Chapter 4: The Human Salvation Plan, Begins!
Chapter 4: The Human Salvation Plan, Begins!
Late at night,
Qin Yu reopened that small forum on his phone.
Searching for a memory, after a few searches, he found a post he had seen a long time ago.
“Finally mostly gathered everything, showing my end-of-the-world safe room to the bros, what do you think?”
This was the post’s title.
After clicking in, there was a lengthy post with pictures and text.
The pictures showed a sealed basement.
Inside the basement, many things were arranged neatly yet crowded together:
Canned goods and foods with long shelf lives, drinking water,
Medicines, vitamins, iodine tablets, a diesel generator, a bed, a toilet, a TV, a game console, and many game discs.
Plus tool kits, accessory kits, gas masks, protective suits, daily necessities… loads of things normal people could think of, and even things they couldn’t imagine.
It was clear that the person who built this safe room aimed to live alone here for quite a long time, away from civilized society.
The poster named it an end-of-the-world safe room and helpfully listed an ‘end-of-world checklist’ for reference at the post’s end.
This forum poster was part of the typical Apocalypse Anxiety group, or maybe you could call them ‘end-of-world hobbyists’?
Some prepared long-term for a Doomsday Crisis that might never come in their lifetime, motivated by fear.
Some treated it purely as a hobby, like collecting cards, or outdoor enthusiasts constantly gathering unused gear.
Building an end-of-world safe room was a leisure hobby for them alongside work and life.
It was a relatively small, niche group. Qin Yu knew about it from novels.
Seeing this group for real only happened with this post.
Earlier, when Qin Yu saw a psychologist, the psychologist had mistaken him for a member of this group.
But actually, while it might look similar on the surface,
Qin Yu was the opposite of these people.
The people in this group built end-of-world safe rooms mainly to protect themselves or loved ones when the apocalypse came, avoiding the Doomsday Crisis spreading to them.
But Qin Yu, obviously, didn’t need to worry about this. He didn’t need any end-of-world safe room. He mainly worried about other people disappearing, besides himself.
Right then,
Qin Yu left a comment under this post:
Fable Stop: “Poster, using your idea and logic, what do you think should be the priority actions humans take to fight the coming apocalypse?”
And this poster, clearly also a night owl, happened to be online.
Before Qin Yu could even close the forum, he got a reply:
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “This question is kind of broad. What kind of apocalypse? Natural disaster or man-made? Virus or nuclear war?”
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “Since we can’t know for sure what disaster will happen in the future, it’s better to focus on developing Life Science heavily. Find ways to boost humans’ survival ability.”
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “Humans are just too weak. Even a strong bacteria or virus can kill them. Bro, since you aren’t in medicine you wouldn’t know. Humans die in the weirdest ways. I feel what’s true for individuals also holds for the whole Human Civilization group.”
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “The flesh is weak, but machinery can ascend! If humans evolved to survive even a nuclear bomb, wouldn’t many kinds of apocalypse stop mattering?”
Fable Stop: “Hmm, makes sense.”
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “Right? But I also think we should consider Human Civilization’s reproduction issues. As civilization grows, birth rates keep falling everywhere. What if no violent apocalypse even happens, and Human Civilization just dies out on its own? What if we can’t keep up our civilization level?”
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “Hey, you still here?”
Meng Zhi Su Wang: “Bro, come join us to build your own end-of-world safe room! For one person, something bad could happen any second. It’s the same for the whole civilization. We’ve been safe for thousands of years, but like in sci-fi, over longer timescales, human history is just a blip. Crisis, change… that’s Earth’s normal state…”
Soaking in some thoughts from this ‘pro’,
Qin Yu basically decided what to do next.
The big direction was mostly set:
He would use that ‘sustainable wisdom growth’ ability to get into biotech, or really, the Field of Life Sciences.
If he didn’t plan to expose his true nature directly in front of Human Civilization,
Then every few decades, or longer, he would have to switch identities to exist throughout humanity’s future history.
Therefore,
Starting with his original identity, for the next few decades,
He would probably play the role of a ‘genius scientist’.
He’d bring some surprise and change to the world!
