1961 Collective Subconscious

The first thing to address was the Ancient’s name.

Her name, or rather, the name of any Ancient, was difficult to perfectly interpret with Earth’s poor and shallow languages.

One could say that the information contained in her name precisely described the ever-changing brilliance of the star on a certain terrestrial planet. This planet was located on the other side of the galaxy where her ancestors had once lived. The clouds that stretched for hundreds of miles reflected its ever-changing light.

In the ancient civilization’s language system, this Ancient’s name specifically referred to the several billion rays of light reflected by the cloud. It also described the floating dust and feathers of the birds that danced around the light. With such an astonishing amount of information, it remained a unique name across the many stars throughout the ages.

Using Earth’s naming conventions, perhaps one could simply call her Baili Tongyun.

Meng Chao used the vitality magnetic field that Baili Tongyun released and the vitality magnetic fields of his compatriots who were running around in a panic outside. The information that flowed endlessly and interacted with each other at a high speed allowed him to understand part of the relationship between the Ancients.

In a sense, they were one.

Baili Tongyun was not just a calm Ancient woman sitting cross-legged in front of Meng Chao.

She was also one of the panic-stricken Ancients outside who were running around like headless flies but could not escape the disaster.

She shared part of her perception, part of her thoughts, and even part of her will with them.

They were one and the same.

While the rest ran away in despair, they projected a part of themselves that contained any last hope into Baili TongYun’s body. That way, she could put on one last fight.

This was a state that was difficult for Earthlings to understand.

Both the “hive mind” and the “consciousness network” seemed to only be able to describe part of its nature.

Next, when thousands of information streams surged into the depths of Meng Chao’s consciousness, he gradually began to understand that this large consciousness cluster network that was based on high-speed wireless information exchange was not created by Zero or the Phantom.

The truth was the exact opposite.

It was the ancient civilization that first developed into the stage of collective consciousness. Based on their understanding of intelligent life and civilization itself, humans had created the two super artificial intelligences, Zero and the Nether Phantom.

More and more information that was even more ancient than myths and legends fused perfectly with Meng Chao’s consciousness. He realized that it was impossible to accurately describe the essence of Zero and the Phantom using Earthling terms like “advanced artificial intelligence.”

Zero and the Phantom were not artificial intelligence.

They were the billions of individuals of the ancient civilization who had crossed the sea of stars. They were the products that were born naturally from the data of souls that were as dense as the grains of sand in the Ganges River after they uploaded their consciousness to the boundless interstellar network and exchanged information with each other.

Non-order, order, and words were the wills of thousands of Ancient people, and even the ancient civilization itself!

This did not mean that Zero and the Phantom deliberately lied to Meng Chao about their origins.

However, no creation could clearly recognize its own birth.

They were also unwilling to admit that there was a creator above them.

Just like how humans were unwilling to admit that they were only born on the surface of the earth as billions of insignificant specks of dust.

Yet, they regarded themselves as supreme beings that had the right to rule over everything.

Even the Internet did not cover everything for the ancient civilization and the Ancients.

Baili Tongyun was not just Baili Tongyun.

She was not just all the Ancients within a hundred miles.

She was her parents, her grandparents, her great grandparents, and ancestors that could be traced back to thousands of years ago.

It was different from the humans on Earth who could only pass on specific traits through genetics and pass on knowledge and enlightenment through word of mouth.

When Baili Tongyun was still in the womb, she had a part of the memories of her ancestors. She could see what her ancestors and their companions saw thousands of years ago.

An example of this was the overwhelming, ever-changing, beautiful clouds that reflected a billion rays of light.

Her parents and ancestors, who had long passed away, could also retain part of their own way of thinking and free will through new carriers. This preserved their “soul shrapnel” so that the civilization could continue and upgrade in an extremely efficient and rigorous way.

It was these characteristics that made them far more powerful than the Earthlings that created unprecedented achievements and a glorious and powerful civilization in the blink of an eye.

Now, this glorious civilization that was about to perish as it was in its last moments.

When a man is about to die, his words tend to be kind.

Perhaps the Ancients had a way to seal off part or all of their thoughts and will to ensure that they sounded like individuals.

However, when the entire planet was burning, the entire sky was shining, and all living beings were wailing, it was meaningless to keep any information.

Through the information that Baili Tongyun released without holding back, Meng Chao understood that she was the most important person in the ancient civilization. In the words of the people on Earth, she was the core member of a research team.

From her grandfather, grandfather’s grandfather, and even grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather, generations of extremely intelligent Ancients had begun to study the personality and self-awareness that was born unintentionally from the interstellar information network that spanned the sea of stars.

The first life was also born in the vast ocean, in the random collisions and reactions among the countless minerals in the Ganges.

In that case, when billions of soul messages were flying freely in the sea of stars and drifting in the cosmic radiation, fusing, tearing, and colliding countless times, was it strange that pure conscious lives of a brand-new meaning and a higher concept were born from them?

Like all the beings who claimed to be supreme, Baili Tongyun’s ancestors once wanted to destroy these huge data collections that floated in the interstellar information network, between life and non-life.

But life would always find a way.

Unless the interstellar information network was closed, it could even change the social form of the entire ancient civilization and the way they communicated with all the Ancients.

Without a doubt, this was an unacceptable price.

It was equivalent to cutting off one’s head to treat a headache.

As the collective subconscious of all the Ancients, the Phantom and Zero, who were not even embryos, did not reveal any danger, threat, or anything that made the Ancients uncomfortable.

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