All right. I understand.
So this is how it works. The terrain I was given—in other words, the fragment of a god—is 《Nectar Spring》.
No matter how I damage it, that does not change. Even if someone filled the Nectar Spring with something like concrete, it would still be a Nectar Spring. It would just be Level 0.
Which means the amount of sunlight would not decrease. Night would still turn cold.
No—more fundamentally, that must be why day and night line up so precisely in the first place.
The terrain here, the sky, the underground—this place has “this is what it is” carved into it by some cosmic law or magical law.
Even if you smashed it so thoroughly not a scrap of debris remained, the sky would stay the same, and since I cannot dig up the entire world, this place remains a Nectar Spring whether there are rocks here or not, whether the surface is a marsh or a lake.
Now then, let’s use 《River》 as an example. Suppose I mobilized the jellies and completely merged the river with the lake.
Even then, that place would still be a 《River》. Why? Because a fragment of a god marked as 《River》 is embedded there.
Which means that even if it is completely fused with the lake, the force that makes the water in the 《River》 flow would still remain. No—perhaps it would fall below Level 0 and stop functioning.
“On paper it would still be Level 0, and it would function. The force would be extremely faint, but it would function.”
Thanks for the helpful explanation. Then let’s take it a step further.
I was able to pour divine power into the 《River》 and twist its current, make it meander, even connect it to the lake.
Why?
Because divine power reacts to the fragment of a god inside the 《River》.
And if I poured in a massive amount of divine power, I could probably make the river flow faster or widen it. Then the level of the 《River》 would rise.
“You have understood it exactly.”
Conversely, even if I controlled my jellies perfectly and built a canal that circled the entire world, it would never flow.
Why?
Because there is no fragment of a god there. I cannot create a fragment of a god with divine power. Just as I cannot make a second Nectar Spring. Just as I cannot suddenly generate a prairie here.
But I can adjust and twist terrain that already exists.
“That is also correct. In fact, one normal way to grow a Nectar Spring besides feeding it a massive amount of mana is to pour in a massive amount of divine power.”
I already knew that from playing the game. I simply never did it because biological methods worked.
Then let’s think about this. I had assumed that if I kept expanding Nectar Oasis and eventually turned it into a sea, the 《Aquifer》 that produced fresh water would naturally disappear.
But it would not. Even if I shaved away all the land until no one could tell an aquifer had ever existed there as terrain, fresh water would still come out of that place. Just as Nectar Spring would still produce nectar even if I covered it over completely.
“Exactly.”
Then one could think of it this way.
What kind of fragments of a god are lodged in the terrain of the players I just defeated?
And one more thing.
What exactly is <Life>? Creating life with divine power costs astonishingly little, considering what it is.
“I believe both answers can be explained by examining the opposing terrain.”
So I checked. First was the cactus forest, where the hamsters had lived in great numbers and built their civilization.
《Desert Forest LV.4: A 《Desert》 terrain where cacti and shrubs grow. A treasure trove of life that faintly stores <Water> underground.
Detailed Description: Countless insects, rodents, reptiles, and many other life-forms benefit from this place. A fragment of a being once called a god dwells here, and through player ‘Darin Eu,’ the organisms living here underwent <Evolution>, becoming a somewhat independent existence.》
I see. Then in the case of “life that was there from the beginning,” both <Life> and 《terrain》 correspond to fragments of a god?
“That is correct. Life directly created by a player—in other words, what you made—still has some relation to that, because it was created with divine power.”
I had assumed the insanely fast rate of evolution, the fact that every world has air organisms can roughly breathe and appropriate pressure, and the fact that there are no life-forms with utterly alien underlying structures were all because of mana.
But perhaps divine power is part of it too.
Then I can infer one thing for now: it is impossible to create a truly independent life-form that completely departs from ordinary biological principles.
In other words, I can make the jellies hard to digest, but I cannot make them impossible to digest.
