Translator:Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor:Nyoi-Bo Studio

In the 136th Year of Iron, the Church of Light changed its calendar to the Years of Holy Light. This year, the Church officially declared itself to be the representative of God, and its position was solidified by the presence of the Saintess. The Pope and the Saintess were both seen as messengers of God. The Churchs power expanded exponentially. By then, it had begun to control even more human kingdoms and even affected the kingdoms of the orcs as well. The Churchs power began to overshadow the monarchy. The Saintesss supernatural power and status as a descendant of God were more than enough to convince the human rulers and noblemen of the Churchs legitimacy.

In the 3rd Year of Holy Light, Crete Empires Elliot VII renounced the Church of Light. Saintess Kelly led an army into his capital and easily captured the emperor without any casualties or actual conflict. They removed him from power, announced him as a heretic, and executed him publicly. After that, they crowned his nephew as the new king, Elliot VIII. Fearing the powerful influence of the Church, other monarchs and noblemen allied themselves against the Church.

In the 5th Year of Holy Light, the Church Knights defeated the united army of Luhmann and Mara Kingdoms in the city of Rus, forcing the two kingdoms to bow before the Churchs power. The two kings were also forced to go to the Church to receive its blessing and coronation. The Church also had the rights to station troops in these kingdoms, monitor their activities, and collect taxes from their people.

After that, the numerous human kingdoms in and around the central province began to follow the Churchs orders, and the Church reigned supreme. Abdications and the passing of the crown could only be carried out by attending the Churchs ceremony. Events like coronations had to be performed in front of the Pope and the Saintess of the Church in order to be legitimate. The Church had the rights to remove any king or governmental official from power. It also had the power to preach anywhere in any kingdoms, and the kings could not reject them with any reason!

That same year, the Church built the Kingdom of the Church of Light, and the city of Rus was renamed as St. Sarl. The kingdom covered the entire Bull Mountain Range and most parts of the Castro Province of the Crete Empire. In addition, several cities of Luhmann and Mara Kingdoms, as well as two smaller nations, also joined the new kingdom. This marked the height of the Churchs power and reputation. More than half of the human kingdoms were under the Churchs control.

At the same time, the Church also denounced all other religions and formed organizations to capture any heretics. In this name, it captured many people who tried to resist the Church. It also created a special organization consisting of many Judges of Light who would monitor the activities of all the kingdoms and spy on their internal intel. The Churchs power seemed to be at its peak, and no one could object to it. No one, not even kings, noblemen, and Bloodline Knights, could fight against the Churchs ruling!

Delmatina was located within Luhmann Kingdom and covered mostly by forests and mountains. It was where Luhmann Kingdoms most ancient mountains were located. Surrounding the mountain ranges was a huge, primal forest. Due to the tall trees, the landscape within the forests was dark and unpredictable, and it was filled with many swamps. The heavy fog common in this forest and the treacherous terrain made traveling there almost impossible. Many explorers had disappeared into this forest, leaving numerous horror stories behind. Therefore, the place was also known as the Black Forest.

Lu Zhiyu placed his newly constructed insect nest in the depths of the Dark Forest, on a lonely cliffside that was very difficult to access. He had reconstructed this insect nest, turning it into an organism with an independent mind. Then, he assumed control over this new organism through his dream space. This was the only intact insect nest left over after the deaths of the insect queens. He had wiped away the insects spiritual imprints and assumed full control over it.

From then on, this insect nest which once represented the height of the insects biotechnology belonged to Lu Zhiyu. The most important thing was that this nest would act as a life-generating machine. As long as he had control over it, he could design any form of life and place the template into the nest. The organism would just grow out of the nest!

Previously, he had to go through all the trouble of breeding the embryos, finding a suitable mother, and helping the mother to deliver the organisms. Before he had the biological chambers, he even had to raise them up slowly. Now, as long as he could provide a complete template, the nest would return him with a fully mature organism!

This was almost like entering an industrialized civilization from a primitive one. The insect nest was like a processing plant for living things. As long as it had sufficient energy and compounds, it could work continuously!

After the reconstruction, the nest appeared as a black circular ball that was over ten meters tall. It had a very strong outer shell that would allow it to stand even after receiving significant damage.

After Lu Zhiyu had turned the nest into an organism, he had originally wanted to call it Life One. After a while, he abandoned that name and renamed it Gaia, which meant the mother of earth and life!

Gaia had basic intelligence, and Lu Zhiyu even used the sub-brains template on it, turning it into something akin to a large organic computer. Any organism born from Gaia would always be under its control.

Since the beginning of the Years of Holy Light, Lu Zhiyu had been meditating a lot and trying to create a mythical creature template at the same time. From then to now, five years had passed, and he was progressing smoothly, especially now that he had finally assimilated Sakuns soul into his dream space. This act boosted his mind power significantly. At the moment, Lu Zhiyu had 4203 SFU of mind power. He only needed another five years to deify his entire body.

So far, however, he had not succeeded in creating the mythical creature templates. Most of his attempts had ended in failure, even though according to his sub-brains calculations the life templates were complete and stable.

In addition, Lu Zhiyu did not have any mythical creature specimens to experiment on. Clearly, he would not experiment on himself. Until he was completely certain that the procedure was safe and perfect, he would not risk his own life. Only after he tried the experiment on other organisms and was confident enough, he would do it to himself.

Lu Zhiyu tried to recreate the soul of the Tree of Life a few times but failed as well. He found that forming a soul was not as easy as he thought it would be. It seemed to be closely related to the power of faith only heard in stories. However, Lu Zhiyu still could not feel the so-called power of faith. It was a fundamental power, one that was related to the basic laws governing the universe and formation of awarenesses of living beings. At the moment, he could not yet understand something so arcane.

Therefore, Lu Zhiyu had taken a step back and begun working on magical beasts. These so-called magical beasts were effectively spawns of mythical creatures. However, Lu Zhiyu was planning to use Sakuns deified cells. After modifying them suitably, he would turn ordinary organisms into magical beasts. Because Sakun was dead, these beasts would not be bound by Sakuns life imprint. Furthermore, Sakuns original life template in its deified cells would also be changed, so these beasts would be nothing like the Children of the Sea!

Lu Zhiyu had decided to call them magical beasts, but he had yet to create any. Because the dimensional castle was not an appropriate place to create them, Lu Zhiyu had decided to move his laboratory to the Black Forest. He would create magical beasts and carry out experiments on them in order to complete his mythical creature template. At the meantime, he would realize his Wizard Civilization Creation Plan!