Zhang Yang vaguely remembered that back in middle school, his real PE teacher had once said that tools were buoys marking more advanced productive forces. The better the tools, the more fish—er, the higher the level of productive forces—that could be caught.
This was an innate nature and characteristic shared by Human Civilization, and even by all civilizations of beings in the Six Great Sequences and the Myriad Heavens and Worlds that were skilled at using tools.
Thus, within the Six Great Sequences, this category of beings had a collective name: Acquired Beings. Their bodies were frail, so they were especially adept at utilizing external objects, particularly at developing and innovating tools.
But since there were Acquired Beings, there were naturally Innate Beings as well—existences that were incomparably powerful from birth and reached the summit in a single step.
There were very few such Innate Beings, but they were basically as undying as the River of Time. Some even included indescribable existences that had leaped beyond the structure of the River of Time.
Even ancient gods did not dare provoke such Innate Beings lightly.
Among these Innate Beings, there were several who were extremely displeased by the reproduction and expansion of the Acquired Beings. They believed that these little bugs were disturbing them, or perhaps they simply had other reasons that could not be explained. Thus, they continued launching one purge and massacre after another against the Acquired Beings throughout the Six Great Sequences.
However, Acquired Beings were ultimately cockroaches that could not be beaten to death. Therefore, those Innate Beings had now switched to more advanced methods, and Mechanical Zombies were the most successful kind.
Their defining trait was infecting all tools and giving them minds and souls.
That was truly terrifying, practically no different from gripping the vital