Nurturing Humanity

He had just been back from sorcery training outside, and he was drenched all over like he had been out running in the night. He took a shower and slowly walked back to his room, with his toned body in full display as he wore only a pair of blue shorts.

He was very eager to see what would happen to the greater sandbox, after putting both the Phoenix and the new race of birds into it.

Time was accelerated with 100 years passing within a day. With several hours passing in reality, decades passed in the greater sandbox. He decided that amount of time was still too short to take a look. He felt bored and silently opened the forum to take a look.

Xu Zhi only learned of them trying to ambush him after chancing upon a thread posted by some idiot in the forum. He wondered what would have happened otherwise, given how he would have been poisoned and remained oblivious to it.

It became apparent that gathering enemy intelligence was very important.

With the exception of rambling about how the server was only opened for half a day and the rest spent doing maintenance, as well as scolding the developer for not opening up the server, the forum at the moment was filled with discussions about mass deaths during that raid.

Xu Zhi read about his supposed enemies in silence.

The Brainy Tiger down the Mountain said, “The mess from challenging the boss on the first day of second testing might just be the greatest joke among all games in the year.”

Haruko loves Learning wrote, “The veterans truly didn’t cheat us newbies. They promised us surprises, and surprises were delivered! They were all turned back into spores again, going back to the start together with us newbies, going on the journey of evolution again (what a joke).”

…

The forum was full of pained lamentations. The veterans from the first testing had failed to take on the boss, and they suffered huge losses for it.

Some talked about just how painful their deaths had been, with spasms, convulsions, and shocks being vividly described.

One of them was even making an essay out of the experience, with both words and images.

“Arrgghhh!! I shrieked out loud in my room. I was having spams and convulsing all over. Tears gushed from my eyes and even my mom was frightened to tears. She then asked me what happened. Why did I get all sweaty playing a leisurely sandbox game that required unusually high level of learning? She asked if I was being moved to tears.”

“There was nothing else I could have done. I was in despair! Yet, I was only able to tell her that I was learning the Theory of Evolution, and that I have come to comprehend the core of such concept of evolution. As such, I was convulsing and have tears streaming on my face out of joy.”

“Truth be told, my mom was being very proud of her son, boasting to the neighbors around about her son’s capability, that her son had access to such an unreal game, that her son’s thesis actually made it to the top 50 for alpha testing out of tens of thousands who participated, that her son gained learning resources worth 600 thousand bucks! She kept saying that I was the pride of the Liu family, and that many professionals and postgraduate students out there pale in comparison to me!”

“It has long been said that pleasure would sap one’s spirit, and that video games are the bane of proper learning. But now, having access to a game that has practically become a social phenomenon is a badge of honor, a way to show their children being studious. Would I dare to tell her the truth then?”

“Furthermore, the boss is actually still alive. That thing is still sitting in the compound eating apples. I guess he has already warmed his lunchbox and ate the Final Chickens, and yet that proved inadequate to kill him!”

“Gosh, I can really tell how bad things are for the guy up there. As one of readers, I couldn’t help myself but laugh as loud as I could. ROFL!”

“As someone who had been through it as well, I shed tears of frustration. It had been so excruciating that I actually wet my pants, and I had to put on diapers after that.”

“My wife was asking why my face was all wet with tears, and I could only tell her how much I love this insanely hardcore game!”

People shared their experience of excruciating pain over the net.

The experience, nonetheless, was more than words could describe.

On the other side of the forum, there were also players posting all the images of the pages found in that ‘Genesis’ book, illustrating all five long ages in history. Many commented that they were unable to comprehend anything, some said that those were probably hidden subplots and background world setting.

There were quite a lot of people showing extreme interest who went about speculating.

I am Hunyuan Thunderbolt Hand, and I want to evolve into Kun, the legendary fish: The settings of the world’s background probably came before us. I guess there had been many ages in the past before us? We’re probably in the age of spores, the dawn of the sixth age. We may choose to evolve into humans and many other beings. We may be able to each create a race of beings and form our own world, our own ecosystem and civilization.

There were many agreeing with that point of view, and many were getting very excited.

That game brought about a variety of topics for discussion, and the players began to discuss about the background setting of the game, and went about speculating what that black notebook of that giant meant.

There was also another thing worthy of mention, which was the first achievement reward was given, and the first supernatural being was born.

All received the prompt from the system as soon as they went online.

[Notice: Congratulations to ‘Racer of Mount Haruna’. His creature of evolution, the Final Chicken, possesses a lot of potential, and he is hereby awarded the achievement.]

The notice was distributed throughout the entire game all of a sudden, causing a huge commotion in the forum.

Hey big guy, take a picture of the reward for us.

While he didn’t manage to kill the boss, he was apparently unnervingly powerful. There is no way he would get such a prompt. Boy, that was a good one!!

Good job there, big guy!! With the developers being nice people, I guess the reward must be an incredibly huge one. I’d like to implore the big guy to show us the reward. I’d be unable to sleep from the itch of wanting to know otherwise.

