Soul of Searing Steel

Joshua stopped recalling his visit to Fairyland.

If he was being honest, although the Fairy Queens appear carefree, they were essentially reliable Legendary champions. They had stood vigil in the Void beyond the world, keeping alert of any possible Void calamities or invading behemoths. Moreover, if the day comes that Evil Gods or Void Behemoths would come and attack the world of Mycroft, Fairyland would be the frontlines where the champions would repel the Chaos.

Seated in a chair within his own study, Joshua breathed out once, realizing that things had become simpler after the main body of the Black Fog was handled.

Firstly, the Imperial External Exploration Department no longer had to worry about being wiped out by pockets of Black Fog, just as mages would not have to carefully advance invaluable worlds, accelerating the process of exploration.

On another note, Mycroft’s forces had previously considered the Ancient Dragon of Kronos as part of the resistance against the Black Fog, but the creature had stayed on Kronos since it was unable to leave it. Still, after it learned that the Black Fog was sealed and being slowly disposed of, it was finally willing to cooperate further with humans, granting some of its blood for research by the Royal Mage Guild, the Skypiercing White Tower, and other organizations.

“Bizarre. Everyone’s willing to experiment with Ancient Dragon Bloodline, but not willing to accept my modifications?”

Joshua’s could not help feeling annoyed each time he remembered that—after learning that the Ancient Dragon of Lightning was willing to publicize the Ancient Dragon Bloodlines, basically all combat-class adventurers and spellcaster who had some ability and various kinds of links were prepared to try their luck on Kronos. At the same time, while the warrior’s skill at human modification improved, rumors out of nowhere prevented most from joining the Winter Fort Academy and his newly established ‘Human Development Group’ to try the latest in human modifications.

They were both clear bloodline alterations to attain supernatural powers—how different were Ancient Dragons and Void Behemoths, after all? Stabbing Ancient Dragon blood into your body is identical as stabbing Void Behemoth flesh in yourself!

Apart from that aspect which left Joshua rather confused, Kronos was now rapidly recovering.

According to the Drakonid girl Lisa who had returned briefly for a visit, her homeworld had obtained rich water resources after Kronos was connected to an aquatic world through a semi-permanent portal. With the Drakonids’ diligence and some insignificant help from the Ancient Dragon, they managed to develop a piece of land that was as vast as the Mountains of God out in the Desert of God, while the rich water source formed a huge lake.

The lake was named the ‘Three Saints Lake’ for its triangle shape and to celebrate Joshua, Barnil, and William—three Legendary champions from Mycroft that had once aided them in a dire time. Now, apart from the religion of the dragon god, local Drakonids had also started to have started early religions of the three saints, prompting migraines in the observing mages who were unsure if they should interfere.

Leaving aside those frivolities, Kronos was now virtually filled with anonymous champions from Mycroft. Although the local Drakonids were unaware, according to Syndicate and Lisa who were both there, they were essentially seeing a few human champions disguising themselves as Drakonids every day. Joshua believed that such interference would quickly be stopped by various factions, since while the Drakonids were a talented species, humans had not decided if they should be accepted into their ranks for now. After all, the world of Mycroft itself had long been affected by demon invasions, and the recent Berserker Dragon Plague had left their mindset rather resistant. Otherworld beings, or exchange students such as Lisa were probably their limit—indeed, if the Ancient Dragon did not assume most of the cost for its world’s portal, most would probably not have made the effort to alter Kronos.

One way or the other, the wastelands of Kronos was slowly recovering into a normal continental world. With the help of Legendary champions and the Ancient Dragon, Joshua guessed that it would be twenty years as the world regains a complete natural cycle.

When that time comes, the rebirth of its World Will might not be an issue.

That being said, the change on Kronos was simply insignificant when compared to the Bloodmoon Abyss.

The relic of the former world of Xillia and the present day Bloodmoon Abyss—the living luminous body and main form of Light, had also learned that the Black Fog was completely destroyed. In that very moment, a massive energy reverberation occurred throughout the entire Abyss.

Those were long stifled grudges, regret, vengeance, torment and finally, cries of relief.

The Black Fog had invaded innumerable worlds just as they deceptively fooled countless races. Even demons had been seduced by it, acting as their vanguard that invades other worlds. Be that as it may, no world had such despair and trusting of outside worlds like Xillia—as their sun gradually extinguished, all the sages had meditated for centuries but to no avail. Even the Ring Worlds formed by combining all islands could not gain them more light or heat.

The malicious suggestion by the Black Fog had been their single straw to grasp for salvation. They had obediently carried out all the rituals and thus simply destroying themselves and their world, turning them all into a spherical sea of energy.

The mistake of the weak is not in trusting the powerful who holds sinister intents, but in their choiceless state.

At the time, Joshua consoled the ‘crying’ Light, although he believed that it would not have been unusual for Xillia to become an Evil God with its fate. Even so, when he watched Light wafting amidst the ocean of blood, he sighed inwardly.

If not for a series of coincidences… who could tell for sure that Light would not have become an Evil God?

If Mandagar the Undead Dragon had successfully completed the cursed ritual and rise as a Legend through the Chaotic powers of the Abyss, it would have corrupted the Blood Moon, and Light would have turned into an Evil God after being infected by Chaos instead of the Star of Fusion’s power. The entire Bloodmoon Abyss would thus become the egg of an Evil God, and when the dominator that could control all things in that world was born from the Blood Moon, a new Evil God would have arisen.

It was fortunate that things did not come to the worst outcome. At present, Light was not some Evil God initiate, but the shape of a newborn world.

There was no question that news of the Black Fog’s demise greatly accelerated Light’s maturing. The luminous lifeform at the depths of the Blood Moon had now appeared to be freed from some shackle and began to grow swiftly—with the continent and Sanguine World Tree Joshua gifted him, it was now absorbing and swiftly expanding the mass of the entire continent through gravity, appearing intent on building a new world in the air.

