Chapter 2: The Perfect Human Progenitor
"Master Nostradamus, please, you must persuade the Count..."
Year 839 of the Falling Stars Era, May Fifth, Evening, Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, Salt Sea Underground Cavity Practice Site.
In the research institute's main hall, a white-robed researcher pleaded with the person beside him in a tone almost like prayer: "This is, after all, a joint research institute. Please be as careful as possible. He is a Legendary expert and isn't afraid of experiment failure, but we are not. If something goes wrong, the entire cavity will be implicated..."
The researcher's tone was sincere, even carrying a hint of tears, and behind him, a considerable number of researchers nodded in unison, still shaken.
"Yes, yes, exactly!"
"Although I know that every powerful combat professional is a master of manipulating life force, I never expected..."
"It's really too dangerous. Truly, it was completely unnecessary..."
Scattered words spread through the crowd. Hearing this, an old mage with a helpless expression sighed: "Alright, I understand. All of you, quiet down a little." Then, he turned to the white-robed researcher and said: "What is Joshua up to now? And even if you're afraid of problems, you can just voice your objections directly. He's quite reasonable."
The white-robed researcher exchanged glances with those behind him, then turned back and replied with a surprisingly confident tone: "We dare not!"
Then, his tone quickly softened: "Master, the Count's experiments are too dangerous, too unethical... Please have him terminate the experiment. If that's not possible, let His Majesty the Emperor also try to persuade him... This truly exceeds the bounds of our field of thought..."
—So you lot dare to voice objections to me?
Nostradamus, summoned by an emergency communication, felt as if he had been pegged as an easy target for persuasion. But unfortunately, he really was easy to persuade. So after listening to the researchers' complaints, the old mage shook his head and replied helplessly: "Israel? It would be strange if he tried to persuade him. Those two keep dragons as pets and their families aren't even human. The dangers they see are completely different from what you people see."
"As for now... Fine, I'll go check on the situation. But you all, hurry up and produce the 'Otherworld Ecological Environment Transformation' proposal. We collaborated with the Elves and the Sky-Piercing White Tower, having the Nature Mentor personally create this perfect natural domain—not for you to waste resources."
With that, the old mage stepped forward and, amid the researchers' murmurs of agreement, walked toward the practice room at the center of the institute.
Soon, he entered the area that had made all the researchers in the cavity institute too afraid to approach. Opening the door to the Fourth Practice Room, the heavy air began to exchange.
"Joshua, what's gotten into you? Suddenly changing your ways and starting experiments—"
Nostradamus was about to speak, to ask what his friend was up to that could frighten those researchers—who casually chatted with undead and dissected magical beasts alive—out of their wits. But as he stepped into the practice room and saw the layers upon layers of objects stacked around him, the old mage couldn't help but gasp.
"Truth above, what in the world are these things?!"
What appeared before the old mage were densely packed, silently stacked 'bodies.'
Human bodies.
The silver, square practice room was actually located within a small artificial demiplane, connected to reality through a magical door. In case of necessity, the magical connection could be severed directly to prevent contact between failed experiment results and the outside world. Because of this, the practice room was actually very large, about the size of a medium-sized city square.
But now, in this vast space, countless semi-transparent spindle-shaped life-support crystal pods were densely arranged, and within them were 'bodies.'
The reason they weren't called corpses was because these bodies were still alive. Nostradamus sensed that these bodies were still breathing, their internal metabolic cycles still ongoing. Clusters of silver light orbs danced in mid-air—those were numerous Silver Fairies, cheerfully replenishing necessary nutrients for each life-support pod to maintain their vitality.
If it were merely bodies, it wouldn't have been enough to shock Nostradamus. After all, he was a Legendary expert who had experienced the Orc battlefield and seen mountains of corpse pyramids. What were living bodies compared to that?
What truly made him speak out were the various abnormally strange and bizarre humanoid forms mixed among these largely similar human bodies.
Among them were cyborgs whose bodies were partially replaced by puppet constructs, where biological parts coexisted with machinery.
Among them were synthetic beings whose bodies were completely replaced by mechanical puppet structures, leaving only the brain, brainstem, and spine—and even these were partially assimilated.
Besides these, there were beast-men whose bodies were partially assimilated with magical beasts, nearly feral; modified humans whose internal organs had been replaced with artificial transcendent organs, leaving only the outer shell as original—and even those whose brains had been replaced with purely mechanical mana-powered structures.
