Chapter 838
The Super-Intelligent Society, the Imminent End of the Iron Fist Civilization
Cataclysmic Era, Year 36.
Azure civilization, a dreamlike capital.
Yang Wanyu, dressed in a silver-gray fantasy battle armor, stood quietly on the terrace of the top floor of Tongtian Pavilion.
Leaning on the railing and gazing into the distance, the entire Dream God City comes into view.
The long streets paved with glazed tiles crisscross like silver ribbons, while the suspended buildings are built against the mountain, standing side by side.
The energy coronas atop the towering skyscrapers refracted an exceptionally soft yet powerful halo, enveloping every inch of the capital in a hazy glow.
Looking down from the top of the Tongtian Pavilion, the entire capital city resembles a piece of luminous jade bathed in the morning light.
If placed in a dreamlike, illusory world like an ink painting, it would resemble a city of light rising from chaos.
Many people know that the hazy light enveloping the capital is actually a super-powerful dream shield protecting the capital—designed under the leadership of her father, Yang Fan, and built with all the manpower and resources of the Human Alliance.
It has a name that resounds throughout the Blue Star—the Divine Capital Illusion Shield.
This super dream defense system has an amazing feature: it has an extremely mysterious dream link with every resident of the capital.
In a sense, every Azureman who enters the Divine Capital is the source of power for the Divine Capital's Illusion Shield.
In other words, the more residents there are in the Dream City, the stronger the Dream City's defensive shield will be.
Yang Wanyu once personally presided over a unique test, forcibly teleporting a Venerable-level dream creature from the Dream Realm to the core area of the Divine Capital.
In an attempt to escape from the capital, the terrified Dream Venerable launched a frenzied attack on the surrounding skyscrapers.
The Divine Capital Illusion Shield ultimately withstood the extremely rigorous test, steadily blocking all attacks without damaging a single building.
The final stage of testing.
At Yang Wanyu's command, the energy crowns atop dozens of super-tall buildings instantly lit up—they were not merely energy decorations, but the core energy nodes of the Divine Capital Illusion Shield, named "Illusion Shield Light Diamond Nodes".
Countless shimmering white light blades erupted from the light rhombus node, converging into a dazzling stream of light that instantly engulfed the Venerable One's figure.
In the blink of an eye, the pitiful Dream Venerable vanished into thin air, leaving not even a trace of energy behind.
Compared to fifteen years ago—when the Dark Tide Calamity, originating from the depths of the Black Sand Sea of Death, erupted—the scale of the Divine Capital has now expanded by more than 100,000 times.
For the Canglan people today, Shendu has long since become a veritable second home for humanity.
When Yang Wanyu followed her father into the capital, she never dreamed that the capital would one day have nearly 10 billion residents.
The global population has now reached 192 billion, an increase of 78 billion from 114 billion at the beginning of the natural disaster.
This translates to an average annual increase of 5.2 million people.
More than 40% of the Canglan people, totaling 80 billion, descended to the capital city through dreams and obtained a capital city resident certificate.
Let me add a few more words.
The reason why the population growth of the Azure Civilization is so exaggerated is that it is supported by two forces.
on the one hand.
The FYP's pro-natalist policies, which have been continuously implemented since the natural disaster, are unprecedented in their scale and intensity.
With birth subsidies, childcare allowances, free education, and even dedicated childcare robots for families with multiple children, the birth rate on Canglan Star has skyrocketed.
Nowadays, triplets and quadruplets are no longer a novelty in the streets and alleys of cities around the world; in fact, they are becoming the "norm."
Single births, which used to be the mainstream, have now become a minority, accounting for less than 30%.
In other words, for every ten pregnant women who give birth, fewer than three are singletons.
on the other hand.
This is due to the explosive and rapid progress of science and technology, especially breakthroughs in the biomedical field, which have completely rewritten the trajectory of human life.
The development of supernatural life sciences such as "supernatural gene repair technology", "supernatural telomere lengthening therapy", and "supernatural anti-aging drugs" has enabled a qualitative leap in the average lifespan of humankind.
The once unattainable dream of "immortality" has now become a tangible reality. Not only has the annual death toll steadily declined for fifteen consecutive years, but it has also continuously pushed the upper limit of women's reproductive age.
"Giving birth at 60" is already commonplace, and "a 70-year-old woman giving birth smoothly" is no longer news, completely changing the definition of childbearing age in Canglan.
