Chapter Sixty-Seven: Earth · Beast Tide (IX)

"Is this the advantage of a civilization based on technological systems? As long as the materials are sufficient, they can rapidly complete the fundamental construction of their civilization. Remarkable indeed!" Kokolaru exclaimed.

"Actually, it's not purely a technological civilization," a woman approached them. "Welcome to the Pimon Camp. I am the third bionic replica of contestant Pix, responsible for hosting the trade fair. You two are among the earlier arrivals. Please follow me." With that, she led them into a room.

"Our Pimon civilization was originally inclined toward electronic information technology, a technological-oriented civilization. But now, we've evolved into a mechanized civilization centered on information entities. As for energy, we use cosmic energy crystals as our core, and we've developed to the verge of perfecting the second tier," Pix No. 3 explained as she led them.

"Why are you telling us all this?" Sun Meng suddenly asked.

"We've calculated and deduced that before reaching the third tier, the similarity in the technology trees of all civilizations is as high as eighty percent. For basic systems, the similarity reaches ninety-five percent. That is to say, the closer any civilization comes to the third tier, the more perfect its technology tree becomes, and you can always find corresponding similarities in the technology trees of other civilizations."

"So that's why this trade fair exists. You plan to use the technologies of other civilizations to fill in gaps in your own technology tree," Kokolaru said in surprise. Even her own civilization hadn't considered this before. Sun Meng himself only realized it after his breakthrough.

This theory was evidently crucial—a true bottleneck in the progress of civilizations. If one couldn't overcome this hurdle during the assessment, then such civilizations would essentially be eliminated.

Such important information was announced so casually! Selfless indeed—almost saintly.

They didn't know the survival mechanisms of this civilization game or if there would be clashes between civilizations in the future, but they understood one thing: resources were limited, and competition would always exist.

"What we aim to do is not merely to publish the technology trees of civilizations, but to use this as a means to screen for civilizations with enough potential to face the upcoming system challenges. For now, that's all I can say. The room is equipped with a semi-intelligent service system. You may freely select services. The trade fair will officially begin in three days." With that, Pix No. 3 departed.

Entering the room, Sun Meng finally witnessed firsthand what a technologically advanced room of the future looked like. At the same time, viewers on Earth saw everything as well.

"Contestants, please try using the items in the room. We'll conduct a simple technical comparison," a red stream of text floated by. Sun Meng nodded, preparing to act.

At this moment, Kokolaru also stood up. The two exchanged a glance, clearly both following instructions from their respective civilizations. Smiling at each other, they began conducting experiments one by one. Meanwhile, their civilizations started analyzing the performance of these items.

On the other side, in another room, a bionic robot almost identical to Pix No. 3 was watching a large screen. The screen was divided into many small segments, each showing a room with different contestants from other civilizations.

"So far, fifty percent of civilization contestants have begun exploring room technologies. Thirty-eight contestants are already analyzing them. Final assessment: nine civilizations meet our cooperation criteria. Three have immense potential, but the civilization codenamed Earth is progressing along a path quite different from our expectations. First information summary complete, uploading to main brain database."

On Earth, Xu Xiao was quickly analyzing the technical data from the Pimon civilization and comparing it to the technological system of Earth. Consuming a continuous stream of energy crystals, he had been operating at high brain capacity for twelve hours.

He grunted, opened his eyes, and shook his head, "Looks like I need to establish an information database. Otherwise, relying on myself alone is too exhausting." With that, he issued a command and transmitted it quickly.

Three days flew by. If not for the daily scheduled technical briefings with Earth, Xu Xiao would have almost forgotten what he came here to do.

During these three days, it wasn't just Earth absorbing and digesting technical information; Xu Xiao himself was also learning. Though not his specialty, having a knowledge reserve was never a bad thing for his talents.

"How is Earth's technology tree progressing?" Sun Meng asked.

"Through information comparison, we've found that Earth's civilization is developing an integrated direction in life evolution, materials, and energy. We believe that when we reach the late second tier or even perfection, we need to create distinctive features unique to our civilization. In other words, we ultimately have to focus on a few combined areas, with others as auxiliaries or even abandoned," another red stream of text appeared.

"I see. For the upcoming trade fair, we'll need certain technologies—let's stay in real-time contact," Sun Meng replied.

"Real-time contact," the red text floated by.

Following the map, Sun Meng and Kokolaru arrived at the trade fair venue. The area had been modified, and each person had a screen divided into two parts: one for the public trading item list, and one for the personal selection list. With scanning and searching functions, they began the first stage of trading.

"Search: focus on individual strength evolution civilizations, with auxiliary technological civilizations," Sun Meng began his search. Soon, a dozen civilizations appeared with brief introductions.

Half of them were extreme individual enhancement types. For instance, one civilization absorbed animals, plants, even metals to strengthen their physical bodies. Their so-called auxiliary technological civilization meant using their racial abilities to transform absorbed materials into energy blocks and basic forging techniques for cold weapons.

There was also a civilization originally technological, but aided by the system, they embarked on a martial path cultivating cosmic source energy. They retained their basic technology tree and integrated cosmic source energy technology, reaching mid-second tier.

These two types were clearly different from Earth's current direction. Sun Meng excluded such civilizations, then found one that intrigued both him and the Earth representatives.

Mid-second tier: Gene Nuclear Technology Civilization. Though their martial specialty was gene nuclear force armor, which could boost a person's combat power by several levels, their strongest individuals in normal states were only late first tier.

This civilization was evidently technology-dominant, with martial arts as a supplement. Sun Meng and the Earth delegation were interested in the principle behind gene nuclear force weaponry. Earth's weapon development had reached a bottleneck; weapons created by technological means were unsuitable for cultivators, and purely cold-forged weapons lacked both quality and quantity. Medium and low-quality weapons were of little help to cultivators—a troublesome predicament.

Though Sun Meng's systematic cultivation had led to solid physical strength, a good weapon remained a coveted pursuit for many cultivators. If they could acquire gene nuclear force weapon technology, perhaps a new avenue for weapon development could be opened.

But this was only the first; there were several other civilizations with potential benefits for Earth.

Sun Meng opened the next civilization's profile, only to receive a message:

"We want pure mechanical knowledge, and I can trade directly with points."

It came from the civilization capable of integrating metals into their bodies. Sun Meng hadn't discussed this with the Earth representatives yet, when he immediately received a message from Kokolaru.

"Did you get that mass message? Are you considering a deal? Our civilization doesn't have much technology in that area, so we're considering joining forces with yours for this trade."

Sun Meng looked at the screen, "What do you think?"