Shepherding Humanity

"It’s good to finally have modern appliances in my home."

Xu Zhi sat in his yard. The washing machine next to him shuddered to a halt. He took out his clothes and hung them on the clothesline to dry, then sat back on his chair by the door and started peeling an apple.

"Hive Mind, did you say that a player has already entered the sandbox?" Xu Zhi asked as he looked at the small pond in front of him. The water was clear.

Well, it was not like Xu Zhi could see him anyway. The player was still a single-celled spore at this point.

Within the sandbox, countless spores were constantly evolving and dying, the players would just be another group of spores competing for survival.

"What happens if a player quits in the middle of the game?" Xu Zhi asked.

The Hive Mind explained: "His spore would evolve on its own, without the influence of the player's consciousness. By the time he returns to the game, he might not be able to recognize himself because spores evolve by the second."

Xu Zhi was fine with this.

It was supposed to be a casual simulation game after all.

Having something come up in real life and quitting in the middle of your game session was only natural.

And once you lose a round, you could always start a new one, and look forward to seeing what new species you could evolve. Wasn’t this also fun?

In the first place, only skilled players would even last two or three days.

The average player would probably face extinction after a few hours. After all, without advanced knowledge of evolutionary theory, it was unlikely that the players would evolve species that could compete with ones born through natural evolution.

"I’ll wait for them to evolve species with great potential, then plagiarize the results of their labor."

Xu Zhi smiled wickedly, feeling like an evil villain hiding behind the scenes. He added: "I believe that my Bugapes will be more powerful than most other sentient species. Whatever species they evolve won’t be better than mine.”

The Tyranis Hive Mind replied: "Organisms created through artificial genetic engineering do not have as high a potential as ones that evolve naturally."

Meaning, theirs might be better than mine?

Xu Zhi was perplexed. He sighed: "We'll see. Hopefully, they’ll be able to create some worthwhile species that could compete with my Bugapes."

Come on, new species!

Xu Zhi was filled with anticipation.

After studying the player for a while, he found that the player kept on dying without being able to do anything, so he could only switch his attention to the developments within the larger sandbox.

The Great Flood had washed away almost all life in the sandbox. The world was in a state of ruin and would likely take two to three hundred years to recover.

Under the hundred unit acceleration, that meant two or three days in reality.

After the fall of the Sumerian civilization, Utnapishtim became a benevolent leader. He bravely shouldered the fate of his fallen nation and led his people to repopulate the lands destroyed by the flood.

He rebuilt the tribe on the former land of Mesopotamia.

More than a hundred years later, his grandson Ishbiela became the new chief. Ishbiela had both ambition and talent and named his tribe the tribe of Babylon.

Babylon.

This name would come to have great meaning for later generations.

The era of the Sumerians had passed. The mythical civilization led by the legendary Hero King Gilgamesh was brilliant and ephemeral, but the glory of the Magus Kingdom of Babylon would endure far into the future.

……..

Chen Wenshan was reeling from the game’s difficulty.

He has died countless times, his progeny eliminated one after another, before finally evolving eyes. After that, he evolved a mouth and started eating plankton. Then, he died again.

The mouth and eyes he had evolved were too weak, and he did not have limbs that could be used for hunting.

"F*ck this shit, it's too hardcore!"

He gaped silently as he put down his VR glasses. He had tried countless times, but he died halfway through each and every time.

But the game’s super realistic sensations and the infinite possibilities of evolution compelled him to keep playing. It was just too interesting.

"Extinct. Again! My eyes must have been too small! Fine, I’ll just have to evolve some big, beautiful eyes!"

He was furious and seething with rage. Because of that, he even went as far as going to the college library to look up relevant information on biology. Fortunately, his English was good, and he started reading from a very difficult foreign textbook on Evolutionary Chemistry.

The people around him were bewildered.

This Chen Wenshan was a game geek, why was he suddenly so eager to learn, and such a difficult subject as biogenetics at that?

Half a day later, after studying basic evolutionary theory and going through countless failures, Chen Wenshan finally managed to evolve a species that could just barely manage to survive.

He grew countless disgusting, slimy tentacles in order to better grasp his food, and true to his promise, he evolved a massive eye.

He looked like a giant eye surrounded by slimy tentacles, with a small mouth filled with sharp fangs underneath.

"Hahaha, I finally did it! Such a big, beautiful eye, hahaha!"

Chen Wenshan directed his strange tentacled creature to climb ashore. He was instantly filled with shock. "What a vast and beautiful land! Such a realistic world! I've finally become an amphibian… Thank God! This beautiful scenery makes it all worth it. I'm going to lead my species to explore and conquer the world! The world belongs to me!!!"

On the other side.

Xu Zhi sat at the entrance to the yard, eating an apple as he enjoyed the sunlight. He was absolutely stunned when he saw the odd creature climbing ashore in the distance.

"What kind of absurd shit is this? Are you kidding me? Naturally evolved species could never be this bizarre. Just how obsessed were you with evolving eyes that you’d grow an eye so big it takes up two-thirds of the body? Were you really that eager to see the world?"

According to evolutionary theory, a species with a uselessly big eye that took up two-thirds of its body and most of its nutrients would surely be eliminated by natural selection….

This species was useless!

"Well, I suppose I expected this."

Xu Zhi laughed helplessly and took another bite of his apple, "What a bizarre species. It's ugly as hell, a half-assed defective product… Wait, with this kind of appearance, isn’t it just like the mythical monster, the Evil Eye?"

He was having fun.

"Hey!"

At that moment, there was a knocking sound on the gate. It was Chen Xi. "Open the door, I’ve brought food."

"Just a sec."

He took one last look at the odd creature before standing up and quickly heading to the gate. He made sure to step on the Evil Eye and kill it on his way out.

"Hesitation means defeat."

In Chen Wenshan's eyes, the Game Over screen appeared once again, "You have died. Please start over."

???

He was speechless!

I evolved well. I’ve finally become a decent species, left the ocean, climbed ashore, and was about to start my world conquest. Then suddenly, it’s all over?

Hey!!! F*cking Developer! Show yourself!

"Welcome back." Xu Zhi opened the door and found that Chen Xi had brought him delicious food again.