Plus… he’d get to enjoy himself a bit too.
He was using cheat abilities after all. Shouldn’t he get some fun out of it?
Very soon,
For sure, a super smart scientist in the Field of Life Sciences would suddenly make his name known.
And for introducing this ‘genius scientist’ identity,
Qin Yu chose a pretty normal approach.
– First, take the grad school entrance exam. Take the regular research path.
Actually,
He’d planned to take grad studies exams before.
But finding those three wishes he could make
Had kind of distracted him.
Less than three days later, he picked the plan back up.
Pretty strange.
But really, the plan was completely transformed now.
…
December 2025.
Qin Yu, with an intelligence level now at 256 points, took the national grad school entrance exam that year.
In a way, this was bullying others.
His intelligence level then, though not fully non-human yet
(well, historically, a few people might have been near this level),
was still among the absolute top ranks by human standards, past or present.
Qin Yu himself could clearly feel how different things were now compared to before.
Once his intelligence had grown steadily for two or three months to reach 170 points, he noticed a huge gap between learning now versus at 130 points.
In the grad math exam, where solutions needed phrases like ‘obviously’ or ‘easy to see’, things truly became obvious and easy to see.
Problems that once required long thinking could now sometimes be solved just by staring.
His memory, thinking skill, logical reasoning, and creative thinking all saw big jumps.
For knowledge that needed memorizing, he wasn’t quite photographic, but close. Reading everything just once or twice committed it to memory long-term.
Some knowledge that needed to be understood used to feel like a tangled mess when studying before. But now, it felt completely spread out. Everything seemed clear.
Learning and thinking became so easy, Qin Yu sometimes doubted if he’d been missing something earlier in his brain. How could he not have seen things that seemed so obvious now?
This intelligence had kept growing over the next few months.
It had grown to nearly 260 now.
If an ordinary person’s intelligence was between 110 and 120, and a dog’s IQ was estimated at about 40, the difference between them was around 80.
But right now, the difference between his 256 and 120 was 136.
However,
Qin Yu wasn’t sure if intelligence increase also had diminishing returns.
Compared to the obvious improvement when it jumped from 130 to 170,
the rise from 170 to the 250s didn’t feel as significant to him personally.
He just felt his thinking speed was a bit faster, his thoughts during thinking were a bit clearer, and he had a few more ideas,
but that was pretty much it.
Of course, maybe on the specific things Qin Yu was currently thinking about,
it couldn’t really show the difference yet between 170 intelligence and nearly 260.
During these months,
along with his rising intelligence,
Qin Yu obviously hadn’t limited himself just to the knowledge needed for the graduate entrance exam.
In preparing for his intended research in the field of Life Sciences, he constantly deepened and broadened the depth and range of his understanding.
Therefore,
with powerful thinking abilities and a vast store of knowledge,
Qin Yu utterly crushed the other students taking the grad school entrance exam.
You could say it was practically bullying.
After the results came out,
Qin Yu got into his chosen university with scores that far surpassed everyone else’s.
…
Lingchuan University was Qin Yu’s alma mater for his undergraduate degree.
As the top university in Qinzhou Province, it was considered prestigious nationwide.
During his undergraduate studies, Qin Yu chose quite a unique major – Philosophy.
It was a field with somewhat limited job prospects outside of becoming a professor or taking the civil service exam.
Only someone like Qin Yu, who had no pressure to survive and no one to dictate his choices, would choose it purely out of interest.
For his graduate studies now, Qin Yu had directly targeted the Life Science master’s program at Lingchuan University’s School of Life Sciences.
Jumping from Philosophy to Biology was a huge leap.
Normally, professors accepting a student like this would have doubts,
but Qin Yu’s exam scores erased any concerns the professors had.
Professor Chen Anmin, an elite professor who would basically be Qin Yu’s mentor for his graduate studies,
had a meeting with Qin Yu during the reexamination interview.
He didn’t grill Qin Yu on specialized questions; that had all been tested before.
“Qin Yu, I see you were a student here before, but your major was Philosophy. It’s completely unrelated to the subject you’re reporting to now.”
