Chapter 734 — Mei Heng's Answer

The information Mei Heng had revealed, and the possibilities lurking behind it, made Gao Song's breath catch for an instant.

That brief reaction did not escape Mei Heng's eyes.

"Can you be more specific?" Gao Yang suppressed the surge in his heart, leaned forward, and asked with a grave expression, "In what manner, and from what place, did they steal this knowledge? And why did this knowledge nearly destroy the future of the world?"

"The history of the Tide-Reversal Rebellion is a rather sensitive topic among the dragons. Though it is not an absolute taboo, we almost never disclose it to other races," Mei Heng said, narrowing her eyes slightly as though observing Gao Song's reaction. "Leaving that aside for now—you seem to be rather concerned about this matter?"

Gao Yu knew his earlier reaction might have been somewhat excessive, but he kept his expression well under control and responded frankly: "Of course I'm concerned. The All-Ending Society used this book to create a disaster that nearly destroyed Ansul, and now this book has fallen into my hands. If this thing carries some ancient curse or a power that drives people mad, then what we face will be no mere matter of one or two casualties. And your dragons' tense attitude toward this book... only heightens my vigilance."

"On that point you may rest assured. It has nothing to do with curses or powers of that sort. Its greatest danger is simply the knowledge itself," Mei Heng shook her head. "For certain reasons, dragons on external missions are forbidden to disclose the specific content and origin of that knowledge to other races. But regarding the Tide-Reversal Rebellion... I can give you one hint."

"What hint?"

"A race in a state of spiritual ignorance must never be allowed to master material technology beyond their capacity," Mei Heng said in a low voice, "because they are slaves to both spirit and matter."

Gao Che fell silent for two seconds.

For a soul who had crossed over from Earth, who had once been baptized in a torrent of information and buffeted by every current of thought, Mei Heng's words were actually quite easy to understand.

It was nothing more than digging advanced technology out of an alien ancestor's grave and thereby triggering a technological crisis.

But intuition, and the look in Mei Heng's eyes as she spoke, told him this "crisis" might not be so simple.

Mei Heng had mentioned "nearly destroying the future of the entire world." That was not a phrase she would have uttered carelessly. Yet why would a spiritually ignorant race, upon mastering advanced technology, destroy the "future" of the entire world?

"Destroying the future of the entire world"—in Gao Song's understanding, that ought to mean losing all promise of future development, meaning the whole world would sink into some irreversible, despairing state, meaning no more progress, no more growth, no more turning point, meaning eternal degeneration...

If that "Tide-Reversal Empire" of old had merely stolen some technology from the "ancient fleet" and used it to develop advanced weapons, then they might have destroyed themselves in war, might have used those weapons to annihilate the dragons—but in Gao Yang's view, none of that would count as destroying the future of the entire world. For this world had already verifiably developed more than one era of civilization, and with a reshuffling mechanism like the "Demon Tide" in place, any race in such a world was merely one passerby among many. If the Tide-Reversal Empire destroyed itself, a new nation would rise in its place; if the dragons were annihilated, new races would be born.

Such a world was still developing and changing. The future was not destroyed—only one incarnation of the cycle was.

Of course, perhaps Mei Heng had merely meant the crisis the dragons themselves faced in that war, and all those considerations about the grand sweep of world history were nothing but Gao Yang's own overactive extrapolation. But Gao Yang believed that an ancient race like the dragons, who had watched epoch after epoch succeed one another, ought not to be so short-sighted.

He stated his thoughts frankly.

"The grave consequences you speak of—they can't simply be that the Tide-Reversal Empire used some forbidden knowledge to create a certain weapon, can they?" He looked into Mei Heng's eyes. "What exactly did they do that nearly destroyed the future of the world? Can you say?"

"...I cannot." Mei Heng shook her head, her eyes signaling frantically.

Gao Yang received the signal smoothly: "Oh, so it seems it has to do with the Black Pit and the gods again."

Over the course of several conversations, he had long since grasped the pattern behind certain "unspoken secrets" of Mei Heng's, and from that had inferred the predicament the dragons currently faced. They must be bound by the gods—a binding that prevented them from disclosing any secret concerning the gods. But put another way...

Whatever they could not say even at the cost of their lives must certainly have to do with the gods.

After all, these ultimate lifeforms were absurdly powerful—one breath could burn sky, earth, and air alike, and a single roll could plow eighteen mu of farmland. There weren't many things they dared not speak aloud.

The intelligence gleaned by such indirect probing set Gao Che thinking.

The Tide-Reversal Empire—an ancient civilization that had once wrestled with the dragons in the primordial era and nearly won. According to Mei Heng, it was in fact "a race in a state of spiritual ignorance." This ignorance must have been relative—after all, they had been able to build "pirate-link devices" capable of stealing data from the satellite cluster, which implied a considerably high level of technology. So their ignorance must refer to the fact that their spiritual civilization could not match the technology from the satellite cluster—or, put another way, could not match the technology from that ancient fleet.

And this "mismatch" had led them to trigger some crisis connected to the gods and the Black Pit.

Mei Heng could not speak of the specifics of that crisis, but Gao Yang could speculate...

If "a state of spiritual ignorance" meant failing to break free from theocracy, then... had the Tide-Reversal Empire fought religious wars with superweapons? Pursued the path of the gods with black technology? Attempted to remake the real world into a divine kingdom? Or...

Had this black technology fallen into the hands of the gods...

Gao Yang's eyes flickered, and a trace of alarm suddenly rose in him.

Advanced technology would create a "mismatch." Then Cecil's magical industry, developing at such a furious pace... had it too entered this "danger zone"? One day in the future, would this technology transform into a crisis?

Did the crisis the Tide-Reversal Empire created have any hard criteria, or any avoidable "boundary"?

He looked at Mei Heng: "Does advanced technology inevitably lead to a crisis like the Tide-Reversal Rebellion? What exactly counts as 'advanced technology'?"

Mei Heng clearly knew what Gao You was worried about. She smiled faintly: "Was magical technology researched and developed by human researchers themselves? Does it originate from people and return to people? Do the common folk of your empire regard this technology as a tool, or as a miracle?"

Gao Yang vaguely grasped the crux of it.

"If the technology was developed by ourselves, applied to society as a whole, and the common people know its source is human rather than divine, then it is safe. No matter how fast it develops, it is safe. Conversely... it will produce a 'crisis' like the Tide-Reversal Rebellion. Is that what you mean?"

"As you say."

Gao Yang watched the shifts in Mei Heng's expression and did not press further on the detailed reasons or on what exactly this had to do with the gods.