Chapter 1144: Hongmeng Universe Beach, Era of Sculptural Art

Xu Zhi put down his pen, feeling incredibly calm. He sat on the edge of the void, sipping tea as if watching his own pond, gazing down. This time, he would not interfere. Nor did he possess sufficient knowledge to interfere.

"This is a mysterious, unknown path that I cannot comprehend at all... Even though, in a sense, I came from the future, having traveled back over 14 billion years, I brought with me the mature systemic knowledge of later eras, yet I cannot use it. Like the first, weak indigenous beings in these nascent worlds, I can only grope forward alone through the unknown."

Even he didn't know how to proceed! Even if he wanted to teach, he had no knowledge to impart. The cultivation techniques and bloodlines he practiced were completely ineffective in this era. His supercomputing power could not deduce everything. Deduction and calculation are based on existing knowledge and data, but now even the most fundamental data is incomplete, and the laws of heaven and earth have not yet solidified. In this primordial chaos, how could he deduce anything?

Everything was immortal. The first living being also acquired a name: Yi Mang. As an ordinary mortal, he was the first sentient being in this world, yet despite having no cultivation, he lived to this very day, ten thousand years later.

For these ten thousand years, civilization had been full of activity. As elemental-like mud creatures, the original primordial gods, they merely needed to absorb and release the universe's energy to survive. This world was wild, dangerous, and utterly chaotic. But at first, upon being born into this world, they felt nothing unusual, as if everything had always been this way naturally.

During the first ten years of their existence, Yi Mang led his offspring and descendants in constant hiding. They suffered heavy casualties as cosmic chaos interwove and space folded erratically, appearing like natural disasters at any moment. Even dimensions fluctuated unpredictably. At times, they were one-dimensional; at others, two-dimensional or three-dimensional. However, this dimensional spatial chaos was not a major disaster for them.

As lumps of mud, they were sometimes reduced to a single point in one dimension, losing their ability to self-reflect and becoming fixed. At other times, they became two-dimensional, like thin sheets of paper, scurrying about. A moment later, they would transform into three-dimensional beings, their flesh expanding like a spring. They even found enjoyment in it. While dimensional shifts couldn't kill them, being reduced in dimension while simultaneously facing other calamitous strikes, and thus unable to escape, was a significant disaster.

Spatial turbulence and various forms of chaos remained perilous. Even though they were immortal, they could barely maintain their population without decline.

Over the next twenty years, they communicated using gestures and signals, gradually developing a language for their civilization, moving away from a wild, bestial existence. This language then slowly evolved into a unique form of brainwave communication. They began to marvel at the wonder of language and sensed its inherent potential. Language was the direct medium of communication, and communication was the spark that ignited civilization.

"Oolala! Oolala!" shouted one of the mud creatures, pointing at a distant spatial turbulence, indicating it was very dangerous. He had personally witnessed a companion enter it and be torn apart. The surrounding mud creatures looked terrified as they gazed at the vortex. A new era of civilization had begun.

Through communication, they began to share their experiences of danger and narrow escapes, understanding some of the universe's perilous patterns and learning to avoid them. Knowledge within the entire species started to be passed on, like a torch, and they learned the primary function of communication within civilized settlements: avoiding danger.

By the end of the first century, Yi Mang's people still knew how to evade dangers. They began to adapt to this nascent, chaotic universe, proliferating widely throughout it. Their language civilization fully matured, yet they remained entrenched in a primitive tribal existence. Their development was incredibly slow and sluggish. Beyond eating, reproducing, and resting, they had no other daily routines. Time seemed to pass incredibly slowly for them, day after day, monotonous and dull, as if embodying the ancient saying: "The ancients lived for millions of years, yet their vigor never waned!"

After one hundred years, the development of their civilization stagnated, and they continued living the most primitive tribal life. It was simply impossible to develop civilization. Dimensions continued to fluctuate. The parameter for material gravity could jump from 1 to 10,000 at any moment. The speed of light was also inconsistent; sometimes it was extremely slow, at other times unimaginably fast.

