Soul of Searing Steel

In less than a week, almost all of the Mana Net forums were filled with discussion posts and topics about Continental War.

Though the total number of players did not surpass thirty thousand even now, the test players who Joshua had chosen were—aside from acquaintances, active users of Mana Net. Compared to the laymen, those users clearly had free time and enjoyed using the spirit terminal, and hold slight influence on various influence.

Use of the convenient tool that was the spirit terminal became common because of the policy in various nations, but given that it required spiritual powers to activate, those who use it were often Extraordinary individuals who had certain ability. Most of them in turn had cleared past the second phase to the Tribal, the third phase—with some playing several occasions and entered Civilization, the fourth phase after gaining experience, more or less obtaining rewards in strength and skill.

And that was also why Continental War was such as hotly trending topic—that aspect alone was enough to leave every player crazed over it, and discuss it far and wide.

Presently, in the Liege Residence of Moldavia, Ling was sitting on the hall’s couch and staring solemnly at the screen in front of him—with his high clearance level management, he was simultaneously browsing several Mana Net forums affiliated to the Winter Fort Academy.

It was naturally filled with discussion posts about Continental War as well, with some even paying to purchase a forum board authorization to directly create the ‘Continental War discussion board’, compiling most of the topics.

And amongst them were many students who received the test player clearance that Joshua sent out, and was using text livestream to broadcast their gameplay in Continental War.

[Combat report: Continental War, second phase—the hard path to survival for Ice Elementals]—Frost Archer

[Combat report: Humanoid Creature difficulty—opening difficulty of Hell Desert, encountered Epic-tier creature, cleared up to the third phase!]—Safari Bear

[Dear all, who could tell me which race is the best? Choosing is so difficult, gaaaaah]—Bloodlust Keen Edge

[Detail explanation of advantage and disadvantage of starting in different type worlds, presently includes continental realms, oceanic realms, forest worlds…]—First Party

***

In the board, apart from the typical user skill and question posts, there were naturally many frivolous posts and meme posts that compiled materials over multiple livestreams. Ling’s task was to hence delete all those meaningless posts from various forums and keep the board clean.

With a grim face, the black-haired youth picked out and deleted provoking or bragging posts such as ‘Betrayed Elementals, long live Physicals!’, ‘Why people like playing humanoids’ and ‘look at my character creation—cute, right? (contains substantial SSR gene parts)’. Beside Ling, Ying was tying her own hair and humming a tune why browsing through each trending posts on the screen.

[Bing Bam Boom—the journey of an Elite Slime’s civilization (updated to fourth phase, Civilization)]

Though there was no stopping halfway with a game like Continental War, players could make a post and broadcast themselves live in-game, something which a poster from Winter Fort Academy found out on the second day the game went live: when he entered the game for the second time and waited for his assigned instance dungeon to load, he reflexively requested to enter the forums on his spirit terminal. He at first, thought that he would be declined, but it turned out that he managed to get in and create posts as usual.

Of course, given that his mind had been accelerated over dozens of times, the livestreams tended to end in a dozen minutes. Those who crated posts would not have the time to wait for others to reply or ask a question so that the others on the forum could help brainstorm about solving civilization issues… otherwise, the game’s difficulty would have lowered considerably.

The post Ying was watching was a livestream post that a veteran user from the Winter Fort Academy had created. The person in question did not spend much time playing the game daily but cleared it steadily, pausing after finishing its phase to collect data, waited until preparations were complete and their mind cleared to continue the next day.

There was no question that it was the correct playstyle. Now, the Elite Slime they were controlling—a morphing creature had successfully reached civilization phase, and was now fighting otherworld Chaos Legions over dimensional rifts, even securing an advantage at present.

With multiple uploads over the days, there were many discussions playing out beneath the livestream post.

“Heavens. Never thought that Slimes are actually so powerful today. They adapt to almost all regions apart from desert landscapes, actually turning into Magma Slimes in lava zones!”

“It’s a new idea: giving up on developing natural abilities to focus on fertility and adaptability, promoting the best Elite Slimes to lead the civilization and simultaneously focus on developing magical technology, ensuring that even fallen Slimes would have some combat capacity after being armed… OP here has a clear mind, ensuring that their civilization would at once have lower-level combat power, and that there would be no lack of advanced combat capacity either!”

“OP, why does the thing you call Magma Slime resemble a balrog? I encountered some when I went to the Abyss sometime ago, and they are almost identical to the Magma Slimes apart from being a little white!”

