Chapter Sixteen: Stealing Hercules’ Fish?

Following this line of thought, he decided to increase the ratio of day to night in the fish tank world, extending the daylight hours to the maximum while reducing the duration of night to its absolute minimum. This way, the ancient apes would have ample time to survive and develop, and it wouldn’t come to the point where they’d be wiped out entirely during the frigid years—a win-win situation.

Fang Zhuowei pondered for a moment. The greatest adjustment he could currently make was a time ratio of up to one hundred thousand years, and the lowest was one year. Thus, he could make a single day in the real world equivalent to one hundred thousand years of daylight in the fish tank world, with the night only lasting ten years.

It was impossible to stretch the entire day into daylight alone, after all. Fang Zhuowei could only manipulate the time within the fish tank; the real world remained beyond his control. The golden crow would still set in the west, and the sun would inevitably fall.

“All things considered, this is the safest approach for now. It’s worth a try.”

No sooner had he decided than he acted, focusing his mind. In the next moment, an invisible ripple spread from the fish tank, and a faint sound reminiscent of an old clock ticking echoed in his ears.

A moment later, the time ratio was altered.

Now, a single day equaled one hundred thousand years and ten years in the fish tank world: one hundred thousand years of daylight, ten years of polar night.

Having done all this, Fang Zhuowei couldn’t help but yawn.

He hadn’t realized how long he’d been at it. Once he relaxed, fatigue overcame him. A glance at the clock showed it was already past seven in the evening.

From afar, the blood-red glow of sunset had faded from the old house, and where the earth met the sky, only a faint purple gleam lingered—like a jade belt draped across the horizon. In twenty minutes, night would fall completely, and darkness would pour over everything.

He withdrew his gaze. After a quick wash, Fang Zhuowei climbed straight into bed.

During his days at work, he’d nearly always had to work overtime. Waking early was necessary, but going to bed early was an unattainable luxury. Now that he finally could, he wouldn’t let the chance slip by. Early to bed and early to rise could only be good for the body.

At that moment, in the fish tank world, although Fang Zhuowei had changed the time ratio, night had already fallen in the real world, so the fish tank had no choice but to enter its polar night as well.

However, compared to the previous endless five-thousand-year nights of cold, this time the night would only last ten years. Perhaps many weak ancient apes would still perish, but undoubtedly the majority of young and robust apes would survive the ten-year-long polar night. When dawn finally broke…

...

The next morning, as the first pale light crept across the sky and the sun still lingered behind wispy clouds, Fang Zhuowei was jolted awake from his sleep by the sharp crowing of a rooster.

He could manage sleeping early, but waking early was still a challenge.

“There’s no one else living nearby—where did this wretched rooster come from?”

Rubbing his bleary eyes, Fang Zhuowei grumpily crawled out of bed.

Outside, a mist had gathered at some point.

The fog drifted gently, like thin veils of silk weaving through the mountains, as if an artist had splashed ink across a canvas, turning the hills into ethereal scenery—a series of water-colored, yet strikingly beautiful, paintings.

After washing up, he cooked himself some noodles for breakfast. Now that his kitchen was well-stocked, he preferred to do things himself; food prepared by his own hands always seemed more reassuring.

Breakfast finished, the sun finally rose slowly from the clouds and mist, its warm rays scattering some of the lingering fog.

After washing the dishes, Fang Zhuowei went straight to the fish tank.

Since the ancient apes had joined, the underwater world within the tank had split into three main layers.

At the top were the ancient apes, natural swimmers who could hold their breath underwater for extended periods and fed on plankton generated by hornwort.

The middle layer belonged to the primordial species. Their forces were the most numerous, occupying an area roughly the size of a basketball, and they preyed on chubby infant fish.

At the bottom lay the realm of the ancient demons. Interestingly, despite the passage of many millennia, these aberrant beings had yet to awaken—there wasn’t even the slightest sign of stirring.

As for the chubby infant fish, they hovered between the middle and lower layers, both prey and predator to the primordial species.

Just as he’d predicted, after reducing the extreme polar night to ten years, more ancient apes survived that harshest period.

Most of those who endured the icy night were young or in their prime, their bodies stronger and more robust—many of them born during the long winter.

These apes were somewhat different from their ancestors a century before. Their features were more defined, eyes deeper set, with long and thick eyelashes. Because they needed to withstand the cold, their fur had grown longer and denser, so much so that from a distance, they seemed wrapped in thick blankets, resembling the pelts of otters or seals.

With the rising sun, warmth returned to the fish tank world.

After surviving a hundred years of polar night, this community entered a period of rapid development.

For the sake of communication, the language of the ancient apes became more sophisticated. If before their calls had been meaningless noise, now they began to take on the characteristics of a true proto-language.

Fang Zhuowei was thrilled.

“The Age of Primordial Darkness has been banished to the depths of the boundless sea by the passage of time. The end of an era heralds the dawn of a new one. Civilization and history intertwine, shining in turn. Since that’s the case, let this new era—ushered in by the ancient apes—be named the Age of Archaic Civilization. After all, the era following the Primordial Age is the Archaic…”

With a stroke of the pen, the new age began.

...

Year 23,000 of the Archaic Age.

The ancient apes had further improved their diving abilities, now capable of swimming to depths of several hundred meters. They had even evolved organs and methods for amphibious respiration.

But this very advancement nearly brought them to the brink of extinction.

One exceptionally gifted ancient ape, for reasons unknown, spent its entire life diving to a depth of over three thousand meters, where it encountered Heracles, who had just finished hunting a chubby infant fish.

Ordinarily, Heracles paid no attention to such tiny creatures, but this half-starved ape, ever the daredevil, actually tried to snatch the fish from him.

This act infuriated Heracles. “After all my hard work catching this, you, a mere scrap of a thing, try to steal it from me? Do you have no shame?” In his rage, Heracles devoured the ancient ape whole.

But it didn’t end there.

Year 33,026 of the Archaic Age.

After more than twenty years, and several wars, Heracles united all the primordial species under his banner and led their mighty forces to the surface of the fish tank.

Under Heracles’s command, they launched an unprecedented campaign of slaughter—more precisely, a massacre—against the ancient apes.