Soul of Searing Steel

When he woke up again, all was still darkness around Priest. He subconsciously tried to observe what was going on around him, but he soon realized that he could only faintly observe that there was no light in front of him, and he seemed to have no limbs, only several uncontrollable flagella that flicked instinctively, drawing himself forward.

I… am a cell?!

Being an elite after all, Priest quickly realized that his present from was very similar to the appearance of the cell he had set… No, similar was incorrect—he had completely turned into the cell he himself had set!

Left dumbstruck briefly, a memory that had been stored in the depths of his mind surfaced.

[‘Element-friendly cell’. You are the most ordinary of primitive unicellular creatures of the virgin sea. You have nothing other than fundamental living systems now.]

[And so, to survive while passing your genes to the future, you have decided to seize the basic components of other stronger genes, arming yourself to become the most powerful of the virgin seas.]

[But remember—compared to ‘becoming powerful, the most basic objective of life is to ‘survive’. ‘Element-friendly cell’, how long does your path extends? Could you triumph over the hostile environments of the virgin sea and survive with ease, empowering your descendants and helping them flourish?’]

After that were voluminous information about rules, and Priest understood how the game was played after reading through and keeping them in mind.

Continental War was split into five phases, the first stage which was called ‘Spore’ was a cellular phase where he controlled a unicellular organism to search for food in the dark virgin seas, seizing genetic components to keep empowering himself. Then, after growing to a certain stage, the Spore phase would end as he enters the next phase, which was called creature.

Though he did not know what the next phase actually was about, the Spore phase was very simple: control a cell, find food to strengthen yourself, attack other cells and obtain genetic parts to arm yourself, before attacking even more powerful cells for stronger gene parts… each part would give him different abilities, with innateness-friendly parts especially strengthening and granting him greater attack.

“Heh. Quite interesting!”

While Priest found the gameplay rather unrelated with the so-called Continental War and that the title could be merely a cover, he was still thrilled in anticipation of hunting other cells to raise his own cellular force by hunting other cells.

In the end, was that not simply hunting? It was not an unfamiliar word for Priest who was one who came from the southern fortress chains of the Empire: there is always a bigger fish, nothing complicated.

As the memories dispersed and the game truly began, Priest remained aware that an hour in-game was less than a minute outside since his Gold-ability supports 64 times spirit acceleration, and he had all the time to try.

In the dark virgin sea and its warm undercurrents, the heated minerals ejected out from the depths of the planet’s core reacted significantly to burning magma, creating substantial white organic particles. Countless unusual forms of unicellular beings hence filled the seas that were full of food, wafting and evolving.

Priest controlled his cellular form and swam excitedly in the dark seas. After consuming several white particles that were floating around in the sea—in other words, organic food, Priest’s size doubled, when its yet underdeveloped photosensitive organ sensed that several cells that had ‘special genetic components’ were resting in one of the stone gaps ahead.

The silver menus showed that those cells did have the ‘advanced photosensitive part’ that Priest wanted the most at the moment. Having endured the agony of limited vision, ignorant of food even as it wafted in front of him, there was no question that he those components were necessary for him—even so, it would not be easy to obtain those parts since the cells that had been hiding in the gaps sensed his arrival since they possessed stronger senses. Ever prudent, they would flee whenever Priest approached.

Given that their flagella and level were almost the same and having almost identical speed, once they ran off, Priest would never catch up despite his size.

***

Meanwhile, as Priest schemed ambushes for rare gene components in the dark sea, Joshua and Zero Three were standing in front of countless virtual screens at the depths of the main Mana Net server.

Amidst boundless data flow, both of them carefully studied every beta-tester’s state in real time.

“Looks like only some would try that game which popped up mysteriously, and even less would really start it.”

Joshua’s data projection held Zero Three’s hand as both looked around at every screen. The warrior was not angered that only four to five thousand out of more than fifty thousand closed-beta tester accounts were used, appearing satisfied instead. “It’s really normal, and it’s good to be prudent.”

