Chapter 6: Humanity's Evil... The Manifestation of Civilization's Strife
Upon awakening once more, the surroundings were still shrouded in darkness.
The newly awakened Priest instinctively tried to observe his surroundings to understand the situation... but soon, he realized he could only vaguely make out whether there was light ahead, and it seemed he no longer had limbs—only a few uncontrollable flagella instinctively waving, propelling him forward.
I... have turned into a 'cell'?!
After all, he was an elite. Priest quickly discovered that his current body closely resembled the cellular appearance he had designed earlier... no, it was exactly the same—he had literally become the cell he had designed!
And amidst his brief stupor, a memory that seemed to have been stored deep within his mind surfaced.
'Pro-Element Cell Body,' you are the most ordinary of countless primitive single-celled organisms in the primordial ocean of life. Now, you possess nothing but the most basic survival systems. To survive and pass on your genes to future generations, you decide to seize the powerful genetic components of other cells, arming yourself to become the strongest in this primordial ocean of life.
But remember, compared to 'becoming stronger,' the fundamental purpose of life is 'survival.' 'Pro-Element Cell Body,' how far can your path take you? Can you overcome the harsh environment of the primordial sea, survive successfully, and allow your descendants to thrive and multiply?
Following this, a flood of rule information arrived. After absorbing and reading these memories, Priest quickly understood how this game was meant to be played.
The game 'Continent of Strife' was divided into five stages, the first of which was the cellular stage called 'Spore.' He needed to control a single cell, searching for food in the dark primordial sea of life, plundering genetic components, and continuously growing stronger. Once he grew to a certain point, the 'Spore' stage would end, leading to the next stage called 'Creature.'
Priest didn't yet know what the next stage entailed, but the gameplay of the Spore stage was simple: just control a cell, find 'food' to grow stronger, attack other cells to obtain genetic components to arm yourself, then attack even stronger cells to acquire even more powerful genetic components... Each genetic component brought different abilities, and those compatible with one's innate talent received bonuses, unleashing greater power.
"Hey, this is pretty fun!"
Although Priest felt the gameplay had nothing to do with 'Continent of Strife'—the name was pure cover deception—even so, since the people of the Mycroft World lacked entertainment options, he was now thoroughly engaged, eagerly anticipating the 'hunt' for other cells to make his own cell stronger.
In essence, wasn't this just like hunting? For Priest, whose hometown was in the empire's southern fortress cluster, this was no unfamiliar concept—big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp—not difficult at all.
The memories faded, and the game officially began. Priest knew that with his Gold-rank strength supporting 64x mental acceleration, one hour of game time would be less than a minute in the outside world. He had plenty of time to experiment.
The dark primordial ocean was warm and filled with currents. Large amounts of high-temperature mineral fluids, spewing from the deep core, triggered numerous reactions in the hot solution, producing vast quantities of white organic particles. Countless bizarrely shaped single-celled organisms drifted and evolved in this food-rich sea.
Priest excitedly controlled his cellular body, swimming through the dark ocean. After consuming a few white particles floating in the seawater—the so-called 'organic food'—he grew slightly larger. His underdeveloped light-sensitive organs then detected that, in a rocky crevice ahead, several cells possessing 'special genetic components' were resting.
The silver menu showed that those cells held the 'Advanced Light-Sensitive Component' that Priest most desired. For him, suffering from poor vision to the point of not even noticing food drifting past his eyes, this was undoubtedly a must-have component. But obtaining it wouldn't be easy—because their sensory components were more developed than Priest's, those cells hiding in the crevice had already detected his approach. They were very cautious, seemingly ready to flee the moment Priest drew near.
With similar flagella counts and grades, their speeds were nearly identical. If they were determined to escape, Priest, even if larger, would never catch them.
And so, Priest plotted an ambush in the dark ocean, scheming to plunder those rare genetic components.
Meanwhile, deep within the Central Magic Net Main Server, amidst endless streams of data.
Joshua and Unit 3 stood before thousands of virtual light screens, attentively monitoring the gameplay of all 'beta testers.'
"It seems only a very small number of people will try this inexplicably appearing game, and an even smaller number will actually start playing."
