Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1011 Is all the malice hidden in the heart?

Alice couldn't believe her ears.

Although she already had solid evidence, she still hoped from the bottom of her heart that Tiantis would deny it. Even if it was just a lie, it at least showed that she was not without guilt for what she had done. But Tiantis actually admitted it so easily, without any intention of defending herself, and even questioned her in return. Could it be said that she felt that what she had done was just, and Alice was the one who needed to be questioned?
"How could this be?"

She murmured, and her clenched fists gradually loosened, not because of her anger, but because of disappointment: "Do you really know what you are doing, Tiantis? I remember that you clearly hated war before, right? Why do you do this now? Could it be that..."

Could it be that time can really change everything, and even the purest and kindest heart created by Mother will gradually degenerate due to the loss of Her guidance?
Alice looked at Tiantis quietly, the sadness in her eyes overwhelmed her anger.

Tiantis was a little annoyed by her look. She didn't want to explain anything, but just sneered: "Yes, I really hate wars. I hate those meaningless wars that only break out to satisfy the greed and selfishness of some people. Their existence is completely unnecessary to this world, and is even far inferior to those things they have always looked down upon, such as a maggot drowning in muddy water, or a rat lingering in the sewer. What a despicable, shameful, and extremely vulgar display of personality."

She was extremely sarcastic, and the undisguised malice in her words made Alice purse her lips tightly and ask sharply: "Since you hate meaningless wars, why do you want to start a war? Don't you think you are contradicting yourself, Tiantis?"

"That's not contradictory, Alice." Tiantis glanced at her and said, "The answer is simple. Every war I started was meaningful."

absurd!

ridiculous!

Alice's suppressed anger could not help but rekindle. She opened her mouth angrily, wanting to blame Tiantis for saying such irresponsible words. However, before she could speak, she was stopped by the other party with a cold look: "Don't rush to question, Alice, thinking without thinking will only make you appear impulsive, and it is useless. If you don't understand why I do this, I can give you a simple explanation. First, tell me, what is my duty and mission?"

"..." Alice gritted her teeth, her chest rising and falling violently. She still felt that Tiantis was perfunctory to her, otherwise why would she ask such an obvious question? She simply turned her head to the side and refused to pay attention to her.

Tiandis didn't care, just raised his head and cast his eyes towards the sky floating in the air. After a long silence, the silver-haired girl lowered her eyelids slightly, and spoke in a clear but cold voice: "The guardian and arbitrator of the world, the real girl king Tiandis, whose main responsibility is to maintain the magic power circulation system set up by the goddess, to ensure that the magic power concentration of the whole world is in a balanced state, and everything runs in an orderly manner."

Tiandis's mouth twitched: "So, the total amount of magic power is infinite?"

"No." The essence of magic power is the spirituality of the Goddess, but the Goddess cannot disperse all of her spirituality. She must retain a part of her spirituality to maintain her own existence, maintain the existence of the Holy Temple of Heaven, maintain the stability of the basic laws of the universe, etc. Therefore, the magic power bestowed on the Continent of Eden only occupies a small part of it.

"So, can magic power be generated spontaneously and lost without reason?"

"No." Only the goddess is the master of magic power, and others are just users of magic power. They can neither create magic power nor erase it. They can only transfer magic power from one individual to another. This transfer is the core of the magic power circulation system set up by the goddess. Just like fallen leaves returning to their roots and turning into nutrients, and flesh and blood rotting and nourishing plants, magic power circulates endlessly through this natural behavior. Even if the total amount is limited, it will never be exhausted.

However, does a perfect cycle system really exist? Can the magic created by the goddess, which draws on the settings of Earth's fantasy works, really lead the world to a better future?
After answering the above three questions, Tianjie suddenly understood Tiantis's thoughts.

Unfortunately, Alice doesn't understand yet.

