The End of Technology is Metaphysics

The moment Jiang Han stepped into his divine realm, he thought he had gone to the wrong place.

This place is no longer the vast personal world it once was, where most areas, apart from a few core buildings, were rather empty and desolate.

The world of Xingjing before me was so bustling it was like a third-rate amusement park.

It is full of vitality, and has a sense of absurdity resulting from the contradictory combination of myth and science.

He saw that the spirits of the Qin Dynasty soldiers and various artifact spirits that he had taken away from the Cloud-Swallowing Palace were now having a party with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that he had brought from the Forbidden Zone of Fairy Tales on a newly appeared, vast island?

The air was filled with the aroma of roasted meat and cheerful laughter, although Jiang Han had no idea what they were roasting.

Dancing teacups and teapots are twirling around the campfire, a group of exquisitely crafted little grape spirits are chasing and playing, and several cartoon characters that have only appeared in Earth cartoons have actually come to life and are arm wrestling with a Taoist soldier spirit missing an arm.

In the North Sea, the abyssal behemoth cub he named Little Kun was happily spouting water, as if it were its own bathtub.

In the artificial sun in the sky, the little golden crow he had stuffed inside seemed particularly cheerful, occasionally letting out a clear cry.

The clouds in the sky are no longer just simple clouds. Sometimes they transform into celestial birds, sometimes into large fish, swimming freely in the air. They even curiously approach Jiang Han and rub against his cheek.

The whole world is like a haphazard patchwork of myths and fairy tales.

Jiang Han surveyed his divine realm, his gaze finally settling on the center of the world.

His pupils contracted slightly.

The Jianmu divine tree, which he regarded as a pillar of the world, has now grown wildly, breaking through the original "skyline" of the divine realm, with its huge canopy piercing into the chaotic space outside.

Even more outrageous, several newly sprouted branches were even greeting the sleeping angel that he had hung outside the divine realm, as if teasing an ornament.

Meanwhile, within the Divine Realm, the Sea of ​​Return to Nothingness is constantly giving birth to entirely new laws unique to this world, making the entire world's rule system increasingly complex and increasingly... unfamiliar.

Standing on a newly formed sea, Jiang Han felt the surging energy under his feet and looked at the thriving yet bizarre world before him. An ancient Chinese phrase inexplicably popped into his mind.

"It is the inexhaustible treasure of the Creator."

Within the spiritual connection within her body, Yueyao conveyed a similarly shocked thought.

"Boss, what... what happened to this place? Where did all these things come from?"

Jiang Han did not answer; he was trying to examine his divine realm from two completely different perspectives.

One perspective is that of a "spiritual practitioner".

From this perspective, everything here is perfectly normal.

This blessed land is rich in spiritual energy, where all things are connected by spirits, exuding an aura of immortals.

Nothing surprising, four words can solve everything.

But when he switched to another perspective, a perspective akin to that of a "scientist," his conclusions were completely contradictory.

In his perception, the whole world had become a pile of redundant data that could not be analyzed or modeled.

He attempted to digitize everything he saw and build a global database.

The result was that the essence of the world could not be constructed at all.

They could only manage to create rough models of things with definite material forms, such as the Jianmu Divine Remains, the Little Kun, and the artificial sun.

From a computer's perspective, all this vibrant scene before us is nothingness.

Even virtual images created with computer special effects are more "real" than the real world in front of us.

"strangeness."

Jiang Han frowned.

He reviewed all the "technological civilizations" he had encountered, including the major conglomerates on Earth and the Roland civilization he met in the ancient Titan realm.

He discovered a common point.

These civilizations, no matter how advanced their technology, are essentially limited to the development and utilization of "matter".

They can manufacture planet-destroying cannons, build colossus technology, and even use matter to modify the mind.

But they never truly touched upon the level of "spirit" or "soul," nor could they directly utilize this ethereal power.

The core of his own path of cultivation, whether it be the laws of the Great Qin or the inheritance of immortality, is the ascension and transcendence of the spirit, while the physical body is secondary.

Why is the path of spirit and matter so clearly divided in this universe?

He had never thought deeply about this question before.