Joshua's data projection held Unit 3's hand as they surveyed all the screens. The warrior wasn't angered that, out of over fifty thousand beta test accounts he had sent out, only four to five thousand had started the game. Instead, he was quite satisfied: "This is normal. Caution is a good thing."
"But those who join later will surely regret starting 'Continent of Strife' too late."
As he spoke, Joshua felt Unit 3 tighten her grip on his hand slightly, which also meant their connection to the Magic Net Main Server grew a bit stronger, allowing the warrior, whose mental deviation value exceeded 90, to continue communicating with a normal mental state.
Continent of Strife—this game name was chosen by Joshua based on a game from his past life. It was a nod to nostalgia, a commemoration of his time on Earth, and it also perfectly matched the essence of the 'game' he had designed.
This game, titled 'Strife,' was essentially a vast and complex data space system that Joshua, along with numerous other Legendary experts, had created within the Magic Net over the ten days since returning to the Mycroft Continent. Though called a game, its core was deeply intertwined with Joshua's calculation matrix.
'Mental Sovereign' William had designed deep hypnosis enchantment arrays for this game. He extracted numerous models from the warrior's memories for game modeling. 'Rune Master' Baniel used the most profound rune techniques to solidify these models within the Magic Net, forming a complete game framework using the computational power provided by Joshua. Barbarossa and the nameless technician Lotram designed the 'Mental Acceleration' spiritual rune module. Ocean Sage Faina used psionic energy to connect Joshua's calculation matrix, located inside the Silver World, to the Magic Net Main Server across the void.
Beyond this, there were countless game systems, designs, gameplay mechanics, programming details, and other trivial matters... These were large, troublesome tasks, but because the request came from Joshua, all the Legendary experts and technical personnel in related fields were willing to do this favor for the warrior who had essentially saved the entire World Star River.
It was only because these Legendary experts and technical staff worked day and night without rest, even using mental acceleration runes to speed up their work, that the shell of 'Continent of Strife' could be completed in just ten days.
And the actual results were very thorough. Although Continent of Strife was only in beta, both its gameplay and system programs were already very complete. The calculation matrix Joshua provided as a server could support thousands or even tens of thousands of simultaneous players.
"Ordinary people without Transcendent power can handle 8x mental acceleration. Black Iron-rank is 16x, Silver-rank 32x, and Gold-rank already has 64x."
Holding hands with the expressionless Unit 3, whose mood was unknown, Joshua surveyed the many game screens and murmured to himself: "But currently, there are no ordinary or Black Iron-rank players. Most of the invited players who joined are Silver and Gold-rank... but that's only the majority. Some Gold Peak and Ultimate-rank players also participated in the beta, and their mental acceleration is 128x!"
As he said this, Joshua tapped on a light screen hanging before him. It expanded, revealing a game screen accelerated over a hundred times.
To an ordinary person, such speed would be nothing but a constantly shifting patch of color, but to Joshua, it wasn't particularly fast.
He could see that the player was Joshua's friend, the adopted son of the Seven Gods' Pope Eagle, a Paladin named Loranda.
This Paladin, whose strength had reached Ultimate High-rank—just a step away from touching the Peak and beginning to look toward his Legendary path—had already chosen a race that had crossed the 'Spore' and 'Creature' stages to reach the third stage, 'Tribe.' It could be seen that the race he had designed resembled humans, with the innate trait of 'Mana Mastery.'
In the 'Spore' stage, Loranda had been lucky enough to obtain the rare Transcendent traits 'Advanced Mana Perception Component' and 'Half-Spirit Body.' This gave his cell a huge advantage when developing into the 'Creature' stage, allowing him to further strengthen the 'Mana Mastery' trait, making his race a 'Silver Wizard Race'—naturally capable of using mana and reaching Silver Low-rank upon adulthood.
Although the highest achievement in the game was a Gold-rank race that reached Gold-rank upon adulthood, a Silver-rank race was still one in a thousand, an extremely rare achievement. Developing a race to this level proved Loranda's careful management.
