Chapter 1657: A World in a Grain of Sand

Ling Xiaole paused for a moment and said, "If you are still not convinced, we can still arrange for the two of you to meet the 'former soldiers' of the Imperium by chance later. With your abilities, you will certainly be able to tell whether or not their deepest hatred for the Imperium is faked after a few words with them."

Li Yao thought for a moment but shook his head. "That will not be necessary. Let's go into the 'Civilization Center' now. I almost can't wait to see it."

It was definitely not a joke. Heiye Lan was the user of the most powerful Colossus in the claw fleet captured by the federation. She was also daughter to the commander of the Black Wind Fleet.

Even though she did not know the bottom-level soldiers, it was possible that they would recognize her.

Naturally, before they jumped to the Dragon Snake Space Zone, Li Yao had asked Long Yangjun to heavily disguise Heiye Lan's face. Even her name was a fake one, too.

However, Heiye Lan's mind was obviously unsteady. If she was asked to chitchat with a few 'former soldiers' of the Imperium, it was possible that somebody would see through her.

How should Li Yao summarize the feeling of his visit? The New Federation after a hundred years was indeed more advanced and perfect than Li Yao had imagined, but many aspects, like the statue whose head was loaded with coins, made him feel rather strange.

Dominator of the three Sectors, Father of 'Civilization', and even... Father of the New Federation?

Li Yao shuddered inside his heart.

If he had hair within his internal organs, there would have been goosebumps all over them.

Such titles gave him the feeling that he had been dead for centuries and he was an out-and-out 'ancient person' in today's world.

It was partly understandable for him. Perhaps for the sake of uniting the seven Sectors, perhaps because certain heroes of the past needed to be deified in order to compete with the Imperium, or perhaps because of the interest groups attached to him, such as the Glorious Sunlight Group, Skyfire, the Double Dragons Union, the Grand Desolate War Institution and so on, the image of Vulture Li Yao had finally been sent into the shrines.

He could understand the purpose of their endeavor, but it did not mean that he had to be bound by the shrines. For him, he still preferred exploring the interesting and strange new world in a relatively low-key way wearing his beach pants and enjoying iced watermelons.

Therefore, it would be best if he did not reveal openings yet.

Otherwise... with the density of the crowd in the area and their enthusiasm for 'luck', he probably would have been smashed to death by a mountain of coins in five minutes.

They finally entered the lobby of the Civilization Center.

It was a splendid palace, so profound that one could not see the end of it. The cabins that had been established on two sides as dense as honeycombs were all installed with the most advanced immersive game system. Through the floating discs that could come and go swiftly, it was very convenient for the players to fly to the upper level that was dozens of meters high.

The center of the lobby was the arena area and the activity area. Many game experts would choose to compete with each other in the relatively fiercer DLCs, such as virtual crystal suit battles, Colossi battles, starship fleet encounters, and so on. Right next to the areas were young teenagers in fancy clothes who dressed up like game characters. The atmosphere could not have been more heated. No wonder so many people preferred to come to the 'Civilization Center' when everybody had a game cabin in their household.

Above their heads were thousands of enormous 3D light beams. Every 3D light beam was a round ball like colorful huge jellyfish. They were fluctuating, rolling, and extending their tentacles of light into a glamorous, magnificent ocean of light.

Despite the enormity of his computational ability, even Li Yao felt his head going dizzy and dazzled the moment he set foot in the lobby of the game center.

He was like a tiny fish that had suddenly barged into a boundless tide enormous jellyfish. Inside the translucent body of every huge 'jellyfish' was a vivid, wonderful world that was growing, developing, colliding, and perishing!

The ancient Cultivators had once said that a whole world could be built within a grain of sand.

It had originally been a metaphor of training for the Cultivators to clear their soul and mind, but in the modern Cultivation society, with the advanced information technology, it had become reality.

Every enormous 3D light beam represented a blossoming world that one player was dwelling in.

It could be seen that a lot of players chose to enter the world of 'The Imperium's Frustration' as commanders, captains, or the distinguished artillerists, engine specialists, and special forces on a starship. Together with the countless players that were standing against them, they offered the most fascinating performance.

Some other players chose the worlds of simulation and operation. On the resource planets, ranches, carriers, and metropolises that also existed in reality in the seven Sectors of the federation, they worked hard on their tiny 'enterprise'.

The data and random events in the game had all happened in reality before, but the difficulty of the game could be adjusted. The speed of the game could be accelerated, too. The mainframe crystal processor could even help the player deduce the outcome a long time later. Therefore, there was not much bored waiting.

Many other players, however, were not playing virtual games but choose to experience an episode of real life—not their own life, but the life from a different world or a different class.

