"It seems the idea of relying on the indigenous system to improve strength can be put aside for now. There's basically no need to delve deeply into this system. I've always believed in the principle of 'taking what is useful,' and I have no interest in forging my own path."
"In this world, digging up zombie crystals and trading them in the cultivation world to improve my cultivation is still the more reliable option."
The God's Potion was a potion for humans, not truly perfected.
It could only allow people to deal with Commander-level zombies, but their physical fitness was inferior to Tyrants.
Fang Ming, through the information from the large bases, even knew that several 'Zombie Kings' had appeared in this world.
These were zombies that had surpassed Tyrants and undergone a fourth mutation.
They controlled numerous zombies and had even developed self-awareness, capable of thinking.
Compared to gene potions, Fang Ming instinctively felt that relying on the vast number of zombie crystals, especially those in the heads of Zombie Kings, would yield greater profits through trade.
"After all, it's just a world where a civilization has turned into ruins..."
"The benefits that can be obtained from here won't be too much compared to a normal world..."
Fang Ming left the place.
...
In the zombie world, in the starry sky outside the solar system.
A spaceship was stationed there.
Two spherical entities were conversing.
"The target has left..."
"The power he wields doesn't seem to be caused by research into toxins. Instead, it resembles the power from Xianxia novels from Dragon Country on Earth civilization..."
"Is that possible?"
"You and I both know that the great universe has countless stars, and Earth is just one planet. Immortals are merely the fantasies of the Eastern Dragon Country people of Earth, traditional myths."
"Just like when the Master had not yet left his home planet, the fantasies recorded by civilization could not possibly exist."
"Only technology exists, not cultivation."
"Is that the work of a super civilization?"
"Most likely. A civilization as advanced as the Master, who grasps the rules of the great universe, cannot achieve the effects of Taoists and immortals simulated from fantasies. Only the legendary super civilizations can do this."
"Then we... should immediately capture him and obtain the relics of a super civilization?"
"Or— other options?"
The spherical artificial intelligences paused.
Clearly, these machines were thinking.
The apocalypse on Earth was caused by a forbidden toxin researched in a laboratory in the United States of America, in an attempt to open humanity's forbidden zone. The toxin accidentally leaked, turning the entire world into zombies.
This seemed like a mere accidental toxin leak.
But the most fundamental reason was that alien civilizations, upon detecting that humanity might develop spacecraft capable of leaving the solar system within fifty years, had launched a destruction of human civilization.
The spherical artificial intelligences were products created by alien civilizations, not citizens, but products.
They had come from the Andromeda galaxy thousands of years ago, with the sole purpose of monitoring Earth.
Alien civilizations were true high-level civilizations in the great universe, and they originally paid no attention to primitive civilizations like Earth.
However, once a civilization gained the ability to traverse star systems, it would be elevated from a primitive civilization to a low-level civilization. Alien civilizations would then cast their gaze upon it and conduct a great judgment.
If humanity's overall qualities were in line with the values of the alien civilizations, it would be considered a passing judgment, and they would not be destroyed.
If humanity's overall qualities differed from the values of the alien civilizations, the judgment would be the destruction of the civilization.
The method of civilization destruction varied depending on the level of development of the primitive civilization.
For example, a meteor shower, like an asteroid impact on Earth, causing the extinction of the biosphere.
Or gravity manipulation, directly altering the physical constants of gravity on Earth, increasing it severalfold, causing countless humans to die, with not a single one surviving.
The spherical artificial intelligences had merely chosen the outcome of destruction by toxin leakage from the various methods of civilization destruction.
In this way, humanity plunged into an apocalypse, with individual growth becoming the mainstream, and collective technological development severely hampered.
Even after hundreds or thousands of years, it would remain a civilization of ruins, a primitive civilization, incapable of interstellar travel. Naturally, it could not progress step by step from a primitive civilization to a low-level civilization, then to a middle-level civilization, and subsequently challenge the position of the spherical entities' civilization in the universe.
Individual development was limited.
The so-called breaking of human forbidden zones and liberation of gene locks ultimately only pushed the genes within the human body to their limit.
Perhaps, humans integrated at this micro-gene level could be considered superhumans even in a primitive civilization—meaning Earth before it became a civilization of ruins, when it was still at its peak.
But undoubtedly, such so-called superhumans were only superhumans within a primitive civilization. Perfecting the God's Potion to its extreme would only achieve this much.
Once one embarked on the path of individual enhancement, they would no longer pose any threat to alien civilizations.
This was destruction at the civilization level.
Destroying a civilization sometimes did not require complete annihilation. It was enough to twist its values, shifting the world from collective rule to individual dominance, thereby causing the civilization to degenerate.
The spheres and their ilk originally acted this way—until they sensed signs of a super civilization.
A considerable number of high-level civilizations existed in the great universe, and the Master of the spheres was one such high-level civilization. According to the knowledge in the spheres' minds, a human child instantly disappearing from Earth and the solar system indicated a mastery of space that clearly surpassed the technology possessed by the Master.
This was a super civilization.
Only a super civilization could achieve this.
The reason the spheres and their ilk received the order from alien civilizations to detect Earth and had been monitoring Earth for thousands of years was to search the entire universe for traces of super civilizations.
The lifespan of the great universe was limited. It had already passed half of the estimated time until the universe's heat death. High-level civilizations urgently needed to find a way to survive the cosmic cycle or jump to another universe. Therefore, they searched the entire universe for traces of super civilizations.
If they could not identify whether something was a super civilization, how could they find it? Thus, the spheres possessed a method of identification given by alien civilizations: only when something surpassed the technology of alien civilizations in certain aspects could it be considered a so-called super civilization.
For the spherical artificial intelligences, finding traces of super civilizations was the top priority, while destroying primitive civilizations was merely an auxiliary task.
At this moment, encountering the seed, the trace, of a super civilization, the spheres became greatly excited.
For them, tools created to search for super civilizations, they were not true citizens of the alien civilizations, only able to refer to them as the Master. If they found a super civilization, the alien civilizations would surely grant them citizen status, thus freeing them from their slave status.
Through several detections of the human child's movements, the spherical artificial intelligences had roughly determined that this human had only inherited the seed of a super civilization, not a super civilization itself.
They had originally intended to capture him immediately, but not all of the spherical artificial intelligences had the same idea.