However, upon reaching the 'Tribe' stage, the meaning of 'Strife' in the game's title 'Continent of Strife' began to manifest. Joshua could see in the light screen that this wizard race, created by Loranda and naturally capable of controlling mana, was now experiencing internal conflict because the mana elements awakened by different families in the tribe were different. The entire tribe faced its first major internal contradiction and was on the verge of splitting.
Manifestation of Civilization's Strife!
The game character controlled by Loranda, the chieftain of the wizard race, saw a silver menu appear before him, confirming the arrival of the first large-scale conflict.
Different awakened mana elements—for the Mycroft World, with its developed Transcendent system, this was a trivial, everyday matter. Even between father and son, it wasn't 100% guaranteed that their elemental affinity would be the same. But for a primitive, ignorant race, the fact of 'difference' itself created immense conflict.
Human tribes could split over some raising sheep, some raising pigs, some farming crops, and some herding, even becoming sworn enemies. The otherworld was no exception. For the early stages of a Transcendent race, the naturally awakened element represented a kind of heritage. Different elements meant different heritages, naturally leading to major internal conflicts and splits.
Loranda, who had breezed through the 'Spore' and 'Creature' stages with confidence, was now frantically mediating, desperately trying to convince the representatives of each element to reconcile. But words were useless—because of the innate Half-Spirit Body, a wizard race member awakening fire element meant having half fire-element bloodline, while awakening water element meant having half water-element bloodline.
Different awakened Transcendent powers essentially created two nearly completely different 'races.' This contradiction couldn't be resolved with words. Fire and water elements had completely different living habits and environmental needs; they simply couldn't live together.
But Joshua wasn't worried that Loranda couldn't solve this—after all, Loranda had the backing of a civilization, the ancient Transcendent power system of the Mycroft World. There was no way he couldn't resolve this trivial tribal matter.
In fact, under 128x acceleration, Joshua could already see that after much deliberation, Loranda had finally thought of a solution.
Although a Paladin was a clergy member, Loranda, as a future Legendary heir, wasn't unfamiliar with mana. In the game, he carefully recalled a 'Universal Mana Meditation Method' and then, before the representatives of the six elements, directly declared at the altar: he confirmed to everyone that the so-called 'six elements' were merely extensions of 'Mana,' the fundamental force of the world. Regardless of the element, one needed mana as the foundation to grow stronger.
This speech and declaration established mana as the race's foundation, bridging the rift among the wizard race and averting this racial split. Similarly, it averted thousands of years of future conflict, aggression, and infighting among the six elemental races, which would have caused civilizational losses, and also avoided the civilization's eventual destruction from a 'Great Unification War.'
And so, just as the Paladin Loranda looked with satisfaction at the prompt: Civilization's Strife Averted!—
Deep within the Extreme Dark Abyss, at the heart of the Genesis Maelstrom, in Joshua's true body—the Silver Star World.
A 'Death Chaos,' piled within a crystal obelisk and constantly suppressed by Steel Force, suddenly became covered in dense cracks. Though it still appeared intact, its essence had been shattered, making it easy for Joshua's Steel Force to completely crush, absorb, and turn it into his own power.
Watching this scene, feeling a slight shift in the mental deviation value at his true body's location, Joshua couldn't help but smile within the Magic Net Main Server.
By resolving potential civilizational strifes through the game and its players, he was essentially helping to shatter the Death Evil God's imprints at his true body's location.
Originally, these memories weren't particularly strong or stubborn—just overwhelmingly numerous, forcing Joshua to exert all his strength to suppress them. If many game players helped him resolve the chaotic memories, accumulating small gains to accelerate his recovery, Joshua could correct his mental deviation value at a speed a hundred times faster than relying on himself alone.
After all, without the chaotic memories holding him back, relying on his own will to suppress his increasingly violent divine nature wouldn't be impossible—at the very least, it would be far easier than now.
"But it's not just that."
Lowering the light screen representing Loranda, Joshua turned to look at other screens, his expression calm.
"In the 'Civilization' stage after the 'Tribe' stage, players will face even more severe trials."
"Only by successfully passing that stage will the players' game progress significantly aid in repairing my condition—and it is also at that stage that they will gain 'benefits' far beyond their imagination."