Soul of Searing Steel

Panda Novel

[Strengthened macromolecular creature growth], [accelerated reproduction], [strengthened toxic secretion], [algae mutualism]… Many augmenting components different from other species were added onto Light’s fungal race. Then, as its tribe developed and grew stronger by devouring the anemone and reefs, it ejected spores as well, spreading their descendants to waft along the tides across the seas… as time passed slowly, Light completely replaced the coral life of an ocean sector as the dominant life of the seabed, while the wafting fungi that were coexisting with multifarious algae slowly grew a population in the sea.

It might be a bug or some issue the Joshua did not consider: The requirements to clear the First Phase of Continental War was for the player’s cell to evolve into a complete creature. Not a simple multicellular organism, but a creature of another level with limbs like lobsters or crabs, and nothing but reaching that standard would count as clearing the level.

Furthermore, when clearing the level, the creature that the player control would at most be a small tribe—most players would at most have dozens of brethren when they reach the Second Phase.

Nevertheless, if the player’s cell did not develop as a creature but merely keep on the path of breeding… if the cell gained the depth to spread their own race over the entire world even before they truly became a creature…

They would become a species such as Light’s. After a long time of gathering strengthening components, they would at once empower their essence while spreading their own kind over the entire world. They would not gather in strains, but assemble supernatural powers to develop souls and intelligence, developing into the most basic of Extraordinary species. They would subconsciously grow perception for mana and water elements, attempting to evolve as a magical elemental creature with special form…

Light hence steadily controlled its fungi and become a normal species… that covered most of the world.

At the same time, Joshua also realized the flaw in the rules he established.

Finally, as the mass of Light’s fungus become truly huge and instinctively gathered substantial mana to develop soul and mind, time accelerated as it reached the Second Phase, and a creature known as the ‘Mobian the Large Fungal Composite’ hence appeared in the world.

Damp air, vast rainforests, and gentle oceanic surroundings were as much a paradise as it was hell to any creatures. Predators were ever-present in the rainforests that covered the continent, and it was a difficult challenge for any sentient creature that wanted to survive and flourish in that place. Aside from simple predators, there were various hazards such as climate change, ice age, and many other natural disasters, with Epic-class behemoths prowling even the safest reaches.

Most players had lost due to the excessive hostile environments in the Second Phase.

But it was different for Light.

Setting aside its stores of knowledge, Mobian was a portion of a great fungal bed that obtained a soul. The difference between them and their brethren was that they had grown a soul, but they remained the terrible self-sufficient entity that occupied half the world, even completely replacing the local ecosystems.

Danger? What could be more dangerous than the aquatic volcanos of the deep, or more threatening than the remains of giants of the depths that had fallen thousands of meters below? Could there be anything as harmful as the surging polar turbulences? Compared to all that, the variants of Mobian fungi were everywhere and flourishing, which was why all creatures of that world should be most cautious about the Mobian.

Joshua could not even bear to watch—the Mobian invaded land far faster than they did in the sea. It was certainly because Light had gathered too many gene components, able to alter its species anytime, not to mention that it was more convenient to spread its spores into the wind than in the ocean… one way or the another, they leeched onto all plants, creatures, and even other bacteria, forming mutualism or directly absorbing them as nutrients… Thus did the Second Phase concluded with mass global extinction.

The truth was that Joshua was not bothered to watch the Third Phase—the key for the Tribe level was to examine the player’s depth of knowledge, thought about societal developments and leadership of the tribes, as well as their ability to manage against unexpected circumstances. There were also factors such as deals with other tribes, war, and conquering, with some players even enslaving other species to reduce them into spare parts for production in their society.

On the other hand, the entire world was merely a fungal bed for the Mobian. Thought they have soul and intelligence, they have no desire for conflict at all: every zone was a happy place, everywhere was home, while all their intelligence and instincts are directed to plantation, flourishing and altering their own form… in fact, the Mobian increased and more perished, countless souls gathered and supernatural powers flowed. Then, at the planet’s ocean depths, in the largest hive of Mobian composites, a Soul Cycle slowly formed.

And that was the soul reincarnation cycle exclusively for the Mobian fungi—a massive body of soul like no other, growing at the depths of the planet and awakens.

At that moment it truly developed a consciousness was the end of the Third Phase of the fungi, and the arrival of the Fourth.

For the first time, Joshua observed the birth of forms that could be called ‘Ruler’ amongst the fully conscious Mobian composites.

