It was precisely because the development of his Parallel World's World Tree Project had gone beyond his expectations—even forcing him to summon Elysia as a failsafe—that Lu Jingming decided to hold the Battle Royale. This was a roundabout way of helping the Spirit Hall, speeding up the emergence of stronger individuals who could clean up this mess.
Figures like Black Himeko, Black Kevin, and Black Osial, along with the Abyss of the Sea, were all overpoweringly strong. The strength of the parallel world's soul master realm was not enough to deal with them. Furthermore, the constant spread of the points of defilement was affecting countless civilians and even causing the deaths of many soul masters.
Lu Jingming never considered himself a good person. Although he had implemented some compensatory measures, they were based purely on his own subjective judgment. He hadn't asked for the opinions of those affected, nor did he intend to. In his view, the strong dominating the weak was a matter of course. What was the point of his striving to become stronger if not to avoid being controlled by someone else and to ensure his own peace of mind? Lu Jingming was a firm believer in the "evil person's savior" theory of peace of mind.
Of course, Lu Jingming wasn't a completely rotten scoundrel. It was for this reason that he had decided to adjust his plan, minimizing the impact on civilians and preventing more casualties. If he had simply copied the plan from the parallel world, planting the World Tree and connecting it to the planet's will to condense the geological veins and collect the planet's negative energy, the resulting points of defilement would have been unimaginably powerful.
The Douluo Continent ten thousand years later was in a much worse state than it was ten thousand years ago. Ten thousand years ago, evil soul masters were not rampant, and civilians still had a path to rise. Now, the Douluo Continent has been plagued by evil soul masters and oppressed by nobles for a full ten thousand years. Lu Jingming couldn't even imagine how much negative energy had accumulated during this time. Once he planted the World Tree and guided the negative energy through the geological veins, it might condense terrifying entities like the Anti-Entropy Corps, the Cosmic Locust Plague, or Abundance's Scourge. After all, these all existed in Lu Jingming's memory, and the World Tree was linked to his memories. Just like how Black Himeko and Black Kevin came into existence from his memories.
The rampant evil of the evil soul masters and the long-term oppression by the nobles had accumulated ten thousand years of resentment from the civilians. Lu Jingming was well aware that this accumulated negative energy far surpassed that of the parallel world's Douluo Continent. Therefore, he absolutely could not simply copy the approach from the parallel world. He had to set up some safeguards. Otherwise, if the situation spiraled out of control, it would be troublesome.
Although he was confident in his ability to act as a failsafe—after all, Jingliu and Herta were no ordinary individuals—it was still better to avoid risks whenever possible. After all, unlike in the parallel world, he planned to unify the Douluo Continent and establish a unified empire, satisfying his desire to be an emperor. This would also give him a legitimate reason to build a harem. Of course, a harem of three thousand was unrealistic, and he didn't need that many anyway.
The people of this continent would become his subjects in the future, and they deserved his care. He couldn't be as crude and bring as much trouble to the civilians as he had in the parallel world. In this era, their very survival was already difficult enough. Therefore, he had to discuss a new plan with Herta, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, and Raiden Makoto.
Lu Jingming's consideration for the people and his willingness to modify the original plan softened the gazes of Raiden Makoto and Greater Lord Rukkhadevata toward him.
Compared to them, Herta understood Lu Jingming better. She knew that he was more concerned with keeping things from spiraling out of his control. The experiment in the parallel world had clearly exceeded his expectations and was outside his control, which was why he had proactively suggested a change in the plan. Of course, there was also an element of benevolence in his actions, but how much of it was genuine was something only Lu Jingming himself would know.
"What do you plan to do?" Herta said indifferently. She didn't mind Lu Jingming giving her a difficult problem. After all, she prided herself on being a genius. A difficult problem was a challenge; something too simple would be boring.
"The reason the points of defilement in the parallel world were hard to control was entirely because they lacked rationality and only had the primal instincts for destruction and slaughter driven by negative emotions."
Lu Jingming first commented on the points of defilement in the parallel world, then said with a smile, "But what if the clones born from these points of defilement could have a portion of their original memories and intelligence, even if those memories and intelligence were extracted from my impressions and memories?"
"Oh, that's interesting. You mean...!" Herta crossed her arms, a look of interest on her face.
"Using my memories as a record, we'll create a Holy Grail that can purify the points of defilement. We'll select Masters who can summon Servants condensed from negative energy. These Servants will fight each other. Servants who are defeated and die will be absorbed and purified by the Holy Grail, and their power will be fed back to the planet. The final victorious Master will obtain the divine position condensed by the Holy Grail—a first-rank divine position, the Seagod's!"
