Journey to the West: Life Simulation of Sun Wukong

"Teacher, is dinosaur meat more nutritious?"

Zhang Manman licked her lips, "Does it contain more energy than ordinary meats?"

Li Liang shook his head. "Not really."

Everyone: (⊙o⊙)…

Lost in thought, Su Jie expressed his opinion, "These dinosaurs live here in the Taixu Illusory Realm, where pseudo-spiritual energy exists. Their meat must be better than the meat of ordinary animals from the outside world, that's for certain."

"But according to scientific research, eating meat, apart from replenishing the various trace elements in the meat, mainly supplements the protein needed by the human body｜the meat eaters are strong."

"Perhaps, the advantage of dinosaur meat is its quantity."

Surprised yet affirmative, Li Liang said, "You're right. Apart from the tastier meat enriched with traces of pseudo-spiritual energy, the other advantage dinosaur meat has over other animal meats from the outside world is its sheer quantity. One Liang Long, excluding the tough bones, just the edible meat alone weighs ten tons."

"And here, there are no less than a billion Liang Long."

Hisss—

Everyone gasped.

A billion heads, each with nearly ten tons of meat, is indeed a huge industry.

Zhang Manman asked doubtfully, "But doesn't raising a Liang Long require a lot of resources? Wouldn't it result in a loss?"

Li Liang said, "This place was established by the headmaster of Minglun Martial School. In the initial stages, the energy came from other dimensions; it was a cost-free transaction, not a loss at all."

Everyone realized that this was the Taixu Illusory Realm created by Sun Shisheng! Part of a series hosted by My Virtual Library Empire (MV&LEMP&YR).

Creating worlds, would raising dinosaurs be difficult?

"And once the environment here is transformed and the ecological chain is established, we needn't worry too much about the growth of the dinosaurs since the evolution of life is meant to adapt to the environment."

Li Liang began to explain the related knowledge. "Assuming the environment remains unchanged for thousands or tens of thousands of years, the genes of the dinosaurs won't change much either; they can only grow by adapting to the environment."

"You think raising a Liang Long requires a lot of energy, but in reality, it actually requires a lot."

Su Jie: "······"

Zhang Manman: "······"

Listening to a word from you is better than a long speech."

"This is related to the efficiency of biological energy conversion."

Pointing at a fallen Liang Long which was significantly larger, and then at a Tyrannosaurus that was three to four times smaller, Li Liang asked, "You see, just by looking at the size, the Liang Long is obviously much larger, yet the Tyrannosaurus is much smaller. Even if the Liang Long had the courage, just a kick could mean the Tyrannosaurus might never get up again."

"Why is its body so big?"

"It's actually a herbivore!"

This statement was enlightening.

Yes!

The Liang Long is actually a herbivore.

The meat eaters are strong.

But the herbivores are even stronger!

Su Jie drew upon the knowledge he learned in junior and senior high school, as well as what he had seen on science and education programs about the animal world, and compared it to dinosaurs, noticing a relatively common phenomenon.

Herbivores like cows, sheep, elephants, elk, and deer are generally larger in size than their corresponding predators: lions, tigers, wolves, leopards, cats, etc.

[For herbivores, the nutritional content in plants is much lower than that in meats and harder to absorb.

Therefore, they need to consume a large amount of plants to make up for the quality with quantity, and by storing a lot of energy at once, they can reduce the frequency of going out to find food, thereby lowering the chance of encounters with carnivorous animals and increasing their survival rate, which is why herbivores are generally larger in size.]

This is the current understanding.

But since nutrients are scarce in plants, why don't they eat meat?

Although herbivores have various predators, they can pass their genes down, naturally without the desire to evolve. Before evolving to their current forms, their bodies had also evolved to store large amounts of energy in fat.

According to the food chain, the energy from sunlight is fixed by plant photosynthesis; herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat meat, and this energy is progressively reduced.

Although single plants fix a small amount of energy, the types and numbers of plants are incredibly vast.

Next are the herbivores. While their numbers are also vast, they are much fewer compared to plants, followed by carnivores, which are even fewer.

In this gradually decreasing pyramid-like food chain, plants provide more energy, and their fruits contain the most nutrients.

This is also why the main human diet today still consists of starch-rich rice and wheat.

Humans can live without eating meat.

But without eating rice, survival is absolutely impossible!

Just like the primitive tribes of Primordial Star, although they lived by hunting and ate their fill, they also got hungry quickly and had to pick and store a large amount of wild fruits daily to ensure sufficient sugar levels in their bodies.

Of course, the present Tai Chi rice contained another type of energy, which was too sophisticated for ordinary people to absorb, but it also followed the rule of progressively decreasing energy levels.

Su Jie could think of these aspects, and other students could too, although they were a bit slower.

Chen Tian Yuzi said, "Teacher, even if it grows really big, being able to kick a Tyrannosaurus rex to death, what does it matter? Wouldn't it still get eaten by the Tyrannosaurus rex?"

