I'm Trapped in the Block

Chapter 435: Chapter 432: Named God

The god remained silent, simply watching what the Little Elf was doing in the puddle.

It didn’t offer any more choices, instead letting the Little Elf proceed as it pleased.

As time went on, the civilization under the Little Elf’s protection slowly entered an age of technology.

All kinds of scientific concepts began to challenge the authority of a god.

”There is no god.” Atheists and theists engaged in a heated debate, their arguments ranging from the divinely sent downpour hundreds of years ago to the latest cutting-edge technologies.

”That rain is proof that a god exists! After half a year of severe drought, the emperor prayed to the heavens for rain. That very night, dark clouds gathered, and the next morning, a great downpour began. Golden light flashed from within the clouds, and even the rainbow formed by the raindrops was threaded with gold. Is that not a miracle?”

”A coincidence! Sunshowers are always filled with golden light. Are they all miracles?” the atheist retorted. ”It always rains after a long drought. An excess of condensed warm air meeting a bit of cold air will cause a drastic meteorological event. That’s science!”

”We can seed clouds now. Are the shells we fire into the sky also miracles?”

”Why wouldn’t it be a miracle? Everything we have now was given to us by a god, so of course, the shells were as well.”

”Nonsense! We made those shells ourselves! We mined the ore, we smelted the iron, we machined the screws, and we painstakingly assembled them. They are the culmination of our entire civilization’s ingenuity!” The atheist’s words were met with thunderous applause.

”Then tell me, where did the ore come from?” the theist asked, unhurried.

”Geological shifts.”

”And why do those geological shifts happen?”

”Energy released from the planet’s core.” The atheist wasn’t afraid of digging to the root of the issue; that was the advantage of science.

”And where did that core energy come from?” the theist asked calmly.

And so they went on, endlessly questioning and answering, splitting hairs at every turn.

Finally, when asked how the world came to be, the atheist was stumped, able only to reply, ”We’re still exploring. Science is a journey without an end.”

Hearing this answer, the theist just smiled.

”We’re exploring, too. Theology is also a journey without an end.”

The two sides argued incessantly, and the public delighted in the debate.

But the Little Elf, in its role as a god, didn’t care. It even listened to these debates with great interest.

After technology had developed, it no longer paid any mind to prayers for rain.

Most of the advanced civilizations began to move away from the sea and venture deep into the continent, and the god’s influence waned to its lowest point.

Although it could still receive the civilizations’ wishes through the rivers, these wishes gradually lost their piety.

The atheists gradually became the majority. The civilization preferred to believe that humanity could conquer the heavens, changing the world with its own two hands.

However, this was also what the Little Elf wanted to see.

’A god can only help you this far.’

The Little Elf watched its still-debating people, thinking to itself with a sense of gratification.

The majority of the civilization’s people just treated these debates about a god as entertainment. They no longer needed a god to soothe their souls; they had long since gained the ability to do things that once only a god could.

”It’s the space age. Who would believe in a god?”

The civilization was on the verge of flying into space, boarding a rocket.

Beside the calm little puddle, with a flash of fire, a tiny white rocket shot into the air. It broke free from the pull of the earth and began to circle, climbing higher and higher...

It was too far. The power of a god could no longer interfere with it.

The Little Elf lay in the great ocean, watching the civilization fly farther and farther away until it became a distant star and vanished from sight.

Calm.

The sea was calm. The wishes were calm, too.

Thanks to the Little Elf’s deliberate filtering, it could no longer hear the prayers of the lesser creatures at all. For the first time in a long while, its mind was quiet.

A civilization goes from not relying on a god, to relying on a god, and finally, to not relying on a god again...

’What a wonderful process.’

The Little Elf didn’t rest for long before it once again disabled the wish filter.

It intended to watch over the next civilization.

The ocean was still birthing life. One day, those lesser creatures would also crawl onto land, gradually gain sentience, develop desires, and then let them go.

New civilizations would also move farther and farther from the ocean, then farther and farther from the earth itself, finally flying high into the sky and gradually escaping the god’s influence.

Water will always flow downward, but civilization will always climb upward. ℴℴ𝘮

Higher and higher, ever higher...

The Little Elf disabled the filter, but no wishes came through. There was only silence.

As it looked around in confusion, it found itself sitting on a stone.

A figure, also shimmering with golden light, was staring at the puddle before him.

And on the other side, Block Head was looking at it.

In an instant, memories flooded in, its thoughts growing clear. The Little Elf quickly remembered everything that had happened before.

The simulation was over.

’So I’m not a god after all.’

A trace of melancholy rose in the Little Elf’s heart, but it quickly subsided.

’It’s good not to be a god, too.’

...

After Mo Ling told the Little Elf about his own simulation, it just shook its head and said nothing.

”You’re still the experienced one. You truly are the ’Guardian God’ of Oasis City,” Mo Ling praised.

Mo Ling reflected that he could never have conceived of the Little Elf’s method for filtering wishes. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to keep adjusting the filtering mechanism, silently guarding the civilization until it launched into space and flew beyond his protection.

”You’re more suited to be a god than I am,” Mo Ling said with sincere praise.

Faced with those chaotic wishes, his first thought had been to find someone to share the burden; it had never occurred to him that they could be resolved in such a way.

But that was also a limitation of his species.

Hearing Mo Ling’s praise, the Little Elf shook its head humbly. ”I am not a qualified god.”

”Why?” Mo Ling asked, confused.

”If we’re talking about slackers, then I’m one too. Wasn’t filtering the wishes my way of being lazy? I watched over that civilization because I wanted to see how it would develop, to listen to its interesting debates, and to watch that little rocket fly into the sky. It was all just for my own amusement. Isn’t that also a form of indulgence?”

The Little Elf looked at the puddle and said, swinging its legs, ”I wasn’t protecting those people. I was just protecting an idea in my own heart...”

”Besides, just like in Oasis City, they relied on themselves most of the time. They never needed a god.”

”Do you remember the story I told you?” the Little Elf suddenly asked Mo Ling. ”The story of the hero and the Demon King.”

”Of course. Why?” Mo Ling asked in return.

”Some characters aren’t needed in a story. The hero defeats the Demon King not because a god summoned him; the god is just part of the background...”

”The Divine Artifact the hero wields isn’t important, and the divine blessing that saves him from peril isn’t important either. What’s important is the hero, and the story of him defeating the Demon King.”

”A civilization overcomes its hardships, breaks through one technological barrier after another, defies gravity, and ascends to space. People need a story like that to inspire them.”

”If you tell them that a god was secretly protecting this hero, secretly helping this civilization all along, they would be devastated.”

”The hero needs no help. He can defeat the Demon King on his own. That’s the story people want to see.”

”If a god could simply crush the Demon King with ease, then all of that effort, and the entire story, would be meaningless.”

The Little Elf spoke with great earnestness. As Mo Ling looked at it, he felt as if he had been transported back to that day in Oasis City...