Chapter 52: From the Sky to the Sea, Then to the Human World
Chapter 52: From the Sky to the Sea, Then to the Human World
Qin Yu lay on Mount Everest, watching the night sky all night. At dawn the next morning, before daybreak, he stood up from the snow.
He found the steep side of Mount Everest, put on the wingsuit clothes he had prepared ahead of time, raised his hands, and jumped straight down from the top.
For any normal person, that would be about seeking death.
But for Qin Yu, Absolute Immortality guaranteed he wouldn’t die from any outside effects.
The Intangibility ability from Absolute Escape made sure he wouldn’t get stuck in the mountain and couldn’t get out.
People’s wish and chase for flight are almost like a natural urge.
Maybe because at the species level or gene level, humans are stuck on land.
So the thought of flight always brings a feeling of total freedom. It’s like when flying in the wide-open sky, you lose all land ties.
Wingsuit flying is sort of close to how humans dream of flight.
Of course, for normal people, the death rate is super high.
After jumping from Mount Everest, at the start, Qin Yu was mostly free-falling toward the ground.
The thin air on Mount Everest wasn’t enough for him to glide.
Luckily, the side he chose was steep enough; otherwise, by then he should have hit the mountain flat.
Finally, after falling really fast for a while more, Qin Yu’s body began to show a little glide trend away from the mountain.
Qin Yu flew.
Flying among the snowy peaks, looking down at the huge land.
Many things on the ground seemed tiny.
Feeling the wind rush past him fast, Qin Yu looked down and narrowed his eyes slightly.
This Mount Everest wingsuit jump was totally Qin Yu’s sudden idea.
Almost no one would probably know about it anyway.
After feeling the fun of flying for a bit.
Qin Yu had no parachute on, so he pulled in his hands and felt the free fall again.
In the past hundred-plus years.
Qin Yu had tried free fall many times.
If you take away the worry of dying from hitting the ground.
It’s a kind of cool experience.
In his ears, he could hear the wind roar.
His falling speed kept getting faster, until it stayed at a max.
He could strongly feel the ground pulling him down. He could feel the air resisting his fall too.
It was as if the air wrapped around his whole body, like being in water, but rougher.
He saw everything on the ground quickly get bigger before his eyes.
When he looked up at the sky then, it felt like he wasn’t sure if he was falling toward the sky or the ground.
Of course.
Only Qin Yu could probably pay that much attention to these small things at a time like that.
“Crack!”
A short, sharp sound came out, and Qin Yu landed on the ground.
Then he stood back up.
He brushed the dirt off himself. He was okay; just his clothes got a little torn.
It was no big deal for Qin Yu.
Suddenly… on the vast Pacific Ocean.
A 100,000-ton cargo ship was heading toward Amerika.
Since the weather was sunny, windless, and cloudless right then, some crew members were working on deck.
“Hey, killer whale group. Xiao Lü, I heard this is your first time on an ocean ship. See, fun, huh?”
An old crew member was guiding a young one to clean the deck. During a slacking-off moment, he noticed some action ahead and to the side of the ship’s path.
It was a few killer whales.
They seemed to notice the huge cargo ship but were too scared to come near.
So those killer whales swam actively, not too close or far, chasing the ship’s forward direction.
By then, evening was near, with the sunset and the whales both in the same direction.
The last light shone on the shiny sea surface. The whales popping up now and then, plus the sunset glow on the sea far off, made a pretty picture.
The crew member called Xiao Lü heard the old one’s words. He raised his head to look and just stared at the killer whale group.
It was his first time on a ship. As a new crew member, he found everything fun. Even if he was almost bored by now, he’d never seen killer whales before.
But as he watched, a puzzled look came over the young crew member’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
The old crew member had swept the deck a couple more times. He looked up, saw the young one’s face, and asked him.
“No, nothing…”
“Out with it! Are we on TV here? If you saw something, just say it straight. You’ve got no sea smarts. It might mess with our safety!”
“Maybe some other boat had a man overboard. Wait, no, I didn’t see any shipwrecks around.”
The old crew member wasn’t sure, so he reported it right away.
Others on the ship looked toward that direction some more, but they found nothing strange.
It just ended without a fuss.
Suddenly… Qin Yu was holding a killer whale’s dorsal fin. He faced the waves crashing at him from the whale’s swimming.
Just two days ago, he had come out from the Mariana Trench.
Maybe luck wasn’t great. While getting near the trench’s deep parts in his Intangibility state.
He didn’t see or touch many weird deep-sea creatures.
After leaving the Mariana Trench.
Qin Yu stayed in the sea both days since.
Others need diving gear to go down; he obviously didn’t.
The night before, though not needed, he slept straight on the seabed all night.
After waking up, he found quite a few fish hanging around him.
He didn’t know if they wanted to eat him up or thought he was an underwater rock.
During these days of traveling through seawater,
Qin Yu fully experienced Earth’s richly diverse marine ecosystem.
Still, swimming about for two days, though he felt no fatigue nor needed rest,
grew somewhat monotonous.
So every now and then, he’d cling to a tiger whale or some other large fish,
letting it propel him forward with voracious speed.
This might be an experience unique to Qin Yu himself.
Others—who knows if future gene-modified humans could—likely couldn’t swim bare-handed across the Pacific Ocean.
Qin Yu planned to traverse all seven continents and four oceans, comprehensively absorbing the grandeur of humankind’s cradle planet and the distinct characteristics of its regions,
while also sensing the pulse of society as a whole.
…
The following summer,
Qin Yu traveled in a small nation on the South American Continent.
