Soul of Searing Steel

Panda Novel

Having resolved the infighting of his tribe for the time being, Roland the Holy Knight slowly led the silver sorcerers in the game, consolidating power and quickly prosper to hence expand over the entire world, setting the stage in advance of the fourth phase ‘Civilization’.

Meanwhile, the ‘element-friendly cell’ that Priest controlled had just cleared the ‘Spore’ phase to enter the ‘Creature’ phase.

Naturally, the game could not relive the full billion-year long process where life evolved and developed, nor how creatures and civilization take each stepped forward. However, Continental War was developed to the point that it was virtually reality—to Priest, at least, the game was considered genuine.

In his Spore phase, Priest finally obtained the advanced photosensitive part by moving along a tide to ambush his targets from the rear and surviving a difficult melee. After equipping the part, Priest at long last had reliable observation in the dark seas, and could acquire more valuable food and cells.

After playing for eight long hours (seven point five minutes after 64 times acceleration), Priest finally cleared the ‘Spore’ phase.

And his cell had been considerably reward.

Apart from basic parts of different classes such as Element perception part, thick cell war, chitin horn, tough flagella and high energy cell drive, Priest unexpectedly gained an SSR item the extremely rare special part called ‘element absorber’!

It was an unexpected gain from one adventure in the volcano. Priest, having grown into a carnivore that fire a jet of water and crushed shells through its horn had been searching for food in a dormant volcano.

That was when he had been ambushed by a unique ‘dual-volcanic element’ creature.

Leaving aside the rather thrilling course of the battle, one or the other, Priest had used the special landscape to trap the creature in a gap and grinded it to death. That was he noticed the creature that resembled an elemental was merely a colloidal squid—on its skin, however, was a special layer of cells that could siphon large amounts of beneficial elements from its environment, briefly turning it similar to an elemental-like creature!

Having seized the ‘element absorber’, Joshua’s control over his cell gained in redoubled power because he could use magical elements to attack. Furthermore, he could swap the chitin horn which occupied great portions for many other parts, such as the high energy cell drive which provides the cell with energy, or some special energy storage composition.

Soon, near peerless in the surrounding seas, Priest managed to clear the conditions for ascension and join the second phase, ‘creature’.

“This feels great!”

Priest clearly played over more than eight hours, but was no less entertained—especially after realizing that not even ten minutes passed in reality, he was even less prepared to stop, and would keep playing.

“It’s still entertainment after all, and much more fun than strolling through the streets.

With that thought, Priest did not hesitate to continue.

Then, the silver screen appeared before them.

[First phase ‘Spore’ completed, assessing scores now]

[Lethal: 10/10—You are the purest of hunters. Devouring other cells is the meaning of your existence.]

[Coexistence: 3/10—you would slumber inside corals under the cover of sea anemones. That is probably the only aspect where you need the help of other creatures.]

[Nurturing: 0/10—Devourers do not care for nurturing; you only need to produce excrement]

[Collection: 9/10—you have collected many special components, even entering the most dangerous of regions to obtain the rarest of abilities]

[Strength: 9/10—you are peerlessly powerful amongst the realm of multicellular creatures. You are one of the most powerful beings in the virgin sea.]

[Commencing random development of life form… commending random renaming of ‘element-friendly cell’]

Since Priest had selected ‘all-random’ at the very beginning, his cellular, creature form and naming were all completely random even as he advanced to the Creature phase. He was totally fine about that since he was the type who was fine with anything they have—be it a creature he shaped or named himself or not, he would feel invested once he began to play with it.

Soon, as his evolution was completed, the element-friendly cell which had jerking long, hard barbs, a shell that appeared soft but was actually very sturdy, its entire form glinting in various colored light enlarged and transformed at once in a wave of white light.

The white light slowly diminished as its form changed quickly, and what appeared before Priest was an extremely unusual ‘cocoon’ shaped creature that had more than twenty protruding bony armor which wrapped around its soft organs inside. Outside the armor was a thick layer of element absorbers, and on a single glance, it was a large white thorny pine cone.