At this moment.
The torrent of information that swept past Yang Wanyu—her own "omni-channel information interactive device" that could obtain all kinds of information from the real world in real time—one of which perfectly reflected the changes of the times.
"Recently, the Human Resources and Social Security Department of the Human Alliance officially issued an important announcement."
"Based on the current reality that the average human lifespan has increased to 185 years, the global human age line has been comprehensively revised, and the relevant policies will officially take effect from the date of the announcement."
"The age limit for minors has been adjusted from 0-18 years old to 0-20 years old."
"Within this age group, all minors are entitled to a monthly special subsidy for minors issued by the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, which covers food, clothing, housing, transportation, and basic medical care."
"The age range for youth has been adjusted from 20-50 years old to 20-60 years old."
"The Federation of People's Associations encourages young people to pursue further education and delve into various professional fields. Those who pursue further education in school can enjoy an additional education subsidy from the Federation of People's Associations, which is 30% higher than before."
"The middle-aged age range has been adjusted from 50-120 years old to 60-130 years old."
"Considering that middle-aged people bear the dual burden of family and career, the People's Federation will comprehensively expand the coverage of family assistance subsidies for middle-aged people, covering multiple areas such as childcare, elderly care, and housing."
"The age range for old age has been adjusted from 120 years and above to 130 years and above."
"To compensate for the impact of a shortened old age, retirement allowances will be increased by 5% from today to ensure that the quality of life of the elderly is not affected."
Yang Wanyu's eyes flickered, and she consciously added the news to her "priority watch" list.
With her keen intuition, she could immediately tell that this news was bound to become the hottest topic in the near future.
as predicted.
On the global trending news list, the ranking of "age group adjustment" has begun to soar.
Just five minutes later, as expected, the news landed at the top of the list, overtaking the previous number one, "The 3000th knight has been born in the Great Xia Administrative Region, and the age of knights has arrived."
Yang Wanyu's mind stirred slightly, and she began to "browse" the comment section below the news.
A torrent of light composed of individual "information capsules" began to rush past her like a waterfall.
As a mid-level knight, her visual abilities and neural reaction speed are more than enough to easily cope with this level of high-density information overload.
She captured every piece of information, and her brain processed it instantly.
“I was born before the era of natural disasters, and I just turned 56 a few days ago. In our time, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women. I never imagined that now 60 is considered young.”
"Holy crap! I have a feeling that the People's Federation is doing this just to 'eliminate' the elderly population?"
"The average life expectancy of humans was only 182 years last year, but it has increased to 185 years this year. At this rate, breaking 200 years is not a dream."
“I remember the statistics released by the People’s Federation last year showed that there were only more than 4500 million elderly people over 120 years old, the vast majority of whom were concentrated in the Daxia Administrative Region. This is because in the years before the natural disasters, a large number of elderly people died in other administrative regions. After this adjustment, the elderly population will probably not exceed 2000 million, which is a direct halving!”
"Congratulations to the People's Federation for finally finding the easiest solution to the aging problem in history. We look forward to the day when the age limit for old age is set at 200 years and above, thus achieving a global elderly population of 'zero'."
The comments from netizens were full of teasing remarks, which made Yang Wanyu's pretty face involuntarily show a smile.
Although the adjustment of the age line has "forced" many people who are nearing old age to return to middle age, they have to work hard for another ten years before they can retire.
However, the government's massive subsidy policy has genuinely warmed people's hearts and has hardly triggered any resistance; on the contrary, it has garnered a lot of praise.
After all, as long as the subsidies are in place, working hard for a few more years doesn't seem unacceptable.
Moreover.
As early as seven years ago, the People's Federation officially announced to all Canglan people that Canglan civilization had successfully built a super intelligent society.
Following this announcement, the SUPP Labour Department fully implemented the "16-hour workday system"—which translates to working four days a week, requiring only four hours a day, with the remaining time entirely at people's disposal.
Today, the work of Canglan employees has long since broken free from the constraints of the past "nine-to-five, exhausting work".
Most people's jobs, when described, are really as easy as "drinking tea, chatting, and surfing the internet".
Of course, this does not mean that work is worthless, but rather that the convenience of a super-intelligent society has completely liberated humans from tedious physical and repetitive mental labor.
The so-called "super intelligent society" has already achieved a dimensional leap compared to the ordinary "intelligent society" of more than 20 years ago.
