The Nebula's Civilization

Chapter 27: The First Prairie

Sung-Woon knew he would eventually create an Afterlife someday.

After a player selected their first tribe, and the NPCs in the surrounding areas were defeated, a player’s Divinity level would reach eleven. It was one of the required conditions to create an Afterlife, and a player could reach the level if they played properly in the beginning. Then they would be called Semi-Deities. At that point on, it would be very difficult for XP to increase.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. Levels are only one of the additional factors to winning the game. And no one would be at a higher level than I am right now.’

Though there was another player that was getting on Sung-Woon’s nerves.

‘I think the player that has the Gnoll tribe is also at level eleven… I should be wary of that player.’

Sung-Woon had been fairly busy for the past few years. He had to take caution of the players that were slowly starting to expand their areas while also assisting Lakrak in defeating the NPCs nearby.

‘That’s why I invested a lot into Small Area: Insects.’

Lakrak’s Clan was so far away that they weren’t even aware, but Sung-Woon had three groups of insects. Initially they were merely labeled as groups, but Sung-Woon set a name for each of the insect groups using tags.

The first group of insects, named Association, were swarms of locusts. Unlike in the past, when the locusts were used to help Lakrak, there was more than one swarm of locusts now.

They were no longer only active in the peninsula, but also the wilderness connected to the peninsula, the continents and mountain regions that extended from the wilderness, and the rivers that flowed to the north. The locust swarms would go far and wide anywhere in those regions during seasons where locusts were active.

This was possible because Sung-Woon had made a creature to control the groups of locusts through the Essence farming he had done. Association followed the creature’s orders and attacked other players that Sung-Woon hadn’t directly encountered himself. But Sung-Woon did control the severity of the attacks so that they wouldn’t be fatal.

‘That way, the other players won’t be able to tell the difference between my attacks and the locust attacks that naturally arise from game events.’

In the Lost World, it wasn’t possible to distinguish if a simple event came from the system or had been conjured by another player.

Experienced players would be able to somewhat guess that Sung-Woon’s locust attacks weren’t game events, but that was okay to Sung-Woon.

‘I’m doing well hiding in the outer areas of the peninsula without encountering the other players.’

The evil reputation of Sung-Woon’s locusts groups had spread among the players that did Agriculture in the center of the continent and along the northern coasts. They all suspected that there was someone with Small Area: Insects, but only turned their gazes to players around themselves and never thought that it would be Sung-Woon, who wouldn’t even benefit from the attacks immediately because he was located so far away.

‘But letting the players doubt each other makes them lose trust within one another, which makes them less likely to form alliances. Technological advances are also too fast in Agriculture once roads are pioneered. Keeping distance is the only way. So this is worth using my Faith points for.’

The second insect group was a mixed group of insects named Host. Sung-Woon had used them to attack the Frogmen tribe by the lake, but they were barely active now. Just like the creature Sung-Woon made to lead Association, the leader of Host was persistently gathering diseases that Sung-Woon wanted to obtain. Sung-Woon believed that this particular group of insects would become very useful later on.

The last group of insects Sung-Woon had was also a mixed group, and they were called Nest. Sung-Woon had created this group to farm XP for Small Area: Insects. This group mainly consisted of ant hills and bee hives, which were taking over the ecosystems in the southern peninsula located at the south most side of the wilderness. There was no creature that led Nest, but Sung-Woon thought it would eventually be necessary to have one.

‘...So I thought I was doing well without suffering any losses.’

In the past few years, there hadn’t been any big problems. Sung-Woon intended to take over the entire peninsula and gather all the Lizardmen. And if time was on his side, he believed it would be possible to do so without running into many issues. The united Lizardmen would naturally gain the upper hand over the other tribes, which would also make them influential. The weaker tribes would have no other choice but to accept and believe in the Black-Scaled Lizardmen’s God.

However, a Gnoll tribe suddenly appeared from the north. Sung-Woon had to temporarily give up his goal of taking over the peninsula and led Lakrak’s Clan north; it was clear that this Gnoll tribe belonged to another player rather than stemming from an NPC event. The Ears Cut Tribe was a tribe that Sung-Woon should keep an eye out for. They were a large tribe, and since they were a Nomadic tribe rather than an Agricultural one, their combat power was not to be underestimated. The Lizardmen had Curocas, and the Gnolls had sabertooth tigers. The Gnolls hadn’t been able to advance their bows much, but their metal smelting technology was better than the Lizardmen’s. It was likely a technique that they obtained from a place Sung-Woon hadn’t been able to explore yet.

‘Just by looking at their advancements, the player might be at a similar level as I am. They also might have created an Afterlife too.’

Sung-Woon decided not to think about the opponent that he didn't know much about. This wasn’t anything out of his predictions, and there were many ways to deal with the situation. The most important thing at the moment was the Afterlife.

‘I’m still on the faster side of meeting all the conditions. Level-wise, resource-wise, Faith points-wise, and…sufficient deaths.’