…

The comments were popping up at frightening speeds.

Chen Wenshan himself was baffled. I got a reward?

I’ve been so hard at work for so long, with so much hair lost from my head, and now I’ve finally succeeded?

He felt that all that pain he endured in that oven had been worth it at the very next second. He quickly put on his headset and logged into the game, while streaming the whole process life.

His room was renamed:

‘Mysterious reward for a new race. Live session begins!’

Countless flocked to his room in an instant, with over 600 thousand viewers waiting to see what was coming up next. Quite a number of cloud players unable to play the game were very interested as well as looking forward to seeing others play.

Chen Wenshan logged into the game and saw three options at the game page, with one of them being selectable as the reward.

1) Select to permanently keep the character named Final Chicken, allowing the character to be used as respawn point after each death. There would be two options available—respawn as spore, or respawn as Final Chicken.

Chen Wenshan was utterly elated and laughed loudly. “Finally, an option to choose a starting species! If I die and restart the game, I would no longer be limited to evolving from spores. I could pick my species—the Final Chicken.”

That reward was a very nice one.

2) Access granted permanently and would no longer be subjected to elimination rounds.

3) Experience your second life.

…

All three options were ones that would elicit envy from others. Many began to talk about the options.

The first option is ok. So this game actually has a starting race to choose from then. You would only get such a choice after your evolved being was deemed sufficiently strong and worth keeping.

So that’s to say that everyone would have their own different starting race then?

Guy up there, you’re thinking too much. Some of the big guys would definitely have a range of races to choose from in the future… we puny ones would never get to evolve such powerful beings. We would always end up as spores once we get into the game.

This really is as hardcore as it gets! My god, this game is for real!

The second one doesn’t look half bad! You would have permanent access to the game. That’s like saying they’re giving you 600 thousand bucks worth of game computational resources. 600 thousand yuan man! Boy, the developers really are loaded!

Now, I wonder what the third one means.

I don’t get that either. Probably a mysterious option.

Everyone was discussing the three options available.

Chen Wenshan frowned and tried to figure out which option he should pick.

There was no doubt how sweet the first option was.

He would no longer begin as a spore. He would have his own starting race from then on out, and that race was none other than his Final Chicken. Furthermore, it’s not like that he could not evolve that chicken further. While the potential for evolution would be limited in that case, he was nonetheless able to further evolve that creature as it was, making it an even more powerful type of poisonous bird.

The second one looked the most tempting and the most economical, but Chen Wenshan quickly dismissed it.

He felt that his ability was that he had no need to fear competition and elimination rounds. He was confident enough to be able to stay behind. He was not getting bald for nothing after all.

The third option said that he could begin his ‘second life’.

“What does this mean?” He frowned and found that option to be rather unstable. He hesitated for a bit before making up his mind and selecting the first option.

The game’s login page for him gradually changed, with two options being presented before him.

1) Begin as spore.

2) Select your race—Final Chicken.

Chen Wenshan picked the Final Chicken option and the page dispersed like willow branches, becoming an exquisitely put together blue login page. There was a red big rooster in it for selection. He was even able to change its gender, sculpt its facial features and body structure.

The live stream practically exploded at that point.

Dude, that’s awesome! This is finally working like other online games where you can sculpt your features and choose your starting race, unlike us who can only start as single cell spores.

This game is getting increasingly scary by the day, so much so that you have to evolve your own starting race!

Chen Wenshan paid no attention to those envious, jealous players and focused on sculpting his facial features, feeling very pleased with himself as he made his rooster unbelievably handsome, before logging into the game and appearing in that huge sandbox.

Chen Wenshan was getting excited about evolving further again. He quickly led his race and began evolving in the sandbox.

Boom, boom, boom!

A huge giant at the side walked out of the door at that moment, passing the Path of the Beast and making the ground shake heavily.

He took a look at the pack of Final Chickens on the ground and showed curiosity. “Hey, if it isn’t that food item I last ate. Boy, they sure are tasty. Best catch several of them for making soup and supper.”

The giant bent over and looked down.

A giant hand came down from above.

The giant hand then picked up most of the Final Chickens around.

Chen Wenshan was baffled.

The audience watching the live stream was baffled.

Chen Wenshan felt himself hurting somewhere all of a sudden and became very, very resentful. He was finally sick all over.

He was baffled at just what kind of some unknown black tech that gave birth to the boss’ behavioral patterns. He was baffled at how the boss was able to interact with him and hold a grudge. That would mean that he would quickly become a part of the giant’s menu every day, where the giant would pick several of his pack up as the giant fancied.

He was feeling really sick at the moment.

Gosh, I wouldn’t have made the chicken so tasty if I had known this would happen! Not only was I unable to poison him to death, I’ve also now become something on his menu! Chen Wenshan was insanely regretful over his choice, thinking that he should have picked the other two instead of the first option.

The first option literally made his stomach churn.