Countless varied and peculiar human models were placed in the crystal pods, their eyes closed, occasionally emitting a stream of bubbles as if breathing. Without a doubt, all these bodies were alive; not a single one was dead.
And at the center of these bodies, in the very middle of the Fourth Practice Room, a man sitting in a chair, seemingly pondering something, sensed his friend's arrival. He slowly stood up, turned around, and said with some surprise: "Nostradamus? What brings you here?"
"I was called over—those researchers are so scared of you they're almost in tears."
The old mage walked through the crystal pods, arriving before Joshua. He looked around the entire practice room with a serious expression: "I was wondering why, but now it's clear... What are you planning to do? Human experimentation? You haven't needed to do this kind of thing for a long time, have you?"
"Of course not. Where did your mind go... I'm designing suitable new body templates for the Guardians."
Joshua waved his hand, looking somewhat embarrassed: "I accidentally made a few too many, so I had to preserve them all for now, until William and the others come to see which ones are more suitable."
"For the Guardians? Indeed, that explains it."
Nostradamus immediately understood. The man before him was indeed responsible for creating new bodies for the Guardians of the Grand Database. He possessed the power of creation; not just mere human bodies, even creating a small planet would probably just be a matter of time. It was just that the way these bodies were arranged was too unsettling—like a pile of corpse specimens soaked in preservatives.
But that wasn't the most important thing.
"Joshua, just creating new bodies for the Guardians—there's no need for these... unnecessary experiments, is there?"
Nostradamus slowly approached a crystal pod pillar, gazing at the artificial body inside that had clearly undergone magical beast organ transplantation and mechanical construct modification. Suppressing the slight dissatisfaction rising in his heart, he said in a solemn tone: "Humans... are not like this. Those Guardians transformed themselves into something non-human. We want to turn them back into humans, not turn them into another kind of non-human."
Perhaps this was the reason why those normally fearless researchers were so terrified of this practice room. They weren't afraid of these bodies that were merely alive but lacked self-will; they were afraid of what each of these bodies represented.
Hearing this, Joshua's expression gradually sobered, becoming serious. He frowned and said with some confusion: "Is that so?"
Wasn't it just cybernetic modification, consciousness uploading, a bit of genetic modification and cloning engineering, plus some magical beast or artificial biological organ transplantation—wasn't this all perfectly normal?
"This is not normal at all."
Seeming to notice the confusion behind Joshua's expression, Nostradamus shook his head gravely. He walked up to the warrior, glanced around at the crystal pods, and pointed at a body whose spine had been replaced by a series of metal frameworks and whose eyes had been replaced by mechanical prosthetics. He said seriously: "This kind of modification shouldn't be decided by you for them; they should decide for themselves. Even if it's inconvenient and fragile, we should do our best to provide them with the original human body."
"Actually, it's not just for the Guardians,"
Joshua scratched his head, somewhat helpless—because the old mage was so righteous that he didn't know how to bring up the subsequent plans.
—After conveniently finishing the bodies for the Guardians, on a whim, he had decided to simulate the life ascension process of the people of Mycroft World... a process that could be popularized, allowing everyone to gain some transcendent power.
He had a sudden inspiration, wanting to try creating a 'Progenitor' with perfect transcendent talent.
The result of this recommendation was a total of one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine bodies, all with completely different physical structures but roughly maintaining human form.
Whether it was cybernetic modification, consciousness uploading, cloning, genetic modification, or organ transplantation, to Joshua, it was just routine—like the neighbor's kid getting a pair of glasses. After all, in his original world, which child didn't undergo several genetic corrections from a young age? And cybernetic implants, mechanical bodies—for a warrior, it was just a part of life. Everyone had the right to freely assemble body components and organ functions.
But was this overly advanced ethical concept too much for them? Should he wait a few years, gradually changing public perception?
Actually, no—Joshua didn't think so.
Whether it was Nostradamus or the other Mycroft researchers, they just hadn't come around yet. The modifications they found uncomfortable now had actually begun thousands of years ago and were subtly changing the entire race.
What was the difference between so-called cyborgs and alchemists who used magical constructs to replace their bodies? Even Baniel had a magical prosthetic eye, didn't he? And beast transformation, genetic modification, even cloning—weren't they just alchemists and mages transplanting magical beast organs, modifying their own life forms, and copying their bodies as backups? For instance, Joshua knew that an explorer in his own squad was an alchemist who followed exactly this path.
