After sitting down, the old man glanced up at the night sky and sighed. "I've been cooped up in that cave for months without coming out for a breath of fresh air. Only now, looking at this dazzling night sky, do I realize that getting out for a walk might actually be better for my health."
Liu Xing did not respond to the old man's musings. All he worried about now was whether the old man's body could hold out in the bitter winds of this frozen plain.
As though he had seen through Liu Xing's worries, the old man smiled. "Afraid I won't last? Don't worry. It's rare for me to be in such good spirits. Why don't I tell you a few stories I've never told you before?"
The old man closed his eyes and reflected for a while before speaking again. "Haven't you always wondered why the two of us, one old and one young, are the only people on Connors Star? Where exactly did we come from? Are there other humans like us in this vast universe?"
Liu Xing's eyes gradually lit up. Clearly, the old man's topic interested him greatly. But then a trace of sadness crept into his expression, as though he vaguely sensed that something bad was coming.
The old man seemed not to notice the change in Liu Xing's expression and simply continued at his own slow pace. "The origins of humanity make for a very, very long story. We humans originated on Earth, the third planet of the distant Solar System! Our civilization now has a history stretching back more than ten thousand years..."
In the twenty-second century AD, Earth's population swelled by the day, its energy crisis grew ever more severe, and conflicts between races became acutely bitter.
At last, a horrific nuclear war swept across the globe. Thousands of years of human civilization were destroyed in a single stroke, and fewer than one in a thousand people survived.
After its baptism by nuclear war, Earth became a savage wasteland. The humans who survived the catastrophe had to begin lives of grinding hardship, barely managing to keep humanity alive.
Throughout this catastrophe, only one kind of person in all of human society escaped devastating casualties-the cultivators of legend!
Cultivators wrested their destinies from heaven and drew upon the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. They could roam the northern sea at dawn and reach Cangwu by dusk, move mountains and overturn seas. Compared with ordinary mortals, they differed little from the immortals of legend.
Cultivators had always avoided contact with mortals, living freely within the Cultivation World. Especially after the rise of technological civilization on Earth, most cultivators sealed the gates of their sects and cut off all contact with the outside world.
Who could have foreseen that a nuclear war would ravage Earth beyond recognition? More terrifying still, it triggered a chain of environmental changes that almost completely destroyed Earth's spiritual energy.
Spiritual energy was the natural power of heaven and earth. It had existed everywhere since the universe was born; there was nowhere in the entire universe utterly devoid of it. The only difference was how much a place possessed.
Since ancient times, Earth had been a rare place overflowing with spiritual energy. Its abundance of five-element spiritual energy was difficult to match not only in the Solar System, but even among the spiritual lands of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Thus, Earth held countless blessed lands and heavenly sanctuaries, giving rise to a flourishing Cultivation World with innumerable sects and great cultivation schools.
The rise of technological civilization on Earth had damaged its spiritual energy to some extent, but had not shaken its foundations. As a result, it had not put the Cultivation World on guard against the mortal world.
After the nuclear war, however, radiation inflicted irreparable damage on Earth's spiritual energy. The Cultivation World could no longer remain untouched.
Insufficient spiritual energy severely affected cultivators' cultivation, yet even their abilities could not reverse Earth's environmental changes. And so the Cultivation World turned its sights toward outer space.
For accomplished experts in the nascent soul realm, transforming into streaks of rainbow light and roaming the cosmos was no great difficulty. Many venerable figures of the Cultivation World therefore began long journeys through space, searching the vast universe for other places suited to cultivation.
Whenever these traveling nascent soul realm experts found a planet rich in spiritual energy, they would set up teleportation arrays and bring over the disciples of their sects.
Over a thousand years passed. The Cultivation World established itself on more than a hundred new planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, relocating almost all of Earth's cultivation sects into outer space.
Some cultivators were kindhearted and could not bear to see the humans on Earth spend their lives in a world filled with radiation. Moreover, while searching the universe, cultivators had discovered not only planets rich in spiritual energy, but also several hundred planets suitable for human life whose concentrations of spiritual energy were less than ideal.
Cultivators had no interest in such planets, but to the humans who had survived the catastrophe, they were undoubtedly paradise.
Finally, through the combined efforts of many cultivators, the surviving humans on Earth used teleportation arrays to migrate to the dozen or so planets best suited to ordinary human habitation.
This contact quietly broke down the barrier between the Cultivation World and the mortal world. Mortals learned of the Cultivation World's existence and, with the cultivators' help, began rebuilding human civilization.
This time, human civilization was rebuilt from a lofty starting point, ushering humanity directly into the great space age. The existence of cultivators made humans realize that developing so-called modern weaponry was nothing but a joke, because even nuclear bombs could not harm accomplished cultivators.
And so all humanity devoted its efforts to developing spaceflight technology. As new advances continued to emerge, humans finally achieved interstellar travel. Of course, interstellar travel could never rival the convenience of teleportation arrays, but the arrays were limited by their size and consumed spirit stones, making it impossible for mortals to use them as everyday transportation.
Advances in spaceflight technology allowed humans living on different planets to interact once more. Another thousand years passed, and human society gradually formed a vast Galactic Federation.
During the rebuilding of human civilization and the founding of the Galactic Federation, cultivators provided humanity with tremendous help. This also brought the Cultivation World and the mortal world gradually together.
Because of the immense disparity in individual power, cultivators were regarded as the guardian deities of human society, their status towering high above that of ordinary humans. This also gave some great cultivation sects and powerful aristocratic clans even greater influence than the Galactic Federation's parliament.
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