The mental space formed by the virtual link was crowded with people. The phantom images of inspectors from various worlds moved constantly through this chaotic space, and many of them were reviewing the countless records of civilizations from across the entire Macro World. Hao Ren was one of them.
The Ark civilization's database unfolded grandly in his mind, and a massive flood of information rushed toward him.
Having browsed the Tanagrus database before, Hao Ren was already familiar with virtual connections of such high bandwidth. He no longer reacted with astonishment as he had the first time he connected. He simply remained focused, slowly browsing through the vast sea of information for the things that best represented a civilization—history, art, law, religion, and social models. Whenever a civilization left behind a "doomsday database," it carefully categorized these things and placed them in the easiest-to-read sections. Just as plants left behind seeds and animals left behind offspring, "preserving one's information" was the instinct of all living things.
Watching a civilization take its first steps from ignorance, enter space amid fire, steel, war, and peace, and finally vanish like fireworks across the night sky was hardly a pleasant experience. Hao Ren quickly finished browsing the historical section and began focusing on the logs from before the Ark civilization's destruction.
The people who left behind these logs had clearly realized that their civilization was tottering on the brink, so they recorded in detail everything that had happened during its final days, especially the anomalies—the shaking of the earth, changes in the stars, the climate, magnetic fields, the sun, and everything else. They were like mortally wounded victims in a murder case, doing their utmost to leave clues about the killer around them. Perhaps they hoped that if everything truly became irredeemable, someone might