Nurturing Humanity

Vision for the Next Sandbox Era

Xu Zhi picked up his watering can and sent the two witches off with a shower of blood. He also gave them a flower to serve as their tombstone. His phone remained beside the sandbox playing music while he quietly returned to his chair.

He took up his lunchbox and began eating again, mumbling as he ate.

“You three have developed methods for cultivation for me, allowing me to train successfully. You three have also discovered the crude structure of alchemy, allowing me to see hope for curing my cancer. The era of you three witches has given me a lot of surprises. Now that the three of you are nearing the end of your lives… Well, consider the miracles to be my way of sending the three of you off.”

Brroooom!

Beams of golden light rained from the clouds, as the blood-red rain continued to fall.

The people on the ground looked up at the sky.

“The heroes have long passed their prime when the three witches go The gods in the heavens are sending them off with rain of blood and a tombstone in the form of a flower, while a requiem of fate is played. How great the deeds of the three witches be, to have the three miracles be bestowed upon the Kingdom of Babylon, as an acknowledgment of the God of Wisdom in the heavens.”

All of them were in tears as they sang praises to great Hermes, the God of Wisdom.

“This is a requiem, while at the same time, a song of praise!”

The people of the Kingdom of Babylon sang praises with all their might while listening to the tune that played from the heavens.

The tune reverberated throughout the world, and they felt as if their heartstrings were tugged by something, making their hairs stand and their bodies tremble. It felt as if they were able to hear of the fight against fate, the fight against nature, the fight against the beasts, and the fight against time, from the sorrowful yet brimmingly strong tune.

The tune seemed to have reminded them of their own history as they rose.

They saw the great king of heroes with looks on a par with those of the Scandinavian gods, Gilgamesh, who roared when facing the beasts throughout the world, as he held the Sword of Damocles high in his hand.

“The history of mankind versus nature is the history of bravery and song!”

“I’ve ordered history to be written, so as to enable our descendants to remember the courage of their ancestors in fighting against nature!”

They all seemed to have seen the visage of the three witches from all those years ago as the place turned foggy, as well as the visage of the mountain of corpses from many women consuming the blood of the Evil Eye. They heard the song of praise illustrating their fight against the mighty beasts, and saw the three witches hold the burning torches high.

“Death shall never crush our arms! Death shall never spell doom to our backbone!”

Countless merchants, smiths, the elderly, the nobles, and mystical witches carrying wooden staffs throughout the streets of the Kingdom of Babylon, seemed to be weeping in silence.

We…

We have fought throughout our lives…

This shall be our time.

This song is one that sings of the bravery of mankind fighting against fate.

“O’ great God of Wisdom, thank you! Thank you for all you’ve done for our kings!”

The elderly of the kingdom remembered those difficult days, those days where there was hardly a civilization to speak of, most vividly. They trembled as they lay their aging bodies prostrate on the ground, as tears streamed on their faces.

Before the temple.

“This would be enough, far more than enough… a rain of blood, a tombstone of flower, and a song of praise.”

Medea flashed a smile of satisfaction. Her smile was as beautiful as flowers.

She and Cassandra, who was by her side, traded looks and smiled widely. Both of them held hands as they gazed upon each other before the Temple of Wisdom of Hermes, closing their eyes and spreading their arms, as their bodies gradually toppled.

Boom!

Two lithe, beautiful bodies…

They fell in the midst of the rain of blood.

They fell before the huge tombstone of the flower.

They fell as the requiem of fate played throughout the world.

That image was so beautiful that it would be a thing of legend for ages to come and be carved on walls to be remembered for eternity.

“The kings have passed on.”

Howls and wails of sorrow were heard throughout the world. The world wept as hard they were able to.

The two legendary, invincible witches of the Kingdom of Babylon were lost.

The age of the three witches had reigned over the world for over 200 years, blessing the tribes of the western people. No one knew how Babylon should live on from then on out.

The tragic moment felt throughout the nation was recorded in ‘The Spear of the Thriving Witch’.

Year 198 of Babylon. The three great witches withered as they prayed to Hermes, the God of Wisdom before his temple. The god lamented their loss, bestowing on them a fragrant rain of blood, a tombstone of flower, and a requiem from the heavens, to mourn their passing.

…

In the depths of the Balchik Mountains.

Circe was stunned as she looked at the three magnificent miracles bestowed by the heavens while the nation lamented. She flashed a stunning smile and said, “Well, look at the two of you. How honorable to have the gods send you off indeed, but you two still passed before I have. I’m still stronger than the two of you. You two might have died with contentment, but I’m not kicking the bucket just yet.”