In the intelligent society of that time, although industrial production could be fully upgraded to intelligent levels, farmers could not be seen in farmland, miners were no longer needed in mines, and there were almost no living people on assembly lines and in global logistics networks.
However, core research and development still relies entirely on human wisdom and creativity, and every technological breakthrough requires countless efforts and time from researchers.
Today's highly intelligent society is vastly different from what it used to be.
Not only has the production efficiency of industry and agriculture increased several times over, but even low- and mid-level R&D work has been completely taken over by the super intelligent system independently developed by the Human Union.
All humans need to do is clearly define their research and development needs, monitor the entire research and development process, and make appropriate interventions and adjustments at key points, without having to spend a lot of energy on basic calculations, deductions, and experiments.
However, truly cutting-edge research and development fields still require a large number of highly skilled personnel.
For the People's Federation, the importance of top-level intellectual resources is becoming increasingly important, so in this era, it has become the norm to study until the age of 30 and graduate.
on the other hand.
It is precisely thanks to this comprehensive super intelligence that the People's Federation has been able to repeatedly reduce the standard weekly working hours for all citizens—from thirty hours per week at the beginning of the Federation's establishment to sixteen hours today.
According to the plan of the SUPP Labor Department, it is expected that the working hours will be further reduced to twelve hours in the next five to ten years, so that Canglan people will have more time to pursue spiritual enrichment, explore dream worlds, and enjoy the benefits brought by the development of civilization.
As the deputy city lord of the Dream Capital—a position that is no longer solely appointed by her father Yang Fan but is a high-ranking position formally appointed through layers of assessment by the Human Alliance—Yang Wanyu obviously doesn't have much time to leisurely browse online comments and kill time like ordinary people.
With a thought, the virtual comment section that was scrolling before her eyes vanished instantly.
The next second, Yang Wanyu's attention quickly shifted to another message—not ordinary news pushed to the general public, but an urgent message released on a highly confidential internal network that was currently at the top of the intranet's trending list.
The message was brief yet somber: "80% of the underground settlements in the Tekken world have been completely overrun by the monstrous tides emerging from the 'Molten Sea Rift,' and the Tekken civilization is about to come to an end."
The so-called "Molten Sea Crack" is a spatial rift that was torn open from the deepest part of the Black Sand Sea of Death when the Dark Tide Catastrophe broke out fifteen years ago. To put it bluntly, it is a hidden extradimensional space connected to Azure Star.
The space is filled with scorching magma and is home to countless ferocious and bloodthirsty dark tide monsters.
In the first year of the Dark Tide Cataclysm, fifteen years ago, this molten sea rift was directly connected to the planet where the Iron Fist civilization was located due to the attraction of the same spatial laws.
For fifteen years, Iron Fist Man has never yielded. With his unwavering will and formidable fighting strength, he has stubbornly resisted and engaged in countless life-or-death battles with the Molten Sea Monster, paying an extremely heavy price in casualties.
Countless cities were destroyed and countless people perished, yet they ultimately could not withstand the monsters' frenzied invasion, gradually leading them to the brink of annihilation.
"Ugh!"
Yang Wanyu sighed.
Iron Fist Man is a friend of Yang Fan's father. Now that he has learned that the Iron Fist civilization is about to be destroyed, he can't help but feel sad.
But as much as she felt sorry for her, there was nothing she could do.
Over the years, the Azure Civilization has provided the Iron Fist Civilization with the greatest possible assistance—transporting advanced military equipment and providing substantial medical and material aid; they have done everything they could.
The Azure People can lend a helping hand and provide timely assistance, but they cannot be the Ironfist People's caretakers for life, protecting them from every Dark Tide Catastrophe.
Moreover, even if we do everything in our power to help Iron Fist overcome this crisis, what about next time?
When the next undercurrent descends, who will they be able to rely on?
Ultimately, the root cause of Ironfist Civilization's current predicament lies within its own ranks.
The Ironfist Civilization arrived in the Primordial World nearly seventy years earlier than the Azure Civilization, yet their top combat force—the Knights—had a maximum of only seven members.
In contrast, the Azure Civilization now boasts a knight count that has already surpassed 3000 and continues to grow steadily.
This is the core difference between the two civilizations, and the key reason why the Ironfist people could not resist the Dark Tide Catastrophe.
Just then.
A ripple suddenly appeared beside them, and a tall, imposing figure quickly materialized. (End of Chapter)