Although he was born in a remote, small mountain village, Li Xiangdong's family was relatively well-off and owned a large collection of books. In his childhood, Li Xiangdong particularly admired explorers like Zheng He and Christopher Columbus. Therefore, beneath Li Xiangdong's seemingly scholarly appearance actually lay the heart of an adventurous explorer. Ever since he was a child, Li Xiangdong dreamed of having the opportunity to travel all over the world, seeking out various treasures and exploring the mysteries of nature. Moreover, Li Xiangdong had always been a man of action. Starting from elementary school, he would lead a group of little friends to explore the mountains surrounding the village. On one occasion, he fell into a stream and was carried a long way by the current, and would have drowned if an herb-gathering villager hadn't happened to pass by.
However, even escaping death by the skin of his teeth many times did not scare Li Xiangdong off. Instead, it drove him to continuously summarize his experiences and lessons, accumulating a wealth of wilderness survival knowledge and allowing him to venture even deeper into the remote mountains and ridges.
By the time he reached high school, as his physique grew more robust, Li Xiangdong had walked every single mountain ridge within a radius of a hundred miles around the village, leaving his footprints in many inaccessible deep valleys and precipitous cliffs. He gathered many precious medicinal herbs for his family's clinic and earned a good deal of pocket money.
Now, looking at the study materials inside the Ring, Li Xiangdong was like a drug addict who had found his fix, losing himself in them selflessly. After searching tirelessly for quite a while, he finally found the knowledge introducing genetic potions.
Genetic potions were the most common medications used by civilizations throughout the universe to promote individual life evolution at the genetic level in order to adapt to the survival environment of the universe. However, due to racial differences, not only were the formulas different, but the genetic evolution effects were also inconsistent. Some even carried a high probability of causing the user's death.
According to the information introduced, these Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced Genetic Potions were the most mature medications for promoting genetic evolution produced by this highly advanced human civilization. Judging from the introductory material and the script used in the Ring, it could be basically confirmed that the individuals of this human civilization and the people of Hua Nation on the Blue Planet belonged to the same race.
Regarding the origin of mankind, several different civilizations in the history of the Blue Planet had passed down legends that humans were created by deities.
The Western legend had it that God first used dust to create a man named Adam in his own image, and later used one of Adam's ribs to create a woman named Eve; these were the ancestors of mankind.
The legend of Hua Nation in the East was that a supreme goddess named Nüwa used mud to fashion many men and women in her own likeness, and established the institution of marriage so that young men and women could mate with each other and multiply their descendants.
With social development and progress, a Westerner named Darwin proposed the theory of evolution. According to this theory, all life on the Blue Planet, including humans, evolved from ancient single-celled life. The basis for this was that the genes of animals such as mice shared an 85% similarity with humans, and the gene similarity between gorillas and humans even reached 99%.
The theory of evolution attributed the differences between species to the accumulation of genetic mutations and variations over long ages, which ultimately manifested as various external differences that were retained through natural selection. The greater the difference at the genetic level, the earlier the parting of ways on the path of evolution.
Through the excavation of fossils, scientists hypothesized that humans and mice were the same species over eighty million years ago, and later embarked on different evolutionary paths, surviving the dinosaur era, escaping the asteroid impact on the Blue Planet sixty-five million years ago, and finally evolving respectively into today's humans and the universally despised rats.
The theory of evolution remains the most mainstream view explaining the origin of mankind on the Blue Planet to this day. Of course, many scientists have also put forward different hypotheses regarding the issue of human origins.
Some people suggested that humans were created by extraterrestrials, and that the deities in myths and legends were actually aliens.
Others believed that humans did not originate on the Blue Planet, and that the ancestors of mankind were aliens who came to the Blue Planet for some reason, multiplying and thriving to become modern humans.
Li Xiangdong had always been a supporter of the theory of evolution, but after discovering this Ring, he could not help but harbor doubts about the inference that humans evolved from ancient apes. Since the humans on the Blue Planet evolved from ancient apes, what was the deal with the creators of the civilization inside the Ring? With limited information available, his head ached and he could not figure it out.
Shaking his head hard, Li Xiangdong stopped thinking about these brain-burning questions, and his mind returned to the uses of the genetic potions.
According to research by Blue Planet scientists, an important factor determining human lifespan is the activity of chromosome telomeres. If chromosome telomeres lose their activity, it indicates that human cells can no longer continue to divide, and life has reached its end.
The instructions for the genetic potions in the Ring indicated that taking the Primary Genetic Potion would not only comprehensively repair human genetic defects—thereby immunizing against the vast majority of diseases except for psychiatric and surgical injuries—but would also comprehensively enhance human functions such as strength and intelligence. Moreover, it would allow humans to basically adapt to space life, preventing sequelae such as osteoporosis caused by living in the universe for a long time, and making them official citizens of the universe. Therefore, humans who had undergone their first genetic evolution became Genetic Warriors.
Becoming a Genetic Warrior gave one the innate talent to perceive the dark energy of the universe, allowing one to continuously improve physical fitness by absorbing dark energy, just like what is introduced in immortal cultivation novels. Even if one cultivated nothing, lifespan could still be extended to over a thousand Blue Planet years.
Over a thousand years old—Li Xiangdong felt this was somewhat unrealistic, but upon reflection, theoretical data did not necessarily represent what could actually be achieved in reality. One also had to fully consider individual differences as well as various factors closely related to human health, such as environment and lifestyle habits. However, it was certain that lifespan could be extended; even if it were halved, it would still be around 500 Blue Planet years, which was seven or eight times the existing average lifespan, making it very much worth looking forward to.
Taking the Intermediate Genetic Potion could, on the basis of taking the Primary Genetic Potion, further extend lifespan to ten thousand Blue Planet years. In fact, the most primary function of the Intermediate Genetic Potion was still to promote the evolution of the human brain and substantially enhance spiritual force. This would unlock the secrets of the human mind, which was the lifelong pursuit of many scientists on the Blue Planet. Li Xiangdong remembered reading a viewpoint in a news article once which suggested that the so-called human soul was actually a special quantum field generated based on the human brain. This special quantum field had the human brain as its material foundation; once the brain died, the quantum field also vanished.
The knowledge about the brain contained in the Ring was surprisingly similar to this theory, stating that from birth, human brain cells were in a continuous process of dying off without ever regenerating or proliferating; every one that died was one less, until they were completely exhausted and gone. This was a type of programmed death, also known as apoptosis. After a person reached the age of 20, the brain began to age, and brain cells began to decrease at a rate of 100,000 per day.