But when he returned from the Big Dipper Starfield, which lacked the "Return to Nothingness" law, this idea became exceptionally clear.

With this question in mind, Jiang Han made a thought and connected to the ghost network.

He tried to find the answer in this vast stream of information that spanned countless worlds.

Instead of going to public forums, he sent encrypted private messages directly to several familiar IDs.

[To the "Unethical Taoist Priest": Priest, I have a question: Can the path of technology truly lead to eternity?]

A moment later, the immoral Taoist priest replied.

[The Unscrupulous Taoist Priest: Young friend, there are three thousand Great Daos, each one leading to the Primordial Chaos realm. However, I still believe that cultivating Qi to achieve immortality has a brighter future. The question you asked is too profound; I'll have to charge you extra.]

Jiang Han rolled her eyes and asked another question to a different ID.

[To Laozi: Laozi, is there an end to the path of science and technology?]

The response was much faster this time.

[Laozi: Hehe, all things return to their origin.]

It's just more ambiguous and meaningless nonsense.

Jiang Han frowned even more deeply. He felt that these old guys seemed to know something, but they just wouldn't say it outright.

After failing to gain anything from the public forums, Jiang Han no longer hesitated.

He activated the pure bloodline of the Qilin within his body, and a dark golden power surged into the bottom layer of the Ghost Network along with his consciousness.

This is a special privilege he possesses as a holder of the Qilin bloodline.

Countless streams of data flashed before his eyes like a waterfall, with the written symbols of various civilizations intertwined and intertwined. In the end, he forcibly infiltrated an ancient section that was encrypted layer by layer and even marked as "dangerous".

This place resembles an abandoned server, filled with all sorts of incomplete data and gibberish.

Jiang Han patiently searched through the documents and finally found a fragmented research report from an unknown civilization, full of warnings.

The title of the report was blurred and only a few distorted characters could be vaguely discerned.

As he tried to read the report, a wave of mental pollution washed over him along the data stream, causing a slight discomfort in his brain.

"interesting."

Instead of backing down, Jiang Han focused even more intently on reading.

The report was written in a kind of logical notation he had never seen before, but thanks to his understanding of the laws of the universe after entering the realm of the celestial beings, he was still able to barely understand the core content.

And the core content is shocking.

The report uses numerous detailed, even horrific, examples to demonstrate a terrifying point.

All purely technological civilizations that attempt to achieve ultimate "eternity" solely through "matter" and "computation" are ultimately devoured by the same entity.

Their technology, their planet, their civilization itself, all became part of that existence.

And the name of that existence is—the Return to the Void of Metaphysics.

This discovery made Jiang Han's breath catch in his throat for a moment.

Is the end of technology really nothing but ruins?

This revolutionary conclusion exploded in his mind like a thunderbolt, establishing a completely new and chilling worldview.

For a moment, Jiang Han even wavered slightly about his path.

He asked himself if the path he was taking, which combined bloodline, immortality, mythology, and even technology, was also leading him to the abyss.

During their mental connection, Yueyao sensed a fleeting fluctuation in his state of mind and immediately offered words of comfort.

"Boss, don't overthink it! You're different from those civilizations that only know how to play with lumps of iron! Your essence is life, cultivation, and evolution! The Void is the end, but also the beginning. The path you're walking is the true road to heaven!"

Yueyao's words were like a clear spring, instantly bringing Jiang Han back to his senses.

He quickly suppressed the distracting thoughts in his mind, and his eyes regained their cold and firm expression.

"That's right, fear stems from the unknown, and I am never afraid of the unknown."

He wanted to witness firsthand a failed example.

The fear of the unknown was once again transformed into the motivation for exploration.

Jiang Han's gaze returned to the incomplete research report, and in the equally incomplete star map attached to the report, he locked onto a specially marked coordinate.

That star field was not a point of light on the star map, but a black vortex that was constantly devouring the surrounding light and data.

The report mentions that it was once a brilliant, technologically advanced civilization, but now only a code name remains.

Jiang Han's finger traced across the void star map, finally landing heavily on that dark area.

Cyborus, a wasteland star system.