"Quick, hide!" Petru took a few steps ahead and leaped behind a nearby rock.
This is the mudflats of an island, with golden sand beaches and scattered brown reefs of varying heights.
It must be said that Petru, who had been a mercenary and pirate, reacted extremely quickly when facing danger. He issued a warning as soon as the howl started and moved at the same time.
By the time Qingmu and Su Huilan had concealed themselves, Petru had already set up his rifle, loaded it, and was fully alert and ready to fight.
Su Huilan said softly, "There's no need to be so nervous!"
Petru pulled out a military telescope and cautiously peered through it, saying, "Although you are all experts, I still advise you not to be careless and never underestimate the fighting power of these savages. I've fought against the most primitive tribes in the Africa jungle. Their weapons look primitive, but their fighting power is astonishing. Just three of them can kill a lion with spears; poisoned arrows can incapacitate a wild boar within ten seconds; and the most terrifying are their blowguns, silent and with a range exceeding fifty meters, making them more effective than sniper rifles in the jungle. They may not be as physically strong as us, but I guarantee that if there were a race in the jungle, no one could outrun them, not even a world champion."
Although Su Huilan was knowledgeable and had been in charge of almost everything since arriving in the South Pacific, she had never participated in a war and dared not be overconfident in matters of combat. The only one with combat experience here was Petru, so she stopped talking and waited for Petru's reconnaissance results.
The howling sounds on the island rose and fell, stretching endlessly, as if conveying some kind of signal.
Petru observed for a moment and said, "It doesn't seem like they're coming for us."
He probably realized he'd exaggerated a bit, so he turned to Qingmu and Su Huilan, smiled, tossed them the binoculars, and said, "Those tribes in Africa fight every year; the situation here shouldn't be that serious."
Qingmu said, "Let's not be careless yet. What I'm most worried about is how much these people actually know about Mental Power. Logically speaking, a race that has lived around a strong mental energy field like the Tapu for generations should have evolved abilities corresponding to the book, such as immunity to mental hypnosis. If that's the case, they'll be difficult to deal with!"
"Psychotherapy immunity?"
"It's very likely that the spiritual energy field here is too strong." Qingmu looked up at the lush green mountains in the distance. "Staying in such an environment for a long time can easily cause hallucinations. If an ordinary person lives here for a year or two, there are only two possible outcomes."
"Those two?"
"One type is schizophrenia, forever caught between dreams and reality, unable to even distinguish who they really are." Qingmu paused here, feeling as if the words were describing himself, and couldn't help but laugh self-deprecatingly.
"What about the other one?" Petru pressed.
Seeing that Qingmu did not answer but fell into deep thought, Su Huilan continued:
"The other type is adaptive change to the environment, which can also be called evolution. Organisms generally possess this adaptive ability, and the evolution of species is largely caused by changes in their living environment. For example, noise can affect the human central nervous system. If a person lives in a noisy new environment for a long time, it can cause an imbalance in the excitation and inhibition functions of the cerebral cortex, leading to neurasthenia syndrome, and may further affect cardiopulmonary function and the endocrine system. However, once adapted to this environment, the body will self-regulate, and the brain will automatically ignore this type of noise."
For example, the beaches here, with their endless tides and waves, are among the noisiest places in nature. If you bring animals that live in the desert or plateau here, they will show obvious signs of discomfort. But most animals and humans adapt quickly, partly because our range of activity is vast and the sound of water is common, and partly because our ancestors all came from the ocean.
Think about it again. Which large city isn't surrounded by loud noise every day? But after generations of adaptation, as long as the city's rhythm doesn't change drastically, people have become completely adapted to this particular type of noise, even evolving to the point where noise improves sleep and study efficiency.
Petru understood, and as a soldier, he immediately drew inferences and said, "If a nuclear war were to break out, do you think humanity might evolve the ability to adapt to nuclear radiation?"
Su Huilan laughed and said, "I think cockroaches and rats are more likely to survive and evolve."
Petru and Su Huilan talked while watching the activity above, while Qingmu closed his eyes and carefully sensed the powerful spiritual energy emanating from the island.
The energy here is clearly many times stronger than that on Tubuai Island, because on Tapu you need to be within several hundred meters of it to feel it, while the energy field here clearly covers the entire island. The key is that the exact size of this island is still unknown. According to Su Huilan's analysis, the island's area cannot be small for the primitive tribes to survive.
The howling of the savages gradually weakened and soon disappeared from sight; it was unclear whether they had stopped or had moved further away.
Petru confirmed there was no danger, got up, dragged their rubber raft over, found a crevice among the towering rocks, and hid the raft inside.
Looking out at the vast sea, he said, "The boat is gone. This raft is our only means of getting off the island. If we lose that too, we'll have to cut down trees to make another raft."
At this moment, Qingmu opened his eyes and said, "The ship should still be there, we just can't see it."
"Why?" Petru asked.
Upon hearing Qingmu's suggestion, Su Huilan pondered for a moment and immediately recalled a story:
"When Columbus landed on Watling Island, the Native Americans didn't see his Santa María. I always told it as a philosophical story at Columbia University, but now it seems there might have been something else going on."
Qingmu remembered telling this story to Hu Xing to help her understand that human cognition cannot exceed one's memory. The development of human society has always followed a slow process of quantitative change leading to qualitative change. Any innovation that is truly unprecedented is earth-shattering and has a huge impact on society, making such people great. But even so, these innovations have not transcended the limitations of human cognition. For example, humans can use various mathematical methods to calculate the scale changes of the entire universe, but they can never imagine the four-dimensional or higher-dimensional universe, nor know what lies beyond the universe.
Of course, Qingmu didn't know Columbus, nor did he know if the legend was true or false; he was merely using it to illustrate a point. But now that Su Huilan had brought it up, he felt that there might be something else going on.
" The Tapu on Tubuai Island is an energy shield. Although the distribution of Mental Power is uneven, with the energy being stronger closer to the center of the Tapu, it clearly has a dividing line."
Qingmu took a few steps on the beach, leaving his footprints in the soft sand. "It's a bit like the boundary of a dream, blurry yet distinct. This island's Tapu also has such a boundary, only its scope is larger, encompassing the entire island."
Su Huilan seemed lost in thought, squatting down to gently brush the sand off her pants. She had fled hastily when she heard the savage's howl, and had gotten quite a bit of sand on her, especially on her feet; thankfully, she was wearing jungle combat boots. But when she glanced at Qingmu's feet, she was surprised to find that, despite wearing slippers, there wasn't a single grain of sand on them.
Qingmu said, "Our spiritual energy is stable now, but it fluctuated a lot when we were at sea, which may be related to those strange fogs. Remember, next time there's fog, we can come to the beach and see if our ship is still there."
Just then, a gunshot rang out from deep within the mountains.