Chapter 30: Buried Seeds of Truth

Xu Zhi was quite satisfied watching their shocked reactions. He had successfully impressed them with his claims, and they were genuinely astonished. As for what happened next, that was not his responsibility. He clearly understood this: he had to instill in them ambition and the idea that there was nothing to fear. He needed to paint a wildly ambitious, perhaps empty, picture of the future, whether it was achievable or not. First, he had to boast, to tell them how incredibly powerful their path was, and to lay out a vast and magnificent blueprint for them!

In Xu Zhi's view, wizards embodied rigor, adhered to the principle of equivalent exchange, and were obsessed with acquiring knowledge and using their magical insights to leverage the world. Only in this way, by exploring truth, could a splendid transcendent civilization be forged. Everything is created, and paths are walked into existence. He was merely providing them with a path, allowing them to explore freely along it and unleash their potential. As for whether they could truly achieve what he described, if they couldn't, it would simply mean that they, mere mortals on the ground, couldn't comprehend the knowledge of a god, not that he was speaking nonsense or making baseless claims.

"Great Hermes, God of Wisdom, how does the power of Gilgamesh, the greatest hero-king of humanity, compare to yours?" Medea asked, trembling.

Xu Zhi thought for a moment, then said, "Gilgamesh possesses the power of a demigod, but before me, he is utterly powerless."

Everyone fell silent.

Standing on a branch, Xu Zhi slowly revealed the meditation techniques of Western yoga and the internal visualization methods of Eastern Daoism, which would serve as the rudimentary forms of their cultivation. Next, he casually lectured on the knowledge of alchemy, directly borrowing some ancient Western alchemical theories as the starting point for their civilization. Whether they could develop anything from it was up to them. After speaking, Xu Zhi immediately left the sandbox world, exiting the game, no longer inhabiting the black three-eyed crow. After all, this black crow was a disposable, low-quality species, merely a medium for entering the sandbox. There was no need to cherish it.

In fact, the theories he spoke of were not baseless; they had grounds. Meditation techniques existed in both Eastern and Western traditions. The concepts of alchemy were derived from Western alchemical theories, and witchcraft was knowledge he had found in ancient Western texts describing witches. He had simply given them these theories. All of these had once existed in ancient human history. Perhaps they didn't appear out of thin air; perhaps similar nascent ideas had once existed but had been forgotten with the rise of science and technology before fully developing.

"The seeds of theory have been sown," he mused, "I wonder if they will blossom into splendid flowers." Xu Zhi himself didn't know if it would succeed; otherwise, he wouldn't be using this sandbox world to simulate the development of a cultivation path.

The three-eyed, ominous black-feathered crow on the tree suddenly collapsed, falling from the lush branches. Those present still maintained expressions of deep reverence. Only after the mysterious three-eyed black crow had lain motionless for a long time did Medea and the others dare to slowly approach, confirming that the enigmatic Hermes had departed.

"What a magnificent being this is," Medea secretly speculated, her heart burning with eagerness. "An intangible, formless, great life-form capable of possessing any living being... The God of Mercury presides over wisdom and truth, and wisdom and truth are precisely intangible and formless existences!"

They returned to the tribe and eagerly began to attempt the meditation techniques. As for the strange three-eyed crow, the three of them also began to examine its corpse. To their horror, they discovered that such a creature had never been seen on this land before! It was as if a mysterious species had appeared out of thin air in this world. Furthermore, its structure was completely different from that of existing giant beast species, as if it came from another dimension.

"A creature not of this world? Could it be from somewhere else?" Medea murmured.

Circe, who had stopped her squabbles with Medea, was also stunned. She whispered to her two sisters, "According to historical records, Hero-King Gilgamesh once dispatched hundreds of thousands of valiant warriors to explore our world. It's flat and round, so there shouldn't be any unknown areas we aren't aware of. Could it be..."

"...In the sky!"

Suddenly, without speaking, they all slowly looked up at the azure sky above the Babylonian tribe. The Great Flood had also poured down from the sky. Could it be that there was a mysterious continent in the sky, a sky island, where various strange and unknown animals lived? Was that the dwelling place of the gods, vast and boundless, the land of the gods of the Temple of Creation? They were stunned, completely immersed in their own conjectures.