Even if she was actually stronger than the other two, she was not all that much stronger. Her end was near nonetheless. She sat on her throne and looked at the group of evil witches serving her.

“Hear me out! It would not be the end of my life even if I die! You would send me off as I pass, so as to herald my second coming in centuries to come!”

She then laid still in her coffin and closed her eyes.

The walls of the black, mystical, and evil palace were filled with blood, with images depicting the tentacled monster with the Evil Eye. The place seemed to be just as terrifying as a dungeon in hell. Countless evil witches held crimson staffs and dressed in bright rose-colored sorcerers’ robes, with their knees on the ground as they lamented.

“Our king shall return to reign supreme over the world. She shall then obtain true eternal life.”

…

Xu Zhi continued eating in the compound and let the song play for a little while longer before turning his phone off.

The flower remained where it was. Having a flower serve as a gravestone was rather eco-friendly after all.

The watering can that was filled with water mixed with essential oil of roses to create the rain of blood was left spraying for a little while longer. There was still quite a lot remaining after he was done making the rain, prompting him to dump the rest down the toilet.

The water could no longer be deemed fit for watering flowers anymore after all.

“I really didn’t expect this. I’ve just finished training as a sorcerer yesterday, and I already have to send my teachers, the three witches who opened up this path for me, onto their next life.”

Xu Zhi did the dishes after he was done with breakfast. He then went out and returned the lunchbox to Chen Xi.

He remained silent as he looked at the miniature sandbox.

“Well, now that the three witches are gone, they would no longer be anyone powerful enough to reign supreme in the world of the sandbox. I guess it’s about time for me to research and deploy new super beings then.”

Xu Zhi murmured and added, “There will never a better time to do this.”

A world with invincible beings reigning supreme would be ill-suited for such a task as the other super beings would be unable to propagate much.

The Evil Eyes had remained cooped up in the swamps during the reign of the three witches. They were practically being kept as livestock as they were killed for their blood, with deathly rituals being carried out over and over to give birth to new witches.

The Evil Eyes were having a really bad time.

They were practically reduced to living blood bags.

With the three witches now dead, things would now improve for them.

According to the system developed by the witches, there was the apprentice sorcerer, level one sorcerer, level two sorcerer and so on, with the three who just passed being level six sorcerers, making them frighteningly powerful beings. As for the path after level six, that had yet to be developed when the three of them passed.

Lilith, who ascended to the throne after them, was but a level four sorcerer, yet she was the strongest among them all.

A hero was a product of their time, and with every chaotic age, came monsters of one kind or another. The three witches were so terrifyingly talented that their powers reigned over all others. They would not have been able to blaze a trail of cultivation as they pooled their resources otherwise.

“This is the best time for adding in other species. I can’t let a single being reign supreme again.”

Xu Zhi, who was comparatively a dimwit who hardly qualified as an apprentice sorcerer, looked at the sandbox silently. “The second testing of the Origin of Life shall begin. I hope you would be able to get something great and spruce up the diversity a little, so that I can sneak into an age where things don’t look so great.”

The Sumerian and Babylonian eras were basically the history of tribes fighting against nature after all. They were still struggling in the early age and things just seemed a little too boring.

To those people down there, the dark ages were gone and they were at a stage where they were close to ‘passing it’. They were about to reach higher heights, and as the cultivation system of supernatural power became more developed, witches became more commonplace.

The beasts were just common huge animals, which were something akin to those during the reign of dinosaurs like the T-Rex. Those beasts were huge but were no longer able to pose much of a threat to the people.

“Time to spruce up the biodiversity of the sandbox and put them all in ‘hard mode’.”

Xu Zhi’s idea was simple. He planned to become the one pulling the strings behind the scenes in the coming age, driving the advancement of civilization throughout the world in the shadows, and driving the sandbox world to be truly become a mystical world, where all manner of eerie beings filled the place. All manner of supernatural, terrifying beings of western lore would emerge, and there would definitely be more than just the Evil Eye of Cthulhu myth.

A world filled with mysticism, eeriness, bloodiness, the unknown, and death.

That was the world of sorcerers that he was after. He wanted to make a world filled with great sorcerers armed with wooden staffs and out to seek the truth.

“Ain’t this exciting indeed.”

Xu Zhi was running out of time with his cancer. It was time for alchemy and pharmaceuticals to completely emerge, so that the coming brilliant age of sorcerers would help him find a cure for his cancer.

“I’ll see what kind of supernatural beings the players of the second testing of the Origin of Life sandbox will bring to the world. They shall be the ones to determine the biodiversity of the next sandbox era, as well as the level of supernatural powers.”