Chapter 19: Thought Algorithm
The recollection of the Fairyland ended.
To be honest, although the Fairy Empress's personalities were somewhat frivolous, overall, they were still relatively reliable Legendary-rank experts. They had always been stationed in the Void beyond the world, standing guard against various potential Void disasters or attacks from Behemoths.
If a day truly came when an Evil God or a Void Behemoth attacked the Mycroft World, then the Fairyland would be the frontline for all the experts to resist Chaos.
Sitting in the chair of his study, Joshua let out a breath. Thinking carefully, since the Black Mist Mother Entity had been dealt with, many things seemed to have become much easier.
First, the Empire's External Exploration teams no longer had to worry about being ambushed and wiped out by the Black Mist hiding somewhere. The numerous exploration teams of mages traveling between various valuable worlds no longer had to cautiously conceal their movements. The speed of exploration had accelerated by an unknown amount.
The Ancient Dragon of the Chronos World, originally regarded by the people of the Mycroft World as one of the combat forces against the Black Mist, could not leave the Chronos World, so it could only be left to guard it. Now, after learning that the Black Mist had been sealed and was gradually being eliminated, the Thunder Ancient Dragon finally agreed to cooperate further with humanity and opened up part of its bloodline for research by organizations like the Royal Mage Academy and the Sky-Piercing White Tower.
"Ridiculous. Willing to study the Ancient Dragon bloodline, but unwilling to accept my modifications?"
Every time he recalled this news, Joshua couldn't help but feel a surge of bad mood. After learning that the Thunder Ancient Dragon was willing to open its bloodline, basically anyone with a bit of ability and a willingness to accept the Ancient Dragon bloodline—whether Battle Qi users or spellcasters—used all kinds of connections to prepare to go to the Chronos World to try their luck. In contrast, although the human body modification technology for warriors was becoming increasingly sophisticated, due to rumors from unknown sources, no one was yet willing to come to Winterfell Academy to join the newly established 'Human Progress Technology Group' to try the latest body modification techniques.
Wasn't it all just modifying bloodlines to gain Transcendent power? What difference was there between an Ancient Dragon and a Void Behemoth? Inserting Ancient Dragon bloodline into the body and inserting Void Behemoth flesh and blood into the body definitely had no difference at all!
Putting aside this rather puzzling aspect, the Chronos World was also rapidly recovering.
According to Lisa, the Dragonman girl who had recently returned to visit her hometown, after the Chronos World connected to the Water-Rich World through a semi-permanent Space-Time Gate, it received a massive influx of water resources. Thanks to the hard work of the Dragonmen and a little bit of negligible help from the Ancient Dragon, they had already cultivated land in the God's Desert nearly equivalent to the size of the original God's Mountain Range, and the abundant water resources had even formed a huge lake.
This lake was named the 'Three Sacred Lakes'. Apart from its triangular shape, the name was also to commemorate the three Mycroft World Legendary experts who had helped them through their difficulties: Joshua, Baniel, and William. Now, besides the Dragon God faith, there were even primitive worship rituals dedicated to the Three Saints. The observing mages on site were very troubled about whether or not to interfere with this primitive belief.
Leaving aside such trivial matters, the Chronos World was now almost entirely filled with Mycroft World experts hiding their identities. Although the local Dragonman tribes didn't notice, according to Lisa and Syndicate, who had returned to their hometown, they basically saw several human experts disguised as Dragonmen every day. If Joshua had to say, he believed this excessive interference would soon be stopped by the major organizations. The Dragonmen were indeed a race with great potential, but humanity hadn't yet decided whether to accept them.
After all, due to the long-term influence of demon invasions and the recent Mad Dragon Plague, the thinking of humans in the Mycroft World tended to be somewhat xenophobic. Existence like Lisa, a sort of exchange student, was probably the limit for now. In fact, if not for the Ancient Dragon bearing most of the cost of the Space-Time Gate, many people wouldn't even want to spend effort modifying the Chronos World, an alien world.
In short, the once barren Chronos World was gradually recovering into a normal continental world. With the help of Legendary experts and the Ancient Dragon, Joshua estimated that it would only take about twenty years for the entire world to regain a complete natural cycle.
By then, the re-emergence of the World Will probably wouldn't be a big problem.
However, the changes in the Chronos World were nothing compared to the Bloodmoon Abyss.
