Chapter 251: Chapter 245: Data Library Opened, Trial Defined!
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Apart from the upgrades from these old hacks, the newly emerged types of hacks were also incredibly powerful.
For instance, the two hacks related to the Civilization Chosen One.
The previous hacks mostly had direct effects on Shen Hao, but now several appeared that could act upon civilizations themselves.
This meant that the civilizations creating these hacks had found even deeper, bigger loopholes.
Moreover, these two hacks were extremely useful, and one could even say they further addressed the current deficiencies in the quantity and quality of Human Civilization’s Chosen Ones.
After all, the emergence of Chosen Ones was a slow process.
Even though Human Civilization had scored impressively in the previous two Trials, accelerating the rate of increase in the number of Chosen Ones,
the time Human Civilization had participated in the Civilization Trial was laid out before them.
Erin Ellie’s past civilization had taken over forty years for the number of Chosen Ones to reach a million.
Whereas Human Civilization, after six years, had only two hundred thousand Chosen Ones.
It goes without saying that compared to other civilizations participating in the same Trial without hacks, this was certainly a disadvantage.
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But now, with two hacks, one doubling the number of Chosen Ones and the other doubling the probability of Blue and Purple Talents appearing, that combined equated to a fourfold increase in quality!
They could definitely catch up.
“Several hacks are better activated sooner rather than later.” Shen Hao’s gaze swept around once more, etching the content of every hack on the panel into his memory.
If nothing unexpected happened, the first hack should still be the “points hack”!
“Five times the points!” Of course, Shen Hao would not miss out on this hack.
The Point Mall was too important for the growth of a civilization.
However, before that, he still needed to check the Basic Information Library first.
To understand exactly what situation this Trial presented.
Marked with an “*”, it could be directly activated!
As the panel changed, the Basic Information Library intrusion began, and a flood of information from the hack panel surged into his mind.
About this universe and about the Trial.
And with it came some images.
Shen Hao saw a laboratory established on a deserted planet, where a group of researchers from the Life Empire were studying Dimension Space, and indescribable information reached him, telling him that these people had created a high-power dimensional oscillation device and were conducting extremely dangerous experiments.
It brought disaster, the beginning of the apocalypse!
The moment a terrifying presence awoke from Dimension Space, with its enormous and twisted form appearing, everyone inside the laboratory fell into madness, releasing all the Dimensional Creatures, then one by one they transformed, distorted, and turned into terrifying Dimensional Creatures themselves!
Yes, right before Shen Hao’s eyes, he saw the origin of the Dimensional Creatures!
And that wasn’t the end of it.
As the images continued to unfold, madness spread rapidly within the Life Empire, it was as if cursed, and it began with the strongest – the Emperor of the Life Empire was the first to fall into insanity, killing and devouring all of his offspring, followed by ministers, generals, and then some discovered the problem. The high-levels of the Empire were struck with fear; countless strong individuals fled one after another, but even more people killed each other in their madness. In just twenty years, this enormous interstellar empire that had lasted for thousands of years fell apart!
But this was just the beginning.
There was not just one Ancient Being awakening in Dimension Space; in a short period, the entire star system would head towards doomsday, with endless Dimensional Creatures sweeping through, turning all weaker beings into food. Even the strong who could barely maintain their sanity would be cursed by Spiritual Energy; mutation and madness threatened everyone, and only a very small number would hold out until the next slumber of the Ancient Beings, just like countless cycles of tens of thousands of years before.
The whole process might last less than a hundred years.
The images ended, and all the information returned to calm.
With an expressionless face, Shen Hao sat on the Emperor’s Throne, undisturbed inside.
For he had used his own Talent to control his emotions.
Shen Hao wasn’t particularly fond of this feeling.
But at this moment, he had no choice.
Because he had to analyze with a cool head.
The content of this Trial was actually not complex; the enemy was quite clear.
From a low-level perspective, it was the numerous Dimensional Creatures, and the madness and mutations.
From a high-level perspective, it was the Ancient Beings inside Dimension Space.
They were the true masters of this universe; native civilizations were merely ants eking out a life while the Ancient Beings slumbered.
Though the enemy was clear, the disparity in strength undeniably presented the most helpless crisis!
“There are only two ways to clear the Trial,” Shen Hao reviewed the intelligence, “either survive these few decades, or defeat these Ancient Creatures, no, Ancient Gods would be more accurate.”
