The sixth century.
Jiaxia returned to the throne.
All the ants on the table had learned to stand upright.
They even began to learn to walk upright, with their freed limbs, they started to make tools.
Their bodies were incredibly strong, with each soul penetration and death entering their bodies, combined with exercise, resulted in some form of mutation.
And Jiaxia was leading the way!
Its physique was extraordinarily fit, and due to standing upright, the troublesome large ant tail began to shrink. During upright walking, it even had proportions similar to a human body, with countless red armor plates covering it, vaguely starting to crack, revealing the powerful muscles inside, like a creature with the head of an ant and the body of a human, clad in armor.
"This is a Demon King!"
Fu Qingjun vaguely had this term pop up in his mind.
At this point, the entire basic stance practice had almost been completed.
After all, being a basic entry-level practice, it was incredibly simple. All the ants below, without a technique to cultivate, entered a state of idleness.
For a moment, Jiaxia started to panic.
"The divine-given scripture has already..."
"Now that the creatures are physically strong, if the gods descend once more to grant a scripture, perhaps we could..." Jiaxia took a deep breath but maintained a resolute gaze, looking at all his subjects below:
Could it be that I must tell them that the gods have long abandoned us?
I have already done things that the gods could never forgive, writing that blasphemous tablet?
No!
He clearly knew what losing faith would mean—a collapse.
"Since the gods do not favor me, I will be the new god, acting with a mortal body and performing divine deeds, bearing the responsibility of a god, leading the creatures of the earth to glory..."
With the wisdom of beings, substituting the role of the gods, leading the beings of the earth—what a crazy thought!
If the gods knew, they would surely mock me, right?
But he had no other choice, there was no way back, civilization could no longer rely on the gods in the sky, it could only rely on itself.
Yet, he knew that considering himself a god was such ignorance and arrogance...
Just by looking at this divine-given scripture, he knew how incredibly concise it was, yet containing infinite variations.
Just a single stance practiced from posture and movements, to heart, mind, breath—he couldn't even touch a billionth of the knowledge of the gods now, could he?
He could only choose to expand the population.
He chose to mate with the similarly evolved mature Ant Queen.
At the same time, to prevent his subjects from becoming idle...
"History is the chapter that records wisdom!"
"Wisdom solidifies into knowledge, and history carries knowledge. Now let us build statues of our past history."
He suddenly said as if in a revelation.
He wanted to document the ancient stance "Reclining Lion Stance" in the ancient books.
The great Reclining Lion towers beside the golden tower, which should let all future generations know that this reclining posture is a transitional symbol of their upright walking!
Boom!
A massive construction project began.
Countless ant-people began digging blocks from the surface, instinctively understanding mortise and tenon structures, building a massive statue.
A gigantic statue of a lion-bodied, ant-faced creature lay prostrate on the side of the inverted great mountain, its eyes overlooking the world, full of majesty and might, bearing Jiaxia's visage.
This is the statue of the God of Wisdom.
This became the spiritual faith supporting the entire civilization.
Countless beings wrote hymns for Jiaxia, inscribing stone tablets, praising his greatness as if he were the reincarnation of a deity, leading them to inevitable glory!
--- No one knew about Jiaxia's secret pseudo-god behavior, only documenting his greatness and erudition.
The seventh century.
Fu Qingjun woke up in the morning, astonished to see the emergence of the second generation of new ants, which were already quite different from the first generation. But perhaps due to genetic instability, most of them died, leaving only three survivors.
Yet he still filled them with souls and then began making breakfast.
"Hope!"
Jiaxia was ecstatic, raising its arm in triumph.
These were his children, three young ants, each possessing the ability to enter the sleep of the Sunflower.
He nurtured them carefully, but unfortunately, due to congenital defects, two tragically perished, and the remaining one was frail and sickly.
"Impossible, impossible... why can't I find an immortal race?" He became completely anxious, having lived through countless eras alone, witnessing the development of civilization, Jiaxia had become extremely lonely.
He just wanted all his kin to be like him, to live on and on.
To break away from the "bottom layer of all things, without fusion nor wisdom" the gods spoke of, to become truly alive, capable of laughter, sorrow, deceit, and intellectual thoughts—what a joyful thing that would be?
"There must be a sound way for me to transcend, for my whole tribe to transcend." His heart felt possessed, as he clearly sensed his time was running out.
Even though he could prolong life, it didn't mean his soul truly merged with his shell.
Even in slumber, he only extended his soul's lifespan seven times more than a normal ant.
"I shall empower my son, the second Pharaoh Lacas, to govern the entire Sunflower Dynasty."
In his final moments, he decided to hand over the throne to his newborn son.