“But those who join afterward would regret being late in joining ‘Continental War’.”

As he spoke, Joshua felt Zero Three clench his hand. It meant that his connection to the main Mana Net server was a portion stronger, allowing the warrior to continue normal interaction despite his spirit deviation rate that exceeded 90%.

The namesake of [Continental War] was the game Joshua played in his past life. It was chosen over both nostalgia and in memory of his time back on earth, which remarkably fits the essence of the ‘game’ that Joshua designed.

The game mode which had been dubbed ‘War’ was fundamentally a vast digital space system he created with the other Legendary champions in the Mana Net within the last ten days when he returned to the Mycroft continent. Though called a game, its core was profoundly connected to Joshua’s processing array.

William the Mind Lord designed the full-dive hypnosis spell for the game, drawing examples from the many game modules inside the warrior’s memory. His partner, Barnil the Rune Master used deft runic techniques to augment the modules into Mana Net, and created a complete game framework through the processing capacity Joshua provided. As for Barbarossa and Lothram the Unnamed Technician, both men conceptualized a ‘mind accelerator’ spirit rune module, while Vahina the Sage of the Oceans, who used psionic power to bind Joshua’s processing array inside his silver world and the main Mana Net server from across the Void.

Aside from that, there were many other miscellaneous aspects such as game system, UI design, gameplay, and programming—troublesome and important work, but given that the one who put in the request was Joshua, every Legendary champion and skilled person in related fields were basically willing to give face to the warrior who had saved the entire galaxy.

It was thanks to those technicians and many Legends who worked overtime day and night, even using mind acceleration themselves to hasten their work progress—the shell of Continental War would not have been completed in ten days otherwise.

Its actual effect also proved to be very complete. While it was presently at a beta testing phase, both gameplay and systemic programming for Continent War were already accomplished. The processing array that Joshua himself provided hence acted as a server, and it was enough to support the Massively Multiplayer Online game of up to dozens of thousands of players.

“Mortals without superpowers could endure 8 times mind acceleration, 16 for Iron, 32 for Silver and already 64 for Gold.”

Linking hands with the expressionless and impassive Zero Three while looking at the many in-game screens around them, Joshua said softly, “However, there are no mortals and Iron-class presently—most who were invited and joined the game are Silver and Gold… but that’s most. There are some Gold-pinnacle and Supreme-tier players who joined the beta as well, and their mind acceleration is 128 times!”

With those words, Joshua selected one of the screens in front of him and enlarged it, displaying the game and presenting the game scene that was accelerated over a hundred times.

For mortals, such framerates would appear to be a pile of colors that shifted incessantly, but it was not slow to Joshua.

The player shown incidentally was Roland, Holy Knight, godson of Igor the Seven Gods Pontiff and a friend of Joshua’s.

The Holy Knight’s ability had risen swiftly to Supreme-advance, almost reaching pinnacle and was already prospecting his Legend path. His chosen race has surpassed the phases of ‘Spore’ and ‘Creature’, arriving at the third phase, ‘Tribe’. The appearance of the race he chose was a humanoid with ‘mana mastery’ as his innate talent.

At his ‘Spore’ phase, Roland at the fortune to obtain an SSR Extraordinary attribute such as ‘Advanced Mana Perception Component’ and ‘Half-Spirit Form’. This allowed him great advantage when his cell was developing at Creature phase, hence strengthening his mana mastery talent and granting his race the capacity to use mana at birth, becoming a ‘silver sorcerer race’ that possess early silver abilities once they reach adulthood.

While the highest-level set in the game was a Golden race that develop into Gold-tier on maturity, there were rarely any Silver race either. Roland’s ability to develop to race up to such level made evident his focus in management.

