by <unknown>
However, she was soon attracted by the special smells coming from the front.
Many cultivation sects were displaying magical equipment for food and cooking there. Some of them were even making food on the spot for the tourists to taste for free.
"This piece of magical equipment is called 'Dehydrating Crisper'. When you put the food that you just cook inside it, 99.9% of the water in the food will be extracted instantly. Then the food will shrink in size and be sealed inside. The food can be preserved for as long as an entire year. When you want to eat the food, just open it and pour some hot water onto it, the food inside will be refreshed and taste exactly as it did when it was first cooked.
"That's a pair of 'Bone-cracking Chopsticks'. It is specially designed for the old and the children who like eating fish but cannot get rid of the fish bones. With the mechanism of high frequency oscillation, the fish bones will be shattered into dust the moment they pick up part of the fish with the chopsticks. Not only will the fish bones no longer be a risk to their throats, the nutrition in the fish bones is good for their body, too.
"This plate looks normal. But look, it has the ability of automatic analysis. Once food is put on the plate, it will automatically detect the ingredients of the food and their respective calories. It is a great piece of health-maintaining tableware for people who are losing weight, diabetes patients, and other victims of chronical diseases."
Li Yao pointed to the pieces of magical equipment and introduced them to the mother and the daughter one by one.
But Ai Zhiying was unable to reply, because her mouth was filled by a large delicious meatball which a female Cultivator had just slipped inside.
Li Yao smiled.
"Little Ying, the meatball that you're eating right now was made one year ago by the chef of the 'Moon-picking Hotel', a renowned restaurant of Sunny Harvest City thousands of kilometers away, and it has just had hot water poured on to be refreshed. How about it? Does it taste like it was just cooked?"
Ai Zhiying was enjoying the delicious food and there was no time for her to speak. She had to nod her head quickly with her eyes wide open to show approval. After a long while, she finally swallowed all the meatball. Then she smacked her lips and observed, "The meatball is so wonderful. If the Dehydrating Crisper can be mass-produced, everyone will be able to eat hot food wherever they go to. My mom and I can make a delicious meal at home for my dad and send it to him even though we're thousands of kilometers away!"
Li Yao nodded his head.
"Yes. Shipping is a lot easier nowadays. I know a guy who uses flying swords to ship things for other people. In the future, you and your mom can make a table of hometown dishes, put them in a Dehydrating Crisper, and send a message via the spiritual crane messenger. A flying sword will come to your home quickly and bring the dishes to your dad within the next day. Your dad will be so happy to eat the food cooked by you!"
'Clothing, food, residence, and transportation' was the theme of this gallery. It took them almost four hours to just finish the clothing part and the food part.
Fortunately, the little girl's mouth was really sweet. By greeting the Cultivators at the stands with 'uncles and aunties', she enjoyed a lot of cuisine cooked by their magical equipment for free, and therefore was not very hungry.
Then, the little girl was amazed by all kinds of smart-home magical equipment that she saw.
One of them was named 'Scouring Fatty'. It was round and plump, like a large cluster of translucent jelly.
Under the control of the crystal chip, it could automatically roll over and over at home and suck up the dirty things on the ground and the walls.
Since it was half-liquid, it could change itself into different shapes. The corners between walls, the space below the bed, and unreachable area between two pieces of furniture were no problem for it at all.
When it had swallowed enough dirty items, it would search for a dustbin and disgorge all of the waste.
It could even connect itself to a water faucet and drink a lot of clean water to sanitize itself.
There was another piece of magical equipment named 'Showering Fatty'. It was basically the same as the Scouring Fatty, except that it was for showers.
During a shower, it would roll over on the body of the shower-taker, clean up their pores, and massage them. It was truly comfortable!
There was also 'Random Window', a piece of magical equipment designed for the residents who lived in the underground world.
When it was hanged on a wall, it would be like a real window. People would be able to see beautiful sceneries that could be customized through the window.
The most distinguished characteristic about the Random Window was that the scenes were real-time videos shot from other places in the Heaven's Origin Sector, which meant that they were 100% authentic and very fickle.
For the residents that lived in the underground world, it could be a good comfort.
After visiting smart-home magical equipment, the three of them went to enjoy the transportation magical equipment.
The dozens of stands here were dominated by shuttles.
Most shuttles being exhibited had achieved self-navigation. There was also a kind of foldable personal shuttle, which, with a snap, could fold itself into the size of a briefcase. With the assistance of the anti-gravity rune array, even the weakest woman and little kid could carry them easily.
Once it was manufactured and promoted, the difficulty in finding a parking space in a metropolis could be solved immediately.
All of the state-of-the-art magical equipment in regards of clothing, food, smart-home, and transportation painted a dramatic and charming picture of the twenty-years-later life for the three of them.
The exit of the gallery was surrounded by more than ten giant 3D light beams which were playing the lifestyles of ordinary people twenty years later in the vision of Cultivators.
