1951

1951 Random Number Generator

After that, the ancient civilization enjoyed peace for several hundred thousand years.

There was no earth-shattering incident or crisis that would sweep the sea of stars and destroy everything.

However, the Future Prediction System controlled by Zero had been running precisely the entire time. It ensured that the enormous universe that spanned across the sea of stars would remain stable as always.

However, on a level that was invisible to the individuals of ordinary civilizations, the critical point of an inevitable disaster was gradually approaching.

As time passed, Zero discovered a problem: It was getting harder and harder to find a “good future” from the thousands of “bad futures.”

In the first few hundred years after the Future Projection System was launched, it only needed to predict hundreds, or at most thousands, of bad futures to learn enough lessons and avoid pitfalls. It could turn misfortune into good and plan a happy path for all civilizations.

However, as the number of individuals increased, the area that the civilizations controlled grew larger. As a result, the entire system became increasingly complicated and bloated.

Zero often needed to deduce the future tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of times to avoid endless problems and select a path that would satisfy everyone.

Ultimately, even if the resources of the entire planet were exhausted, even if the stars were sucked dry, and immense computational ability was generated, it would still be difficult to find a “good future” that could preserve their civilization.

Zero fell into deep thought, and after a hundred years, she came to a conclusion—No, there had been no problems with her underlying logic. She had not made a mistake.

Most of the individuals never had the heart to rebel. In their long lives, they had faithfully followed the system’s direction and moved forward without any error.

They did not make mistakes.

No one had made a mistake, and nothing had been wrong with any of the factors. The ancient civilization was not suffering from any new diseases either. It was just old.

Birth, aging, illness, and death were the natural order.

Any carbon-based creature would die. Even the most stable and sturdy metal structures would slowly corrode, distort, and collapse over time.

Even planets, stars, and entire galaxies would perish one day.

Even the three-dimensional universe itself had its limits. If they lost the basis for their survival, how would they survive?

No matter how great, glorious, or advanced the civilization before them was, since it still existed in the three-dimensional universe or material world, it would slowly age and die naturally one day.

This was the law of nature, which could not be reversed or changed.

At the very least, in a closed system that did not introduce any external matter or energy, the law of the rise and fall of civilizations could never be broken.

However, the entire purpose of Zero’s creation was to break all the rules and regulations so that this unprecedented, unique, and great civilization would exist forever.

To achieve this, she needed to introduce a new “variable.”

After all, it had been hundreds of thousands of years since the entire civilization had been guided by Zero and lived using the Future Prediction System.

In the past hundreds of thousands of years, Civilization itself had not produced any new data that would help achieve a new evolution or even a leap.

Everything that seemed to be ever-changing and new came from Zero’s constant rolling, accumulation, and growing database.

However, the ultimate answer to life and death was not hidden in this database.

Zero realized that she needed help. She needed to find some kind of existence that was beyond the chip’s control and good at whimsical things so that it could ask questions that she could never ask.

She needed new, unknown, uncontrollable, and unstable data to stimulate herself and carry out the next major version of the upgrade.

Zero turned her gaze to the database that had been sealed for nearly a million years in the dark world deep within her home planet.

This database contained the genetic data of the primitive lifeforms that had gone extinct during the ancient civilization’s conquest of the universe and the transformation of terrestrial planets.

The ancient civilization had not deliberately slaughtered these primitive life forms. But the process of transforming terrestrial planets had been very simple, violent, and intense.

The composition of their atmosphere, the structure of the earth’s crust, and the ecosystem after the transformation would be different. Hence, the primitive life forms would not be familiar with them.

The primitive life forms that had evolved into reptiles at most still roamed the deep seas. They could not adapt to the brand-new ecosphere that was replicated from the ancient civilization’s home planet. They were doomed from the start.

In the past, Zero would never have opened the database that could only be described as “messy and strange.” She advocated meticulous calculation, high stability, and control of everything.

After all, unlike the ancient civilization’s perfect creations, the extinct primitive life forms on the terrestrial planets were all eliminated products of failed evolution.

Unfortunately, all the answers derived from the available data had been proven to be worthless errors.

Zero could only activate the only factor that was not completely under her control in the primitive civilization. The chaotic database replicated a large number of primitive life forms and placed them on a distant and barren terrestrial planet that had just been discovered at the ancient civilization’s border.

Zero gave this new database a name. In the ancient civilization’s language, this name represented unpredictable changes, unpredictable danger, and an extremely slim hope.

If one had to use a word to simulate its pronunciation, one could use the word, “phantom” based on Zero’s naming system.

However, today, in the Other World, there was already a more appropriate term that could perfectly describe its true meaning: Chaos.

The Phantom or Chaos was growing silently on the unknown terrestrial planet. Since she was doing the opposite now, Zero did not interfere too much with its growth and evolution.

She did not launch the Creation Engine to modify the terrestrial planet into a monotonous and unremarkable place that was suitable for the ancient civilization.

She just remained in the planet’s synchronous orbit and prepared defensive measures that could destroy everything.

After that, the primitive life forms on this planet were allowed to grow wildly, kill each other, and evolve endlessly.

She monitored everything in real time and absorbed a lot of new data from the life forms’ ever-changing and unpredictable evolution, which she could not have derived on her own. That’s right, the terrestrial planet that housed Chaos was equivalent to Zero’s “random number generator.”

