Divinity Sprouting Experiment

Nature Sect!

The first thing Cheng Shi thought of when he heard the name of the Experiment was this: the Nature Sect!

A player organization that believes Divinity originates from human nature!

Hu Xuan, the "offspring" who was "Birth" and recognized, is one of them.

There was no such organization in the history of Isle of Hope, but almost every player organization originated from a large power on Isle of Hope.

Just as the Rationality Association corresponds to the Tower of Reason and the Order Alliance corresponds to the Grand Inquisition, the Nature Sect does not correspond to the Natural Alliance, but rather to the Life Church, a religious organization established by people who Faith under the rule of Civilization.

Because the nations during the Civilization Era had more or less political alliances and cultural exchanges with the Natural Alliance, they were not opposed to the emergence of such other Path of Fate within their borders. As a result, the Life Church flourished under the Civilization, especially within the Tower of Reason.

The reason is still the same: the Life Church also believes that Divinity should be born from humanity, so they tirelessly pursue this point, and coincidentally, the Tower of Reason is the best at studying Divinity.

Therefore... Therius was not only a Scholar from the Tower of Reason, but also a devout Divine Cult from the Life Church.

"Divinity... emergence... Experiment."

These words may seem ordinary when read separately, but when put together, they are terrifying.

"How can Divinity arise, and how could it possibly arise in a human being?" Li Yi was dumbfounded. He stared blankly at the horizontal slice of wood in Therius's hand and asked incredulously, "So, the final battle is for the Sprouted Divinity? What Divinity? [Chaos]? Is there [Chaos] at this time?"

Even the Gao San was stunned. He muttered to himself:

So, are we the self, or a fragment, or...?

Whose slice?

He looked at Li Yi and remembered what Li Yi had said: according to the sequence, the one ranked 1 should be the original body. Could it be that he and Cheng Shi were both slices of Li Yi?

Li Yi was clearly aware of this as well, which is why his expression became very complicated.

Only Cheng Shi ignored Therius's words, letting them go in one ear and out the other, treating them purely as amusement.

Because before the other party reveals their purpose, even if these words are true, they may still be deceiving people, since they themselves have just played this trick.

So he had only one question in his mind: what exactly was Therius plotting in front of him, and why hadn't the Therius outside the door come in?

"No, no, no, you've misunderstood. When a slice hasn't been cultured into an individual, you can think of it as just a slice, a fragment peeled off from the Experiment material."

But once the slide has grown into a complete Experiment specimen, from that moment on, there is no longer any concept of a slide, because each Experiment specimen is itself—at least this was established before the Experiment, so each Experiment firmly believes in this.

"Bang!"

When Therius finished speaking, Cheng Shi laughed. He felt that this Scholar was trying to mislead everyone into believing his views, believing that everyone was just a slice of one person.

The problem is, I can't be someone else's slice.

So he once again threw the Scalpel he was holding onto the Experiment table, and said with a playful air:

"Scholar, you might as well clarify who is whose slice."

Or to be more specific, among the three people in front of you, who is the fragment and who is the original?

Therius didn't mind Cheng Shi's actions at all. He glanced at the sharp Scalpel on the table, then looked at Cheng Shi and smiled:

"Why be so fixated on who the slice is? I've said it before..."

"Bang!"

The third Scalpel was stuck into the table, right into the horizontal slice of the wooden figure beside Therius, pinning the innocent slice to the table.

"If you say another word, the next Scalpel will fly towards your head."

I don't know what you're waiting for. Your gaze keeps drifting to the wooden door behind me. Are you waiting for Therius, who looks exactly like you, outside the door?

However, it seems to me that he doesn't want to see you.

"..."

Upon hearing this, Therius's expression finally changed slightly; his withered face twitched, and then he slowly sighed.

"The idea of 'slicing' depends on the specific purpose of the Experiment. The Divinity Sprouting Experiment is not simple. If I just randomly say a number, would you believe it?"

So please listen patiently until I finish speaking.

[Divinity] cannot be brought forth from within humanity simply through the imagination and fabrication of individual consciousness; this has been a consensus since ancient times.

Therefore, in order to 'nurture' Divinity within humanity, the Church has long focused on the interaction between different life forms. Only the sparks ignited by communication between consciousness can potentially 'mutate' into Divinity.