“That is correct. Different physical laws may operate here, but there is still a single underlying law. The form of life cannot deviate quite that far. The Dessert Legion, which combines organic and inorganic matter, remains within the acceptable range, but creating an organism that drinks water and eats flesh while having a body that can never be consumed under any circumstances would be impossible.”
A little disappointing. I had considered trying to make something like that through sheer effort. In the end, the enemy might someday create life that can eat the Dessert Legion too.
I can think about that later.
But if I push this idea further, then the form of <Life> itself is recorded to some extent in the fragments of a god.
Which means that if I poured divine power into that 《Desert Forest》 over there, I could make the desert plants grow on a large scale?
“To a degree. But you would still need to prepare the resources required for plant growth separately.”
Hmm. I see. Then there is no need to do that.
“What?”
Because the evolution of the desert forest—in other words, leveling it up—should be perfectly possible through biological mechanisms and magic alone.
“I suppose so. This is your specialty, after all. I’m looking forward to it. What kind of environment are you going to make?”
Let’s examine the other environments first. The opponent had already gone through a second game, so quite a few environments existed.
At a simple estimate, there should be at least four fragments of a god. In my case, since Teimong River is Level 2, it seems Teimong’s opponent must also have had a river as a fragment of a god.
《Valley》, 《Sand Desert》, and 《Gravel Desert》. Along with the 《Desert Forest》 I had just examined, that made four.
The valley and the desert forest had been hamster territory. Civilization had clearly left its mark there, and I could see traces of cactus and mushroom cultivation.
The underground was damp. Water must flow beneath the valley. Perhaps the valley itself is a terrain feature where water once flowed long ago and then dried up... If I brought water in, I could probably make another lake there.
And the two deserts were, absurd as it was, truly just barren desert. Traces of civilization remained, but there was nothing there except stone.
I wondered what the hell that was supposed to be, so I examined them more closely. The mana concentration there—in other words, the mana pressure—was tremendous. Certain elements were heavily concentrated too. That was why monsters and spirit-type life-forms lived there.
I hated it. To an amateur ecologist, an ecosystem that existed entirely through magic was far too opaque and impossible to accept.
“No, but it isn’t all the same kind of magic... The relationship between spirits and natural mana is—”
Enough.
I would not understand it even if I listened, and I have no desire to understand it. I can appreciate the effort some nerd put into carefully drafting a setting bible, but who actually reads that stuff?
“Th-that is not some nerd’s setting bible. In this world, that is plainly functioning reality.”
I know...
I do feel sorry for them, but I can only say that you lot live in a kind of place I simply cannot tolerate.
Still, there is one thing even I understand. Mana is also a resource. From a biological perspective, it is an astonishing one. A completely broken resource that can do practically anything.
I carefully edited the opposing world, which had not yet been fully fused into mine, so that a mana desert would be attached beside Nectar Oasis.
That was only possible because all space in a world is spherical. Before the last game, Nectar Oasis had clearly been wrapped by Teimong River and desert, but I was able to tear that space open—or rip it apart?—and graft the newly gained world onto it.
Ah. Come to think of it, perhaps the reason I cannot edit a world into total shreds is also because the unit of a world is a fragment of a god.
“That is correct.”
I see. Understood.
Anyway, after continuing to expand things, my Nectar Oasis, which had seemed about to make direct contact with the river, now had a band of desert and cactus-forest terrain inserted between the river and the oasis.
That sand desert would be eaten by Nectar Oasis, which devoured mana, sand, and gravel, and judging from the spherical structure of the world, the valley might be editable in such a way that river water could be led into it...
“You can absolutely do that, so do your best.”
So after a great deal of twisting and forcing together worlds shaped like non-folding squares, I finally succeeded in editing them back into a perfectly flat plane. In truth it was a sphere, but that kind of spatial understanding was far too difficult for humans.
“When your divine power grows higher, your player stats will rise as well, so you will probably find that space easier to understand.”
That is good news, then.
Now for the next problem: what should I do with the ecosystem here?