Tiantis looked at Alice who was still sulking, sighed in his heart, and tried to speak calmly: "So, this is the biggest reason, Alice. Magic power is limited, but life on the continent of Eden has been multiplying. Today, the total number of lives has far exceeded the upper limit it can carry. For this reason, a part of life must be consumed to maintain the normal operation of the magic power circulation system. Do you understand the meaning of this?"

Consume life?
Alice was unwilling to accept such a cold statement, as if every living life was a weight on the scale, and their weight could be measured by the scale. However, everyone knew that the conception, birth, reproduction and death of a life were never such simple concepts. They were the most proud works and the most favored creations of the mother, even more than the continent under her feet. Could she treat the souls carved by the mother's own hands as firewood or straw and throw them into the fire to burn them all?

"It shouldn't be like this."

Her face was gloomy, like a cloudy day about to rain: "You are lying to me, Tiantis. The magic circulation system set up by Mother is perfect and there is no possibility of loopholes. Even though living beings will continue to multiply and grow, they will also wither and die at the same time. Therefore, the total number of life and death should be maintained in a balanced state so as not to affect the magic circulation system."

"Really?" Tiantis said noncommittally, "You are the guide and agent of civilization, and you have been in contact with mortal civilization for a longer time than I have. So from your perspective, is the number of mortals increasing, decreasing, or is it the same?"

Alice choked and was speechless for a moment. Tiantis looked at her with an intriguing look. "When mother left Eden, the footprints of mortal civilization were less than one-tenth of this continent. Although their wars were frequent at that time, the scale was very limited and could be easily mediated and resolved. However, the times are different now. In the current Eden continent, except for the completely barren deserts, wastelands, abysses and islands, is there any place without the footprints of mortals?"

"All of this is because when mother set up the magic circulation system, she did not consider the side effects of magic, that is, it made the meaning of life of all living beings unequal." Tiantis did not shy away from discussing the goddess's faults, because similar ideas had been brewing in her mind long before the goddess left Eden: "Life and death should be the most equal things in the world. The death of an ant can be exchanged for the birth of a human; or the death of a dragon can be exchanged for the birth of a stone. For this world, the value of their existence is essentially the same, all for the purpose of maintaining the stability of the law structure. But some people don't seem to think so. If you tell a human that you were born because of the death of this ant and should be grateful; or tell a dragon that you should calmly welcome your own death and let the world have one more stone to form the earth, hills and mountains, then their first reaction will definitely not be approval, but ridicule your wishful thinking." "Life should be unequal. This is their consistent cognition. It is not even the inequality in race, wealth and class, but the most basic inequality in the meaning of existence, power and lifespan."

When the goddess created each race, she may have taken the balance of the magic circulation system into consideration, and therefore did not give them any special treatment. This can be seen in their lifespans. Those with short lifespans, such as humans and elves, live for a hundred years; those with long lifespans, such as dragons and fairies, live no more than two hundred years.

Everything is subject to some kind of restriction, but magic can break this restriction to a limited extent. Why? Because the reason why living beings have a lifespan limit is that they are bound by the concepts of life and death, and contact with magic gives them the opportunity to touch the power of laws and concepts with their mortal bodies. Maybe they are only exposed to a small part of the incomplete concept, but it is enough for them to benefit from it and extend their lifespan.

"Let me ask you, Alice." Tiantis suddenly said, "Who is the strongest and longest-lived person among the mortal races in Eden right now?"

"…It should be Nigflam, right?" Alice replied hesitantly, "I heard that he is the only ancient dragon on the continent. The first dragon king Nighold who listened to the mother's divine revelation in the Holy Temple of Heaven was his grandfather."

A dragon that lives for 500 years is an ancient dragon; one that lives for 1,000 years is a great ancient dragon; one that lives for 2,000 years is a prime ancient dragon; and one that lives for 5,000 years is a great ancient dragon. The Dragon King Nigflam, who calls himself the Dragon God of the Void, has gone through ten thousand long springs, summers, autumns, and winters, and is therefore honored by all his tribesmen as the Most Ancient Dragon.

