Soul of Searing Steel

Light—a bud split from the World Will of the Bloodmoon Abyss that was left with Joshua was actually a single form and essentially the same existence as its main body. It could also be considered an observation terminal placed on the world of Mycroft, absorbing volumes of human knowledge and culture while staying beside Joshua.

It was usually a mascot that wafted around the Liege’s Residence, having an acceptable appearance by day but resembling a revenant flame night: one of the handmaids, spooked by Light as it wandered on the corridors in nighttime punched a hole into the walls accidentally—but after they familiarized themselves with it, they were all willing to buy magic crystal fragments and feed it as it passed by.

Though cute an and feels good to the touch, Light was still essentially a powerful World Will, and could well be considered an infant Steel Python of the Bloodmoon world that would birth in the future.

Its intelligence was naturally far beyond that of orthodox intelligent beings.

Joshua had naturally acknowledged the fact early one, which was why he had especially prepared many related texts about those topics, occasionally personally instructing it about actual Creation and biological alteration. After all, the Bloodmoon Abyss was a wasteland that could not be revived despite the Mother Lifetree given by the elves and the critters the warrior himself sent there—the Blood Moon must learn to create a complete ecosystem by itself to escape from the Abyss and be reborn as a real world.

Light even has its own spiritual terminal. Apart from discussing topics about Extraordinary power on the professional chatrooms, it even plays Fairy Cards: it was most adept at Priest decks, a 63.6% high win rate control deck that mainly relies on board clearing and powerful late-game minions.

Naturally, Light was also undoubtedly one of the closed beta players for Continental War.

Joshua naturally knew that Light did play the game, and that it had often reached the Fourth Phase, ‘War’: a testament to its advanced knowledge, big-picture view and social policy. Still, it would often fail in the Fourth Phase due to the lack of experience.

According to Joshua’s original concept, each phase of the Continental War has corresponding probing of knowledge and depth.

Spore, the First Phase tested players in terms of knowledge of basic lifeform attributes and their requirements, prompting them to consider the origins of their own race and civilization. Through building their own living species, it would help the player identify with their own race and establish a stronger foundation. It was a simple level too, since they just need to beware that their creature requires eat, sight, could flee and digest to clear that phase.

The Second Phase, Race, mainly examines the player’s comprehension about the needs of intelligent life. Most new players were eliminated here—they would ignore the balance in living designs out of factors such as grander appearance, stronger attack, greater survival ability or higher intelligence, creating a lethal vulnerability that Nature would eliminate them for.

The most important element of that phase was judgement and a clear mind: the players have to observe the world’s entire environment to study what race survives best in such a world. After all, a player in a desert world would never see its character rise to the shores, and could only move along the very difficult path of an aquatic civilization.

As for the Third Phase, Tribe, the player’s mind for the big picture, and understanding about society and the innate desires of life would be tested—many were found wanting. At that level, players have to think not merely about the individual they controlled, but plan for the future of the entire race. It studies the players’ thinking in every aspect, their skills at problem solving. Even if it remains difficult for those with vast knowledge and clear mind, it was not too hard either… should they fail, they would only have to play a few more times to understand it.

Because each race, planet, topography and genetic components obtained from the First Phase was different in each playthrough, each new game was basically a brand-new challenge. Players who could clear it by a hundred percent were elites, and they would not have to cultivate some Extraordinary power to become a great talent in the real world.

Nevertheless, Civilization—the Fourth Phase would not only examine big-picture thinking, resource management, tactics and worldwide society planning, but also whether there had been issues in the several phases. That includes fundamental physical defects such as lowered fertility caused in the First and Second Phases, and the societal conflicts resolves in the Third. All those factors would decide whether world and civilization could be unified into a singular form in the Fourth Phase.

Naturally, there was an even more important facet aside from all that—the players were also tested in battle and command. Those who only know how to manage and not fight would only draw entrenched hatred at the Fourth Phase and find a bitter end. After all, those that could not endure the flames of war and counter threats are not civilizations, but a malformed, oversized infant that had been kept only in incubators.

That was the quiet intention Joshua hinted through Continental War.

For its part, Light had developed a set of unique logic and management plans after the early trials and errors, which was why it never errs from the First to Fourth Phases, unifying civilization perfectly into the Fourth Phase.

That was where the problem existed.

Light did not know how to fight at all.

It was very poor at both controlling its forces and fighting by itself, and its own unique made it impossible to import human fighting techniques, which left it only able to use few even if it knew many. Since the player was clueless about conflict, it was also why that Light’s species were often excessively docile creatures that felt no threat or alarm in the face of war.

For example, the species Joshua saw Light use last time was still comfortably stretching out its roots and leaves while Otherworld Chaos forces invaded, uncaring at all about the enemy’s presence… Naturally, that race which have no army, fortress, technology that had nothing to do with war was at once destroyed, a scenario that played out over a dozen times.

And yet, Light’s species could actually clear the Fourth Phase, and the instance dungeon of the Fifth?

Diving into the Mana Net in spirit, Joshua retraced Light’s game footage and records, curious about how it had cleared the game.

Massive stores of data turned into surges of data, a typhoon of information where normal humans would have become lost in early on. On the other hand, the warrior was not affected at all, given that his spirit deviation rate could only be barely suppressed by the main Mana Net server along with the client servers across the Mycroft continent, not to mention that the data flow of Continental War was made by his own design.

Hence, ins seconds, Joshua cleared past layers of locks to obtain Light’s most recent footage of clearing the game.

In the real world, Zero Three noticed that Joshua’s expression became rigid.

“What happened, Joshua?” She turned to ask curiously. “Another demon being stupid and provoking other crew again? I suggest just let them all go free, spares the trouble…”

“…No.”

Joshua’s expression recovered and he exhaled. “It’s just… I may have seen the birth of mild demons…”

***

A gameplay footage of Continental War in the Mana Net.

A little cell could be seen wafting and flowing along a warm oceanic planet. It was not an element, nor did it possess psionic, ether or any affinity to other supernatural powers. It was a normal cell—if one were to point out something special about it, it was probably its species as a fungus.

Without the mobility of an ordinary cell nor the ability to carry out photosynthesis like planet cells to produce organic matter, Light’s cell could only move along the ocean’s flow. If its luck holds, it would gain some wafting nutrients to split itself and reproduce, but if its luck does not hold, excessive hunger would force the cells to digest and disintegrate its own kind… The days reliant on fortune and flowing along the sea lasted a long time, until one day, the fungus that Light controlled latched on to a large multicellular organism.

It was a large chunk of primitive underwater sponges and reefs—when most of other players’ creatures had evolved, the cells that Light had controlled was still at its fundamental state. However, when they landed on the veins of sponges and reefs.

For Light, the game had just begun.

Joshua solemnly watched the gameplay that had been accelerated over hundreds of times, and could clearly see Light’s fungal species staying in the gentle sponges and reefs. It hunted, absorbed and digested other multicellular forms, and slowly consumed the sponges and reefs itself. For the sponges that reacted extremely slowly and was completely reliant on the sea’s flow for nutrients and oxygen, they never realized that they were being consumed by those unusual fungi. Moreover, its instinctive retaliation was insignificant to Light since it had obtained much genetic components through hunting and parasitism.