Coincidentally, its rainforest was ablaze, presumably ignited by lightning during monsoon storms.
He walked directly into the charred forest engulfed in roaring flames.
Gazing at thick smoke billowing around, scorching heat enveloping everything, distorting air into waves of suffocating fire,
Qin Yu caught himself wondering what the interior of the sun felt like to one’s senses.
Incidentally,
amid this burning jungle, Qin Yu rescued several people he encountered, trapped and helpless.
“…I don’t know how I got here. I remember the distant fire suddenly rushing at me. When I tried running, flames closed in everywhere… probably smoke choked me unconscious. But how’d I get out? Was I saved by a god?”
A rescued villager explained with confusion upon waking at the settlement’s edge.
Yet for him and others saved through happenstance,
the incident would always remain an unsolved mystery.
Over the following years, in nearby villages near the rainforest, primitive worship practices emerged—
people now believed a deity dwelling in the primal woods protected the virtuous lost.
…
The next year, arriving at an active volcano,
Qin Yu scooped sluggish lava oozing from its crater into his hands.
Even in his palm, its fiery glow pulsed, radiating intense heat.
After a moment’s thought on weighing its temperature and texture,
waiting till nobody was near,
Qin Yu plunged into the crater for an indulgent magma bath.
Of course, he didn’t seek self-torture.
His Absolute Immortality meant he could freely dismiss physical pain signals.
He sensed the lava’s properties—but avoided deliberately suffering from its scalding embrace.
…
The year after, aboard an Arctic science vessel,
Qin Yu reached the polar regions.
He trekked onto vast glaciers northward.
“In recent years, these glaciers have melted relentlessly—this area used to contain some of our oldest ice masses. Yet now, alarming dissolution blights them.”
“Partially due to human activity, partially from cosmic influences. Current sea levels globally have risen 1.2 meters in under a century.”
“Though consequences may seem muted now, long-term effects are clearly unfavorable.”
Guides explained soberly as their team trekked across thinning blue ice.
When stopping briefly, Qin Yu strolled aside to survey the glacial expanse.
Within concerns for humanity’s future survival,
polar decay disturbed him recurrently.
He also knew dedicated teams from the Negentropy Research Institute’s Information Denoising lab still monitored polar transformations.
Ultimately, melting polar caps could severely wound mankind—though halting civilization entirely felt less probable.
This marked Qin Yu’s first polar visit.
He lingered, absorbing grand, icy horizons.
…
In another year,
Qin Yu reached the Afrika Continent.
He traversed the world’s largest desert on foot.
Along its edge, he encountered a tour group led by guides explaining local history.
“…Previously, residents suffered extensive land degradation here—but Professor Qin Yu’s research solutions transformed our landscapes.”
“Now fertile land nourishes our people sustainably. What remains before you is merely a ‘natural desert’ preserved deliberately.”
Qin Yu paused, glancing toward the speakers quietly.
A faint smile crossed him before he walked on.
…
Having crossed Earth’s largest intact desert,
Qin Yu entered borderlands where the Europa and Afrika Continents converge.
His visit held dual meaning—
habitual planet-wandering, yes,
but one specific motive drew him onward:
two micro-nations were living ideological war.
One upheld pure, uncompromising Collective Social Rearing.
Here, traditional family nurturing faced condemnation as immoral.
Upon death, all personal assets either transferred by will—or automatically funded their Collective Social Rearing institutions raising future generations.
The neighboring state stood fundamentally opposed: radically rejecting Collective Social Rearing, instead enforcing rigid Traditional Family Rearing for lineage preservation,
even expressing suspicion toward Human Reproduction Devices.
Presently,
these two nations warred violently.
Their strife reflected not merely local friction—
but symbolized society’s profound, global schism over the rival philosophies.
Thus hostilities raged disproportionately beyond these tiny countries’ scales.
Both global factions yearned to prove themselves righteous.
How to decide?
Victors would emerge validated historically!
Ultimately, bloodshed felt inevitable for settling the Collective Social Rearing debate.
Neither faction yielded an inch.
For Traditional Family Rearing advocates, abandoning tradition meant forfeiting multi-generational family wealth and heritage.
Conversely, Collective Social Rearing supporters deemed private familial gains unjust—
stealing advantages reserved communally for all children.
By Qin Yu’s arrival, the conflict had scorched the land towards barrenness—
with hostilities still escalating uncontrollably.
…
“…Child, if I die, grow strong… promise you’ll fight those damned villains still after me! We create a finer world for our descendants!”
“But father… can we actually win?”
In the Traditional Family camp, a major officer shook whilst pledging to his son.
His boy’s eyes swam in confusion while questioning earnestly.
“How can we lose? Those rotten foes live selfishly—kinless, parentless, childless—serving only themselves! They won’t sacrifice, won’t endure—you’ll see—they fracture like scattered sand! But we…our blood binds us… I’d gladly fall for you, you’d defend your future young… We battle for richer tomorrows…”
“Still…”
The boy’s doubt lingered softly.
He hesitated—rumors whispered of defectors,
even their own, seeking refuge among Collective Social Rearing lands…
…
Meanwhile, in the Collective Social headquarters,
their leader addressed his deputy thoughtfully.
“…They arrogantly assume lacking blood ties weakens our bonds deeply.”
“They claim we won’t sacrifice lacking progeny tied biologically to us all.”
“They overlook shared belief—stronger than inherited constraints!”
“Besides, they seem blind that genetic-legacy supporters dwindle inevitably… any advantage flows toward us eventually.”
“Victory is inevitably ours.”