Ling Xiaole explained it to Li Yao with an example. A miner who lived on the surface of the Uranian Ring Sector, because of the travel expense and the holiday schedule, perhaps would never have a chance to go to the Forest Ocean Sector in person and experience the feelings of the natives of the Forest Ocean Sector when they rode above the boundless primitive forests on the necks of the beasts they had tamed.

But it did not matter. Through certain real-life DLCs of 'Civilization', he could become a native of the Forest Ocean Sector, the Water Crystal Sector, the Flying Star Sector, the Heaven's Origin Sector, or the Blood Demon Sector. After only one second, he would be able to appreciate the magnificent ocean of trees, the ever-expanding deserts, the bizarre scenes in the Blood Demon Sector, and the complicated high-rises in the Heaven's Origin Sector that grew from the underground all the way to beyond the atmosphere!

"The data of all the worlds is real and even reflects real-time changes," Ling Xiaole declared proudly. "A certain player in the Heaven's Origin Sector has captured the view from a certain spot in the Heaven's Origin Sector right now through his crystal camera and uploaded the picture to the crystal processor and the light circuits. In the Uranian Ring Sector, the Forest Ocean Sector, the Nether World Sector, the Blood Demon Sector... Countless players do the same thing in every world and are doing it right now. When everything that the 'eyes' of all the players catch is combined, it forms 'Civilization'.

"From that point of view, every individual of the federation is a producer of 'Civilization'. Everyone perfects the world with their joint effort and adds a certain reality that transcends reality to this virtual world!"

Li Yao observed, sensed, and groped wholeheartedly. The glittering new worlds were slowly blossoming deep inside his eyes.

"Also, speaking of the ongoing competitions in 'The Imperium's Frustration', although the difficulty that some of the players choose is not very high and their tactics may be juvenile, the data is generally authentic.

"The data is collected from the other DLCs as the essence of all the data in the past decades. For example, a DLC named 'Starship Commander' was released before, in which countless players provided tremendous data about every post in a starship. After the data is all packed up, it can be distributed to every starship in the DLC 'The Imperium's Frustration' as a general package.

"As a result, even when a common player is doing a relatively low-level competition, the situations and changes that happen to all the starships under their command will not be deduced by the crystal processors but the real-life reactions that other living players made a long time ago.

"Through such an approach, we ensure that the common players will have the realest experience even in a single-player game.

"Just like that, tens of billions of players play the game day after day, year after year, making all kinds of decisions. 99.99999% of their decisions could be wrong, hilarious, and absurd, but does it really matter? All we need to do is screen out the 0.00001% correct decisions!"

Ling Xiaole smiled confidently as she guided Li Yao and Heiye Lan to move forward into the lobby.

Very soon, the three of them walked to the center of the lobby.

Li Yao was deeply attracted by three clusters of light beams that were particularly huge above his head.

He discovered that the three worlds of light beams almost fifty meters in diameter were the center of the entire lobby. The other worlds of light beams triggered by the players were all floating around the three of them.

Craning his neck and observing for a long time, Li Yao felt that it looked familiar. He could not help but ask, "What's this?"

"They're three very ancient DLCs. One might even say that they are the beginning of the entire 'Civilization'."

Indescribable pride glowed out of Ling Xiaole's watery eyes again as she said, "More than a hundred years ago, Vulture Li Yao, the greatest hero of the Old Federation, encountered the Immortal Cultivators of the Imperium on Kunlun. To brainwash him, the Immortal Cultivators showed him the historical decline of some Cultivators' civilizations, including the Curly Dragon Civilization, the Medicine Fork Civilization, the Martial Meritocrat Civilization, and the Sand Primitive Civilization.

"When the game 'Civilization' was first made, the salvation of the three civilizations of the Cultivators became the content of the first batch of DLC.

"At that time, 'Civilization' had just gotten started, and the expertise of the players varied. Even the most professional politicians and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators with remarkable computational ability did not have many clear solutions to the problems that a civilization might encounter during a thousand years of development.

"Therefore, for decades, the highest difficulty of the few DLCs, as well as the more sophisticated, difficult, and real upgraded version later, were never conquered by anyone.

"However, hard work pays off. With the popularization of 'Civilization' and the participation of the new worlds, the players grew more and more professional than before. Finally, someone came up with solutions.

"What is unfolding in front of you is the prosperous views of the Curly Dragon Civilization, the Medicine Fork Civilization, the Martial Meritocrat Civilization, and the Sand Primitive Civilization that have developed for at least a thousand years under the control of countless experts of the game. Yes. We have achieved the expectations when Vulture Li Yao created 'Civilization' in the past and brought a brighter future to the worlds of Cultivators that have long perished!