[Evolution complete—random naming in accordance to essence: Calm Cocoon]

[Calm Cocoon: advanced element absorber, all-element affinity, sturdy endoskeleton and exoskeletons, shock-absorbing innards…]

“Uh, how do I control a cocoon?”

Priest was left gaping at the creature his cell had randomly evolved into. The cocoon was around seventy centimeters tall—it was very small to certain deep-sea behemoths, but excessively large for a pine-shaped cocoon creature.

At first, Priest had imagined that he was still staying in the sea. It would not be easy to control the Calm Cocoon if that was the case, since he could swim through element manipulation. Never did he imagine that each Calm Cocoon starts their Creature phase on the seashores due to the factor ‘continental lifeform adaptation’!

“Could I have to wait until the tides drown the shores, and seize that chance to return to the sea?”

Priest simply dropped the idea the instant it appeared—for some reason, he had the vague sense that things were not so simple. Since he was placed on the beach, the Calm Cocoon must have the capacity to live on land. Priest also had the sense that the creature evolved from its fragile multicellular form to its present form is to leave the seas and conquer the land!

There was profound meaning lurking behind ‘random’!

“There must be something I don’t know how to do… come to think of it, Priest, which of the Calm Cocoon’s abilities could let it move around on land?”

In truth, there was no need to rack his brains or use his full strength—all Priest had to do was think for a bit to understand what he should do.

“Common human logic is not required in Extraordinary realms… The mentor mentioned that even death is merely the beginning, and having no limbs does not mean moving is impossible.”

Thinking every day once, softly repeating the words of a certain count, Priest frowned before turning his full attention to the layer of ‘element absorber’ on the skin of the cocoon. “Don’t be bound by normal thinking,” he muttered to himself quietly, “if I can control elements, why would I need to grow limbs?”

At those very words, Priest began to draw in the elements around him through the element absorber layer. All at once, water and earth elements began to gather from the beach, clear seawater combining with sand into a clump of pale-golden elemental stream, climbing onto the Calm Cocoon’s body as if alive!

Countless elemental tentacles stretched out, spreading to every corner of the cocoon. Then, as Priest controlled it, the stream turned into a several-meter tall giant that had limbs, a body and head, placing the cocoon by its chest.

“Alright!”

Moving the elemental stream and walking freely over the shores, Priest could not help but want to whoop excitedly, although he had already done so. Such was the talent of the Calm Cocoon: by using its supremely developed element absorber, he could completely change between various forms by manipulating natural elements, assuming various movement postures!

***

Just as Priest was cheering in celebration of his first step on land, Joshua, who was strolling past many screens in the main Mana Net server, observing the performance of other players.

In reality, the so-called random was not actually really ‘random’, but the arbitrary selection of a civilization with corresponding traits from Chaos memories and applying it to the person who picked random.

Now, the warrior himself appeared satisfied with Priest’s performance—the Calm Cocoon’s path of evolution had indeed followed the development of one of the creatures in history. Furthermore, Priest’s ability to leave the early Spore phase, focusing entirely on the roleplay as a Calm Cocoon and quickly found a way to move around made evident his clear thinking that was unrestrained by traditional concepts.

There were not many in this world who had a flair for gaming or had poor luck. Incidentally, there were even fewer players for Continental War, with many already showing signs of being stumped during the Spore phase, not to mention the Creature phase.

Even with the needed intelligence, it would still fail as long as their thinking failed.

Joshua looked around the screen. There were now almost 6,000 players, but 1,700 had already been eliminated, temporarily entering a one-day cooldown period in real world time, only able to rejoin the game another day later and play the game of civilizations.

It avoids game over and possible Chaos memory backlash, while giving them time to think seriously about how they should resolve their problem.

Joshua could see that many unwittingly led their tribe and race into dead ends. They may or may not have considered the clash between different civilizations and hence jumped to decisions easily, hence failing the game… However, that method of failure was similar to how the many civilizations in Chaos memories met their ends, despite clearly different paths.

“They would learn.”

With that quiet muttering, Joshua turned and continued watching Priest’s game.

What he did next, however, left Joshua shaking his head in disappointment.

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