“Does anyone notice it? OP is definitely a Gold-tier champion IRL! I’ve seen the replay where they controlled airborne Thunder Slime troops to attack Chaos Legions over a dozen times—that thunderspark ability is great!”

“You’re new here, huh? Who doesn’t know that Bing Bam Boom is a graduated senior girl in your academy? She must be a Gold-tier elite!”

“Senior? A girl? Why would a lass like something such as a Slime…”

***

Apart from the Drakonid girls’ livestream, many other acquaintances were also making real time broadcast in the forums, such as the balrog’s [Desert world opening—Hard difficulty, Drakonid survival (cleared to third phase)] , the First Party’s five person-group joint broadcast of gameplay on a similar race and world. Amongst them, a certain pair of siblings and a certain prince had failed at the third phase, their game over and could only continue tomorrow, while a certain atomic mage and a certain dwarven chef had reached the fourth phase and were fully focused on combat.

Compare to Ling who followed his prim instincts to wildly delete posts, Ying was more focused on the popularity gained and the activity levels from the various forums. As the silver-haired girl read through the posts, she would pay close attention data to the Mana Net server.

It was now the seventh day since the game test servers opened. There is now a total of thirty-eight thousand players in Continental War including nine thousand and six hundred users today—many had ended the game with the mind acceleration, only able to wander the forums and watch others’ livestreams to rid the itch to play.

There were not players many in the game, but it was not unusual that the topic was trending. The Mycroft continent was lacking in entertainment, and while Fairy Cards could curb boredom, the gameplay leans towards elitism and payment of actual money. As for Continental War, which requires a spirit terminal and beta testing clearance, it appeared much more fun than the card game on the surface.

Furthermore, many players revealed that there would be some rewards of power and legacies when the dungeons were cleared to a certain level. The fact that one could strengthen themselves by playing a game that unquestionably attracting much attention, especially with how no one had cleared the game to the fourth phase to reach the fifth phase, much less complete the game.

The fourth phase rewards—even incomplete, included a free legacy gift ranging from Silver to Gold. If that was the case, what would the rewards be from actually clearing the fourth phase and the yet unknown fifth phase? Everyone from players to audiences held great expectations.

Furthermore, the style of play for Continental War was not merely the usual topic on typical Mana Net forums. In private, encrypted channels, regional nobles and powerful champions were also obsessed with it.

Secret forums where no one would speak over one or two months and mostly silent—people were beginning to discuss the game, whether it was the Book Buddhas’ Eastern Plains advanced mage research guild, the West Mountain’s Psionic Royal Houses’ insider forum and the Northern Empire’s royal guests’ channel.

“It feels like there’s a deeper meaning to the Continental War that Count Radcliffe designed. Is he hoping to use that form of entertainment to describe the rise and fall of civilizations, and spread awareness about being vigilant against the Chaos?”

“That power feedback system… how interesting. How did he make it?”

“That’s definitely his private gains, otherworld legacies he is discreetly handing to us through the game… how selfless.”

“I have the luck to obtain beta test clearance. It’s not difficult to get into this game—it’s even easy. The gameplay is simple but not lacking in challenge, and it tests the players’ long-term view and strategic thinking. If I could, I would really have my kid train a few dozen times in there and train some mind muscle!”

“The game is currently in a closed testing phase and lacks in availability. It’s a pity, looks like we have to wait until the public testing phase if we want to really experience it ourselves.”

Although there are some authorities who held slight disgruntlement about Continental War, they believe Joshua should not publicize so much knowledge and thinking to peasants, placing it all in the game. But with the warrior’s power, they would not even dare to say anything even on the encrypted Mana Net forums. After all, it was no secret that the Radcliffe family had an artificial Intelligence who could connect to the main Mana Net server and possess the highest clearance. If that man ever learned of their secret mumblings, a single punch would send them on their way to purgatory, their souls walking together hand in hand.

Even if the peasants would gain the strategic perspective of authorities, see through the meaning behind most policies while gaining Extraordinary legacies from the game, they were far from equals to true rulers when it came to depth, and would not threaten them for the short term.

In cliques of Supreme-tier individuals or above, there are those including Roland the Holy Knight and Brandon the Swordsman who obtained closed testing appearance. Most of them managed to clear the game up to the fourth phase through their great experience and rich knowledge, but until now none could beat the three-pronged assault from the otherworld Chaos Legions to reach the fifth phase.