Though his son lacked wisdom, he could slumber within the coffin and constantly journey to distant futures to rule the inhabitants of the earth.
He focused on researching future paths, new martial arts, seeking a way for his soul to inhabit the small shell.
"This has been my life."
He gazed down at the vast land from the Sunflower Throne.
Countless houses,
Giants of lion statues,
The Eye of Hemos,
Then he looked up at the morning sunlight,
"Unfortunately, I only grasped the surface of wisdom, unable to truly attain great wisdom, unable to find our future path... It seems brilliant, yet has stagnated, waiting for us nothing but death."
At this moment, he entered the coffin forlornly, beginning his seclusion, intending to find a way after the foundational techniques towards the future.
This great hero of the ant tribe, he fell into a long slumber, consolidating all his insights, combining all his epiphanies, seeking dual martial arts that train both body and will.
The eighth century.
The Sunflower had a second creature reside within, the second Pharaoh Lacas.
He awoke from the Sun Coffin, revering his father's will deeply, beginning to rule the people of the land.
But although he was lacking in intelligence, he upheld a decent governance.
The ninth century, life was reborn, and the second Pharaoh awoke again from the Sun Ancient Coffin, coming to this era to reign.
"I see the road to the future!" Jiaxia roared in the Sunflower, emerging from the coffin, having comprehended martial arts beyond basic techniques, forging both his body and soul, yet focusing more on the compression and storage of the soul, training his brain with meditative martial arts, extending his lifespan.
Yet the good news didn't stop there.
The second Pharaoh Lacas, mediocre though he was, enjoyed producing offspring with the Ant Queen*, birthing the third generation of red ants.
Unlike ordinary ants, Jiaxia's descendants all had the ability to extend their lifespans in the Sunflower.
Jiaxia was quite fond of his third-generation son, Tuki, directly ousting the second Pharaoh Lacas off the throne to have him ascend.
Tuki, though weak in martial skills, excelled at ruling the ground's populace,
The entire immense flowerpot, inscribed with the Eye of Hemos, was called Olympic Mountain, where the sun slumbered, allowing successive Pharaohs to live into future eras, forbidden for the populace to enter.
Thus the people began to understand: being born assigned a class!! The god incarnation of human wisdom, Jiaxia, his offspring destined for successive sovereignty, capable of slumbering within the Sun Coffin, living to every future era!
And when Fu Qingjun returned from cooking, seeing the table already claiming a highly developed divine civilization of king's mandate, he was completely stunned.
Especially upon seeing the Sun Divine Scripture Jiaxia pioneered, it had developed martial arts of soul compression and body training?
The entire table had transformed into a small world within a few days.
"Perhaps, could I learn as well? After all, their minds are small, unable to contain vast souls..."
Fu Qingjun gazed down at the ant civilization on the table, an incredible idea burst forth, "If I trained in the soul cultivation system they developed, I could perfectly solve the headache problem!"
The headache had always been a deep-seated trouble.
"This Demon Country, developing a cultivation system to compress vast souls into the brain, they as pioneers forge ahead... I could follow them in cultivation!" Fu Qingjun suddenly grew intrigued, sitting in his chair, filled with shock and joy, "They will pave a unique path of cultivation for me!"
The tenth century.
Jiaxia established the Sun Temple, encountering a second-stage bottleneck entirely.
He explored knowledge of the soul without hindrance, but increasing bodily growth required crazy external stimuli to temper his body.
He tried stick strikes but found them to have minimal effect.
He couldn't break through his realm again, feeling he was about to plunge into the whirlpool of death once more.
With no other option, Jiaxia chose the once extremely ignorant way, again leading past Pharaohs, to crawl upon Olympic Mountain, worshipping those Eyes of Hemos,
"Great Hemos containing endless knowledge, Jiaxia finally understands what wisdom is, has found his wisdom, passed the test of wisdom, humbly seeking your forgiveness, begging to see you again!"
The voice fell.
Completely silent, not a whisper was heard.
The heavens gave no response, Jiaxia kept leading all the people to prostrate on the ground, with no intention of rising.
Jiaxia didn't know if his impersonation of a deity could be forgiven, he could only persist...
"He wants something to temper the body? That I know, it's about inner cultivation and external practice." Fu Qingjun watched them quietly, suddenly walking to the kitchen to retrieve the raw materials for the ant's wine.
After a long time, a vast and majestic voice suddenly echoed from the sky,
"The creatures of the earth are greatly sinful, should you wish to cleanse your sins, you must endure the polishing of hardships."
Fu Qingjun placed a dish of medicinal herbs on the table, a small red-hot iron dish filled with sand, and finally set a dish of white wine, "This is a long bridge, pass the three divine trials alive to wash away your original sin."