Of course, we must eat one bite at a time and walk one step at a time. We do not want to directly create "Divinity," but rather to observe whether, in the interactions of human nature, it is possible to split off a trace of mutated human nature that is similar to "Divinity" in terms of data and form, even if it is only similar for a moment.

This abnormal change in humanity is what we call the "Sprouted Divinity".

However, after several generations of exploration, we have discovered that it is absolutely impossible to cultivate Sprouted Divinity through the interaction of different life forms, because their sense of identification with each other is too low, and they lack the key emotion of 'Mutual Recognition'.

This emotion is considered the foundation of all Divinity, and it has an even more sacred name, which is...

Faith.

However, in our Experiment, we preferred to call it a rudimentary form of Faith, 'Mutual Recognition'.

Therefore, in order to enhance the sense of identity among living organisms, the Slice Experiment was first developed.

We can imagine a person splitting into countless selves, and these selves, each with fragmented Memory and broken consciousness, simultaneously affirm one thing: 'I am who I am.' In this way, a simple 'Mutual Recognition' emerges.

Then we chose the most sluggish of all the Divinity, [Filth and Decay], as our direction of experimentation, simply because it did not excessively reject humanity like other Divinity.

We cannot define exactly what state [Divinity] manifests in consciousness, so this process of gestation has no clear direction. We can only search for the patterns of human nature's mutations when it collides through continuous testing.

After countless Experiment, we finally discovered that fear is the emotion with the highest probability of mutation. Although this mutation cannot yet give rise to "Sprouted Divinity", it at least mutates and gives rise to many forces that are beneficial to living beings and help them overcome fear.

This is also the most promising direction we see so far, and thus, the Grand Inquisition version of the Experiment, the final showdown, was born.

By now, you've probably guessed it: the reason for using this method in Experiment is to stimulate the deep-seated fears of the Experiment, using their tense and turbulent consciousness as a cradle to nurture that rare "Sprouted Divinity" related to "Filth and Decay" and "fear."

"If it's about fear, why not let all the Experiment materials fight each other? Wouldn't that be even more terrifying?" Gao San frowned and asked in confusion.

"Of course we've tried, but that would produce other variations of contamination [Filth and Decay] in the interweaving of cognition and accumulation of consciousness. Although these variations have a high success rate, they are extremely disordered, and we have searched for a long time without finding their [Divinity] laws."

So we abandoned that plan and opted to replace gladiatorial combat instead.

Furthermore, during the Experiment, we also need to consider how to collect the [Sprouted Divinity] should it truly mutate successfully.

Because this Sprouted Divinity of fear that bursts forth in consciousness does not belong to true Filth and Decay, but is born under Mutual Recognition of 'I am who I am', in other words, the Experiment subject is the true master of this Sprouted Divinity!

After embracing his Sprouted Divinity, he transformed from an ordinary Experiment subject into something possessing a sliver of the First possibility—He!

So here's the answer you've been looking for.

The serial number of the Experiment materials is not important; what is important is which material this Experiment intends to use as the final collection medium for [Divinity].

Because the Experiment subjects in the same group all possess self-recognition characteristics, when one Experiment subject dies at the hands of another, regardless of whose consciousness the "Sprouted Divinity" originates from, it will Experiment absorbed by the victor and become the victor's "spoils of war."

Unless there is a specific purpose, Experiment generally tend to place the most original prototype material at the end of the sequence.

Because the prototype of the Experiment subject has the most complete personality, the 'Mutual Recognition' tends to be more inclined to recognize him, so his capacity to bear the 'budding Divinity's is stronger.

Furthermore, according to the rules of the Death Sentence, only the last person standing has the highest probability of winning in the final showdown, which means they are the most likely to collect the mutated [Sprouted Divinity]!

"!!!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the Gao San leaped high with lightning speed and disappeared into the gap in the ceiling above everyone's heads.

Li Yi snapped his fingers, transforming himself into a rain of Playing Card and disappearing from the spot.

The two cowards ran away, seemingly frightened.

Cheng Shi didn't chase after him. He digested Therius's words and smiled.

Unexpectedly, after going around in circles, the prototype of the Experiment material actually became myself.

That's interesting, but...

Not much.

He stared unblinkingly at Therius, and with a sneer, retorted:

"So, Scholar, what slice number are you?"

Therius chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"I am not a slice, I am the original Experiment material that was discarded."