Mythological origin

Of course, on the land of white, the four-hour workday is an arrangement for ordinary people who do not enter a certain social class.

More resilient cultivators naturally have settings more suitable for their physique.

At the second tier, cultivators only need two hours of rest per day. Their work rhythm can be extended considerably; if they wish, they can work continuously for more than sixteen hours while still maintaining high efficiency.

By the fourth rank, it's common to work for a month straight without rest, and it's not unusual for high-level cultivators to be engrossed in their research for three to five months without sleep. During this time, they might be operating sophisticated instruments while communicating with fellow cultivators in the distance using their divine sense, or even handling multiple tasks simultaneously.

Logically speaking, with such a strong physique, working any number of hours a day would be no problem at all.

But this is actually meaningless because their labor costs are too high.

The cost of a fourth-level cultivator in one day is enough to sustain the energy supply of a small town for a week.

In most non-essential areas, it's more cost-effective to use various types of machines.

Those cold robotic arms, precise computing chips, and tireless assembly lines are the true backbone that maintains the basic operation of society.

The same applies to Terra.

There are very few tasks that only extraordinary individuals can accomplish—such as high-precision psionic manipulation, telepathy, and consecrating artifacts.

These positions are usually related to military affairs, high-end scientific research, and cultivation exploration, and are completely inaccessible to ordinary people.

As the amount of knowledge explodes, the proportion of non-masters among basic researchers is getting lower and lower.

There is so much to learn. Even though much of the basic knowledge has been engraved in DNA by genetic engineering, it would still take at least forty or fifty years to learn the cutting edge of a field.

For ordinary people whose average lifespan is only around two hundred years, this is indeed quite a challenge.

In terms of pure combat strength, an ordinary person in armor can fight a second-tier cultivator to a standstill; the main difference lies in lifespan.

Although the lifespan of ordinary people has increased significantly and aging has slowed down considerably after hundreds of years of development, technology can improve more than just the lifespan of mortals. If one is willing to spend money, the expected lifespan of a second-tier cultivator can also exceed four hundred years.

Longevity elixirs, gene optimization, organ rejuvenation surgery...

Training a single ordinary second-tier cultivator who isn't a genius would cost at least tens of millions of Imperial Gold Dollars. That cost could buy a hundred mass-produced robots.

A single robot may not be as flexible and adaptable as a monk, but a hundred robots, each responsible for a specific area, can be stacked together to achieve efficiency and create miracles through sheer force.

They don't complain, they don't get tired, they don't ask for a raise, and they certainly don't suddenly have an epiphany and want to go into seclusion to break through.

Over the years, various machines and artificial intelligence have replaced more than 80% of jobs in society. From street cleaning to interstellar travel, from basic education to disease diagnosis, AI is ubiquitous.

The remaining 20 percent consists of projects related to high-ranking monks and basic research that artificial intelligence is still struggling to handle—tasks that require intuition, inspiration, and cross-disciplinary thinking. These are the most common and often referred to by Terra as "scapegoat" jobs.

Although artificial intelligence can outperform ordinary people in many aspects of work, as AI, it still has one major weakness: it is "not human".

If you're not human, you can't take the blame; when something really goes wrong, you can't be held accountable.

After all, even if you smash the robot to pieces or format the artificial intelligence, it won't be able to pay a single penny in compensation, not to mention the possibility of accidentally killing someone or two and incurring criminal liability.

Ultimately, it is just a tool without self-awareness.

As a result, a significant portion of the skilled workers who were replaced by artificial intelligence and became unemployed have become "scapegoats for AI" under the new economic model.

More accurately, they are still doing the same work as before, but they no longer need to do the work themselves. Instead, they act as supervisors, reviewing the output of artificial intelligence. If any problems arise, the responsibility falls on these people.

Each person is a team leader, guiding a group of robots to work. The daily task of ordinary AI is basically to monitor the output of artificial intelligence, and if problems arise, to fix the mess and take the blame.

In a sense, machines have indeed liberated most people from heavy labor by virtue of their cost-effectiveness.

……

"Why?" Back to reality, Bai Mo looked at Teach, his voice completely calm.

After a very brief information shock, Bai Mo returned to rational mode.

The cost of deploying robots is too low. Whether in Terra or White Land, it is not cost-effective to have living people work overtime for most jobs. Working overtime is meaningless. The value of humans is more about taking the blame for machines and AI.

Therefore, Bai Mo didn't quite understand what Teach wanted to learn from this civilization.

To be honest, in his opinion, doing things this way is really a bit outdated.

Teach naturally understood Bai Mo's meaning; he needed to give a reason, a reason to bring Bai Mo here.

"I'm studying emotions, trying to figure out what kind of strong emotional drive could make an entire civilization willingly twist itself into a pretzel."

“Look at them, they could be completely replaced by machines, yet they still work hard, cultivate, compete… even undermine each other. This almost instinctive ‘struggle,’ this desire for ‘transcendence’… perhaps it can offer some insights into resisting the Dao.”

Bai Mo glanced at Teach indifferently, his gaze calm, yet it sent a chill down Teach's spine.

“I will leave a thought here. Lead the way back to Terra, I should also see my old friends.”

Bai Mo has conducted at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, experiments and research projects related to the power of Dao. He considers the world Teach mentioned as just another side project.

A ray of light flew out from between his eyebrows, transforming into a phantom identical to him, standing quietly to the side, its eyes slightly vacant, yet carrying the aura of the original.

What Bai Mo is more curious about now is how Terra is doing.

“Alright.” Teach had expected Bai Mo’s reaction. It was normal for True Immortals to have countless thoughts manifesting simultaneously, handling a multitude of matters at once. He nodded, waved his hand, and opened a spatial rift. Familiar yet unfamiliar energy fluctuations came from the other side.

The next instant, the two left this world of gods and ruins, leaving only one thought to chat with the dual cultivation cultists.

"How many True Immortals are there in the Divine Ruins World?" Bai Mo asked as they flew toward Terra's capital. Their figures traversed the subspace, surrounded by dazzling spatial turbulence, but it was easily pushed aside by the faint light emanating from the two of them.

"The Divine Ruins are controlled by the ten major sects. Including the true gods they created together, the combat power of True Immortals is about twenty."

"And what about Terra now?"

“Seventy-six. If we add the eight from your White Land, the allied forces have a total of eighty-four True Immortals.” Teach paused and added, “That’s the official number. Some old guys like to keep it hidden, you know.”

"In the past hundred years, dozens more have ascended to immortality."

Bai Mo still remembers that when the bullet bow incident happened, Terra was only a dozen or so True Immortals. In just over a hundred years, twenty-eight new ones have emerged.

"Without Ye Dexian and his gang causing trouble, becoming an immortal is much safer. We also have to thank the White Land for their contributions. Of these twenty-eight people, twelve of them came from the White Land."

"..."

Bai Mo remained silent for a moment, his eyes seemingly swirling with countless data points, before finally returning to calm. (End of Chapter)