Such was Mycroft’s feedback towards Continental War this week. Setting apart its wild popularity, it gained great reputation amongst the right circles—even those who had not played it indicated they wanted to join after watching the livestreams, and would certainly try once the public testing goes live.

Joshua was naturally was very pleased in return: the more players there were, the quicker he would manage to suppress Chaos. If possible, he truly hoped that every person on Mycroft would play, and he even intended to bring it to other worlds if not for technical difficulties.

Presently, Joshua was sunbathing in the backyard of his residence, while Zero Three sat on his shoulder, her eyes closed as she fixed little errors on the Mana Net servers.

Not far from them, a black dragon girl lay sprawled on the ground, her eyes tightening into ‘X’ shapes, her tongue protruding while she panted as if half dead.

“Master—”

She cried out, almost wailing. “This game is so difficult… I can’t clear the second phase no matter how I played it—”

“…Embarrassing. Don’t call yourself my mount next time when you go out!”

When he heard those words, Joshua, whose spirit deviation rate had stabilized as his Chaos memories crumbled away made a dark face… he had done his best to design the first two phases so that it was simple enough for even mortals without Extraordinary knowledge. The warrior really could not fathom how Black could not even move past the Creature phase after playing for so long!

“Sobs. No, Master!”

The black dragon girl leaped up at once and hurried to Joshua, tugging his hand and swinging it. “Can you teach me some little trick…”

“…Both Light and Zero One already reached the fourth phase. I really don’t know how your brain came to be, Black.”

Sighing, Joshua could only put a hand only Black’s head. “Relax a little. Let me see what weird creature you’ve actually made that you can’t even beat phase two.”

At the moment, Joshua could not leave Mycroft and simply pick fights due to the backlash after suppressing the Evil God of Death. It was a rare occasion where he remained in his own domain, playing around with the others in his residence while reminding everyone to keep training. He would also get everyone to try playing Continental War, aiding him in clearing Chaos memories while helping them obtain powers as rewards.

Furthermore, it was not actually noteworthy that both Joshua and Zero Three were the players who could clear entire phases to reach the fifth phase… it was not that they were formidable in gaming, but because they had designed the game itself, and have a plan in place on how they should clear it.

Next to them was Ling—the civilization of silicon-based creatures that he played had defeated two of the otherworld Chaos Legions, but the third managed to crush his rear perimeters, regretfully ending the game for him.

After him were Light and Ying. Both could occasionally reach the third and fourth phases, boasting above average statistics. It was especially true for Ying, who proved adept at controlling the psionic lifeform that most players acknowledged to be the must difficult to play. Light was the precise opposite: though a pure energy lifeform, it especially preferred starting the game with physical lifeforms.

Lastly, as for Black’s standards…

“Tch. Why did you equip offensive parts on every slot?”

Through his spirit link, Joshua could tell at once why Black could not even clear phase two—it was better to simply let her genetic parts be set on a random. The horse-like creature that she had made was filled with bizarre biological weapons and tumors that it could not even walk. It would quickly fatigue in fights as well due to lack of energy, and was nothing less than a pile of waste.

Still, with her being his mount (that Joshua never really rode), Joshua helped Black adjusted an accepted creature. A centaur but with the head of a horse, it was a combat creature with no biological weapons were attached to it, but its pair of hands could be equipped with many armaments that would be developed as technology progresses in the future.

But just as Joshua designed a race for Black, a streak of distinct dimensional ripples appeared on the roof of his residence. The warrior hence quickly looked up towards the familiar presence.

“Nostradamus?”

Joshua muttered to himself puzzledly while still setting up a race for Black. “Didn’t we meet on the Mana Net yesterday? Why would he come now?”

It was not too long ago when he discussed the design of Continental War as well. Should they not have discussed it then?

Soon, without leaving Joshua pondering for too long, a pale-blue portal opened. A man who appeared to be a middle-aged mage but was actually almost a hundred years old hence stepped out of the portal.

The perception between Legendary champions allowed Nostradamus to promptly find Joshua sitting in the backyard when he stepped out of his portal. Without any chatter, he quickly warped the short distance towards the warrior.

“What’s the hurry?”

Without sparing any time for nonsense, Joshua lifted his brow and quickly looked towards his worried old friend.

“What else could there be.”

Likewise, not sparing time for nonsense, Nostradamus rubbed his forehead, sighed and shook his head. “It’s that bastard Israel, damn it…”

“He’s planning to abdicate!”