Yes, simply surviving also counted as clearing the Trial!
This one aspect alone revealed the difficulty of the Trial.
Under normal circumstances, it would likely be impossible for any civilization to defeat them.
Shen Hao revisited the brief glimpse he had seen in the images earlier.
The images he had seen were clearly added by the second version of the basic hack, “Decoding a Few Special Contents”.
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The scene was extremely realistic, and it represented a perspective from a higher status.
It was almost as if a single glance allowed Shen Hao to see all the madness, all the corners too terrifying to face directly, and even those enormous entities that could be glimpsed in just a blink—all too vivid to ever forget.
That’s why Shen Hao could more clearly feel what the so-called “ancient existences” truly represented.
High status, high level, non-human—these were the “Ancient Gods”!
“Their status should not be as high as mine,” Shen Hao reviewed in his mind over and over again, finally confirming this point, “My status is on par with the universe, while theirs have not reached such a degree, but it is still much higher than the Life Mother Tree… slightly higher than Xi Qing, but not by much.”
The highest status he had encountered before was naturally that of Xi Qing.
The Golden Legendary Talent “Phoenix Power” granted her an extremely strong status that could even achieve “Undying” to some extent, fully demonstrating the power of a Golden Legendary Talent, which seemed to be on a completely different conceptual level compared to other Golden Legendary abilities.
With such a comparison, the status of the ancient gods in this universe became very clear.
Probably a top-quality Golden Legend.
But the problem lies in the “Level”! And the “Home Ground”!
They are at least entities of the Fifth Stage!
This was precisely what made Shen Hao feel the difficulty.
Even if they were only Level 41, that would still be far beyond the current level of human civilization.
He himself was only Level 29 now.
Still one level away from the limit of the third stage.
Moreover, the spiritual energy in this world likely originated from these ancient gods, with their rules already inscribed into the very foundation of the universe’s transcendental rules.
At this level, fighting on home ground had become extremely important.
Although Shen Hao had anticipated that this Civilization Trial would not be simple, its difficulty still exceeded his expectations.
However, Shen Hao, now in the Sovereign state, had no trace of fear or hesitation.
His thoughts were exceedingly calm at the moment, constantly pondering the possibilities of getting through the trial with the least cost.
Clearly, there was an opportunity.
As long as it existed, he had the confidence to seize it!
“Dong Gong, call all the councilors together again for a meeting!” Shen Hao ordered directly.
“Yes!” Dong Gong’s heart tightened.
Such a command during a trial was no small matter!
Everyone was very efficient. In the twenty days since the trial began, although no significant crises had occurred, human civilization was still in a state of high military control. It took only a few minutes for Shen Hao’s orders to be delivered, and everyone put down their work to convene in the Lingxiao Palace.
Before Shen Hao spoke, a star-like glimmer shone in his eyes, and a small imprint appeared on the back of each councilor’s hand.
This sudden change surprised the councilors.
Though they held administrative power, they were not particularly outstanding in transcendental aspects nor were they Shen Hao’s direct subordinates, so they did not have an imprint.
They were equivalent to “civil servants,” generally not required to fight.
“This is to protect you,” Shen Hao looked around and said, “I have once again obtained some intelligence information about this trial.”
As his words fell, everyone’s expression became solemn, their eyes filled with amazement and joy.
It had happened again!
The last time, Shen Hao had given an early warning, otherwise the initial storm would have surely caused many deaths!
And now there was more information!
Moreover, this time was different. Until now, the whole of human civilization was still in the dark about the nature of the trial.
Many of the precautionary measures might actually be superfluous.
Yet, in the face of unknown circumstances, they had no choice but to implement saturating prevention!
The importance of intelligence was self-evident!
All eyes were intently on Shen Hao, waiting for his next words.
“This trial has a definite enemy, which I call ‘Ancient Gods’!” Shen Hao looked at everyone and slowly said, “High status, high level, non-human, with tens of thousands of years between awakenings. Every time they wake, within mere decades, they sweep all civilizations across the whole universe.”
“—!”
Everyone, including Dong Gong, was looking at Shen Hao with shocked faces.
A clean sweep?
They were now not ignorant about this universe; they knew full well how vast and prosperous it was.
Countless star systems, countless species, countless civilizations living within these starry seas!
Yet such a universe could be wiped clean within a few decades?
That was not just their nine civilizations on trial, but the doomsday for the entire universe!
Did human civilization now qualify to participate in such a trial?