In twenty years' time, with a mind-settling rune, one would have a nice sleep on the inflatable king-size bed which could adjust itself according to the body size of the sleeper. In the morning, before one opened one's eyes, with a telepathic thought, the Showering Fatty would fill itself with water, climb up the bed, and clean the sleeper from inside to outside.
When one was ready to get off the bed, the slippers with reactive rune arrays would automatically come to the bed, saving the trouble of looking for slippers below the bed with the eyes that were still fogged from sleep.
After using the bathroom, one would pick out from the Dehydrating Crisper the breakfast that had been bulk purchased. With a little hot water, there would be a roomful of mouth-watering aromas. Bread, milk, biscuits… all were as fresh as those that were just made.
The temperature-controlling tableware would maintain the food at the most suitable degree, neither too hot, nor too cold.
After having breakfast and putting on the Capricious Costume, which had been set to the most fashionable theme according to the Nexus, one would go to the helipad over the roof through the short-distance teleportation array at home. Then, one would take out the shuttle from the garage nearby that had been minimized. With a snap, the shuttle would quickly expand and send its master to factories, schools, offices by self-navigation.
This was just one video clip.
There were a lot of other video clips showing scenes of ordinary people working, studying, entertaining with the help of all kinds of advanced magical equipment.
Every video clip was concluded by the same sentence that read: 'Better Cultivation, Better Life.'
The declaration made Li Yao feel somewhat proud.
"Wow!"
Ai Zhiying's eyes were focused on the videos. She exclaimed, "Twenty years from now, we'll be living like celestials!"
"Indeed!"
Li Yao smiled. "As long as students like you study carefully, workers like your mom and dad work hard, Cultivators like me cultivate wholeheartedly, then with all our collective effort, all human beings, be they Cultivators or ordinary p
eople, will all live a celestial-like life."
Leaving the gallery of 'Clothing, Food, Residence and Transportation', they arrived at the next gallery whose name was 'Future City'.
It mainly depicted all kinds of bizarre cities that were to be built twenty or even more years later with the help of different magical equipment.
Li Yao thought that the theme was too abstract and wouldn't be as attractive as the previous galleries to the little girl.
However, Ai Zhiying was not the least bored. She watched the exhibitions curiously.
She told Li Yao, "My family lives in a village deep inside the mountains. Not only is the traffic very difficult, sometimes the earthquakes will violently shake the houses in my hometown. So, I'm studying what the city twenty years from now looks like, and I'm going to build my hometown that way."
Together with Li Yao, she saw many future cities that were constructed by magical equipment.
One of the future cities was built inside a mountain which had been emptied by a giant excavating magical equipment. But looking inside, it was a perfectly normal city, with hills, waters, singing birds and blossoming flowers. No one would be able to tell that there was anything wrong with it.
There was another future city that looked like a lot of water bubbles tangling together. They were sometimes floating on the sea and sometimes diving down into the undersea.
The undersea cities that the federation had right now were mere extensions of seashore cities, which could only be built on the continental shelf that was not far from the main land.
Once such bubbles were successfully refined, a city in the sea would really be possible. Humans would be able to march into the abysmal seas and conquer all the oceans of the Heaven's Origin Sector.
There was another future city that looked like Lego but billions of times larger. All the buildings were square and attached to thick metal cylinders.
According to the cultivation sect of the stand, it was called 'Combinatorial City'. All the buildings were created according to certain criteria in factories and could be assembled together very quickly upon order.
Once needed, a city that could accommodate 100,000 people could be built within several days. If movement was needed, the city could be dismantled and transported to somewhere else where it could be restored exactly the same as it had been. Even the house number would remain unchanged.
Another cultivation sect had been seriously considering the possibility of launching the floating mountains beyond the aerosphere.
According to the 'Space Flight Guild', it was planning to launch a hundred floating mountains to the near-earth orbit outside of the aerosphere where they would be connected to each other by high-tensile traffic tubes. This way, an unprecedented metropolitan circle would be created.
With the development of the metropolitan circle, billions of people would be able to live in space, and the overpopulation problem that had been bothering the human race could be resolved once and for all.
The little girl was truly astonished by the motley exhibition of future cities.
Her mother was also eyeing Li Yao with admiration and bewilderment, her eyes bulging wide.
She took Li Yao for one of the Cultivators that were going to build a city beyond the aerosphere, people she thought to be omnipotent gods.
Chapter 303: Sea of Stars |
When they left the Future City Gallery, it was already nightfall.
Outside of the gallery was large artificial turf. There were streams flowing and bird singing not very far away.
Countless tourists were sitting on the turf and enjoying their picnics. Mortal life and crystal beasts formed a delightful contrast, peaceful and comforting.
Ai Zhiying was not satisfied yet. But her mother was a little tired.
Thankfully, there was a rest stop nearby where several Cultivators were providing sprays that could assuage fatigue.
After spraying her back and her legs, Zhou Xiulan felt that her strength was back.
Then, the three of them visited a few other galleries quickly.
In the Life and Health Gallery, they saw artificial flesh that was refined out of crystal gel.
