House of Sunlight

He had been so focused on the technicalities of the Tri-Symbiotic System that he had overlooked the most basic fact:

The birth of a race was not merely about being "created" in the biological sense.

It also needed a reason—one that would make these independent individuals willing to lower their guard, draw close to one another, and face this world together.

Technology could grant them the ability to survive, but it could not grant them the will to live together.

The former was science. The latter was... Ron could not find an exact word to sum it up.

Faith? Too heavy.

Consensus? Too rational.

Perhaps the closest description was: a shared experience.

An experience significant enough for everyone to remember, to pass down, and to Recall again and again in the years that followed.

A baptism capable of forging "me" into "us."

"What are you planning to do?"

Dragon Soul had been quietly watching from the side, and now it finally could not contain its curiosity.

Ron stood before the observation platform, his gaze falling on the surface of that miniature planet.

Those scattered clusters of light were like isolated island lighthouses, their glow unable to reach one another.

"I'm going to give them a winter. Then I'll see whether they choose to draw closer."

"...Do you know what that sounds like?"

"Like what?"

"Like a bored god experimenting on ants he made himself."

Ron fell silent for a moment.

"Maybe," he said without denying it. "But at least I know what I'm doing."

"That's arrogant as hell," Aselia said mockingly.

"If Hector heard you say that, he'd probably tell you another little story."

There was a well-known rule on the public server.

For newly deployed populations that had been in the game for less than two years in