Lu Jingming showed a smile that contained a hint of mischief and cunning.
"You're a truly naughty boy!"
When she heard Lu Jingming's plan, Raiden Makoto instantly understood. Lu Jingming was clearly targeting the Seagod, Tang San! Why the Seagod's divine position, in particular? This was clearly an attempt to fundamentally split the Seagod's faith and sever Tang San's influence on this Douluo Continent.
Herta had already placed her pieces in the God Realm and could activate them at any time to occupy Tang San, leaving him no time to worry about the Douluo Continent. In this way, when everything was settled, Tang San would inevitably be greatly affected.
"This is a win-win situation. It optimizes the plan, reduces the deaths of innocent civilians, condenses a divine position to improve the overall strength of the Douluo Continent, and can also strike a blow against Tang San."
The planet's negative energy was originally difficult to use, but with the World Tree Stigmata and Herta's extraordinary intelligence, Lu Jingming had a way to use this negative energy to create a divine position. This would not only make the Eternal and Lightning God King divine position he planned a possibility but also create an additional first-rank divine position as the Seagod.
There was another benefit to doing this: the negative energy memory bodies that were summoned would be recorded by this world, thereby gaining a sense of existence. When Lu Jingming later summoned the real person, the amount of True Force consumed would be greatly reduced. For example, if Lu Jingming wanted to summon a full-power Izumo, it would originally require one hundred million True Force. But if someone could summon the Izumo from Lu Jingming's memory, even if the memory was incomplete and the Izumo was just a replica, it would still be recorded by this universe, and its existence would be accepted. In this case, with a record of Izumo already existing, the True Force consumed by Lu Jingming to summon her would decrease from one hundred million to eighty million, saving a significant amount.
Of course, Lu Jingming couldn't predict who the chosen Masters would summon, as he had many characters in his memories. But as long as they were summoned, a record would be left, and whether he would materialize them or not was entirely up to him. So, this was like a gacha draw. Whether he could pull an SSR depended entirely on luck. Of course, he could also cheat for his own people, provided they were selected to become Masters. The selection of Masters would depend on the proportion of the planet's fortune. Those with great fortune were more likely to become Masters.
"This is indeed a good way to effectively prevent more casualties. I'll help."
Greater Lord Rukkhadevata nodded. As the God of Wisdom, her research capabilities were not as good as Herta's, but they were still impressive. This model, which Lu Jingming called the "Holy Grail War," was much more clever than the simple and crude points of defilement in the parallel world.
With Lu Jingming's memories as the core, the Servants, who were condensed from negative energy, would have intelligence and memories. Although these memories were fake and merely based on Lu Jingming's memories, they were still much better than negative energy monsters with no rationality, who only knew destruction and slaughter. At the very least, most of the intelligent Servants would not go on a killing spree or cause indiscriminate destruction. Of course, this excluded some Servants who were inherently evil. For example, the Annihilation Lord who worshiped destruction in Lu Jingming's memories, or the Herrschers who made it their duty to destroy civilizations, or Sora. If these beings were summoned, they would still cause immense destruction to the Douluo Continent. After all, that's how they behaved in Lu Jingming's memories.
"A Holy Grail War? If that guy, the God of Fun, found out about this, you might just get to be a Trailblazer of Fun."
Herta rolled her eyes. She felt that while Lu Jingming's actions had the intention of reducing destruction and caring for his subjects, it was more about seeking some fun and saving True Force. If he could pull some of his favorite waifus from the two-dimensional world this time, he would be even happier.
Of course, Herta herself was also looking forward to it. If someone could pull Ruan Mei, she would have a reason to ask Lu Jingming to summon Ruan Mei to be with her. As for Screwllum and Stephen, Herta didn't expect Lu Jingming to summon them. From her understanding of Lu Jingming, all he cared about were his two-dimensional waifus. Ruan Mei fit the criteria, so summoning her wouldn't be a problem, but her other two partners would probably have a much harder time. After all, Lu Jingming's True Force wasn't luxurious enough for him to summon freely. He had to be very careful with his calculations. Most importantly, Lu Jingming wasn't lacking in research geniuses right now. Having Herta and Möbius was enough for the time being, and with Ruan Mei, Vill-V, Screwllum, and the others as backup, they could certainly wait. Maybe one day when he no longer had to worry about True Force, he would consider it.