Not long after Ding Yun finished organizing the items she didn't recognize, which originated from myriad worlds, and had given names to a few of them, she successfully and perfectly took over all the abilities and sensations of the planet's consciousness.
The planet's consciousness was not that of an ordinary human.
Even if Ding Yun hadn't merged with it, merely taking it over would not have been a quick process. It was perfectly normal for it to take over a year.
However, after the complete takeover.
Ding Yun did not feel comfortable or at ease.
Nor did she feel the planet's might empowering her.
Instead, infinite pain instantly assailed her.
It almost drove Ding Yun to mental breakdown and madness.
It was an indescribable pain inflicted upon her entire being, as if someone were slicing her skin with sharp blades, drawing her blood with needles, or excavating her muscles with axes.
It felt like being subjected to a thousand cuts.
Only after Ding Yun involuntarily absorbed a portion of the soul power of nearby intelligent life did the agonizing sensation gradually subside. But it only subsided, suppressed, not completely vanished; she could still faintly feel some pain throughout her body.
As long as the soul power of intelligent life within her disappeared.
This pain would likely resurface immediately.
"No wonder the planet's consciousness dislikes humans.
It makes sense, as the entire life-bearing planet is actually the physical body of Gaia's consciousness. Human activities and mineral extraction are all damaging Gaia's consciousness's physical form.
Gaia's physical form is immense, and its consciousness is equally vast.
Therefore, while human actions have some impact on it, it's merely a slight discomfort. Perhaps by absorbing the soul power of some intelligent life, it can basically stop feeling pain. But I am merely acting as a proxy for the planet's authority, and my own soul is still an ordinary soul.
It's far less immense than the planet's consciousness, which is why it feels like being subjected to a thousand cuts."
"I originally thought this was a good job, but it seems it's not so easy to accomplish. The pain I have to endure every day alone is excruciating.
I definitely don't want to experience that feeling of being cut a thousand times again. The soul power of intelligent life needed to repair the planet's consciousness cannot be completely cut off. Moreover, if I want to use the planet's consciousness's authority to create doomsday disasters, it also requires a large amount of soul power from intelligent life to act as motive energy.
So, is the core issue still energy?
It seems the planet's consciousness isn't much different from humans. Humans' wars are said to be about interests, but in reality, the core of interests is the struggle for energy.
The planet's consciousness harvesting energy is the same.
It just requires different kinds of energy."
Thinking this, Ding Yun couldn't help but sigh, considering her own situation. The planet's consciousness pursues energy, humans fight for energy, and what about her and her original universe? The origin of the universe is also a form of energy.
No matter what level a civilization develops to, as long as it cannot create something from nothing, it can never escape the constraints of energy, nor can it escape the pursuit of energy.
Because technological progress.
Also means an increase in energy demand.
There is never enough energy demand.
Theoretically, technological progress should always precede energy abundance. If this is violated, then their civilization's development has entered a stagnant phase.
Civilizational stagnation is more terrifying than energy shortage.
Thinking this, Ding Yun immediately realized she was overthinking and getting carried away. This was not the time to consider these things, so she immediately pulled her thoughts back.
And set her immediate first goal.
That is, to collect as much soul power from intelligent races as possible, without exhausting the source and causing world destruction.
Because Ding Yun felt that humans now possessed the capability to perish with the planet, it was better not to push them to despair. Most importantly, she currently lacked the ability to incite doomsday disasters, so she could only cause trouble discreetly.
As for how to cause trouble?
To save some soul power from intelligent races, Ding Yun couldn't help but cast her gaze towards the pile of items beside her, those things originating from myriad worlds.
To cause large-scale death of life, it's not necessary to trigger natural disasters. Moreover, sometimes, natural disasters that are not large enough in scale cannot cause much of a stir under a strong national system, nor will many people die. On the contrary, internal conflicts and wars result in more deaths.
What is most likely to cause internal conflicts, wars, and chaos?
It is, of course, interests.
Or, things that change the current balanced order.
Those things from myriad worlds, which do not belong to this world, are undoubtedly excellent sources of chaos. Throwing a few out can cause a certain degree of chaos. If more are thrown out, creating mutated life and mutated races.
Then it would be a spiritual energy revival, a doomsday of mutated beasts.
Destroying humanity is unlikely.
But causing more people to die is certainly not a problem.
Thinking this, Ding Yun immediately took out all the items she had previously selected, deeming them useless or toxic, or somewhat useful but with potentially greater side effects.
And randomly threw them out.
Specifically targeting countries with chaotic order, and deliberately avoiding the country that had previously caused the planet's consciousness to fail. This was because that country's organizational strength and the unity of its people were too strong. Ding Yun was worried that if the items were thrown there, they wouldn't cause much chaos or kill many people before being controlled, and the items would be taken for research.
And research to yield some results.
She never dared to underestimate the power of a country, especially not the power of large and united countries.
She had a deep understanding of this in her previous world.
In her previous world, when she sought cooperation with Xia Country, she hadn't actually expected Xia Country to decipher her magic and immortal arts.
She only planned to work independently and collaborate.
But what happened? The researchers in Xia Country actually managed to decipher her magic and immortal arts, creating similar technologies. The parts that weren't deciphered were only due to a lack of time; given enough time, they would have been deciphered.
And the country where Gaia failed, Ding Yun had just observed it. Its overall structure was very similar to Xia Country. To be safe, Ding Yun decided to skip them for now.
First, she would target other countries that were not very unified.
Once the trend of world chaos became irreversible.
Then, she would slowly throw things to erode Xiyin Country here.
As Ding Yun threw all the items she didn't like from the ten thousand or so blind boxes she had opened this time out onto the land, not long after, changes began to appear in various parts of the world, and people who thought they had encountered fortunate encounters also appeared one after another.
Some mutated, some went mad.
Some began to retaliate, some attempted to save.
Most importantly, as those items were gradually found and used by some humans, and even other species, the planet's environment was subtly changing.
Who could say this wasn't a spiritual energy revival?