“Of course, I don’t mean to complain. You’ve already proven your ability in this area. I’m just curious, what made you make this decision?”
“Did studying philosophy make you see the light, wanting to study human thought through physical means?” Professor Chen Anmin asked with a smile.
“That’s close enough,” Qin Yu answered simply.
“Alright then. Another question. I noticed you didn’t take the grad entrance exam while in your senior year. You took it half a year after graduation. I’m curious, why?”
“Because I hadn’t originally planned on pursuing graduate studies.”
“And now?”
“I want to change the world.”
Qin Yu said something ambitious, even a bit childish.
Professor Chen Anmin didn’t laugh at him, just smiled and said,
“Good! I like young people with that kind of spirit. Work hard. I believe you can do it.”
“Mm. Thank you, Professor.”
“So, where do you plan to start? If your ideas are sound, I could agree to you researching a topic that interests you for your master’s, separate from the group’s current projects. I could also give you some funding support.”
“A study on the lifespan mechanism.”
“Tsk tsk, you’ve got big ambitions, kid… If you achieve anything significant with that topic, getting funding would be easy. Probably lots of wealthy people would throw money at you. But honestly, if you seriously pursue this research, I’m afraid you won’t even graduate. You might struggle to produce a thesis on time, and delaying graduation might be unavoidable.”
“Though if you just wanted to casually produce two papers vaguely related to this direction to get by, that might be passable. It just wouldn’t match what you just said.”
“I’ll try my best to produce results,” Qin Yu replied, also cracking a slight smile.
“Alright,” Professor Chen Anmin nodded. He didn’t try to persuade Qin Yu to change his mind.
He just recommended some journal papers to Qin Yu, telling him he could start reading them right away.
…
Qin Yu’s final choice to start in this direction was actually quite simple.
First,
inspired by the thinking of that person with Apocalypse Anxiety,
no one knows what dangers threatening the whole of Human Civilization might occur in the future.
In this situation, the best thing humans could do in advance is to make themselves a bit ‘tougher’.
Second,
even though Qin Yu himself was exceptional, relying entirely on him to make the whole Human Civilization stronger was still unrealistic.
As Human Civilization accumulates more knowledge, its researchers will inevitably need more time just to learn the existing body of knowledge.
In this case, humans needing longer lifespans becomes a necessity.
Third,
while Qin Yu’s main worry was the demise of Human Civilization as a whole,
if humans kept dying off every few decades, it would be tiresome for him personally, constantly rebuilding social connections.
Plus, he hadn’t actually experienced the feeling of everyone he knew from his first generation passing away yet.
Naturally, he hoped each generation could live as long as possible.
Fourth,
this was also why he chose the broad field of Life Science:
if Human Civilization collapsed not long after, he would have learned more about the human race,
making it easier for any future ‘recreation’.
Fifth.
If human lifespans were greatly extended, theoretically, the chance of self-destruction would decrease significantly.
Because the cost of self-destruction would skyrocket.
Previously, someone choosing to go down fighting might only sacrifice a few decades of life.
But if Qin Yu successfully developed Life Extension Technology, someone choosing mutual destruction might be sacrificing centuries of life. That changes things.
The longer you’ve lived, the more you value life.
Moreover, if Human Civilization ever suffered a major catastrophe,
having some survivors live longer could better support the growth of subsequent new generations.
Of course,
becoming known as the “Father of Longevity Technology” itself was something Qin Yu would enjoy greatly.
Though his intelligence kept increasing, it only affected his thinking ability, logic, memory, and such.
It didn’t fundamentally change his personality or some core desires.
He was still, essentially, human.
This might be an effect of his “Absolute Immortality” ability,
preventing him from turning into an immortal, high-IQ monster over time.
However,
could he really develop a technique or drug to extend human lives beyond their current limits?
Qin Yu himself wasn’t certain.
Or, more precisely, he didn’t know how long it would take.
After all, research in the field of Life Science seemed to have something in common with materials research –
it still involved a bit of luck.
Sometimes,
you might figure out the fundamental Lifespan Mechanism,
but then you’d still need to find a way to actually interfere with that mechanism.