Chapter 1229 - Rise and Fall (2/2)
Jiang Chen nodded.
He understood the a.n.a.logy.
After all, he didn’t have antennae, and he didn’t know how to turn his thoughts into electromagnetic waves. The golden age that Gaia said was probably the same as the Internet era that Earth civilization entered at the end of the twentieth century.
The nerve augmentation device for Gaia was probably equivalent to the Phantom helmet for humans.
All needs could be met through virtual reality, all individuals were unprecedentedly happy.
“If you want me to summarize the differences between the two civilizations as someone who has been dead for 3.7 billion years, I think it is probably an understanding of the word happiness. When we entered the ‘nerve augmentation era’, our spiritual needs were met with unprecedented satisfaction, and the only reason we were still unsatisfied was probably due to our obsession of metal.”
“I remember I said that we were extremely sensitive to the smell of minerals and ores. This sensitivity had not change in tens of thousands of years; we were immersed in the happiness surrounded by metal. The pursuit, or the greed of all metals was probably the driving force behind the progress of our civilization.”
“And this greed turned into a deadly poisonous wine at the end.”
The tone of the light ball was mixed with some emotion as it continued to narrate the story.
“A poisonous wine?” Jiang Chen asked.
“Yes,” the light ball swayed gently. “I will take you and you will understand.”
Over the thousands of years, the scene changed again.
There was a ripple in the air and Jiang Chen followed the light ball. Jiang Chen crossed a transparent film and came to a spherical s.p.a.ce made entirely of metal. In this spherical s.p.a.ce, a machine with strange shapes was connected by an alloy skeleton.
“It’s hard to feel just by looking,” The light ball said softly. “We are now standing on the core of Mars, and this Planetary Furnace is the greatest technological crystallization of our civilization.”
“The Planetary… Furnace?”
Jiang Chen swallowed hard.
He couldn’t imagine how the species, called Gaia, actually dug through the planet 3.7 billion years ago! Not be mention transforming the entire Mars core into a furnace for smelting iron or other minerals and turning the entire planet into their factory.
Planetary Furnace.
The word madness is not enough to describe their behavior…
The light ball continued while it looked calmly at the shock on Jiang Chen’s face,
“Our industry was very developed. When the surface can’t satisfy our appet.i.te. We dugged down into the mantle. When the mantle was not enough to meet our needs, we aimed at the core. The core was rich in mineral deposits. It was an iron ocean in here, even if we only drew a little bit from it, it was enough to make our civilization take a big step forward…”
As it spoke, the light ball paused and sighed softly.
“But you also know that once something takes the first step, it will never be able to stop.”
“Time has weathered everything, and turned what we forged over hundreds of centuries into iron filings. Have you seen the sand outside? Every rusted gravel is the tears of Gaia… “