There were four conditions to create an Afterlife. Reaching the necessary levels, killing NPCs such as Abominations and Fiends to obtain special resources, and acquiring enough Faith points were the easier ones out of the four. But the last condition, death, was unclear. Once there were enough deaths of individuals that believed in the player, then the condition was known to be met. However, the specific formula for figuring out how many had to die was not provided in The Lost World, so the players had to make the calculations and figure it out themselves. There were cases where the condition wasn’t fulfilled no matter how many had died, and there were cases where the conditions were easily met after the death of only a few individuals.

‘Some say that it depends on how much Faith points the individual generated…but that doesn’t necessarily add up. I can’t figure out what it is. But I’ve already met the conditions, so does it even matter?’

Sung-Woon then opened the World Creation Helper ver.2. He knew there would come a day where he would create an Afterlife, so he had been modeling different kinds of Afterlife he wanted from time to time using the World Creation Helper ver.2, which was provided by the Lost World’s system.

Just like the Creature Creation Helper Sung-Woon used to make Sratis, there were worlds Sung-Woon had created before and worlds that other players had made saved in the World Creation Helper program. But just like last time, Sung-Woon decided to make a new one.

‘But the basic framework is pre-made. That’s good.’

Sung-Woon already knew what kind of Afterlife each species preferred from his previous experiences in playing the game. While Lizardmen all generally preferred the same type of Afterlife, there was a certain kind of world Lizardmen of a young civilization especially favored.

‘Green fields with moist, humid air and warm sunny plains.’

Sung-Woon was somewhat relieved when he heard Lakrak and the star catcher imagining and talking about the Afterlife because the Afterlife he created wasn’t too different from their descriptions.

‘The next task would be…’

Sung-Woon continued preparing the Afterlife by pressing here and there within the World Creation Helper tab.

The souls of those who died while having faith in the player would remain rather than disappear. It was up to the players if they wanted to collect the souls, and most of the time, they were collected because that was the only way an Afterlife could be created. The souls would be the first ones to set foot in the Afterlife Sung-Woon created.

‘Is the star catcher the one with the highest level among all the souls?’

The Afterlife was a very important element within the Lost World, as it was a factor in determining the view of life after death for those who believed in a god. For example, if an Afterlife of Hell was created, a god could show Priests the image of Hell through dreams. The Priests would then learn from the dreams that those who were wicked would receive eternal punishment, and they would then spread that fact to the other believers.

‘That way, the Priests can tell the believers to uphold morality and ethics, but there’s another way to compel them to do so.’

The concept of Hell could be changed depending on a player’s abilities and utilization. There were multiple ways to inform believers of what could make them go to Hell. Players could have priests tell believers that doing bad things would land them in Hell, but they could also have believers think that attacking a certain species or insulting a specific god could lead to the same fate. This type of gameplay was common in The Lost World.

It was also common for the concept of Heaven to be used together with Hell.

‘There would be no reason to believe in a god if Hell was the only destination after death. Punishments should always be paired with rewards.’

Therefore, it was also possible to create a world where the believers believed that they would go to Heaven if they attacked a certain species, or insulted a specific god. And it was more than a matter of faith since this actually happened in the Afterlife.

But it wasn’t possible for Sung-Woon to create an Afterlife of Heaven and Hell just yet.

‘I would need at least two Afterlifes, but I can only make one right now. Reincarnation is also difficult because there would need to be judges.’

As a result, Sung-Woon was only able to create a type of Afterlife called Different Worlds. The Different Worlds were useful Afterlifes commonplace throughout history.

‘Valhalla, Water of Forgetfulness, Styx, Limbo… They’re all different from each other, but they all indicate worlds you would go to after you die.’

These worlds weren’t necessarily individual worlds on their own, but more often used as spaces leading to other Afterlifes. However, these weren’t the only purposes for these worlds.

‘Even in Valhalla, the Afterlife was like a training place for warriors getting ready for Ragnarok. Afterlifes can really differ depending on how the players want to use them. If I think about it, there was a time I even won by utilizing the Afterlife well… I did get lucky though.’

Souls would be immortal as long as an Afterlife existed. It was hard to make use of the knowledge or powers that the souls possessed because it consumed a lot of Faith points, but as the game progressed into the later stages, the souls would become very helpful to the players.

‘...Nevertheless, there’s no need to rush from the start. Many things are still in their inceptions. Let’s think flexibly.’

Sung-Woon named his Afterlife as The First Prairie. It was a working title, allowing possibility for future expansion.

Then The First Prairie that was visible in the World Creation Helper appeared below Sung-Woon’s feet. Sung-Woon opened his possessions window and scattered all the souls into The First Prairie. Hundreds of souls turned into blue wandering butterflies, and they landed on the grassland. As soon as the spirits that believed themselves to be butterflies landed on grass, flowers, and dirt, they remembered they used to be Lizardmen and turned back into their original forms before they died. But in The First Prairie, they realized they weren’t injured, exhausted, or had deadly diseases.

The Lizardmen closed their eyes for a moment to see if this was all a dream, or if it was real. Some fell asleep under the warm sunlight, while others kept their eyes closed in case it was a dream and eventually fell asleep as well. There were also some who opened their eyes again, looking forward to what they would see next.

Sung-Woon concealed himself.

There was a soul that Sung-Woon needed to guide personally.