A miniature continent floated quietly inside the spatial crystal sphere.
A tiny red orb of light shone down on the continent.
Though the spatial crystal sphere was only the size of a fist, it firmly held the gazes of everyone present, making them forget everything else, unwilling to look away.
"Everyone, this is the world I designed for Mutants, or rather, the World Seed."
Li Ge let go, allowing the spatial crystal sphere to float slowly past each of them in turn so they could see it more clearly.
"Inside this world, I arranged different types of terrain according to direction."
"The north has snowy mountains and ice fields, the south has oceans and islands, the west has deserts and the Gobi, the east has rainforests and swamps, and the middle here has plains and rivers."
"As for the sun in the sky, that's the Redstone I deliberately left connected to the source of the universe. It will keep expanding the world and strengthening the things inside it."
Li Ge explained the state of the World Seed inside the spatial crystal sphere.
"Oh, right. Since there are many things I haven't seen, and I still can't manifest living creatures,
if you want to develop this world, you'll need to find a way to obtain enough plants and animals."
After looking at their expressions of endless admiration, Li Ge continued.
"Oh-"
"Li Ge, you've got to be kidding us, right?"
"Aren't the flowers, grass, trees, pigs, cattle, and sheep in this world living creatures?"
"Was the beef we just ate fake too?"
Shadowcat looked at Li Ge with suspicion all over her face, pointing at the things around them.
The others looked equally puzzled, glancing around before looking back at Li Ge.
"Kitty, that's only what you think. In fact, none of these things are truly alive."
"They grow and move around like programs designed for a computer game, developing according to predetermined rules."
"And the only reason they have real effects appropriate to what they are is that I recorded their information, then used energy to faithfully reproduce them."
"So the things in this world are essentially my reproductions of real things. Combined with the rules I designed, that's what makes them behave this way."
Li Ge took a piece of roast beef from his backpack, pointed at its tempting browned surface, then took a bite and chewed slowly as he explained at an unhurried pace.
The Professor and the others recalled those identical-looking block objects from earlier, and understanding dawned on their faces. As they looked at everything around them again, they were even more amazed.
They could not help admiring Li Ge for thinking of this method to overcome his inability to manifest life and create a beautiful world full of vitality.
Not just anyone could come up with such an unconventional, ingenious idea.
"Everyone, I'll merge this World Seed into the gaps in Earth's space. As it grows and expands, it will become one with Earth, like two sides of the same coin."
"Oh, right, there's one more thing..."
As he spoke, Li Ge waved the spatial crystal sphere back over, tapped it with a finger on his other hand, and pulled out an illusory spatial crystal sphere.
Releasing the spatial crystal sphere to float among the others, Li Ge showed them the illusory spatial crystal sphere.
"This is a key, or rather a mark, that I designed specifically for you to enter and leave the world. You can obtain one simply by guiding it with your consciousness."
"You just need to press it against your forehead between your eyebrows, like an ability orb. Like this."
As he spoke, Li Ge grabbed the illusory crystal sphere and pressed it directly between his eyebrows. The illusory crystal sphere immediately disappeared into that spot.
"Only those who have merged with this illusory crystal sphere can freely enter and leave the world inside the crystal sphere, in places where it has already covered the corresponding space in the real world."
"For example, suppose the crystal sphere world is merged into the gaps in Earth's space in New York."
"Then, once the crystal sphere world expands to cover all the space corresponding to New York, anyone who has merged with this mark can enter and leave the crystal sphere world anywhere in New York with a thought."
As he spoke about the mark's function, Li Ge's face filled with a proud smile.
This was the design he was most satisfied with in this crystal sphere world.
"Also, don't worry that you won't be able to obtain marks once the crystal sphere world merges into the gaps in space. You can use your own energy to copy this mark for other people."
When the Professor and the others heard that the mark had such an impressive function, they were all visibly moved.
Although the crystal sphere world needed to expand gradually before the mark's function could be fully realized, that did nothing to diminish its power.
Quite the opposite: this further demonstrated how powerful the mark's function was, because the crystal sphere world's expansion might not stop at Earth.
What if it expanded to encompass the entire Solar System?
Wouldn't that mean anyone with the mark would have the ability to freely escape danger throughout the entire Solar System?
And there was no limit to how many people could possess this mark!
They immediately gathered around the crystal sphere, each imitating Li Ge as they touched it with a finger and used their consciousness to communicate with it.
They pulled out illusory crystal spheres one after another and eagerly pressed them between their eyebrows.
As the marks merged with them, they immediately felt a clear connection form between themselves and the crystal sphere, as though an invisible doorway could open between them at any moment.
Seeing that they had all merged with their marks, Li Ge took the crystal sphere in his hand. He decided to take them out of his world.
"Everyone, since there's nothing else to do, let's head back. I still need to merge the crystal sphere into the gaps in space!"
Li Ge had them take out all the blocks they were carrying. After all, their current backpack spaces existed only because of the rules within his world.
He did not want them crushed flat by those blocks once they left. They had collected quite a few while mining and digging everywhere earlier.
After learning that these backpacks existed because of the rules in Li Ge's world, they reluctantly took out the blocks as he requested, piling them into a small hill on the ground.
"No need to feel bad. You'll each have one cubic meter of storage space. When you merged with the marks just now, you also merged with the storage space ability."
"Consider this storage space a perk of joining the crystal sphere world!"
Li Ge felt that if storage spaces became widespread, plenty of interesting things were bound to happen.
With a thought from him, everyone, still not over the pleasant surprise of receiving storage space, suddenly felt their vision twist and blur.
When their vision cleared again, they were already back in the meeting room.