When building an ecosystem, the very first life-form you need to create is obvious.
A producer.
A living thing that makes its own energy. On Earth, the history of producers began when a life-form called cyanobacteria first started photosynthesis.
FLASH!
The very first life-form probably was not created in a holy burst of light like this. In fact, rather unexpectedly, the first life-form had not even been a producer.
In any case, I had created the organism at the very bottom of the food pyramid, the very foundation of the ecosystem.
A tiny, squishy thing.
「You have created a new life-form! What would you like to name it?」
“Nectar Jelly.”
「You have created [Nectar Jelly].」
「You may freely assign any one trait to the first life-form.」
“Accelerated Metabolism.”
『Accelerated Metabolism: The life-form’s biological activity speeds up. Energy consumption increases.』
Accelerated Metabolism. With the Nectar Spring here, energy was overflowing, so this was the obvious choice.
“...What exactly are you doing? If you get a special bonus for your first creation, shouldn’t you make your first intelligent species? Or at least start with plants?”
No. There was no need to make plants.
What I needed was a producer.
At the bottom of the deep sea, for example, there is a creature called the tube worm, which produces energy through chemosynthesis using the heat and sulfur compounds from hydrothermal vents.
It is an animal, yet also a producer, and it does not even rely on photosynthesis as a mechanism.
If that was the case, then there was no reason for me to rely on the plant model either—the one that takes in water, carbon dioxide, and light to produce glucose and oxygen.
「A Protection Period has begun. During the Protection Period, players will not come into contact with the worlds of other players. Once the Protection Period ends, collisions with other worlds will begin.」
I would perfect my ecosystem before the Protection Period ended. I already had the strategy in mind. If it worked, great. If it failed, then all that would happen was that one human being disappeared.
Just watch.
I would show it something eye-opening.
While I was talking to the angel, the Nectar Jelly I had made had already begun multiplying inside the Nectar Spring at an absurd rate.
That was only natural. This barren desert had ridiculous amounts of <Light>, <Heat>, <Minerals>, and <Nectar>.
It consumed all of it, producing the two things my ecosystem lacked most: <Water>, and the <Mana> needed for the growth of the 《Nectar Spring》.
<Nectar> itself was one of the most efficient resources in the game, and the desert’s sunlight was frankly insane, so the Nectar Jelly soon filled the spring.
The Nectar Jelly multiplied until it was visible to the naked eye, continuously pumping out water and mana, and because of that, the Nectar Spring—which had started as little more than a fifty-meter-wide, five-meter-deep pool—was gradually diluted and began to overflow.
I spent <Divinity>, the only resource a player could actively wield and the most omnipotent one at that, to accelerate that reproductive and growth speed even further. The interface was so similar to the game that using it was simple.
「The level of the 《Nectar Spring》 has increased.」
As the process repeated, the spring rose from Level 0 to Level 1.
The leveled-up Nectar Spring became an oasis about one hundred meters across and seven meters deep. Of course, it was no longer all Nectar—most of it had been diluted into water—but even taking that into account, the total amount of Nectar available to me had increased dramatically.
And Level 1 seemed to be the limit.
The Nectar Jelly consumed Nectar and excreted water and mana. But my ecosystem still had no life-form that consumed <Water>.
Because Nectar Jelly required <Light> and <Heat> to reproduce, they clustered tightly across the lake’s sunlit surface. After absorbing the light and heat, they spread until the entire surface of the Nectar Oasis was covered, turning it into what looked like a lake of jelly.
Then, due to the increased depth, the diluted Nectar, and the much greater shortage of minerals, reproduction slowed, and the environment finally reached equilibrium.
“Excellent buildup. Raising the Nectar Spring’s level through biology alone in an environment this harsh and this cramped... That really is an eye-opening strategy. If you’d treated it like the game and planted plants right away, this never would have happened.”
So even this angel understood now.
That was right.
This was buildup.
In a strategy simulation, what kind of idiot starts by pumping out combat units? First you gather resources, then you take another base, increase your income, and only then think about building a bigger army.
Economy first. Combat later.
Basic stuff.
“Well then, now that you’ve got more water, are you finally going to create plants and build a civilization?”
No.
The Protection Period still had a long way to go, and if I was going to build up, then I might as well take it to the limit.
Nectar Jelly consumed Nectar and excreted water and mana.
Given a few billion years, it would probably turn into an excellent ecosystem all on its own, but since I was a god, why should I bother waiting that long?
Using <Divinity>, I artificially accelerated that evolution and gave birth to a new life-form.
「[Nectar Jelly] has evolved into [Rock Jelly].」
Rock Jelly was a much larger organism than Nectar Jelly. Unlike Nectar Jelly, which had been closer to bacteria, these things used <Water> and <Nectar> to form roughly jellyfish-like bodies.
Rock Jelly also secreted an acidic solution only slightly weaker than human stomach acid, allowing it to directly dissolve and consume rock, which was likewise abundant in this ecosystem.
The rocks stripped of their mineral content broke apart into smaller stones.
As the surrounding bedrock was broken down, the Nectar Oasis grew wider. At the same time, Rock Jelly consumed enormous amounts of water as it grew, causing the water level in the oasis to drop.
That meant the lake’s depth changed little, but it kept gnawing away at the shore as it widened, which in turn allowed more Nectar Jelly to multiply across the surface. Then the amount of water increased again.
Then the number of Rock Jelly increased again as well, and because Rock Jelly was ultimately derived from Nectar Jelly, it also produced mana through rock and sunlight. In fact, it produced more than Nectar Jelly did.
As a result, the Nectar Spring was supplied with more than enough mana without interruption.
This process repeated itself over and over until the ecosystem once again reached equilibrium.