He is also the strongest among the mortal race, and is known as the Sage of Truth of humans, the King of the Sea of ​​the Mirror Elves, the Holy Lord of the Sky of the Feather Elves, the Ancient Giant King of the Giants...and what impressed Tiandis the most was that a thousand years after his mother left, they all began to be rebellious and claimed to be gods.

When Tiandis first heard this, he thought it was ridiculous.

Have you ever heard of a god who claims to be supreme just because he is so powerful? Have they learned even one ten-thousandth of Mother's virtues, such as kindness, tolerance, perseverance, goodness, holiness, nobility, selflessness and justice?
It was just because Alice had a good relationship with them that she didn't bother to say anything.

Now it seems that allowing Alice to associate with those arrogant false gods was the biggest mistake she made.

"Let me tell you, Alice." Her eyes were cold. "Mortals who want to become the strongest with magic power are actually just the biggest termites. They absorb nutrients from this towering tree to strengthen themselves, but they are of no benefit to the world. The magic power plundered by each of these guys who call themselves gods is enough to feed the souls of 10 million mortal creatures. But they only take in and don't give out, just like termites are unwilling to return the nutrients they have absorbed to the tree. A large amount of magic power is plundered by them. If the excess amount is not consumed, the magic power circulation system will not be able to continue. You are not in charge of this, so it is normal that you don't understand, but I have explained it to you clearly now, do you have any comments?"

"..."

Alice could not help but remain silent. She stammered for a few times before finally squeezing out a sentence: "Even so, there is no need to resort to war, right?"

"There are many ways that don't involve war, such as plague, famine, natural disasters, etc. Which one do you want to choose?" Tiantis saw that Alice was shocked by his words, so he sneered and said, "Besides, the war was not caused by me. I just found your friends and told them directly that the magic balance of Eden is collapsing. I don't care what you do, at least within a hundred years, the situation cannot continue to deteriorate. Otherwise, I will not take into account the order of my mother forbidding us to act without authorization. And which one of them, which country or which race can bear the consequences of the young queen taking action personally?"

"They all agreed with my opinion and said that they would try their best to help me maintain the balance of the magic circulation system. Not long after, the war broke out. Tell me, was it me who started the war, or was it them, Alice?" At this point, Tiantis couldn't help but outline a playful arc at the corner of his mouth: "Or you can ask your friends and ask them if they are willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve the future of their people and believers. As long as they are willing to release the magic they plundered, I can guarantee that there will be no problems with the magic circulation system in the next two thousand years. Using one person's life in exchange for two thousand years of stability for their people and believers, since they call themselves gods, don't they have such awareness?"

"What a pity," Tiantis couldn't help but sneer, "I'm afraid even if they heard this, they would just pretend not to hear it, right?"

Alice's momentum weakened a lot all of a sudden. She was only responsible for guiding the development of human civilization and had no idea about the current status of the magic circulation system. But Tiantis could not have lied to her. Moreover, according to the news she heard when she was active in the human world, the magic pollution phenomenon in the Eden continent has indeed been getting more and more serious in recent years. It's just that due to the frequent wars, people rarely pay attention to it.

Could this be their purpose? On the one hand, they use war to consume the excess population and fulfill Tiantis's requirements, and on the other hand, they cover up the increasingly serious phenomenon of magic pollution and make everyone ignore this aspect. If they knew that it was because of the excessive demands of the gods they believed in that their living environment became increasingly worse, even the most devout believers would question the meaning of the existence of gods, right?
Alice was shocked by her own thoughts. She shook her head repeatedly, not wanting to think too badly of her friends. Tiantis glanced at her, roughly guessed what she was thinking at the moment, and said quietly: "But don't think too well of them, Alice."

"In the myths and legends of the Earth, there are hell, Hades, or the six realms of reincarnation to accommodate the malice and corruption of mortals."

"But, as the God of Creation, my mother never thought of creating such a place as the opposite reflection of the Continent of Eden."

"In that case, where is the mortal's malicious intent hiding now?"

The answer is simple.

"Of course it's hidden in their hearts." (End of this chapter)

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