Chapter 74: Flame of Heaven
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"Now that the design of the Firmament is complete, you can freely design whatever world you want."
Lucian said, "I've already given you the permissions anyway, so play around as you see fit."
"And I'll be the one providing the energy, right?"
Bheara rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Once I get my hands on the Flame of Heaven from Olympia, you won't need to act as a battery anymore."
Lucian reasoned, "But keeping your energy stored up is a waste anyway. You might as well pitch in. After all, this is a world we're all creating together."
Unlike the Spring of Life, the Flame of Heaven possessed properties akin to a pseudo-divine power, acting as a massive, independent energy source.
The Spring of Life relied on an energy cycle. Every time the residents of the Divine Court used it, there would be some permanent depletion, though it was minor enough to be negligible.
However, the Flame of Heaven would only increase the total energy capacity within the Divine Court, continuously releasing pure power to perfect and expand the realm.
As for where the Gods and the Flame of Heaven replenished their power after consuming it... Lucian could only conclude that these Innate Gods of rules were utterly absurd; they were practically semi-perpetual motion machines themselves, capable of endlessly generating raw energy from nothingness.
"Whatever. It's quite interesting anyway, so this little bit of effort is nothing."
Bheara said casually.
"The central hub of my mental world is almost finished. I need to get back to work."
After saying that, Lucian vanished in a flash of light.
"He's already gone."
Bheara muttered to herself, kicking her feet.
She had wanted to chat a little longer, and maybe go check out another world with Lucian.
Forget it, work is more important.
She had also helped complete part of the structural work, so she naturally knew that constructing the hub of his mental world was far more vital than building the Firmament.
With a thought, Lucian arrived in the chaotic void outside the World Bubbles.
Immersed within a resplendent dimension devoid of any set laws or rules, Lucian continued to construct the hub.
When creating the World Bubbles, Lucian had deliberately partitioned the mental world to keep the systems separate.
Now, with the perfection of the Firmament, and following the established rule that 'the quality and quantity of World Bubbles dictate the strength and capacity of the mental world', the overall strength of his mental realm was already astronomically high.
If used offensively, its output could even compare to a God, reaching what one might call the surface-wiping tier.
The central hub Lucian was building was fundamentally similar to the Cosmic Starlight Array Bheara had constructed. It applied formless logic and rules to the entire mental world, allowing its underlying power to be effortlessly drawn upon.
But no matter how strong his mental power was, Lucian rarely utilized it directly for combat, because his mental power was the very foundation of the Game Board.
If Rule Creation was the pillar holding up the sky, then his mental power was the container holding the universe.
Consuming the power of the container itself—even if it could be replenished through cycles, or converted from external energies like Magicules or divine power—was inherently dangerous and risked structural collapse.
"The faith system is also complete. When the time comes, I can link this system directly to the central hub."
Lucian continuously finalized the various interconnected functions.
Two and a half days passed in a flash. As the final rule settled into place, Lucian activated the hub.
In an instant, Lucian's consciousness split into two.
One part remained exactly the same as before, guided purely by his humanity and emotions.
The other part was primarily dedicated to cold calculation, used specifically to maintain the operational flow of his inner world.
Simply put, Lucian had divided his own spirituality into two distinct aspects: humanity and divinity.
By merging this separated divinity with the core functions of the central hub, he molded an entity akin to an artificial intelligence—the Heavenly Dao, existing purely for eternal work.
The Heavenly Dao could also be referred to as the World Will.
Since it was born from the divine aspect of Lucian's own soul, it was undeniably his Divine Avatar, the ultimate World Will.
Of course, this divine aspect wasn't an independent, sentient incarnation with its own desires, but rather just another functional side of Lucian himself.
With the birth of the Divine Avatar and the World Will, the countless background functions within his mental world no longer required his personal, manual operation. He just needed to feed it data and continuously let it train itself.
Through continuous training and iteration, the World Will would grow, automatically updating and perfecting older, clunkier functions on its own.
Simply put, the static World Bubbles within his mental world had transitioned from forged, inanimate constructs into a living, breathing ecosystem.
"Shall I design a simple world first to test it?"
Lucian issued a mental command.
The next moment, a third world rapidly expanded within his mental realm.