When the Light Lifeform located in the ruins of the former Slye World, now the Bloodmoon Abyss—the Mother Entity of Little Light, the nascent World Will—learned that the Black Mist had been completely eliminated, an extremely violent energy tremor shook the entire Bloodmoon Abyss.
It was a long-suppressed cry of unwillingness, regret, hatred, pain, but ultimately, release.
The Black Mist had invaded countless worlds and used schemes to deceive countless races. Even demons had once been seduced by the Black Mist, serving as its vanguard for invading other worlds.
But no world had ever been as desperate and yet as trusting of outside goodwill as the Slye World. Their world's sun was on the verge of extinction. All their wise men had pondered for centuries without finding any solution. Even merging all the sky islands into a Ring World couldn't gather more light and heat.
The ill-intentioned advice from the Black Mist was their only lifeline. They faithfully performed all the rituals and then easily destroyed themselves and their entire world, turning it into a convenient energy-gathering sphere.
The mistake of the weak is not trusting a strong being with ill intentions. It is that they are so weak they have no choice.
At that time, Joshua comforted the 'crying' light. He actually felt that, given the Slye World's experience, it would have been no surprise if it had become an Evil God.
But looking at the light floating in the center of the blood sea, he couldn't help but sigh inside.
If it weren't for a series of coincidences... who's to say the light wouldn't have become an Evil God?
If the Undead Dragon Mandagar had successfully completed the curse ritual and achieved Legendary status with the power of Abyss Chaos, then the Bloodmoon Abyss, tainted by its influence—tainted by chaotic power rather than the power of the Fusion Core Star—would have made the light become an Evil God without any surprise.
The entire Bloodmoon Abyss would have become the eggshell for hatching an Evil God. When the ruler capable of dominating all things in this world was born from the Bloodmoon, that would be the moment a new Evil God descended.
Fortunately, things didn't reach the worst point. The current light was not a reserve Evil God but a nascent World Will.
And the news of the Black Mist's destruction undoubtedly greatly accelerated the light's maturation. The Light Lifeform deep within the Bloodmoon seemed to have completely broken free from some shackles and began to grow rapidly. Using the continent and the Blood-colored World Tree gifted by Joshua as a base, the Light Lifeform was rapidly expanding the volume and area of the entire continent through gravitational attraction, seemingly wanting to reshape a brand new Sky World.
Even the blood-colored moon was gradually changing. The originally blood-red moon was becoming clearer. Joshua estimated that in a few months, the Bloodmoon Abyss would completely become history, and a barren but brand new Sky Land World would take shape.
"The Black Mist took it upon itself to resist Evil Gods... but this kind of destruction protects nothing. Instead, it only breeds more tragedies, more sorrows, and more and more Evil Gods."
Standing by the window of his study, Joshua couldn't help but feel a bit emotional. The gap between an Evil God and a nascent World Will was only a negligible line. Even he couldn't be sure what the outcome of the Bloodmoon Abyss would have been if he had lost back then.
Thinking this, the warrior looked down at the backyard. Black was slacking off again. She was sitting under a tree with Little Light on her head, sleeping. Her mouth was open, drool flowing out, even burning the grass and flowers beneath the tree. However, the maid in the backyard seemed to have dealt with similar situations many times before. She calmly stepped forward, used a handkerchief woven from Frost Grass to wipe Black's drool, and then closed her mouth.
Little Light chirped happily, spraying a stream of water onto the burning ground. The maid calmly instructed Little Light to adjust its direction, smoothly extinguishing all the flames.
Joshua turned his head and sat back down in the chair of his study.
He was currently in the Mycroft World as an ordinary avatar, used for daily interaction with Firefly and Lin, and to supervise Black's studies. His true body was still automatically roaming the Void, intercepting large amounts of floating Steel Particles to enrich himself.
Although the Fairy Empress hadn't revealed too much knowledge about how to shape a world, just a little bit of information was enough for the current Joshua to deduce.
"A complete world should encompass most, even all, Transcendent powers. At the very least, it should contain as many Transcendent powers as I know of."
Joshua closed his eyes in contemplation.
Elements, Arcane Power, Aether, Psionic Energy—these are just the basics. Battle Qi, Steel Force, Runes, Life Energy—needless to say. A complete world should possess the 'possibility' of containing all Transcendent powers. Even Transcendent powers that haven't yet been born, brand new ones, should have their groundwork laid.
