Civilization Promotion Assessment

Lin Yi quickly gathered his thoughts.

The resilience he had honed over so many years kept him from dwelling on his emotions for long. After a brief moment of reflection, he turned his attention to the Civilization Promotion Assessment that was coming up.

Seven days could be a long time, but it could also pass in the blink of an eye.

It was a rare, heaven-sent opportunity to live his life over. If he wanted things to turn out differently, he had to plan ahead.

So before the assessment began, he needed to make all the necessary preparations.

Lin Yi paced over to his desk and dropped into his chair. As he tidied the somewhat cluttered desktop, he began carefully recalling and organizing everything he knew about the Civilization Promotion Assessment.

The territory of the Human Race in the universe stretched across an immeasurable expanse. Every day, human civilizations on countless primitive planets reached a critical point in their development and tried to join the ranks of interstellar civilizations.

Though the Human Race had endured countless hardships among the billions of races in the Star Sea and could just barely be considered a powerful race, there were hundreds of others just as powerful in the universe.

Above them stood the peak races.

Thus, within the Pan-Spirit Alliance coalition, whose absolute core was the Spirit Race, the Human Race was only somewhat stronger than an ordinary member.

To survive and develop amid the brutal competition of the universe, and to coordinate limited resources while identifying and nurturing new human civilizations with genuine potential to produce powerful individuals, the Humanity Supreme Council had established the "Civilization Promotion Assessment system."

The assessments were overseen by beings at the Eternal Deity level who specialized in the Illusion Law, and were conducted for every civilization that met the criteria for promotion.

After developing alone for countless years, the human civilization on Blue Star had finally reached the threshold of interstellar civilization.

Seven days from now, a divine clone wielding the Illusion Law would descend into the space around Blue Star, envelop the entire planet in a Divine Kingdom Projection, and carry out the Human Race's brutal yet impartial assessment of this new civilization.

A high score meant a greater allocation of resources and intensive development. A planet like Blue Star, located in a region poor in Source Energy, could even be relocated to an area rich in it.

A low score, on the other hand, meant becoming a resource planet or a military recruitment planet, languishing in hardship with only the hope that the pressure might drive some individual in the civilization to defy fate and change its course.

This was a civilization's coming-of-age ceremony.

Abyss Beasts descended from the heavens! The apocalypse began!

Abyss Beasts were terrifying monsters, somewhere between real and unreal, simulated by Eternal Deities through their supreme power.

They had the destructive power and killing instincts of real creatures, yet they originated from the Illusion Law and were endless.

Abyss Beasts poured out of their Nests in a tide, tearing apart order and devouring lives.

Thinking of this, Lin Yi couldn't help sighing.

In his previous life, when the thousand-year-long assessment on Blue Star finally ended, the people of Blue Star had been furious to learn the truth about the apocalypse.

Countless people had died, and dozens of generations had struggled to survive. The fate of their entire civilization had been toyed with at will. And because they had failed to reach the so-called assessment threshold, they had received only a Level 2 civilization rating.

All of Blue Star had been reduced to a tool for supplying resources, and nearly everyone on the planet had struggled through hardship.

Those among them who had received a Level 4 individual rating and could leave Blue Star as free citizens after reaching Star Core Level had entered the universe amid that resentment.

But as time passed and they ventured through the Star Sea, their horizons broadened. The Virtual Network in particular opened their eyes. The people in their group had gradually come to resent themselves more than the Humanity Supreme Council, which had established the Civilization Promotion Assessment system.

What did they resent?

They resented that they hadn't tried hard enough back then, that they hadn't worked hard enough.

More than anything, they resented that after reaching Star Core Level, they had slowed their cultivation and let petty concerns hold them back, missing this golden opportunity to help their civilization advance.

Only later did they learn that every initial civilization of the Human Race was protected by the Humanity Supreme Council before its promotion assessment.

This protection ensured that human civilizations in their infancy could develop normally without being destroyed by outside forces.

Why, despite the dangers throughout the Star Sea, had Blue Star remained safe all this time?

No space pirates had attacked. No stars had gone supernova. No planets had collided with it.

