Chapter 373: The Experiment
The Ji quickly realized the flaws in their experiment.
While cultivating a civilization from scratch with their intervention wasn’t an insurmountable challenge, nurturing it to the level of a worthy adversary was nearly impossible.
The first obstacle was technology. Even if the Ji spared no expense, they couldn’t artificially elevate the technological level of this nascent civilization to anywhere near their own in a short time.
Scientific progress required a large population of highly skilled individuals to absorb and develop advanced theories. However, training such individuals took time. Even after absorbing the theories, a robust and mature industrial system was necessary to translate scientific knowledge into tangible applications. And even with an industrial system in place, converting theories into real-world products demanded raw materials.
At that time, the Ji controlled over fifty star systems, with resources beyond imagination. For a civilization to pose a meaningful threat to them, it would need control over at least twenty star systems, just to endure a war of attrition with the Ji. Otherwise, the sheer disparity in resources would allow the Ji to easily outlast and overwhelm their opponent.
Would the Ji willingly allocate twenty star systems to this fledgling civilization? The answer was, of course, a resounding no.
Thus, any civilization incapable of evoking a sense of crisis in the Ji would be ineffective as an external stimulus, even if successfully cultivated.
Moreover, Ji philosophers pointed out a fundamental paradox in this experiment. When one civilization perceives another as a potential threat to its dominance—or even its survival—it will, under normal circumstances, preemptively eliminate the threat unless it is an extremely reckless civilization.
The philosophers thus concluded that even if the experiment progressed, the looming sense of existential danger at the brink of success would inevitably compel the Ji to terminate it.