After finalizing the design plan for the 'Perfect Prime Body', he would fine-tune the inner world. Joshua thought for a while and determined that his recent work was roughly these things. Of course, besides this, he also needed to make some adjustments to his thought algorithm to better suit the needs of the 'World' status.
The so-called thought algorithm is essentially another term for thought logic. It can be said that every person in the world has a different thought logic. Even people who seem very similar, or are close friends, process information in their brains in different ways.
In ancient times, this difference even caused enormous cultural rifts. Just a few hundred miles apart, differences in language and script were enough to create an insurmountable barrier for ordinary people.
People from different cultures and different languages naturally have completely different thought logics. This is why cultural integration takes decades or even centuries to calculate.
However, in the current world, this most basic difference has basically been smoothed over by the Common Language and the widespread faith in the Seven Gods. The same language, the same religion, and the same calculation standards passed down by the Seven Gods gave the Mycroft World a good start of 'unified writing and measurement' from the very beginning. This might not sound like a big deal, but it was actually a very significant advancement. Because most primitive thought logics were reshaped and rekindled by the spark of civilization. When communication had no barriers, the sparks of inspiration could leap forth.
But this alone was not enough. What Nostradamus, Israel, and others were doing now—'enlightening the people' and popularizing schools—was actually to comprehensively optimize the thought algorithms of all citizens again.
To give an analogy, if human thinking is like a Mana-powered machine performing data input and output.
Then, after a long period of data input and output, it will naturally encounter some special situations that the current data cannot understand.
This kind of data will cause a system error called 'incomprehensible doubt'.
So, how to deal with the system error of 'incomprehensible doubt'?
The most primitive thought logic chooses to use methods like 'faith', 'gods', 'agnosticism' to handle this 'incomprehensible doubt'. This is a very simple and straightforward thought algorithm that can quickly ignore this special data that would cause a break in thinking, allowing it to continue with more important survival tasks like 'hunting', 'gathering', and 'fishing'.
But as civilization progressed, personal strength increased, and human survival became less tense, human thought algorithms undoubtedly needed to develop accordingly. The 'rational thinking mode' advocated by mages is one such development.
Discover the problem, define the problem, organize the problem, think about the problem, analyze the problem, verify the problem, solve the problem—the modern rational thinking mode does not directly ignore 'incomprehensible doubts' with various convenient methods. It uses mathematics, various standardized, repeatable, and summarizable methods to observe, verify, and analyze various problems in this world, thereby dissecting the fundamental principles and directly transforming 'incomprehensible doubts' into 'understandable answers'.
Undoubtedly, this kind of thought logic is definitely more effective, correct, and capable of leading humanity forward than the original primitive thought logic.
This is the essence of 'science', the essence of progress. No matter what kind of world it is, with or without magic, Battle Qi, or Holy Light, it exists all the same. Because science is not some entity to be worshipped, an idol, but a modern, rational way of thinking.
It could even be said that science is not necessarily the most correct way of thinking, but it is undoubtedly the most suitable thinking mode for humanity in this era.
However, this thinking method is a bit outdated for the current Joshua.
Because his true body contains the nascent form of a world.
Ordinary humans need to observe the world to learn and progress—this is correct. But the current Joshua is not an ordinary human. He has become so powerful that he can even directly create special substances that defy common sense within his own body. He doesn't need to observe; he only needs to 'verify' and 'think'.
In a sense, the survival mode of the Steel Serpent—an existence that ordinary people can't even see or observe—is a kind of being closer to him.
Therefore, Joshua must gradually transform his thinking mode to better align with his current status. Every Legendary expert must go through the same process. Just like the Old Pope, who, as a Light Lifeform, has thoughts and needs completely different from ordinary humans. Not to mention the Nature Mentor, who has incarnated into a natural ecosystem. Her view of nature is certainly deeper than that of ordinary elves, at least much stronger than those who think nature is just a primeval forest.
This is a necessary process.
And at the same time, as Joshua was gradually fine-tuning his thinking mode.
At the other end of the World Star River.
At the very end of a certain spiral arm of the Star River.
With five azure-blue Space-Time ripples suddenly appearing in mid-air, five panicked figures fell from a height of several thousand meters.
"Ahhh! What's going on? How did we teleport wrong again?!"
A scream, like a pig being slaughtered, could be heard echoing violently in mid-air.