Shepherding Humanity

But soon, Xu Zhi realized that he was overthinking things. He was not capable of evolving something like a helicopter, even if he wanted to!

He did not have the necessary knowledge of Evolutionary Theory to do it himself, nor did he have a research team to help him out.

“I’ll have to settle for evolving a bird, then. As long as it can fly…”

Xu Zhi went into his storage shed and started searching. After half a day, all he managed to find was an old wash basin.

“I don’t like this kind of shape.”

After a little more searching, he found a round wooden plank.

“It’s too thin to serve as a flying island.”

Xu Zhi practically turned the shed upside down, but couldn’t find a suitable template for his flying island. At this rate, he would have to make it from scratch like the players did.

He scratched his head and frowned, when all of sudden, inspiration hit him: The “Rubik's Cube”!

The “Giant God” was a synthetic life-form composed of countless creatures.

Would it be possible to combine these two creatures with great potential together?

He considered this. “I’ll use the iron ‘Rubik's Cube’ creatures as my basic building blocks, and combine them into a ‘Giant God’. By combining their respective strong points, I might be able to create the strongest being!”

The more he thought about this, the more Xu Zhi became convinced of its possibilities.

“And that’s not all, I can take this even further! This iron block still has plenty of room to evolve. I could make it into a rectangular Lego block for ease of assembly!”

Xu Zhi recalled how he used to play with Lego when younger. With those colorful rectangular plastic blocks, he had made all sorts of things: Lego buildings, Lego figures, Lego planes, Lego vehicles, Lego boats…

He could make whatever he wanted with them.

The current “iron block” creature was already in the shape of a rectangle, evolving studs and holes shouldn’t be too difficult.

Although Xu Xhi did not have advanced knowledge of evolutionary theory, it was still easy for him to change a creature’s basic shape.

Evolving studs and holes was very simple.

Like how farmers cultivate square watermelons, all he needed was a mold to limit the creature's growth.

“Hive Mind, bring out the Rubik's Cube creature’s genes from the genetic database and start the reproduction process.” Xu Zhi commanded.

The Hive Mind responded with it mechanical voice:

“Manipulating the genetic sequence…”

“Inserting spores…”

“Reproduction starting…”

…

Soon, many Rubik’s Cube creatures were born.

Xu Zhi made Lego molds out of crystal glue and placed the Rubik’s Cube creatures inside.

Generations passed.

As they grew up within the molds, their shapes were constrained by their molds.

Eventually, after many generations worth of evolution, even after the molds were removed, studs and holes remained on the smooth rectangular blocks.

“I’ve succeeded in creating my Rubik's Cube variant.”

Xu Zhi furrowed his brow. “Hive Mind, name this new species: The Giant God’s Basic Building Blocks.”

“Done. Would you like to enter it into the database?”

“Do it.”

Xu Zhi looked at the microscopic red Lego blocks scattered all over the table and laughed.

“To think that I’d make use of my childhood experience of playing with Lego like this. With this creature as the basic building blocks, I can easily make a flying island or a synthetic giant god.”

Furthermore, his Giant God v.2.0 would be much stronger than the player’s Giant God.

It was made up of Rubik’s Cube creatures after all. They were lightweight while being as hard as iron. A certain big-shot in the field of biology had labored day and night to create them.

“With these Lego blocks, I’ll now start to assemble a really cool flying island.”

Xu Zhi sat down before the table with the super tiny Lego blocks. Using a silver tweezer, he picked up the blocks one by one and assembled them into a circular island that was straight out of Minecraft.

The island was about as big as a bathroom sink and used up 17.000 of Xu Zhi’s Lego Block Creatures.

“My synthetic life-form is now complete. Next, all I need to do is place it in the small sandbox and make it evolve in the direction of a bird.”

Xu Zhi rested a hand on his cheek. “This is a golden opportunity to evolve my flying island since the game’s sandbox is empty right now…”

There were several players who could not participate in this project because they were busy with real-life, but Xu Zhi decided to take away their ability to enter the game, just in case. It would be bad if they logged in all of a sudden, and saw what the Creator was up to…

“It’s time to start the evolutionary process. I’m starting with a lump of biomass, just like the players did back then. Now, how am I supposed to evolve this into a bird?”

Xu Zhi surreptitiously made a post online.

Vengeful Creator: “Guys, is there anyone here who can tell me how to evolve a landbound organism into a bird?”

Countless people rushed to put in their two cents.

“According to the history of evolution…”

“You could try this…”

…

Xu Zhi started to evolve his creature.

His standards weren’t very high. As long as his giant lump of “Spores” could evolve into a bird, he did not care what kind of bird it was. As long as it could fly, he did not care about its shape.

And, he failed…

Miserably.

Back then, he had thoughtlessly evolved a bizarre bird without any effort, but purposefully doing so was an entirely different matter.

His “Evolutionary Technique” has always relied on Luck-of-the-Draw, leaving everything up to fate. Unlike the players, he did not study Evolutionary Theory like crazy, and was far inferior to them in this field.

He failed again and again, and had to reassemble his Lego model many times, but he got what he wanted in the end.

His flying island was a bizarre black and white “bird” that was a roughly circular disk in shape, with a giant pair of wings growing on its sides.

*Woosh!*

The sink-sized bird took flight.

Xu Zhi looked up and silently watched as it flew around his orchard. He thought that it looked as majestic as a hawk in flight.

“Not only can this bird serve as the Land of the Gods ‘Achilles’, it will also be my number one bodyguard! Since it can fly, it can easily patrol the surroundings of my orchard and protect me.”

“Come back down.”

Xu Zhi stood by the entrance to his yard and held out his hand.

*Woosh.*

The land of The Gods ‘Achilles’ lightly landed on the back of Xu Zhi’s hand like a trained hawk. Its gleaming metallic wings were spread wide open, exuding a powerful aura.

Xu Zhi caressed its wide back, which had a hard metallic texture, and fed it an apple. “Good boy. From now on, I’ll raise you in the orchard as my pet.”

*Creak!*

The curious creature lowered its head and pecked away, finishing the apple in an instant.

This synthetic life-form was composed of countless creatures. Its hair, skin, and bones were all creatures with mouths of their own, so how were they supposed to eat then? Did they have to disassemble each time they wanted to share a meal?

That wasn’t necessary.

The players had already solved this issue.

They had evolved a specialized “Esophagus” that could deliver the food put in the mouth to every part of the body through a network of “Pipes” that could even reach the skin, delivering food straight into the mouths of each of the creature’s constituent parts.

They put a lot of thought into this and had evolved a creature with a very sophisticated structure.

“Hive Mind, show me this creature’s genetic properties.” Xu Zhi ordered.

Its properties were as follows:

The Land of the Gods, Achilles.

Genetic properties: Spiked Shell, Transformation, Supreme Regeneration, Immortality.

(Can grow without limit, potential unknown.)

“Oh? One of the genetic properties has changed?” Xu Zhi was a little surprised.

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