. The social order completely fell apart!
"It was not until this moment that the immune system in the survivors began to evolve again and raced with the viruses!
"Too late. It was awakened too late. The virus was evolving hundreds of times faster than their immune system! After decades on their last breath, the last survivor of the Medicine Fork civilization was consumed by the pestilence and turned into a pile of filthy bones!
"When the explorers of the Imperium of True Human Beings arrived in the mother planet of the Medicine Fork Sector, we saw many well-preserved starships in a splendid launch field. Those starships that were rather advanced even in our eyes had become paradises for rats and cockroaches.
"The Medicine Fork civilization could have leapt into the stars, but it was smothered in the cradle by tiny bacteria and virus.
"What's most ironic is that, when the historians and archeologists of the Imperium explored the planet carefully, trying to find the cause of the calamitous pestilence thousands of years ago, we did find the undersea volcano that erupted once, and we successfully retrieved the ancient virus that was in the hibernation state in the sulfur and mud near the volcano.
"Fellow Cultivator Li, do you know what the virus really was?"
Li Yao shook his head hard.
"It was a primordial version of a respiratory syncytial virus." Su Changfa smiled. "Despite the scary name and the high contagiousness, it is not fatal in any way.
"In fact, the modern mutants of the virus will often cause the follow symptoms: high fever, headache, nasal congestion, rigor, and sore muscles, which are often collectively known as… a cold!"
"Huh?" Li Yao exclaimed in disbelief.
"Exactly. A virus from the primeval era that could cause nothing more than a cold shattered the once glorious Medicine Fork civilization, which claimed to have destroy all the diseases, brutally into smithereens!"
Su Changfa burst into laughter. "The Cultivators of the Medicine Fork Sector naively thought that they could rescue everybody, but as it turned out, they rescued nobody in the end, not even themselves!"
Li Yao's emotions were in turmoil.
He knew full well that the self-destructive civilizations of Cultivators must have been carefully selected by the authorities of the Imperium of True Human Beings. Chances were that the materials were just propaganda with exaggerated and distorted stories.
However, despite all the overstatement and vilification, the picture where the glorious civilizations in the past slid into the abyss step by step with no way to stop was still vaguely visible.
Li Yao found it impossible to laugh under the helplessness and desperation. He pondered carefully about what the reborn Star Glory Federation would do when the Cultivators were caught in a similar situation.
"The destruction of the Curly Dragon civilization and the Medicine Fork civilization is truly poignant. However, the decay of the Martial Meritocrats civilization is much more thought-provoking than them!"
Su Changfa made a gesture. The Grand Illusionary Land changed yet again. This time, it was a Sector that was even more prosperous.
Hundreds of sailing routes connected almost twenty planets, interweaving with each other like a spider web.
"Now, Fellow Cultivator Li, I would like to show you the self-destruction of the third, and the last, civilization!"
Li Yao was refreshed. The destruction of the Curly Dragon civilization and the Medicine Fork civilization had already been stunning enough for him. Now that the Martial Meritocrats civilization was kept to the last, there had to be even more twists and turns to the story!
At this moment, Li Yao had already changed his attitude. He was not simply viewing everything as the brainwashing methods of the Imperium of True Human Beings. He was also hoping to learn lessons from the destroyed civilizations that could guide the way for the Star Glory Federation or, at the very least, point out the wrong directions for it!
"The Martial Meritocrats civilization was a very classic civilization of Cultivators. They were much more fortunate than the Curly Dragon civilization and the Medicine Fork civilization. The resource reserves were neither too high nor too low. The planets were neither too dense nor too sparse. The enemies were neither too strong nor too weak—neither strong enough to devour them as a whole, nor so weak that their sense of community, ambitiousness, devotion, and other positive spirits couldn't be triggered.
"All in all, led by the Cultivators, the pioneers of the Martial Meritocrats civilization slogged and strived from scratch. After bloody battles, they destroyed the demons, the extraterrestrial devils, and other enemies, and eventually established a powerful country—the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats!
"Citizens of the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats neither dwelled in the abundant resources of their mother planet and lost their ambitions and courage, like the people of the Curly Dragon Sector did, nor pursued an absolute sterile world fanatically while forgetting the rules of nature, like the people of the Medicine Fork Sector did.
"Although they had defeated the enemies within their reach, they did not lose their sense of enterprising. Instead, by excavating the relics of the Star Ocean Imperium, they gained a deep understanding about the vastness of the universe and realized that many other human beings were still scattered in the three thousand Sectors!
"All human beings are family. March to the sea of stars, find our brothers and sisters, and let our civilization radiate to every direction!
"It was the slogan and dream for every person of the Martial Meritocrats Sector in its golden years.
"Boosted by such noble, great, and righteous ambitions, they strode forward together and successfully developed space cruising technology. Space fleets of an enormous scale were established. Many determined, devoted experts distinguished themselves, too. They marched out into the grand universe without any hesitation!
"Fellow Cultivator Li, up until now, do you feel that the Martial Meritocrats civilization is more balanced, stable, and excellent than the previous two civilizations?"
Li Yao pondered for a moment and nodded.
He felt that the Martial Meritocrats civilization was a duplicate of the Star Glory Federation from the environment of birth to the creeds that everybody believed in.
The federation was in its golden years as well!
However, now that the outcome of the civilization was obvious, there had to be a fatal problem in it. The rise and decline of the Martial Meritocrats civilization would be a highly valuable lesson for the Star Glory Federation. Instead of waiting for Su Changfa to talk, Li Yao asked promptly, "What's the Martial Meritocrats civilization's problem?"
Su Changfa smiled and said, "The fatal wound of the Martial Meritocrats civilization was that they adopted a parliamentary system where voting and partisan competition were highlighted when the country was established!"
Li Yao was suddenly alarmed.
Isn't is exactly like the federation?
What's wrong about voting and the parliamentary system?
Noticing the suspicion in his eyes, Su Changfa unhurriedly replied, "Voting and the parliamentary system do not have a problem per se. In fact, the Imperium of True Human Beings is quite democratic, too. A voting system has been implemented in many levels!
"However, how can the votes that will decide national affairs be given to ignorant hominoids casually?
"In the Imperium, only the citizens who are 'true human beings' have the right to vote. The more important an issue is, the higher the demand on the voters will be. For many national policies, only the Immortal Cultivators in the Core Formation Stage or even the Nascent Soul Stage are qualified to vote!
"This is the only way to keep the stability of a country and the rationality of the decisions to be made!
"However, it was not the case in the Alliance of Martial Meritocrats. What they adopted was an absurd system where everybody had one vote equally. An illiterate hobo with ulcers all over his body had one vote, a lazy, treachery gangster had one vote, and a well-revered, capable Cultivator in the Nascent Soul Stage, theoretically, also had only one vote!
"Fellow Cultivator Li, tell me about it. Is there a more hilarious thing in the world?"
"Well—" Li Yao scratched his head.
After a sniff, Su Changfa continued. "The Martial Meritocrats civilization was the civilization where the hypocrisy, shortsightedness, and petty kindness of the Cultivators stood out the most. The one-person-one-ticket voting system was just the first clue. As for the laws and the social morals, the rights of the ordinary people were overstressed while the position of the Cultivators was belittled!