The First World: Divine Court.
The Second World: Colosseum.
The Third World: Randomized Labyrinth.
As the new World Bubble manifested, pale marble structures continuously expanded outward, eventually folding in on themselves to form a colossal labyrinth.
Lucian teleported into the Third World. Restricted by the newly established rules of the map, he could only spawn at the designated entrance.
He could choose to bypass the rules, but that would require him to toggle on 'God Mode', which defeated the entire purpose of the test.
"What a pleasant surprise."
Lucian muttered under his breath, then confidently stepped into the maze.
He hadn't taken more than a few steps before the structure of the labyrinth shifted entirely, walls grinding against each other as the path changed.
"As expected of a randomized labyrinth."
Lucian understood immediately.
The maze's layout would continuously alter itself over time. The entrance was located at the outer edge, and the exit lay at the very center.
Under the absolute premise that the walls were indestructible, teleporting through them was disabled, and the UI mini-map was shrouded in an impenetrable fog of war, challengers could only rely on their own physical and magical abilities to find the exit.
Furthermore, challengers needed to reach the center within a stipulated time frame. If they failed to do so, both the labyrinth's layout and the challenger's physical position would instantly reset to zero.
Aside from that, the maze was filled with all sorts of randomized monsters, lethal traps, and treasure chests. What was even more terrifying was that the labyrinth wasn't flat—it was a Rubik's Cube-like, three-dimensional square.
Not only were there paths leading forward, backward, left, and right, but passages also plunged straight up and down. Its spatial complexity was countless times higher than that of a standard 2D maze.
"There's no need to train this at all."
Lucian couldn't help but sigh in admiration.
His experience was perfectly mirrored in the Divine Avatar. However, compared to simply designing a map's visual layout, establishing and perfecting its underlying rules was exponentially more difficult.
Then again, if he wanted to make it like Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, where anyone could create a custom map, participate in map games, and reap actual real-world rewards from them—
With the Divine Avatar, this world-building function could already be achieved. All he was missing now was a power source capable of semi-permanently generating the energy needed to sustain the players.
"I'd better go get that energy source soon."
Lucian thought to himself.
With the Divine Avatar taking over the processing load, the Colosseum was quickly refined and expanded up to the ninth floor.
As for the tenth floor and beyond... he would wait until he had personally conquered deeper into the actual Dungeon before deciding on the layouts.
After all, the monster variations in the Colosseum were strictly modeled after the Dungeon. For the final floors, it wouldn't feel right to just slap random, unbalanced mobs together on a whim.
It was his perfectionism acting up.
Returning to the Danmachi World, Lucian used his magic to lock onto the largest energy source in the Lower World.
With the spatial coordinates secured, he cast a spell to broadcast a live visual feed of the target area directly before his eyes.
A floating mirror manifested out of thin air, reflecting a dark, ancient altar and a sea of flowing crimson magma bubbling behind it.
"Looks like this is the place."
Although the sacrificial altar beneath the Divine Court wasn't completed yet, Lucian had a clear idea of what to do with his prize.
With the World Will dedicated to managing and constructing maps, Lucian quickly perfected his approach, even adding a few new safety features just in case.
"Teleport."
With a flash of light, Lucian invaded Olympia.
The Flame of Heaven was originally a sacred fire worshipped in Heaven. Because the mortals of the Lower World were suffering heavy casualties from monsters, Prometheus couldn't bear the sight and cast the heavenly flame down into the mortal realm.
Along with the Flame of Heaven came its controlling medium, the Divine Weapon known as the Sword of the Flame Eagle.
The legendary hero, Epimetheus, was the first to make contact with the heavenly flame, relying on its overwhelming power to repel enemy after enemy.
However—
Heaven belonged to the Inner Sea of the Planet. The environment was extraordinarily pure, allowing the Flame of Heaven to burn peacefully for eternity.
After descending to the Lower World, influenced by the dense, negative emotions of madness, jealousy, and malice present in the mortal realm, the heavenly flame—which had burned for three thousand years—became severely tainted.
The corrupted Flame of Heaven was overwhelmingly aggressive. This was the exact reason why Lucian, despite having locked onto its coordinates long ago, hadn't dared to make contact with it until now.
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