「The level of the 《Nectar Spring》 has increased.」
As a result, the Nectar Spring expanded dramatically, becoming a huge oasis nearly ten meters deep and close to three hundred meters across.
“Amazing! The Nectar Spring is already Level 2! To reach Level 2, you’d normally have to collide with and defeat other worlds twice!”
I knew.
And right now, there was an even more important result than the growth of the spring itself.
「The world’s <Life> score has exceeded 100 and risen to Level 1. A new <Life> trait is now available.」
Because life in my ecosystem had flourished so explosively, a new trait had been unlocked.
That meant my life-forms were about to become even stronger.
Unlike the initial trait, where I could choose exactly what I wanted, this time the options were random. More precisely, I had to choose one out of several traits judged to be the best fit for my current life-forms.
The angel conjured three glowing cards with magic and let them hover in front of me.
“Here. These are the three traits that seem most useful. As you know, (Selection) requires you to designate a particular species, while (Divine Ability) remains permanently in effect until the game ends.”
『(Selection) Accelerated Evolution Rate: Natural mutations become more frequent.』
『(Selection) Improved Energy Efficiency: Life-forms can maintain similar activity while consuming less energy.』
『(Divine Ability) Artificial Evolution: When directly using <Evolution>, <Divinity> efficiency becomes 150%.』
“Artificial Evolution.”
Perfect. At this rate, I could keep building up just by tinkering with these jellies instead of creating anything entirely new.
“Good choice. Now it really does look like you’ve hit the limit. So now you’re going to build a civilization, right? There’s no need for plants anymore. You could just create a life-form that survives by eating the jellies.”
No.
Since the environment had already been established, I might as well push it all the way.
“...What?”
Rock Jelly was excellent at breaking down large rocks and consuming minerals, but not even Minecraft treated all minerals as a single category.
Naturally, there were minerals Rock Jelly could not consume—scraps left over after it had finished with the stone. So I evolved other organisms out of Rock Jelly to consume those.
「[Rock Jelly] has evolved into [Gravel Jelly].」
「[Gravel Jelly] has evolved into [Soil Jelly].」
Even Rock Jelly itself branched into different types, specializing in consuming different minerals—Black Rock Jelly, Gray Rock Jelly, and so on.
My damned desert ecosystem had no gems no matter how deep you dug, no precious metals, not even ordinary metal.
But it did at least have a decent variety of stone.
Rock became gravel, gravel became soil, and in the end it all came out as sand.
「The level of the 《Nectar Spring》 has increased.」
The Nectar Spring was now Level 3.
The Nectar Lake had grown to nearly eight hundred meters across, and the diluted Nectar flowed through the shattered bedrock to form rivers, then seeped into the softened land and turned it into marsh.
Nectar Jelly made water. That allowed Rock Jelly to grow. The gravel left behind after Rock Jelly consumed rock was then broken down by Gravel Jelly into soil, and Soil Jelly ate that and finally excreted sand.
The world had begun as terrain containing nothing but a Nectar Spring and bare rock.
Now it had become a landscape of a vast oasis, sand, soil, gravel, and, beyond the reach of the jellies for now, rocky bedrock still waiting untouched. Those rocky regions would only be reached once the Nectar Oasis expanded further.
The ecosystem was elegant enough to be moving.
It still needed a few more steps before it could be called truly complete, but even at this stage, it was fair to say I had already achieved a remarkable success.
「The world’s <Life> score has exceeded 210 and risen to Level 2. A new trait is now available.」
Even more moving: another new trait.
Well, of course. I had sacrificed every other avenue of development and poured everything into the production of life. It was only natural that traits would start pouring in.
The in-game system always preached balanced development, but this was what happened when you dumped everything into one stat and pushed it to the extreme.
Once again, the angel recommended three traits.
『(Divine Ability) Evolution Mastery: When directly using <Evolution>, the bodies of your creations change in a way closer to your intended purpose.』
『(Selection) Improved Energy Efficiency: Life-forms can maintain similar activity while consuming less energy.』
『(Selection) Nectar Dependence: Energy gained from Nectar is doubled. The life-form will no longer be able to consume anything except Nectar.』
There was nothing to think about.
“Evolution Mastery.”
I would be evolving things constantly from here on out. At minimum, this much was necessary.
“...You know, shouldn’t you really be building a civilization now? This place has turned into an incredible land of jelly and flowing Nectar. If you built a civilization that lived off all this, it could achieve truly monstrous growth.”
Civilization, civilization, civilization.
It kept repeating the word like a parrot, but sorry.
I had no intention of building one.
“Pardon?”
Civilization is trash.
No—more specifically, the biological survival strategy of raising intelligence is trash.
Idiotic dinosaurs managed to thrive for hundreds of millions of years before getting shafted by a meteor, but Homo sapiens, supposedly the smartest of the lot, built civilization and trashed their own planet in ten thousand.
If one truly intended to reign forever as a god, then one simply did not raise intelligent beings.
“Forgive me, but... you do realize this is a game where you build civilizations in your world and have different races fight each other, right? You were a player, after all.”
No.
This was a game about building fantasy ecosystems.
At least, it was to me.
It wasn’t as though I had completely excluded civilization-building while I played the game, but now another style of play suited me far better.
So other people could play their little stone-age fantasy if they wanted.
I would build the ideal ecosystem as I conceived it.
The ultimate wilderness—one in which no civilization, no species, no matter how intelligent, could possibly survive.
A perfect ecosystem that surpassed civilization itself, made possible only because this was a fantasy world.
“Are you trying to become some kind of Demon King commanding monsters?”
Oh.
I liked that.
If the other players were gods, then I was a Demon King.
And the life-forms I created would be born for one purpose only:
to utterly destroy their civilizations.