Chapter 32: The Second Game, Returning Creature Screening

"The second game has begun," Ella reported, as the first creature to reach the top of the tower reverently picked up a silver-blue card with Chinese characters on it, treating it as sacred.

This was the first creature from the Proxima Centauri civilization to submit to humanity, but it would not be the last.

The trials of the Tower of Babel were not designed to select the 'strong' but the 'weak.'

Because only the weak will submit to the strong and obey without question.

Ella estimated a pass rate of one in four.

"The final trial is to teach these creatures how to hide themselves and seek redemption for their civilization."

"But I didn't expect it to be this difficult. The current pass rate is only around 6%."

"The civilization has completed crystal implantation. When offspring are born with information unfavorable to the civilization, the crystal will automatically correct it."

"This is a small victory for the civilization in the second game."

"The real battlefield is back home."

Yan Xia watched as one by one, the 'insiders' exited the Tower of Babel, disguised as other creatures, looking as confused as the rest and unaware of what had happened.

"Perhaps they've been eliminated!"

Some creatures conveyed this information, leaving the others disappointed.

Each of them hoped to be the chosen one.

But reality told them they were just ordinary.

The creatures boarded their spaceships and left for their home planet.

Only to be...

Stopped by a battleship.

"What are you doing?"

The creatures, having just experienced disappointment, were in foul moods.

But the soldiers in the battleship were equally cold to these 'challengers.'

They had received orders from their superiors to detain all creatures returning from the tower, then examine them, and even conduct long-term isolation observations or, if necessary, inspect their thoughts.

If they tried to escape, they were to be attacked and destroyed.

Stopping them from returning was easier than stopping them from going.

By stopping those returning, the number of those who went would decrease, preventing significant chaos.

Afterward, they only needed to tell the public that those who reached the top of the tower had already been dealt with, and the public might even elect one of them as a leader, thus controlling the people's fantasies and fears about higher civilizations.

"We can't let anyone who came out of the tower return to the planet."

"We can't determine if there are infiltrators from other star civilizations or if they've undergone brainwashing inside the tower."

"Currently, the information we control shows that those who came out of the tower have had their memories of being inside the tower erased."

"Is it as we suspected?"

"Only by erasing their memories can those who mixed in slip through."

"Any abnormalities must be strictly questioned, and it's better to mistakenly kill than to let them go."

After about ten days, over 3,800 individuals were identified as having tendencies toward higher civilizations, accounting for one-fifth of all creatures returning from the tower.

"What should we do?"

"We can't imprison so many."

This was a number the civilization's leadership had never anticipated.

"Kill them all?"

"They might expose us after they die!"

"Then endure the pressure!"

"We can do it for a short time, but in the long run, the surface will definitely be plagued by conspiracy theories."

"Why not erase their memories?"

"That's a good idea. By erasing their memory fragments, it's as if they never entered the tower."

"But we can't be sure if the other civilization has other means of evasion."

"First, erase the memories of those not confirmed, and prioritize releasing the residents of the third planet (Proxima Centauri c)."

"We can't keep detaining them."

"Let's tell them that the tower has many levels and that they need to stay inside for a very long time. It's not a lie; they did stay inside for a long time."

"..."

The civilization's leadership devised a feasible plan.

These released creatures would be closely monitored and restricted, and releasing a portion of them would also ease the minds of ordinary citizens.

What troubled them was that although they had stopped some creatures from staying in space, many creatures were still heading towards the tower.

Every day, hundreds of spaceships would go there, only to be intercepted, increasing their workload.

"It seems no one has reached the top of the tower."

"Maybe there is, but they're hiding, like patient hunters."

The entire civilization was on high alert.

And time quietly slipped by during this tense period.

...

Fifty years had passed since the first batch of creatures entered the tower.

For the creatures on Proxima Centauri b, this was about a generation.

The first group of creatures whose memories were erased and released showed no signs of abnormality. They communicated normally, did ordinary things, and some had even aged and died.

Nothing happened.

The second group, those who had not shown a tendency towards the civilization during their second entry into the tower, also showed no unusual signs.

The third group, the first to be identified as having a tendency towards the civilization on their first entry, were fine after their memories were erased.

The fourth group, the fifth group... A total of 140,000 creatures were monitored for fifty years, and none showed any abnormalities. Some who had never entered the tower even continued to advocate for the arrival of the star civilization year after year.

"Did we make a mistake?"

"Is the tower really that hard to climb?"

"No, we can't let any of them go. We must monitor them until their last breath."

"..."

This was a civilization's war, and while fifty years was a long time for individual creatures, it was but a fleeting moment in the civilization's timeline.

Yan Xia had already entered hibernation.

He had set his hibernation time to 1,000 years.

It would take 3,600 years for the Hundred-Eyed Star to reach Proxima Centauri, so there was no rush. He only needed to wait.

Time meant nothing to him as an individual, and hibernation was not a complete ban; he had spent over a million years in hibernation in the hibernation chamber.

He believed that time would wear down everything, including a civilization's vigilance towards another.

Of course, he never placed his hope in the other civilization's relaxation.

In fact, the opportunity for victory in the second game had already begun with the first group. The tower's purpose was never to leave memories in the creatures' brains or nerves.

Instead, it was to imprint memories at the cellular level.

For example, a person who has swung a knife 100,000 times will instinctively swing it without thinking when they hold it.

Muscles have memory, and cells have memory.

Memories formed at the cellular level will be followed even if the memories are erased. These creatures, without regaining their original memories, will still adhere to the deeper memory habits and the thoughts trained within the tower.

The probability of this is extremely low.

So, a long wait is necessary.

And it's worth the wait.