Chapter 84: Evolutionary Deity

Since these guys were clearly up to something, it was necessary to find someone to keep them in check, an insider or a spy among them.

Xu Zhi accompanied Chen Xi to a meeting that lasted over an hour, during which he secretly listened in for a while before going offline.

From the meeting, Xu Zhi learned that out of 180 sandbox players, 173 were willing to participate in the Giant God Construction Plan. The remaining seven, like Xu Zhi, chose not to participate. Some of them had unavoidable real-world commitments in the past few days, while others had their species evolve halfway and believed they possessed great potential. They were reluctant to abandon their progress by 'suiciding' and reverting to spores, so they opted out.

With the participants confirmed, the plan was officially put on the agenda. Each of these players was adept at 'writing dissertations' to gain access to the sandbox. This highly professional group quickly discussed and launched their ambitious god-creation plan.

Right from the start, a certain maverick player spoke up.

Autumn Mountain Speed: "Damn it, if we're only making a thousand-meter tall aggregate creature, is that even going to be exciting enough? No, it won't! We should at least go for five or six thousand meters... wait, five or six thousand meters isn't enough either. If we're going to do it, let's do it right! Make it as massive as the Creator God in the courtyard, a ten-thousand-zhang-level giant! Now *that's* a true god-creation movement!"

The crowd fell silent.

Little Tiger Down the Mountain: "Holy cow, boss, stirring up trouble again, are we? Always thinking about creating gods, slaying gods, and rebellion! Terrifying!"

Chunzi Loves Learning: "Trembling with fear. What's your take on this, Great Scholar Bai Xue?"

Scholar Bai Xue: "I think it's doable. If we're going to do it, let's go big." He smiled. "After all, when each of us combines our dozens or even hundreds of species, we can collectively achieve a size comparable to the Creator God."

Xu Zhi, secretly listening to the god-creation plan these players were devising, was instantly dumbfounded. It's one thing to stir up trouble, but you want to keep escalating it? Aren't you afraid of literally poking a hole in the sky?

Initially, the giant god was planned to be the size of a husky. However, as the group brainstormed, their ambitions swelled uncontrollably. In the end, they unanimously decided: if they were going to have fun, they would have earth-shattering fun. If they were going to create, they would create the most incredible one – a ten-thousand-zhang giant, the same size as Xu Zhi himself. To ants, such a human-sized form would be a vast continent.

Soon, a group of ambitious individuals, brimming with excitement as if injected with adrenaline, began constructing the basic biological template for the ship, led by Great Scholar Bai Xue. To build a ship, naturally, one must first chop down trees.

"Go build your ship, but you bastards are cutting *us* trees down!"

"Die early, reincarnate early, right? What's wrong with chopping you down? We're all going to die eventually anyway, turning back into spores to become composite organisms together."

Autumn Mountain Speed took this opportunity to retaliate. This fiery red rooster, with its head held high and chest puffed out, patrolled like a foreman: "You trees, be more proactive! Hey, you long-legged tree brothers over there, carry the immobile tree brothers here and queue up to be chopped yourselves!"

Funeral Chicken swaggered, "And you players who've evolved scythes, move it! If you're real men, be more brutal! Chop off these trees' heads first, give them an early euthanasia!"

The trees were speechless. The plant players were in tears. This guy was clearly retaliating. It turns out all their desperate efforts to evolve trees earlier were just to ensure this sandbox had enough timber! "It seems we truly had foresight."

This was destined to be an immensely vast project. A group of ants, working together, building a ship the size of a real-life yacht. Everyone worked incredibly swiftly with very clear divisions of labor. Although there were only 173 players, they brought their own species, amounting to tens of thousands of laborers—like building the Great Wall.

Screenshots poured in. In front of the lush green forest, a long-legged tree 'king,' leading its tribe of dozens of long-legged trees, queued up one by one to be chopped down. On the other side, a pile of grotesque, scarlet creatures with scythes sat on small stools, frantically chopping down trees. Some other players had already begun assembling the ship.

These screenshots were posted on the "God Creation Movement" thread. Some players were even livestreaming, allowing outside spectators to follow the project's progress.

"How thrilling! Those trees with beautiful, sexy long legs – their amazing gams are getting me hyped! What a blast! Sexy trees, getting chopped down live online! Haha!"

"Hello everyone, I'm the Long-Legged Tree. If you're bros, come chop me down! Haha!"

"Shocking! So these trees evolved legs just to make it easier to queue up for suicide? Hilarious!"

Outside, people were abuzz with discussions, countless individuals debating heatedly. It would have been a lie to say they weren't envious. Everyone knew that if this god-creation movement, involving almost all players, succeeded, it would certainly lead to big things. Before, everyone was extremely envious of the Alchemy Emperor inside. Now, this group declared, "We're not convinced! We want to team up, go in, and utterly defeat this Alchemy Emperor online!"

Soon, other than going offline for meals, they livestreamed for over ten hours. A massive ship was completed, resembling a small wooden dinghy from the real world, quietly docked in the small sandbox in front of Xu Zhi's door. The swift completion was due to its shoddy construction. It was essentially a rough amalgamation of wood, just sturdy enough to float. After all, it was merely a foundational biological template, and the faster it decayed, the better.

"Heave-ho!""Heave-ho!"

A group of strange creatures transformed into boat pullers, thousands of tiny ants, pulling this giant ship into the sea. Fortunately, for the 30-square-meter evolutionary sandbox, Xu Zhi had provided a 40% ocean area, which translated to a 12-square-meter pond. The wooden ship, measuring 1.8 meters long and half a meter wide, could easily fit into it.

"It's a success!""Commence mass suicide! Reincarnate! Everyone restart the game, return to the ocean, the origin of life, and become single-celled organisms in the ocean!""Remember, as spores, once we're born, we'll attach ourselves to the ship. We'll cover the entire ship together. I've shown you the evolution process: as the ship slowly decays, we parasites will gradually replace its structure, sticking to each other, piecing together, until the wood completely disappears, becoming a giant ship composed entirely of living organisms.""Everyone, look! The Creator God, sitting on a chair in the courtyard, eating an apple, is watching us spores!""It's perfectly normal. According to the setting, this omniscient, omnipotent, supreme Creator God... we spores are evolving and stirring up trouble in his dimensional courtyard, so of course he'd want to see what we're up to!""The Creator God is probably baffled too! He's watching us collectively build a creature as huge as him! His mind must be mush: 'What are these single-celled organisms doing? Are they crazy?'""Haha! I wonder if there's a hidden reward!""Ancient legends speak of the Eternal Sea of Return to Ruin, where there is a colossal living ship with eight sails, one anchor, and countless tentacles wrapped around it. The giant ship is the origin of the old gods, an nameless dread, an indescribable existence, the one into which all things return!"

Xu Zhi sat on his chair, munching an apple, quietly watching the excited, self-indulgent group of players in the distance. He remained calm, having grown accustomed to their usual antics.

Xu Zhi asked the insectoid sub-brain: "Is Scholar Bai Xue, the player from the Spore Guild who's leading this project, a spy planted by those research institutes?"

"No, he isn't." The insectoid sub-brain provided the investigation results: "But he is also an exceptionally talented individual."

Xu Zhi reviewed the information. He was a university student majoring in marine ecology, with no special background. Given his field of study, it was no wonder he possessed such specialized knowledge about marine parasitic vessels and conceived this parasitic idea.

"It's good that he has a clean background," Xu Zhi mused, then decided to first observe the evolutionary process.