I Have a God Simulator

Sand City was left in Slime Mod’s care to manage and operate, with Luh Yao checking in on it occasionally.

This city, the only one in Yunzhong Temple, was gradually coming to life thanks to the greening and construction efforts of the Wuzi Race, Ghosts, Little Elves, and Pine Slipper Rats.

Although its residents were still few, both the planted trees and roses, as well as the settled population, were steadily increasing.

Some of the Extraordinary Beings who had participated in the Martial Arts Tournament chose to stay and settle down.

In the vast and immense Vortex World, a small city couldn’t make many waves; it was little more than a seed.

Luh Yao’s main focus was still on tinkering with the world’s backend.

In the rule-testing area he had designated, strange phenomena often occurred: sometimes sand would pour upward into the sky, leaving behind bottomless pits on the ground; other times, lightning would flash and thunder would roar, but the Rainfall would be hesitant and shaky.

Most of the time, the area was shrouded in a thick mist to prevent outside observation.

Luh Yao gained a wealth of experience from his failures, ruling out some operations and methods he had thought were feasible but were in fact completely wrong.

A certain predecessor once said that adaptation is not just random fabrication.

Among his various attempts at rule modification, the only project where Luh Yao made any progress was with the Cloud Monks.

His original plan was to modify the numerous terms and descriptions within the rules to separate the Cloud Monks—who were bound and fused by Rule Power—from the abstract rule of "cloud," thereby restoring their freedom and autonomy.

Luh Yao selected the first Cloud Monk and directly deleted [Rule Projection] from its abilities.

The Cloud Monk then instantly turned into a cloud, with even the shadow of its former self completely gone.

Failure.

Luh Yao made another fine adjustment, replacing [Cloud] in the Cloud Monk’s abilities with [Fog Element].

This change caused the second Cloud Monk’s body to rapidly thin out and disperse, turning it into a faint fog giant that swayed back and forth in the wind like an inflatable tube man outside a shop.

Failure.

...

After a series of trials and errors, Luh Yao finally figured it out. The best place to start was with the [Undead] Trait.

After deleting this ability, the Cloud Monks began to speak again.

However, the influence of the Rule Power ran deep. Their speech was often jumbled and incoherent. The Cloud Monks couldn’t hear others’ words or feedback, as if they were locked away in their own sealed worlds.

The few Cloud Monks in the experimental area each spoke their own nonsense.

"Cloud, walk toward the cloud... Above the cloud, eggs are tasty."

"My name is, my name is, my name is... I forgot."

"Fight, fight, fight! Fight, fight, fight! I just want to fight, AHHHHH!"

"Where’s my staff? Where did my staff go? It was a good staff. A very, very good staff. It was straight. I searched for many years to find a staff like this."

"Ascension, Ascension, everyone must ascend. People must fly, chickens must fly, dogs too, but not rats, all rats must die..."

Luh Yao wanted to help them return to normal completely, but he couldn’t succeed no matter what he tried.

No matter how he changed the terms, added descriptions, or even re-associated multi-level phrases in the backend, the effects would quickly wear off.

Under the influence of the repeated rule changes, the Cloud Monks developed distinct personalities.

Some remained passive, not attacking unless attacked first. Others, however, became aggressive, and some would only run when attacked... All in all, they had at least recovered their individual diversity.

After losing the [Undead] Trait, the Cloud Monks began to exhibit bizarre behavior.

Luh Yao saw one Cloud Monk suddenly start bullying and beating another.

After a while, they switched places. The aggressor became the victim, and both faithfully played their roles. The one being beaten never fought back, and the one doing the beating struck with heavy fists when it was their turn.

In addition, there was an even more serious phenomenon.

A Cloud Monk would self-destruct without warning, turning into a large mass of cloud and mist, like a torn pillow with all its white cotton spilling out.

Luh Yao patched things up here and there, becoming quite frazzled by the whole affair.

He gritted his teeth and persevered, finally getting the hang of it.

Deleting a term would trigger a chain reaction, and the subsequent butterfly effect was difficult to predict and estimate.

The best method wasn’t to crudely delete it, but to replace it with another related term to achieve a stable closure in the rules.

Luh Yao searched for a long time in the tree diagram of terms related to [Undead] and found a suitable one.

...

[Fair Duel]: Initiates a duel only against an evenly matched enemy. The victor takes everything from the loser. The effects gained from the duel are related to this ability’s level.

...

Although it was an offensive Trait, it was the most conservative and safest option on the shortlist.

The remaining ones were things like [Self-Destruction], [Cloud Illusion], and [Symbiote], each of which could cause far greater lethality and destruction.

Luh Yao had another consideration.