"In looking at living beings, don't be swayed by subjective emotions and will, be objective."

Li Liang's face was serious as he admonished Chen Tian Yuzi.

"We humans possess intelligence, rich imagination, and can relate the food chain of animals and plants to ourselves, like how sheep and cows herd together but fierce beasts walk alone."

"But this saying originally comes from Mr. Lu Xun's essays—fierce beasts always walk alone, while sheep and cows gather in groups. Now, most people treat it as a classic, saying that sheep and cows are weak, but fierce beasts are the true rulers."

"These people either are just talking big or they want to restore the imperial system, to become emperors."

"Mr. Lu Xun was a person who willingly played the role of the sacrificial ox. The original intent of this sentence was to satirize the environment of the time, accusing them of inaction and stubbornness."

"Regarding the phrase 'gather in groups', what do you think of immediately?"

Zhang Manman blurted out, "Unity!"

"Exactly, unity," Li Liang nodded in satisfaction, "That's what has allowed us to reach our current status, as you should have also felt during your history lessons."

As Li Liang spoke, he suddenly smiled, "This is already straying off topic, but the main purpose is still to warn you, when studying biology, to cast aside personal subjective perceptions and view it in the most objective way."

"Next, let me talk about something that might be relevant to your futures."

"I think you should also know that as your vitality increases, the energy you require does as well, and ordinary food can no longer provide you enough energy, so you must consume other types of energy."

"What do you think, what kind of food should you eat?"

Su Jie spoke up, "The spiritual energy found in two-dimensional space, or perhaps energy from other cosmic dimensions. The principal and others consequently do not consume mundane worldly food."

Li Liang nodded, "Yes, but for you, spiritual energy and such are still too far off. Be more realistic, what should you eat?"

Zhang Manman thought for a moment, then tentatively asked, "Tai Chi rice?"

"That is already our staple food, only those with a vitality less than 1 are unable to completely absorb its nutrients," Li Liang explained, "However, the ancient myths of Huaxia have already provided an answer."

"Regarding myths related to food—"

A student immediately responded, "Peaches of immortality!"

Thinking of food-related myths, one could hardly avoid the topic of the Queen Mother's Feast of Peaches!

And the star of the Peach Feast—the peaches of immortality!

But Su Jie offered a more precise summary, "Marvelous fruits and exotic flowers."

Zhang Manman also blurted out, "Spirit Fruit, Immortal Fruit!"

On Primordial Star, there were various fruits that could enhance the human body. Thus, most people also thought of marvelous fruits and exotic flowers.

"That's right," Li Liang slowly said, "In ancient times, not as advanced as today, they didn't know about the food chain, but with their most basic concepts, they instinctively understood something - that the fruits produced by plants were fundamental to their survival."

"Rice, too, is the fruit of the rice plant!"

"As our vitality increases and we undergo evolution, we can extract more nutrients from plants. And because of our cultivation, ordinary plants gradually become insufficient, thus we require superior plant fruits."

Hearing this, Su Jie first thought of the various marvelous flowers and exotic fruits of Primordial Star, but also of Huaxia's Buddhism and Taoism, which both advocated vegetarianism.

On the surface, these are traditions handed down, distinct yet similar doctrines in different temples and Taoist temples, but they all share the views of "restraining desires" and "keeping the heart free from desires."

However, the Earth is also surrounded by two-dimensional space, and in ancient times, Earth might have also had spiritual energy, and those who practiced Qi Cultivation might not have been absent.

The reason they practiced vegetarianism could be because their life force had reached a certain level, evolving an organ and structure similar to herbivores that could store energy in bulk, allowing them to break down, transform, and absorb the solidified energy in plants to the greatest extent.

Plants are solidified solar energy, and the ancient people's practice of vegetarianism was directly extracting the sun's energy from plants!

Refining Essence into Qi!

What they refined was not themselves, but extracting the sun's energy from their vegetarian meals!

Unable to directly draw on the sun's energy for cultivation, they could only extract the energy by consuming vegetarian meals.

They might not have known about the rule of increasingly diminishing energy along the food chain, but they probably also realized that the essence of the sun was most abundant in plants and their fruits.

Thus, most ancient Qi Cultivation practitioners were vegetarians.

It was not that they didn't eat meat; rather, the solar energy contained in meat was truly less than that in plants, not to mention some other marvelous fruits and exotic flowers, which were even richer in energy.

Like Ming Lun, who created the Essence of Lunar Spirit and the Essence of Solar Brilliance, fundamentally, they are both solidified solar energy!

Although Su Jie had never tried the Essence of Lunar Spirit and Essence of Solar Brilliance, he had learned through modern information that the energy contained in these two products was incomparable to Tai Chi rice.

Even if it couldn't be absorbed by the human body, it would be stored in every cell of the body, rather than accumulating as fat.