Nevertheless, it was during the Tribal phase that the ‘War’ in the title Continental War presents its meaning. Joshua could see from the screen that the sorcerer race created by Roland was in utter conflict due to the mana of different elements that they were born with and awakened to. For the first time, the different clans of the tribe descended into a grand civil standoff and were about split apart.

[War of Civilizations given form!]

A silver menu hence appeared in front of the tribal sorcerer leader—Roland’s game character, making it evident that a great clash was coming.

With its developed system of Extraordinary powers, being born and awakening to different mana elements was a normal frivolity for the Mycroft world, s. Not even father and son had hundred percent assurance of identical elemental affinity, but for an ignorant primitive tribe, ‘difference’ itself was a great cause of conflict.

Human tribes would even drift apart simply due to some growing different life stock or crops, with grudges festering into deadly rivalry. Otherworlds are no exception, and in the early days of Extraordinary races, innately awakened elements symbolized a form of legacy—different elements meant different legacies, which naturally leads to severe inner conflict and schism. 

Roland, who was completely confident and had easily cleared the ‘Spore’ and ‘Creature’ phases was now racking his mind and adjusting, trying his best to convince each agent of different elements to enter a truce. Words, however, proved meaningless—born as half-spirits, the sorcerers would have half-fire element bloodline if they awakened the flame element, or half-water if they awakened the water element.

The dissimilarity in awakened Extraordinary power would basically create two completely different races. It was a conflict that could not be pacified with words since the living habits and environments fire elementals and water elementals required were different, preventing them from ever living together.

Still, Roland was not worried that Roland could not resolve that problem—he ultimately had one civilization and Mycroft world’s long-term Extraordinary power system as his backup, and there was no reason he could not handle a small primitive tribal matter.

In truth, with 128 times acceleration, he saw that Roland finally thought of a solution after pondering deeply.

Roland, a future Legendary heir was not actually ignorant about magical power despite being a clergy. He carefully recalled the in-game article ‘Complete Mana Meditation’, and made his proclamation before the agents of the six elements before the shrine, acknowledging before everyone that the so-called ‘six elements’ were merely an extension of the fundamental worldly force known as mana. All elements required mana as base to be empowered.

The speech and proclamation ascertained that magical energy was the root of races, healing the rift between the sorcerer factions and avoiding tribal schism. Likewise, after escaping a mutual slaughter and invasion between the six element tribes that would delay and hurt civilization, the outcome of their world’s demise from ‘Great Unification War’ was also staved off.

Thus, Roland the Holy Knight stared contentedly at the notification that [War between civilizations was avoided!], dense veins of cracks appeared over a crystal obelisk in the Darkest Abyss.

***

The obelisk was inside the Silver star—Joshua’s true form that still lingers in the depths of the Vortex of Creation. Within it, ‘Death’s Chaos’ was piling, but was suppressed by Steel Strength at every single moment. Though it appeared to be in one piece, its essence has collapsed and could easily be crushed by Joshua’s Steel Strength and absorbed, turned into his own power.

Watching as that scene unfolded and feeling the spirit deviation rate in his body shifting ever slightly, Joshua could not help grinning in the main Mana Net server.

Resolving possible [Wars of Civilizations] through the game and its players was equal to helping Joshua destroy the Marks of the Evil God of Death inside his body.

Those memories were not that powerful and tough. However, its sheer number was too great that Joshua could not suppress it without using his full power—but with the players helping him get rid of Chaos memories bit by bit, his healing would quicken, and the warrior could correct his spirit deviation rate over a hundred times faster.

After all, without the restraint of Chaos memories, it was not impossible for Joshua to hold back his ever-violent divinity—at least, it would be much easier and relaxed than it had been now.

“And that’s not all.”

Lowering Roland’s screen, Joshua turned to other screens, his expression calm.

“Players would face a more challenging test in the ‘Civilization’ phase that follows after Tribe.”

“It is only by clearing that phase that the player’s game progress would have clear restoration function for my situation—it’s also the phase that where they would obtain ‘benefits’ far surpassing their imagination.”