1951 Random Number Generator

After that, the ancient civilization enjoyed peace for several hundred thousand years.

There was no earth-shattering incident or crisis that would sweep the sea of stars and destroy everything.

However, the Future Prediction System controlled by Zero had been running precisely the entire time. It ensured that the enormous universe that spanned across the sea of stars would remain stable as always.

However, on a level that was invisible to the individuals of ordinary civilizations, the critical point of an inevitable disaster was gradually approaching.

As time passed, Zero discovered a problem: It was getting harder and harder to find a “good future” from the thousands of “bad futures.”

In the first few hundred years after the Future Projection System was launched, it only needed to predict hundreds, or at most thousands, of bad futures to learn enough lessons and avoid pitfalls. It could turn misfortune into good and plan a happy path for all civilizations.

However, as the number of individuals increased, the area that the civilizations controlled grew larger. As a result, the entire system became increasingly complicated and bloated.

Zero often needed to deduce the future tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of times to avoid endless problems and select a path that would satisfy everyone.

Ultimately, even if the resources of the entire planet were exhausted, even if the stars were sucked dry, and immense computational ability was generated, it would still be difficult to find a “good future” that could preserve their civilization.

Zero fell into deep thought, and after a hundred years, she came to a conclusion—No, there had been no problems with her underlying logic. She had not made a mistake.

Most of the individuals never had the heart to rebel. In their long lives, they had faithfully followed the system’s direction and moved forward without any error.

They did not make mistakes.

No one had made a mistake, and nothing had been wrong with any of the factors. The ancient civilization was not suffering from any new diseases either. It was just old.

Birth, aging, illness, and death were the natural order.

Any carbon-based creature would die. Even the most stable and sturdy metal structures would slowly corrode, distort, and collapse over time.

Even planets, stars, and entire galaxies would perish one day.

Even the three-dimensional universe itself had its limits. If they lost the basis for their survival, how would they survive?

No matter how great, glorious, or advanced the civilization before them was, since it still existed in the three-dimensional universe or material world, it would slowly age and die naturally one day.

This was the law of nature, which could not be reversed or changed.

At the very least, in a closed system that did not introduce any external matter or energy, the law of the rise and fall of civilizations could never be broken.

However, the entire purpose of Zero’s creation was to break all the rules and regulations so that this unprecedented, unique, and great civilization would exist forever.

To achieve this, she needed to introduce a new “variable.”

After all, it had been hundreds of thousands of years since the entire civilization had been guided by Zero and lived using the Future Prediction System.

In the past hundreds of thousands of years, Civilization itself had not produced any new data that would help achieve a new evolution or even a leap.

Everything that seemed to be ever-changing and new came from Zero’s constant rolling, accumulation, and growing database.

However, the ultimate answer to life and death was not hidden in this database.

Zero realized that she needed help. She needed to find some kind of existence that was beyond the chip’s control and good at whimsical things so that it could ask questions that she could never ask.

She needed new, unknown, uncontrollable, and unstable data to stimulate herself and carry out the next major version of the upgrade.

Zero turned her gaze to the database that had been sealed for nearly a million years in the dark world deep within her home planet.

This database contained the genetic data of the primitive lifeforms that had gone extinct during the ancient civilization’s conquest of the universe and the transformation of terrestrial planets.

The ancient civilization had not deliberately slaughtered these primitive life forms. But the process of transforming terrestrial planets had been very simple, violent, and intense.

The composition of their atmosphere, the structure of the earth’s crust, and the ecosystem after the transformation would be different. Hence, the primitive life forms would not be familiar with them.

The primitive life forms that had evolved into reptiles at most still roamed the deep seas. They could not adapt to the brand-new ecosphere that was replicated from the ancient civilization’s home planet. They were doomed from the start.

In the past, Zero would never have opened the database that could only be described as “messy and strange.” She advocated meticulous calculation, high stability, and control of everything.

After all, unlike the ancient civilization’s perfect creations, the extinct primitive life forms on the terrestrial planets were all eliminated products of failed evolution.

Unfortunately, all the answers derived from the available data had been proven to be worthless errors.

Zero could only activate the only factor that was not completely under her control in the primitive civilization. The chaotic database replicated a large number of primitive life forms and placed them on a distant and barren terrestrial planet that had just been discovered at the ancient civilization’s border.

Zero gave this new database a name. In the ancient civilization’s language, this name represented unpredictable changes, unpredictable danger, and an extremely slim hope.

If one had to use a word to simulate its pronunciation, one could use the word, “phantom” based on Zero’s naming system.

However, today, in the Other World, there was already a more appropriate term that could perfectly describe its true meaning: Chaos.

The Phantom or Chaos was growing silently on the unknown terrestrial planet. Since she was doing the opposite now, Zero did not interfere too much with its growth and evolution.

She did not launch the Creation Engine to modify the terrestrial planet into a monotonous and unremarkable place that was suitable for the ancient civilization.

She just remained in the planet’s synchronous orbit and prepared defensive measures that could destroy everything.

After that, the primitive life forms on this planet were allowed to grow wildly, kill each other, and evolve endlessly.

She monitored everything in real time and absorbed a lot of new data from the life forms’ ever-changing and unpredictable evolution, which she could not have derived on her own. That’s right, the terrestrial planet that housed Chaos was equivalent to Zero’s “random number generator.”