Once it was covered on a metal puppet, not only could the life-span of the puppets be prolonged, the outlook and texture of the real skin could be simulated, too.
If it was used to make artificial limbs, the appearance of the artificial limbs could be greatly improved and so would the quality of life of the disabled and spectral Cultivators.
In the New Energy Gallery, they saw submarine mining equipment that could work 10,000 meters below the sea level. They also witnessed an advanced technology which could transform the energy contained in coal and oil into spiritual energy.
In the Robotization Gallery, they saw hundreds of fully automated machines that could walk through the entire process from sowing to harvest by themselves, thus freeing human beings from the tedious peasant work.
In the end, they reached the Universe Gallery.
The moment they stepped inside, they felt like that they had entered a sea of stars. The entire cosmos was spinning around them, full of mysteries and vastness.
In the boundless Universe Gallery, Ai Zhiying, who had been vivacious all the way, shut her mouth and walked behind Li Yao quietly.
The first thing to be seen was a piece of obscure, unattractive magical equipment flying alone in the universe.
The surface of the magical equipment was full of bumps and hollows, which indicated that it had been hit multiple times.
"This is a 'flying star telescope' which was launched by 'Seven Stars Alliance', a top 10 sect of the federation, 299 years ago. In its three hundred years of voyage in the cosmos, it has sent everything it saw back, which provides precious data for the study of universe."
Li Yao was very solemn. He said in a low voice, "During the past three hundred years, the federal government, as well as many Cultivation sects, has sent almost a hundred flying star telescopes with more advanced technologies to explore the more distant universe.
"However, the very first flying star telescope has been retained and controlled by a Nascent Soul Stage expert of the Seven Stars Alliance as a symbol of the expedition to the universe of the humans of the Heaven's Origin Sector."
"Awesome."
Ai Zhiying asked, "What are we looking for with so many flying star telescopes?"
"New worlds."
Li Yao replied, "The Heaven's Origin Sector only has limited resources, which will run dry as our civilization develops. So, we must find new worlds as alternatives.
"If we meet a world fragment, we can collect the resources inside.
"If we meet an intact world, we will consider building a stable, inter-world wormhole for large-scale migration.
"Anyway, our destiny is the end of cosmos, and we will not be bound by such a small place as Heaven's Origin Sector."
"I understand it now. It's the same reason why my dad left our hometown to work in the big city. I didn't know what was good about the big city and cried to persuade my dad not to go. But now that I've seen it with my own eyes, I finally know that the big city is a really lively place with so many delicious foods and so many beautiful and interesting things. So, I have decided that I will go to the big city just like my dad in the future.
"The Heaven's Origin Sector is a small village, too. Other worlds in the cosmos are big cities like Deep Sea City. We the people of the Heaven's Origin Sector can't stay in our village forever. The cosmos is too great a place to be missed out," Ai Zhiying said.
"Correct." Li Yao nodded his head. "That's why the Star Glory Federation is working hard on the aeronautical and astronautical technology and trying to find safe passage between worlds.
"See? This is a crystal starship model named 'Serenity', which is built by the 'Thousand Sails Guild' with the technologies found in the Star Ocean Imperium relics.
"The real Serenity starship boasts a complete ecosystem and a self-circulation system. It can a
ccommodate 100,000 people on board and carry a large amount of materials for the construction of stable wormholes.
"This is a crystal starship even larger than 'Serenity', whose name is 'Prestige'. A million people can live inside it for hundreds of years. But it is still experimental and not successfully refined yet.
"This is 'Quick Ghost', the latest model of automated flying star telescope. It is fifty times faster than the first-generation flying star telescopes. It can detect abnormal spiritual waves that are often the sign of a new world.
"Maybe in the foreseeable future, we can refine hundreds of crystal starships and light the fire of our civilization in other worlds!"
Ai Zhiying was excited by Li Yao's words. She muttered, "Me too. If Deep Sea City is already so interesting, I bet there will be much more fun in other worlds!"
When they left the Universe Gallery, it was already 10 p.m.
Since it was impossible to finish visiting the Magical Equipment Exposition within a day, the ticket covered the hotel fees. Li Yao escorted the mother and the daughter to the hotel on the third floor of the convention center. Then they said goodbye to each other, however reluctantly.
Tomorrow, the military magical equipment exhibitions would start. Li Yao would be too occupied to accompany the lovely little girl anymore.
Besides, her father had sent a message through spiritual crane messenger, saying that he would ask for leave and come to reunite with his wife and his daughter tomorrow. It was a relief for Li Yao.
Li Yao offered Ai Zhiying three tickets for the military magical equipment exhibitions as a gift.
Since the Grand Desolate War Institution was one of the exhibitors, every staff of the school had received quite a few complimentary tickets. Having no one else to give them to, Li Yao decided that he might as well give them to the little girl, who apparently was very interested in magical equipment.
"I'll definitely show up!"
Ai Zhiying was overjoyed. She waved her little fists and said, "Besides, I've set you as my role model and I'll be a Cultivator one day!"