Xu Zhi slightly closed his eyes and exited the game interface. "Finally done," he thought. "I had to memorize that script several times, afraid of getting a single word wrong. Acting really isn't my strong suit; it was so uncomfortable. If it weren't for my illness, I wouldn't bother with such an awkward charade, reciting lines to them. Guiding a civilization's development and acting as a creator while hiding my own weakness—it's truly vexing."

Xu Zhi took off his VR headset. Frankly, a terrifying figure like Gilgamesh, if he appeared before Xu Zhi at full scale, could crush him with a single slap. That's a monster who wouldn't die even falling from a thousand meters. Even the three witches before him, with their acquired powers, knowledge, and the three Babylonian guardian gods, were powerful transcendent beings who had endured countless deaths, setbacks, and hardships—far beyond Xu Zhi's reach. But he himself... had to deceive them. Just thinking about it gave him a headache. He was just an ordinary person!

After logging off, he quietly took a shower, then returned and restarted the small sandbox game. Within minutes, the players were all online.

"Damn it, dog developer! Come here and face me!"

"Shutting down the server suddenly for bug fixes is one thing, but I'm really angry this time! Restarting it without any notice! You made a hardcore player like me waste valuable time!"

They grumbled and cursed, yet frantically continued to grind in the game, striving to evolve new species for Xu Zhi. Xu Zhi paid no attention to the clamor of those "weaklings." With the magnanimity of a creator, he was still fighting for his own cancer.

"Using an entire world for a sandbox simulation to figure out how to cure my terminal illness... I doubt anyone else in this world could pull off such an exaggerated feat, right? But this path of simulating transcendence is truly difficult." Since modern Earth's medicine and science couldn't cure him, Xu Zhi decided to try curing himself with the "superstitious" methods of witch doctors' potions and alchemy's pharmacology.

The seeds had been sown. Among the three types of knowledge he imparted, Xu Zhi naturally most anticipated alchemy—the creation of elixirs and magic potions—to research a cure for his cancer. This was his primary goal. However, alchemy only existed in myths, too mysterious and unpredictable; it would likely be very difficult to achieve. But the other two paths he transmitted—meditation and witchcraft—should be viable. Meditation, needless to say, as yoga's meditative breathing techniques and Eastern Qigong's internal visualization shared similarities. Cultivating oneself and expanding one's essence, vital energy, and spirit was a certainty. It remained to be seen how they would expand various meditation methods and thoroughly research the wizard system and its various levels of cultivation. And witchcraft was bound to emerge; after all, with heightened spiritual power, they would naturally develop sophisticated uses for it. There was no need to worry.

"The preparations are complete. Now we'll see what they can develop into. It's just a pity that there are still too few transcendent species, like the Evil Eye. If there were more, they could provide better inspiration... After all, my idea is to create a transcendent world of wizards, teeming with various strange and terrifying transcendent species, fraught with danger, yet incredibly exciting." Xu Zhi sighed, silently looking at the players. "You guys need to put some effort into this." Xu Zhi lamented their misfortune and was frustrated by their lack of progress! These guys, instead of focusing on properly evolving transcendent potential species and playing the sandbox game well—like creating the next Eye Monster—they were constantly thinking of devious schemes, whispering behind his back, and trying to undermine him every other day. "A bunch of livestock," he thought. "I need to find a way to milk you dry."

Xu Zhi, for a moment, had no particular ideas or inspirations. Just then, Chen Xi's voice came from the doorway, "Brother Xu Zhi, you promised to come with me to the class reunion. It's time to go." Xu Zhi was momentarily stunned before realizing. Going to the city to relax wasn't a bad idea. He changed into the new clothes he had bought earlier and strode out.

"Holy moly, the giant is out again! It's an earthquake! Run!"

"Brothers, retreat quickly! Attack on Titan is here again!"

"Hehe, I have six legs. I don't need to run faster than the giant; I just need to run faster than you guys!"

"Brother, that's too much! Next time, when I evolve eight beautiful long legs, we'll see who runs faster!"

The group of ants on the ground cried out, scrambling and scattering. They were terrified of being accidentally stepped on, as they were species that had painstakingly evolved to the shore after countless deaths.