4— Life & Intelligence

At the beginning, living in this grand temple was somewhat novel, but as time went by, day after day, Yin Shen began to feel bored.

He would not age, nor would he die.

He had no physical form, only a wandering soul on the ancient Earth's ocean.

There was only a assimilation creature forever emitting a gurgling sound as it roamed the sea, accompanied by a Trilobite man who conversed with him.

Yin Shen stood high above the temple, overlooking the vast sea and the entire island.

The heavens and earth were so vast, the whole world belonged to him alone, yet he still felt like a prisoner.

He was not imprisoned in an eternal extraterrestrial prison but trapped within a cage called time.

"Divine... God!"

"Divine... Shen!"

Outside the temple.

Where the sunlight shone through the gateway, a person blocked the light, casting a long shadow inside the palace. With great strength, they dragged a much larger creature and presented it on the platform in front of the temple.

The shadow suddenly shrank and transformed into a smaller shape.

He knelt by the side of the temple's giant pillar, prostrating before the divine spirit that he believed to be magnificent and had graciously bestowed him with wisdom.

The Trilobite man brought some rare items from the ocean to amuse the divine spirit, hoping for an expression of joy, a slight curve of the lips, or an appreciative glance.

This time, what they brought was a peculiar looking shrimp, a colossal creature over five meters long, the most powerful ruler of the ocean in this era.

It was evident that the Trilobite man had exerted some considerable effort to capture this shrimp, as there were even some injuries on its tough outer shell.

"Divine Yin Sen!"

"Divine Yin Shen!"

Yin Shen, sitting on the stone platform, finally cracked a smiled. This filled the Trilobite man outside with ecstatic joy, causing him to dance and leap with excitement.

However, he didn't know that Yin Shen's smile was because he finally managed to continuously utter the three-word name, even though he got it wrong. It was not because he presented a rare item from the ocean.

Yin Shen descended from the stone dais and looked at the still-living creature placed on it. It was a colossal creature resembling a shrimp, and suddenly, one of its large pincers trembled, striking the stone and creating a crack.

This enraged and terrified the Trilobite man.

"Grrraaaah!"

"Rraaaahh!"

The Trilobite man shouted frantically, wanting to kill this foolish creature, a creature not bestowed with wisdom, that dared to show disrespect to the divine.

Yin Shen, however, had no thoughts and simply felt that the shrimp was truly massive.

"So, it's quite a peculiar shrimp!"

He reached out his hand but suddenly remembered that he couldn't touch anything other than the Trilobite man and the assimilation creature.

This made Yin Shen's gaze somewhat isolated.

He smiled and said, "Now that I've seen it... let's not waste it!"

With a thought from Yin Shen, a huge wave surged in the sea.

A truly colossal creature emerged from the water's surface and headed towards the pyramid.

"Gululu~"

"Gululu~"

The assimilation creature climbed up the pyramid, its tentacles dragging away the six-meter-long creature, treating it like a candy and devouring it in one bite.

No matter how mighty the ruler of the ancient ocean was, it was insignificant compared to the assimilation creature, a nightmarish monster akin to a myth.

Yin Shen stood at the entrance of the temple, with the mythological monster satisfyingly devouring the treat bestowed by the divine, while the Trilobite man stood closely by his side.

The scene was enough to send shivers down one's spine, yet the three individuals in the scene regarded it as ordinary occasion.

Suddenly, Yin Shen stopped and gazed at the reliefs carved on the columns and beams.

Though devoid of color, the figures came to life before his eyes.

There were towering buildings, bustling streets filled with traffic, and countless people strolling through vibrant marketplaces.

These carvings were the work of the dexterous hands of the Trilobite man, who inherited some of Yin Shen's wisdom and glimpses of his own memories.

However, Trilobite man couldn't comprehend what these scenes depicted or understand why there were so many people and why they seemed different from himself.

He also couldn't grasp the meaning of the iron birds soaring in the sky or the boxes running on the ground.

All he knew was that god took pleasure in these things, so he meticulously carved these scenes thoroughly along the inside and outside of the temple.

Yin Shen lingered beneath these murals and reliefs, remaining silent.

But today was different. He pointed to a minuscule, barely visible figure within the artwork.

"Look!" he exclaimed.

"This is a human."

The Trilobite person quickly exclaimed, nodding repeatedly as if eager to affirm their identity: "I... I..."

"I am also human!"

Yin Shen shook his head. "You are not human."

"You are a Trilobite person."

"You were created by me, as an intelligent being formed from a Trilobite into a humanoid form."

The Trilobite person didn't understand the difference between humans and Trilobite people.

Yin Shen walked through the corridors outside the temple. "I am alone, just like you."

"The human race has not yet emerged in this world, and there is only one Trilobite person, which is you."

For the first time, the Trilobite person learned about the concept of a race, and finally understood that "Trilobite person" was not their name but rather the god's term for their species and that they, was not human.

The Trilobite person felt sadness for the first time. They were deeply upset.

"Divine God!"

"I... also... want... a name!"

Yin Shen suddenly had an idea. Since the Assimilation Beast could merge and replicate the traits of other life, why not utilize its power to fully create the Trilobite people as an entire race?

The Trilobite person knelt down and pleaded, while Yin Shen casually uttered a name.

"Leidlich Kee."

"You shall henceforth be called Leidlich Kee."

Once again, the Trilobite person cheered as if they were a child.

Sadness came quickly and departed just as swiftly.

The Assimilation Beast was an unscientific mythological creation, a living bioengineering machine.

It could plunder the organs of other creatures and violently fuse the characteristics and gene fragments of other beings.

Yin Shen planned to use its power, along with Led Leakey and their predecessor, the Trilobites, to create fertilized eggs or embryos and use the power of the Fusion Beast to establish a new race.

However, this living machine was not very precise, and its outputs resembled a random box.

Producing the desired creation required some luck and was filled with uncertainty.

But Yin Shen had no concerns and believed he would succeed.

Because now, he had almost nothing left except for one thing. That was time.

The mythological giant heard the call of the divine will and climbed up to the front of the temple. Its flesh-mountain-like form squeezed into the palace, and countless different-sized green monstrous eyes peered inside.

The god stood in the grand hall, gazing at it.

"I want you to give me the spiral shell."

"Can you?"

Most of the mythological power of the Fusion Beast was concentrated in the spiral shell, and the Fusion Beast itself was merely a control center.

So, its spiral shell could be removed, allowing Yin Shen to use it however he desired.

The Fusion Beast: "Gurgle."

Hundreds of terrifying eyes stared at Yin Shen, but he sensed a hint of innocence.

It couldn't understand what Yin Shen was saying, nor did it comprehend the meaning of this questioning sentence structure.

It was a creation of the gods that only needed a command from Yin Shen to act accordingly, even if it didn't understand the true meaning of that command.

Compared to a servant of the gods, it was more like a tool. How to use it was the will of the god; it had no thoughts of its own.

Yin Shen caressed its skin. "I asked you the wrong question."

In an instant, he felt some sympathy for the Fusion Beast. "So, intelligence is itself also a kind of mythological power."

Yin Shen originally thought that compared to the mythical and miraculous abilities of the Fusion Beast, the trilobite person was simply weak.

But now, he realized that the intellectual power possessed by the trilobite person was the true myth and miracle.

Humans always deem their own possessions as worthless. Yet they fail to realize that those possessions already hold the supreme myth and power within the vast and boundless universe.