Its color was also slowly changing—the moon that was once the hue of fresh blood had now become clear, and Joshua believed that the Blood Moon would soon be a history in months, when a poor but brand-new aerial continent takes shape.

“The Black Fog had taken the destruction of Evil Gods as its duty… but such destruction protects nothing, instead growing more tragedies, sadness, and many more Evil Gods.”

Joshua could not help being left emotional as he stood beside the window of his study. There had been such an insignificant line between that outline of a new world and an Evil God that he himself was not sure. He wondered what fate the Bloodmoon Abyss would have tp face if he was defeated.

At the thought, the warrior looked down at the courtyard to find Black slacking again. She was carrying Light on her head and sleeping under a tree shade, her mouth open, drool gushing forth as it burned the plants beneath the tree. However, the maidservant in charge appeared to have handled many such situations—composedly, she took out a handkerchief sewn from Frost Grass, wiping off Black’s drooling before closing her mouth. At the same time, Light jingled happily and sprayed a jet of water on the burning ground, with the maidservant instructing it to turn and douse the other fires as well.

Joshua turned and returned to his chair. His body inside Mycroft was a normal clone used for interacting daily with Ying and Ling, as well as urging Black to train. His true form was still wandering by itself in the Void, absorbing volumes of Steel Particles to fill itself.

The Fairy Queens did not reveal many details about building worlds, but those mere clues they gave was enough for Joshua to make guesses.

“A complete world should include most or all supernatural powers—or at least as many as I know.”

Joshua closed his eyes and meditated.

Elements, magic, ether and psionic were the basic, not to mention aura, Steel Strength, runic and lifeforce. Reasonably, a complete world should contain the ‘possibility’ of all Extraordinary powers, even including brand new powers that had yet formed as a base.

Joshua imagined that he would first be drawing the blueprints for ‘Perfect Base Form’, and then calibrate the world inside his body intrinsically—his recent tasks would generally be these. Naturally, apart from that, he still has to adjust his own mental algorithm so that it was closer to his status as a ‘world’.

The so-called mental algorithm was simply another name for mental logic. Everyone in the world has different logic, even those remarkably identical, the closest of friends would process information different in their minds.

That difference had led to a massive cultural schism in ancient times. A hundred miles meant a wall that reaches to the skies and no normal person could bypass, solely because of variety in text and language. Humans with different culture and tongue are also born with contrasting mental logics, which was why cultural assimilation takes decades, even centuries.

Nonetheless, that fundamental difference was basically swept away by Basic and the Seven Gods religion. With one language and one religion, as well as a standard algorithm passed down by the Seven Gods, Mycroft began to move towards unification. While that sounded unimpressive, it was a vital progress since most primitive mental logic was now reshaped by the sparks of civilizations.

Without barriers to interaction, the spark of inspiration would thus dance.

But that alone was not enough. Nostradamus, Israel, and the others move to ‘free the minds of the people’ and popularize schools was actually a move to improve the citizens’ mental algorithm on all aspects.

As an example, if the human thought was like a magical machine that undergoes data input and output, the prolonged stream of data would naturally lead to the system being unable to understand special, incomprehensive data with its present data. In that case, it would cause an error known as ‘incomprehensible doubt.”

How should that error be solved?

The most primitive mental logic chose to apply methods such as ‘religion’, ‘god’ and ‘unknown’ to handle ‘incomprehensible doubts’. It was simple, plain, and quickly ignores the special data that causes the error, in turn continuing various more vital tasks such as ‘hunting’ and ‘harvesting’.

However, as civilization and individual ability progress, along with the reduced urgency for human survival, the human mental algorithm would undoubtedly develop as well.

One such progress was the ‘rational thinking algorithm’ proposed by mages: to discover, define, consider, analyzed, verify and solve an issue. The modern way of thinking hence would not simply ignore the ‘incomprehensible doubt’, but use various mathematics, standards, repeatable and conclusive methods to observe, verify and examine all questions across the world, in turn dissecting fundamental principles within to direct change ‘incomprehensible doubt’ into ‘understandable answers’.

Unquestionably, such a mental algorithm is absolutely more effective and correct than primitive thinking, as well as leading humans to progress.

Such was the essence of ‘science’ and development. It exists in any world, whether if there was magic, aura or Holy Light within for science was not a form or idol to be worshipped, but a modern, rational mental algorithm.

It could even be said that science might not be the correct way of thinking, but even so, there is no uncertainty that it is fitting for humans of his era.

Nevertheless, it was outdated for Joshua as he was at present, for in his true form contained the shape of a world.

It was correct for normal humans to have to learn and improve by studying the world, but Joshua was now no longer human. He was so powerful that he could directly create illogical, special substances inside himself, just as he no longer had to observe, only ‘verify’ and ‘think’.

From a certain point of view, the existence of Steel Pythons—a being that normal humans simply could not see or observe was much closer to his existence at present.

That was why Joshua must slowly change his way of thought: so that it was closer to his present status, a process every Legendary champion have to go through, just like the Pope himself. Being a living body of light, he had to be completely different from normal in thought and needs. That was the same for the Nature’s Magister, an incarnation of ecosphere who would definitely have a more profound opinion of nature than the elves, or at least those who believe nature merely meant primordial forests.

It was a necessary process.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, as Joshua slowly and delicately adjusted his way of thought, five pale-blue dimensional ripples abruptly appeared in the air on the edge of one of the galaxy’s spiral arm.

Five figures hence fell from the skies several thousand meters above ground, while screams akin to that from a pig being gutted resounded amidst the skies.

“Aaaaaargh! What’s going on—how die we teleport the wrong place again?!”