And the synthetic beings and consciousness uploading that made Nostradamus show obvious disgust—weren't they just lich phylacteries, soul lichification? In fact, his own Soul's Ultimate Essence could accomplish something similar; it was just a difference in medium—one using mana, the other using machinery, each with their own pros and cons, nothing more.
The transcendent beings of Mycroft World had already done these seemingly unfamiliar things that were essentially exactly the same... because, in the end, everyone wanted to achieve the same thing: the evolution of humanity itself.
The speed of natural evolution, even with the acceleration of mana, would take thousands or tens of thousands of years. For humans alone, their physique and transcendent talent hadn't changed in tens of thousands of years. For a major change, they would need to wait another few hundred or thousand years, until the entire Mycroft race entered the Void. Only then would humans naturally evolve abilities to better adapt to the Void, along with stronger transcendent talents.
But by then, the ashes of human civilization would probably be overgrown with tropical rainforests, let alone evolution... The speed of natural change was far too slow. As long as civilization existed, humans would never stop modifying themselves. They would use various means to accelerate their evolution and strengthen the process—whether it was vaccines, antibodies, creating something like the Black Mist for implantation like the Sanctuary Civilization, or transforming themselves into half-magical, half-mechanical life forms—it was all the same.
Even the three transcendent power cultivation systems—magic, Battle Qi, and Holy Light—could almost be seen as humanity's own path and process of gradual self-modification and self-ascension.
The reason Joshua wanted to design the 'Progenitor' was to try, based on his own rich experience, to directly create a modification path that could be popularized for most humans without side effects. He wanted to artificially accelerate this process, raise humanity's starting foundation, and make all humans a 'Silver Race'—born with some transcendent power and reaching Silver-rank upon adulthood.
He wanted to achieve in one step what should have happened gradually over centuries—but now it seemed that taking too big a step only frightened people.
"It seems I'll have to rename these modifications and put them into the enhancement exchange list... I'll wait a few more years before pondering the perfect human Progenitor."
The warrior thought this, but wasn't particularly anxious. He knew that as time passed and the Magic Tide and Chaos gradually approached, these meaningless fears would dissipate like smoke and dust. By then, humanity would have to ascend and grow stronger as quickly as possible, with no time or energy left for extraneous thoughts.
"Although it's somewhat excessive, it's still wrong."
Meanwhile, after briefly surveying the Fourth Practice Room, Nostradamus couldn't help but ask curiously: "Joshua, if it's just exploring human modification, it shouldn't have made those researchers so afraid—they are, after all, Gold-rank mages. There's no reason for them to be so cowardly... What else are you doing? Their expressions seemed to suggest they thought you would blow up the entire large cavity."
"Probably because I caught a small Void Behemoth and dissected it."
Joshua said lightly, gesturing for the startled old mage to look up at the experimental table behind him.
There, on a steel plate shrouded in hazy Steel Force mist, lay a piece of dark gray biological tissue that was constantly writhing, twitching, and endlessly generating various kinds of appendages, mouthparts, and semi-transparent cystic flesh. Although it had been cut open, it was still alive. Countless Steel Force probes and liquids penetrated this indescribable tissue, analyzing its structure. And atop the numerous tumors and exposed nerve ganglia were densely packed golden-yellow eyeballs, frantically writhing—but what these seemingly terrifying visual organs revealed was an expression of extreme terror.
'Save me!' Nostradamus seemed to hear such a voice.
"A while ago, I went back to check on the Siberia World's surroundings and found many small Void Behemoths appearing in the Void there, so I caught one—of course, this is just a piece of its flesh. Its main body is still being suppressed at my original body's location. It's quite well-behaved."
Joshua stepped forward, 'gently' patting the Void Behemoth flesh that was frantically writhing, seemingly trying to split and spread, assimilating the experimental table. After the warrior watched it stop all movement as if in shock, he continued: "To be honest, I originally just wanted to see if Void Behemoth flesh could be modified into some useful biological weapons. But as a result, I discovered quite a bit of interesting information."
"What information?"
Swallowing, Nostradamus stared blankly at this clump of Void Behemoth flesh, whose eyes had turned gray, seemingly having completely given up thinking. He asked subconsciously: "Does it have something to do with the Evil Gods?"
And Joshua nodded readily: "Exactly."
"It does have something to do with the Evil Gods."
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