Because all such threats had been handled by the guardians of initial civilizations, dispatched by the Purple Gold Star Alliance under the Supreme Council.

It could be said that without the Supreme Council, ninety-nine percent of fledgling civilizations would have been wiped out by natural disasters or enslaved by other advanced civilizations or space pirates.

Lin Yi remembered a comrade from his mercenary group who, like him, had joined after a Civilization Promotion Assessment.

That fellow had once told him in passing that his civilization, "Canbo," had records of more than thirty extinction-level crises throughout its history, yet every single one had somehow been resolved.

In the most outrageous incident, an asteroid had nearly reached the atmosphere before suddenly breaking apart at high speed and turning to dust.

Perhaps because Canbo's civilization guardians waited until the last minute to intervene, Canbo had developed an intensely religious culture. Whenever trouble arose, the gods really did manifest.

Of course, the one time they failed to manifest was during the Civilization Promotion Assessment.

That was why Lin Yi and the others had such complicated feelings—and, of course, resented their former selves even more.

Aside from the protection they received early on, even the Civilization Promotion Assessment itself was not merely a disaster, whether for an individual or for the civilization as a whole. More than anything, it was an opportunity.

The fact that the assessment was overseen by a clone of an Eternal Deity alone showed how seriously the Humanity Supreme Council took it.

What did Eternal Deity level mean? According to public information on the Virtual Network, the only Eternal Deity in the entire Purple Gold Star Alliance was Ming Luo, chairman of the Star Alliance Executive Committee.

Ordinarily, from its birth to its extinction, a civilization would have contact with an Eternal Deity only during its Civilization Promotion Assessment.

Lin Yi thought of the college entrance exam that had ended not long ago and the admission letter from Qingteng University he had received that very day. He couldn't help feeling a little wistful.

"The Civilization Promotion Assessment is so much like Blue Star's college entrance exam and university education. The college entrance exam is the best shortcut for ordinary people to change their fate, and a principal is the only member of society's upper class that an ordinary person has a chance to meet in their entire life."

"And the enormous supply of resources during the assessment is like four years at university. So if you don't make good use of the unlimited resources available during the assessment to develop yourself, and you don't even earn a Level 3 rating—your diploma—then who can you blame for getting beaten down once you enter interstellar society?"

Of course, he could only blame himself for not measuring up.

When the Abyss Beasts had suddenly descended, Blue Star's civilization had struggled to survive amid hurried, chaotic resistance.

Cities had crumbled into ruins, order had teetered on the verge of collapse, and humanity had clung to life beneath the monsters' shadow, building one fragile shelter after another among the ruins.

Technology had advanced slowly amid the struggle, while individuals had fought to evolve through blood and fire.

Yet after the Abyss Beasts' threat had been brought under a degree of control and humanity had shifted from total passivity to a strategic stalemate, the nations of Blue Star had not launched a full counterattack to wipe out the Abyss Beasts. Instead, their initial unity gave way to mutual obstruction and infighting.

One key reason was their greed for the resources the Abyss Beasts produced.

When an Abyss Beast was killed, it would condense into a peculiar energy crystal: a Spirit Radiance Crystal!

Inside each was a randomly generated "reward" of varying value.

These were resources meant to cultivate and reward civilizations undergoing the assessment. They were the most crucial resource in the entire assessment.

The grade of a Spirit Radiance Crystal was directly tied to the strength of the Abyss Beast. Every kill was like opening a mystery box.

The reward might be rare cosmic metals or biological materials, fragments of Source Energy cultivation techniques or complete inheritances, or highly compressed, pure Source Energy Crystals.

It might even be a weapon or equipment blueprint far beyond Blue Star's current level of technology.

This crucial resource divided Blue Star's leaders over how to deal with the Abyss Beasts.

Some believed the Abyss Beasts were continuing to evolve and should be wiped out with all their might.

Others considered them a renewable resource.

As long as the Abyss Beasts were kept under control, they could greatly accelerate the civilization's development. Blue Star might even negotiate with intelligent, high-level Abyss Beast Beast Kings and achieve mutually beneficial cooperation.