Age of Cosmic Exploration

In the 3D video, everyone saw the fleet drift away far from the limits of this solar system. Of course, since no one present was a scientist, they had no idea that there was a limit to a solar system in space. In fact, humanity was still arguing about the exact limit of a solar system, so none of them there realized that this fleet had left its solar system.

Just like that, this fleet disappeared in darkened space. At the same time, this sapphire-like planet kept on progressing. Even though the planet was only the size of a basketball in the 3D video, it could be seen with the naked eye. The green surface on the planet was decreasing and the ozone layer appeared to be polluted by something grey, creating flaws on this gorgeous planet.

As the time passed, the planets surrounding this planet appeared to have metallic sheens, and these metallic sheens expanded from the initial few to a large surface area. Many colonized planets started to show signs of buildings and the sapphire planet slowly returned to its former glow. The pollution had disappeared and the planet became healthy again...

However, under everyone’s watchful gazes, in the 3D video, from the vast space, an incomplete spaceship fleet returned from the darkness. It was the same fleet that left the life-preserving planet earlier. The number of people that returned had halved. However, it was also because of that when the fleet returned to the life-preserving planet, in the zoomed in 3D video, everyone could see that the survivors of this fleet had a hero’s welcome and that this civilization was in a mood of celebration...

However, the celebration did not last long. The heroes who returned soon perished from various illnesses. Even though they had no idea how much time had passed in the 3D video, from the progress of the civilization, it had been more than three years since the return of the spaceship fleet, and there was no sign of a neutron star fragment in that period. The civilization was progressing at a normal speed.

To be accurate, this civilization was improving at a speed faster than "normal". Civilizations in solar systems with life-preserving planets, a large amount of terrestrial planets, asteroid belts, and moons would not understand the pain and difficulties of space-faring civilizations. The continuous deterioration, the increasing number of retards among the newborns, the need to search for materials in space, and the need to avoid contact with high level civilizations, all of these pains made progress, if there was any, incredibly slow. This was why most level 2 space civilizations had a hard time evolving into level 3 space civilizations and why level 3 space civilizations had a hard time evolving into level 4 space civilizations.

Civilizations with life-preserving planets did not worry about any of that. This was a weird phenomenon in space. Unless there was an absolute coincidence, even high level space civilizations would not normally stumble across the presence of a life-preserving planet. This was already an understanding among the space civilizations, perhaps one laid down by the godlike-tier space civilizations. Therefore, the space civilizations did not spend time discussing this lest they attracted the wrath of others.

Because of this, with a stable environment, almost infinite resources, and a wealth of "soul" as basis, any civilization on a life-preserving planet could easily welcome tons of progress. In reality, this was why for level 3 space civilizations and above, many technological trees would be incomplete. Without sufficient human and material resources and no wealth or free time to dedicate to research, they could only focus on a few pertinent technologies, and this caused the phenomenon of an incomplete technological tree.

However, for this civilization in the 3D image, they did not suffer from the problem. With the explosion of population, the completion of all scientific technologies, the colonization of other planets, the whole civilization was progressing by leaps and bounds. The progress was vibrant and full of vitality. This was a civilization with a bright future. Give it 100 years and it would become a level 3 space civilization.

But... there was always a but...

Even though the neutron star fragment did not appear, crisis still occurred within this civilization. First was the malformation of their newborns. In the 3D image, in the ten years after the fleet returned, there was a small number of malformed babies. One could see the general shape of this race, but as time passed, about 50 years after the fleet’s return, around one-fifth of the newborns would morph, be it physical body or intelligence, there was a giant change.

This was a scary ratio. If the morphing ratio was any higher, the future of this race was doomed. One-fifth, it meant of five babies, one would be deformed. As intelligent beings and not basic mammals, having ten babies in their one lifetime was already something rare. As a civilization who had not tasted the cruelty of space, a civilization who grew up in the warm embrace of a life-preserving planet, their kindness and charity was something space civilizations could not imagine. Therefore, these deformed babies were not executed but raised by their parents or the government.

In the 3D video, this race used all its power to research the trigger for birthing deformed babies, but it was to no avail. They had only found one pseudo-condition: the babies who were born on the life-preserving planet had a much smaller deformation chance than those born on the colonized planets. This was why most pregnant females chose to give birth on the life-preserving planet. Slowly, from the range that the 3D video could show, the signs of colonization on the other planets within the solar system had gradually decreased. The whole civilization started to deteriorate. Finally, almost all lifeforms returned to the life-preserving planet...

However, that was not the end of the tragedy for this civilization. Those deformed babies did not gain any intellect as they grew up. If anything, their deformation only got worse. Of course, those who were greatly deformed and deemed dangerous were destroyed, but as time passed, even the normal citizens started morphing. The morphing was uniformed. The citizen’s brain escaped from its body. Yes, the brain with the nervous and spinal systems attached to it tore itself apart from the rest of its body.

However, these creatures were still alive and could live by consuming other creatures’ brains. They even maintained their complete memory and consciousness. In other words, other than the lack of physical body, they were still the race’s citizens spiritually. However, this was their biggest terror, so most with normal intelligence could not accept this change, and most with deformities of this kind committed suicide.

However, a small portion of them survived. This combined with the morphing of the deformed babies once they grew up meant the proliferation of these creatures on the planet. The scariest part was that these creatures knew how to mate... yes, it was that weird. They were creatures made up of pure brain matter and nerves, but they could feed and mate... there was nothing more curious and scary than this.

As the brain creatures with normal consciousness slowly died out, the remaining were the brains without normal consciousness and memories. They kept mating and increasing. Eventually, they started attacking the normal citizens of the race who remained, consuming their brains through hypnosis and using their bodies to attack other normal citizens. This ugly cycle continued until the race reached its point of extinction...

The final generation of this race used the last vestiges of their energy to build this underground city. Everything here was controlled by the central computer, this machine that was before Guang Zhen’s unit. It was the brain of this city. The city was defended by the computer’s technology, which could not be detected nor hypnotized by the brain creatures. Whenever there was signs of deformation among the internal unit, they would be executed by the computer. Just like that, the last generation of this race managed to stay in the city for hundreds of years using the sperm and ovum bank of their earlier generations. However, the numbers of this dying civilization kept on decreasing until this last normal female citizen remained. When she was all alone, she left the city and ventured to the surface.

Guang Zhen’s unit knew that this was the ending of the 3D video. This 3D video was captivating. It was like they were watching an award-winning film, but it was more authentic and real than those movies. When the video ended, everyone had a melancholy in their hearts. This race did not even have the chance to venture into space, but they still had such a regrettable ending. The last female survivor left the city alone to try to get to the surface, to see for herself the glory of the night sky that her ancestors once claimed.

She was lucky. She did not meet any brain creatures along the way. When she reached the surface, she used her personal jetpack to fly into the sky and out of the ozone layer... yes, this civilization had become an early level 3 space civilization! And they were not a level 2 space civilization as everyone on the Hope thought!

Then, before her eyes, several planets had aligned themselves and circulated around the life-preserving planet, just like... the several planets were monitoring or guarding this life-preserving planet!

This phenomenon was familiar to Guang Zhen’s group. This was the cursed planet!