For now, I can ignore the desert and the valley. One day they will be submerged beneath Nectar Lake anyway.
The real problem is the cactus forest. How could I bring that cactus forest into harmony with my Dessert Legion?
The ant species, which had been a slave species in the opposing world, seemed to have been native to that forest. The traces of civilization there were thick. They must have lived by farming cacti.
But no matter how I thought about it, the real question was how the hell they farmed in a place with no water. Even in fantasy, some things should be possible and some things should not. Cacti are still organisms that live by drinking water.
I got the answer a little later, when clouds formed over the cactus forest and rain began to fall.
As soon as the rain came down, I saw unfamiliar plants burst from the desert at tremendous speed, bear fruit, scatter seeds, and then die shortly afterward.
Then the herbivores native to the region came and ate those dead flowers and grasses, ate the fruit, moved around, and shit nearby, the seeds blasting out in their droppings and spreading over a wide area...
I had overcomplicated it because of the fantasy elements. This was just a typical desert plant ecology. A desert is not a place where it never rains at all.
Instead, rain comes only rarely. When it does, the plants rapidly drink up the water, grow, scatter seeds, and reproduce. The seeds are made to endure for years, waiting until the next rainfall.
“How interesting. So how are you going to fuse this with the Dessert Legion?”
The same way people domesticated chickens.
“Chickens?”
Originally, chickens were birds native to Southeast Asia—birds that lived in jungles. Originally, once a year or so, when the jungle had... what was it again. Whatever. When fruit became abundant, they would gorge themselves and lay a huge number of eggs.
Then humans had an idea. This bird lays eggs when food is abundant. So what would happen if we fed it absurd amounts of food every single day?
The result was a success. The chicken’s biological rhythm adapted to a food-rich environment by continuing to lay eggs, and today it has been refined into a biological machine that lays one egg a day.
“Whoa. That feels a little cruel.”
I will do the same thing to those desert grasses. If they have an ecology where they explode into growth when it rains, reproduce all at once, and then die, then the moment they scatter their seeds and begin enduring again, I will water them. Then I will feed the herbivores. And when they scatter seeds again, I will water them again.
If moisture continues to be supplied, they will multiply like mad while sucking up nutrients from the desert, and those giant camel-like herbivores native to the region will gorge themselves and grow fat.
“Hm... It’s a good idea, but how exactly are you going to water them?”
“Is Yogur-tosoth’s magic just for decoration? If I’m not going to use that thing now, then when? It can just draw water from Nectar Spring and spray it around.”
“Ah. So just magic... You really do use it well in times like this.”
Then, once their numbers have grown enough, I will release Meat-Eating Puddings modified to adapt to the desert.
The Meat-Eating Puddings will hunt the over-proliferated herbivores and eat their flesh, and when they live in the desert and die there, they will become nutrients for the plants that grow again. Then I repeat the process.
The end result is that the puddings keep going into the cactus-forest zone and dying there, so nutrients overflow throughout the entire forest.
The jellies will eat the minerals there and clear away the sand, while leaving the seeds behind. Those seeds are pretty tough to begin with, so they probably will not need separate evolution.
“But then the herbivores will just keep dying, won’t they?”
“Then I keep evolving them too, so they can survive the puddings. I will probably need artificial manipulation. Large organisms have slow generational turnover.
And those large bodies were probably acquired to improve energy efficiency so they could endure desert heat, desert cold, and an environment with few plants, so I may need to make them smaller.
Most of the life here does not seem to be that large.”
“Well, I understand the concept. But let’s go back to what we started with. How do you become the vilest and most persistent predator, preying on civilizations that grow peacefully?”
Simple. Now that I understand the environment of that cactus forest, I can use that place as a hunting ground and create the vilest and most persistent predator imaginable.
“?”
Just watch. You are about to have your eyes forced open by the miracle of evolution.
First, shall I look for a candidate to evolve into a [Camel-Eating Pudding]?
That thing will go one step further and become a [Human-Hunting Pudding].