’Since the Cloud Monks can’t return to the past, I’ll let them walk into the future in a different way.’

[Fair Duel] gave the Cloud Monks offensive initiative, but they would only challenge Extraordinary Beings of similar strength. Most were below LV20, so the impact wasn’t significant.

As representatives of the old era, they would test the Extraordinary Beings of the new era.

For safety’s sake, Luh Yao fine-tuned the Cloud Monks’ range of activity so they wouldn’t appear near Sand City, turning them into proper elite mobs from a bygone era.

Slime Mod also notified the Extraordinary Beings in the city about the changes to the Cloud Monks, warning them not to duel a Cloud Monk unless they were confident.

After repeated trials proved it was feasible, Luh Yao finally deleted and modified the main entry for [Cloud Monk] for the entire Vortex World. Tens of thousands of Cloud Monks regained their initiative.

The ability substitution and modification cost 50,000 Fire of Faith, an acceptable price.

Luh Yao looked down upon the area outside Sand City.

Soon, the first LV21 Extraordinary Being was challenged to a duel by a LV20 Cloud Monk. A ring of clouds surrounded them, shielding them from outside interference.

It was a contest of skill, and a battle to the death.

In the end, the Yao Race Extraordinary Being was no match and was killed.

His body slowly turned into large swathes of clouds, which merged into the Cloud Monk’s body.

"I am... I am... Lie Wei?"

"Lie Wei was him. It’s me..."

"Someone is waiting for me at home, waiting for me to return... a woman. Who is she?"

The Cloud Monk muttered to itself as it walked on aimlessly.

The same scene replayed itself constantly outside Sand City.

Some duels were won by Cloud Monks, others by the Yao Race.

When killed in a duel, a Cloud Monk would likewise turn into white smoke and merge into the victor’s body. This contained a portion of the Cloud Monk’s power, as well as their hazy and chaotic memories.

Regardless of who won or lost, they would carry the pasts and identities of both parties as they continued forward.

Besides dueling with the Yao Race, the Cloud Monks would also trigger [Fair Duel] among themselves. They too were competing to see who was the better warrior, who was more qualified to represent the old days.

What Luh Yao hadn’t expected was that the changes to the Cloud Monks actually ignited the challenging fervor of the Extraordinary Beings in Sand City. The Martial Cultivators who had stayed behind after the Martial Arts Tournament all began to train diligently, precisely so they could face the Cloud Monks in the outside world.

The atmosphere of cultivation and sparring in Sand City grew more intense.

Luh Yao was very satisfied with the results of this manual revision.

For the individualistic Extreme Style Extraordinary Beings, they had to walk the path of survival of the fittest. They were the group meant to push the upper limits of the Yao Race’s power, and only true life-and-death situations could bring about motivation and creativity.

Luh Yao opened a bag of lime-flavored potato chips and snacked while watching the life-or-death duels outside Sand City.

He hadn’t been watching for long when a line of text appeared on the screen.

[The Yao Race has discovered a Black Demon Fossil.]

[The Yao Race has discovered an unidentified fossil.]

’A Black Demon Fossil?’

Luh Yao checked the backend. Sure enough, it was a fossil of a Black Demon’s corpse, buried under the desert after its death.

’Even a Black Demon couldn’t survive in a place like Yunzhong Temple.’

Luh Yao clicked on the second entry.

The one who discovered the unidentified fossil was a Wuzi Person. Deep beneath the desert, he had dug up a massive, desiccated claw covered in blue crystals. The claw was about the size of a small Earth Traveling Boat.

Luh Yao aimed the [True Sight Curse] at the claw fossil.

...

[Right Foreclaw of a Blue Dragon]: The right forelimb of the Blue Dragon Tiris. Though desiccated, it still contains the unique power of the Dragon Race.

...

Luh Yao was confused.

’Why would a Dragon leave its claw in Yunzhong Temple?’

He tried to click on it but found he couldn’t collect it into his Artifact Bar yet.

Luh Yao asked the local living fossil, the Guest Monk.

"This humble monk does not know. This likely happened before the time of the Cloud Monks and the Sand Walkers."

The Guest Monk doesn’t lie.

But Luh Yao suspected it might be omitting some details.

Luh Yao briefly described a Dragon to it.

"A Dragon? This humble monk has never left Yunzhong Temple. I do not know of such a thing as a Dragon..."

"However, there are similar claws and tails under the desert. There are quite a few of them. This humble monk has seen them occasionally but paid them no mind. They are all just dead things."

’There are more?’

Luh Yao was a bit stunned.

’To think there were Dragon corpse specimens hidden beneath my Divine Kingdom.’

’What exactly was this Cloud Guest up to?’