Those were superior psionic composites whereupon all life and souls of a planet gathered, with only the Midgardians’ Mother Tree of Stellaris comparable—remarkably similar, the single aspect that set both worlds part was that one was a gathered form of plant. They were different from living, intelligent individuals such as the Midgardians, and for the Rulers, the Mobian were merely a part of their larger self.

And now, the Mobian fungi which had devoured all life in the world had also begun to deliberately arm themselves thanks to Light’s foresight… but there were simply too many biological components that even if Joshua saw that Light’s standard equip was random, the individual ability of the Mobian fungi was very terrifying.

[Invisible erosion], [rooting leech], [ultimate solvent], [advance element resistance], [advanced psionic resistance], [random state (intermediate physical immunity)], [rapid breeding], [evolution steal], [psionic pierce] … when other players had at most seven to eight special buffs, the Mobian fungi Light controlled came in seven to eight ‘rows’.

Rulers notwithstanding, the top battle ability Light had was standard Legendary psionic ability. It could stop cyclones and earthquakes at a whim, or even tear the earth’s crust apart, absorbing the heat from the planet’s mantle to sustain itself… unlike how it latches onto seabed, corals, and plants before, the Mobian fungi were now a Legendary-tier creature on the planet!

“Sigh…”

Joshua simply could not bear to look. The first otherworld legions of Chaos spawn would arrive in the Fourth Phase, and were wiped out in a week, gaining many bundles of information about the otherworld beings. By the time the second legion arrive, the Chaos legions had to face fungi that were buffed with [Chaos immunity] and even more tailored biological components… When it was the third legion’s turn, the most powerful of those three legions did not even debut more than three seconds before being blown back to the other side of the dimensional rift they came from with a single psionic star-destroyer roar, while the most powerful individuals lived no more than seconds.

They would never win. It was a complete rut.

Their positions were so fundamentally different. How could they even compare?

The Rulers now covered the entire planet, with their fungal caps even reaching the atmosphere to absorb rich solar energies. Under Light’s control, the Rulers began to evolve and mutate a spacefaring tribe, and were prepared to directly blast psionic spore sacs beyond orbit through massive biological cannons, and be sent to the moon to spread themselves.

It had also begun to construct living space elevator, even using psionic energies to tear dimensional rifts… it was no longer something an otherworld Chaos legion could fight—an ultimate lifeform bearing the shape of the Evil God of Pestilence, Joshua imagined that even the Evil God of Air would never defeat them if they developed for another period.

Light’s spirit was especially thrilled and happy after clearing the Fourth Phase since it was the first time it had groomed its race. Indeed, Light saw Continental War as a simple emulation for cultivating spawns—now, having beaten the Chaos legions, it entered the Fifth Phase in the midst of great delight.

And that Fifth Phase which none other than Light had reached was called Stellaris.

In that phase, players had to consider not only survival, reproduction, the state of society and battle. They had to determine the path of technological progress and avoid straying, just as they would need to think about exploration policies to prevent frivolously consuming energy and resources. They still had to attempt colonizing foreign worlds, establishing a Void fleet, even encountering other worlds, or even discover ruins and relics of prehistoric civilizations… not to mention that players in Phase Stellaris would also have to coordinate their race and civilization so that they would settle down on and colonize another suitable planet.

And the challenge they faced was an alien race that targeted their planet.

They did not need to fight—they could resolve the conflict through diplomacy or create fear through powerful technology, just as they could send spies to cause natural disasters and stir unrests in the enemies’ homeworld, rendering them helpless… there were so many ways, but the simplest was still what Light did.

The Mobian sent a fleet that covered half of the stars, encircling the main alien fleets of less than a thousand vessels, emptied a good chunk of the planet’s mantle and turned the moon into a production base… hence clearing the Fifth Phase.

A fantastical gameplay.

“Ding-dong-ding-ding!”

Joshua heard the excited cheer Light left in the Mana Net that it had cleared the level. “Ding-dong-ding-ding-dong-dong!”

The warrior rubbed his eyes and told Zero Three quietly, “I’m probably going for a trip to the Bloodmoon Abyss.”

“What for, Joshua?”

Noticing that the warrior’s tone was rather unusual, Zero Three rose, ready to leave with the warrior. She seemed to have remembered something, and asked puzzledly, “Does it have to do with Light?”

“Yes.”

Joshua nodded somberly. “I have watch it, and tell it that game and reality is different… The game is a plain emulation which simplified many things. The fungi it likes have to be cultivated over a billion years in reality, and could never be made so quickly… Tut, either way, it means only one thing.”

“I could not let Light really turn its spawn into fungus!”

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