Due to the unpredictable speed of light propagation, the observational method of "distant objects appearing smaller, near objects larger" was entirely inapplicable. A person seemingly close might actually be far away, and someone seemingly far away might be right beside them. The unstable parameters of light made everything they saw illusory; they couldn't even measure spatial dimensions. It was as if they lived in a phantom cosmic space.

Under these circumstances, let alone any developing technological civilization or the use of tools, even the most advanced spacecraft from later eras would turn into scrap metal here. This was because the development of civilization relies on tools, and tools, in turn, are based on stable rules. However, despite being unable to develop civilization, their population exploded rapidly. Their ability to avoid most cosmic dangers drastically reduced casualties, leading to a true era of population expansion.

By the first millennium, they discovered new joys in their monotonous lives. They began to channel their excess time into construction, becoming fully immersed in it. In the vast, desolate universe, all the mud in their settlements was molded into various peculiar, bizarre, and grotesque shapes, resembling children's scribbles. Even though a surge of chaotic laws or a change in gravitational parameters would destroy their creations within almost a week, much like frequent waves sweeping away sandcastles on a beach, they tirelessly rebuilt them.

Day after day, they reproduced, ate, rested, built, watched their creations be destroyed by the universe, and then built again. They built for ten thousand years. The era of great expansion was also an era of great construction. Unable to develop civilization, the idle Yi Mang people channeled their excessive energy into cosmic sculpting—a historical inevitability.

Xu Zhi couldn't help but feel the epic shock. "Who would have thought? The universe's earliest civilization, like innocent children on a beach, tirelessly played for tens of thousands of years! Day after day, they built sculptures, only for their masterpieces to be repeatedly battered and destroyed by the ocean's tides."

To Xu Zhi, this scene was surreal and bizarre. Wherever they settled, floating cosmic matter was sculpted into various strangely styled buildings, which they inhabited. As these sculptures evolved, their art of sculpting reached its peak. From an initial bizarre and eccentric style, they gradually developed a unified aesthetic, making their statues regular, symmetrical, perfectly spherical, cubical, triangular, and polyhedral...

The entire world seemed to transform into a geometric, block-like realm. Through sculpting, they understood the beauty of regularity for the first time, and they began to ponder:

"Why isn't the universe regular?"

For ten thousand years, despite no societal development, they had long recognized the existence of rules governing "light" and "gravity." The natural disasters caused by these variables led them to understand these concepts very early on. It was a simple truth. If gravity were constant, people would easily overlook it in daily life, perhaps only noticing it when, like Newton, they saw an apple fall. But if gravity were not constant, if objects fell and pulled with wildly erratic strengths, humanity would notice the concept of "gravity" from the very beginning.

They even measured time, establishing units to calculate their lifespans and how much time had passed for them. They continued to engage in sculpting, and Yi Mang, seated at the highest point, began to ponder:

"Why isn't light constant? It would be so much better if it were. Light is simply too deceptive. If its speed were constant, we wouldn't need to physically touch a sculpture to ascertain its true form. The world would become real simply by observing it with our eyes."

"Why isn't gravity constant? It would be so much better if it were. If gravity were a consistent number, the sculptures we build wouldn't rapidly collapse, deform, or twist due to the gravitational pull between materials."

"Why isn't space constant? If space were constant, the sculptures we build wouldn't be destroyed by spatial turbulence; they could exist indefinitely."

For the first time, he began to question the irregular universe in which he lived, like a seed taking root. He grew dissatisfied. Yet, despite his questions, Yi Mang had no way to change anything. He could only lead his people to tirelessly build sculptures day after day, only for them to be destroyed.

Several more millennia passed. As he concentrated on sculpting, he noticed his thoughts becoming clearer and faster. He could even vaguely perceive the interior of his own body.

"I see... myself?" He paused, as if seeing his own body as another sculpture, with many imperfect and weak details. He couldn't help but concentrate his efforts on refining every part of his body, sensing its imperfections.

He sculpted himself to perfection, like a statue... Gradually, after another three years, he vaguely felt his life break through a certain limit. He entered a profound and mysterious state. When he awoke several months later, a strange aura emanated from him. The entire universe vibrated intensely in response, stars sparkled brightly, and the radiance of the Great Dao enveloped him, making him seem, for a moment, like the first ancient and sacred being between heaven and earth.