Jiang Chen noticed that the countless monuments had collapsed, and the walls guarding the monuments were destroyed in the flames of war. However, the only constant was that the prosperous fires still grew with resiliency, and germinated in the Dark Age of blood and barbarism.

At this moment, the light ball that had been silent for a while gently moved and started speaking.

“I noticed that in your memory, the time of existence of your matriarchal society is very short. However, in our civilization, the matriarchal society only started to be challenged in the late Renaissance. However, it took us 20,000 years to go from the Dark Age to the Renaissance.”

20,000 years!

Jiang Chen’s mouth twitched.

It took 20,000 years to transition from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance… this is almost longer than the entirety of human civilization.

“You may be surprised. 20,000 years is too long for any living creature, but this was simply because of living habits, there is nothing to elaborate on. There is nothing to see above. I will take you down,” said the light ball.

The scene gradually changed.

Jiang Chen watched the soil at the bottom of his feet dissolve as the gravel collapsed downwards. He then watched himself sink to the ground, cross the distance of over 10,000 meters, and stand in an underground nest.

He previously thought that it must be full of unordered, tynophobic holes, but to his surprise, he saw a spectacular stone-paved pavilion. Solemn and sacred, each brick and tile was built with the vibe of the civilization and its unique aesthetics.

Markets, houses, barracks, all the functional facilities were connected by the tunnel to the central pavilion. Everything surrounded the mother nest and formed a three-dimensional city.

He didn’t know where every tunnel led to, and he didn’t know what each Gaia was doing, but from their busy appearance, it was difficult to not feel the prosperity.

“Whether it was a worker, a miner, a farmer, a soldier, or a civilian, they had gained the same power after the revolution, and enjoyed all the power from private assets to mating. The matriarchal society had come to an end, and the class structure that revolved around the mother eventually collapsed in the flame of Industrial Revolution.”

“We used steel and oil to create siege beasts. They were able to freely charge in the ground, rendering all fortifications useless. Even the devil worm was just like a cockroach in front of them. The cavalry completely exited from the stage of history. War returned to the barbaric three-dimensional era, we began to learn to arm ourselves with machines, to replace the weak parts of our body because of evolution, and to destroy our enemies in the most efficient way.”

“Although the barbarism did not change, in this era, any Gaia had the same power, and the concept of equality was deeply rooted in the hearts of our people. We wrote all of these into our code… If you came to me a billion years ago, maybe you could still see that stone monument, but now, nothing is left…”

“And when all this came to a close, it was the beginning of prosperity.”

The mechanical centipede that agitated the earth disappeared, and the walls of the pavilion collapsed backwards. Thousands of spiral-like buildings, magnificent like work of arts, rose up in the darkness, stretching its branches in the depths of the ground, just like high-risers of human civilization…

At this moment, Jiang Chen finally understood what he found in Mine 071.

All the backwardness of the matriarchal society ended and was replaced by a larger and greater empire. They completed the unification and connected all the cities together by rail and tunnel.

After the tens of thousands of years of ignorance had passed, the Gaia civilization ushered in a golden age of prosperity and growth.

“It’s incredible…” Through the gravel, Jiang Chen stared blankly at the crowded “people” on the spiral high-rises.

“I understand your astonishment, probably just like when I saw you appear in front of me.” The light ball whispered, “If the revolution smashed the old thoughts, then the unification after the Industrial Revolution led our civilization into the golden age of prosperity. But this was not our best time. The truly best time was after a thousand years when we invented the nerve augmentation device.”

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“The nerve augmentation device made the antennae on our heads more powerful, our ‘sounds’ can be transmitted to more distant places. If you find it difficult to understand, you can compare its meaning to your Internet.”

Jiang Chen nodded.

He understood the analogy.

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 space made entirely of metal. In this spherical space, 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 appetite. 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… “