Chapter 446: Chapter 387: War Sparked by Differences in Aesthetics
Lord Starfall grew increasingly excited as she spoke, her eyes shimmering with a light that seemed to set the silver-colored room ablaze.
She suddenly turned towards Jeming, her gaze intense, as though looking at a walking rare elemental vein:
"Wizard Jeming! It’s wonderful that you came! I was just troubled about the dwindling stock of imaginary elements, which was hindering the experiment’s progress."
"As long as you can continuously provide imaginary elements, I can further perfect the ’Spiritual Wisdom Ignition’ model, and even use it as a core to thoroughly construct and expand my ’Spiritual’ Law, taking that crucial step!"
The gaze, almost scorching to the point of materializing, made Jeming’s scalp tingle with fear; he felt that if he didn’t change the topic, he might be dragged into the lab to become a humanoid element-producing machine by this research fanatic.
He coughed dryly and forcefully shifted the topic back to reality: "Lord Starfall, regarding the supply of imaginary elements, we can discuss it in detail later. Right now, more importantly, what exactly is the situation with the two newly intelligent races in your Plane?"
Viola immediately chimed in, pointing to the brutal battlefield displayed on the screen, her brows furrowed: "Indeed, Starfall. I’ve been away for less than a month! Even if war is a catalyst for civilization’s development, this escalation is too fast and too intense!"
"Moreover, there must be a trigger for these two races to go to war, right? From an ecological standpoint, one absorbs light energy and elements while the other is rooted in the earth extracting nutrients; there is no life-or-death resource competition between them, so why would they immediately start fighting upon meeting?"
Faced with the questions from both of them, Lord Starfall finally calmed down a bit from her futuristic musings.
She blinked her bloodshot eyes and quickly began operating the console in front of her.
Soon, she called up a large amount of collected real-time battlefield records, energy fluctuation spectrums, and most importantly—the deciphered "language" records of the specific electromagnetic signals released by both sides during the conflict.
"At first, I didn’t quite understand either," Lord Starfall explained as she retrieved data, "only knowing that after an accidental large-scale contact, they fell into a state of full-blown hostility without warning, expanding at a shocking speed and spreading the conflict throughout the Plane."
She projected the key information she had screened onto the main screen.
"Later, through continuous monitoring and analysis of their ’communication’ during the conflict, I formed a preliminary hypothesis."
On the screen, two radically different "language" records were displayed side by side:
On the left, data streams representing the light orb Elemental Creatures were annotated with translated high-frequency vocabulary: [Distorted], [Aberrant], [Impure Form], [Purification]!
On the right, adjacent to the spiritual fluctuations of the animated plants, frequently appeared: [Mutation], [Incomparable], [Energy Toxin], [Elimination]!
"Look," Lord Starfall pointed at the screen, "the Elemental Creatures seem to view the plant life forms as some kind of ’distorted’, ’impure’ existence, full of repulsion and a desire for ’purification’. Meanwhile, the plant side sees the Elemental Creatures as ’mutated’, unsuitable even as nourishment, and harmful ’entities’, intending ’elimination’."
"I think this might stem from their fundamentally different existence forms—pure energy bodies and tangible organic life forms have completely different bodily compositions, which generated a foundational structural opposition. Perhaps from the very awakening of Spirituality, seeds of mutual rejection and view as heresy were sown."
Jeming focused intently on analyzing the continuously scrolling information on the screen, especially those snippets representing words of "insult" and "deprecation".
He blinked his eyes, a previously overlooked detail, combined with their encounter upon arrival, flashed like a spark in his mind.
He noticed that regardless of whether it was the Elemental Creatures insulting the plants or the plants insulting the elements in their "language", a large number of words accused the other of being ugly.
Recall that they were immediately branded as "ugly flesh monsters" by both sides upon appearing...
An idea that seemed somewhat absurd, yet not entirely impossible, surfaced in his mind.
Could it be... that the root cause of this life-or-death battle between these two races isn’t resources or living space, nor form opposition, but simply... they find each other too ugly?!
To the extent of "seeing you disgusts me, you must be eliminated"?
His contemplative expression caught the attention of the other three.
Viola curiously asked, "Jeming, what are you thinking? Your expression is so strange."
Jeming opened his mouth, hesitating slightly.
This idea sounds too much like nonsense, and the amount of data is just too little, making him subconsciously try to evade: "It’s nothing, just a little immature thought..."
"Come on, let’s hear it!" Viola showed interest.
Lord Starfall also cast an encouraging glance.
Under their urging, Jeming had no choice but to brace himself, recounting in detail their experience of being attacked by both sides’ creatures simultaneously when they first teleported over, and how they were unanimously cursed as "ugly flesh monsters".
Lord Starfall listened, showing a trace of bewilderment on her face: "Really? My monitoring system mainly focuses on the macro-level war situation and energy, spiritual data, but this kind of individual ’aesthetic’ feedback... I did indeed overlook."
Viola then looked at Lord Starfall, asking apologetically: "Starfall, would our previous actions interfere with your experimental data? Do we need any remedial measures?"
Lord Starfall waved her hand, indicating no need to worry, her attention instead fully captured by Jeming, further inquiring: "Wizard Jeming, does the idea you hesitated to speak earlier relate to this matter? Please do tell me!"
Seeing no way out, Jeming had to take a deep breath and share his hypothesis that "ugliness" might trigger a wave of warfare. He even supplemented by saying:
"From our limited encounters and the current insulting information we see, keywords involving disgust with appearance and forms like ’ugly’, ’mutated’, seem to appear at an unusually high frequency, possibly even more than words simply describing the other as ’harmful’ or ’resource contesting’. Of course, this is just instinct from a small sample, possibly unreliable..."
Both Viola and Lord Starfall, instead of finding it laughable, furrowed their brows simultaneously, showing a serious expression of thought.
As experienced High Tier Wizards, they had experienced too many bizarre social structures and origins of conflicts among intelligent races.
Often, the trigger for war could indeed be absurd to the point of stunning—maybe because the deity statue nose was slightly crooked, maybe because the opposing leader sneezed impolitely, or even just because they found the skin color or body structure of the other "off-putting".
Compared to these, "mutual ugliness" triggering a war, though absurd, is not logically impossible.
Especially among these two races whose wisdom has just been born, with social structures and value paradigms in the chaotic nascent stage.
Moreover, Jeming’s hypothesis is not random conjecture but is based on observed phenomena and existing data as a hypothesis pending verification.
The only flaw is that the direct evidence supporting this hypothesis—i.e., a large sample clearly stating combat initiated due to the other’s ugliness—is still too scarce.
Lord Starfall’s eyes rekindled with the flame of research, she quickly said: "There’s no need for special treatment on those biological samples influenced by you! Not only unnecessary, perhaps... the existence of Wizards itself can serve as a great ’external stimulus variable’ introduced into this experimental environment!"
"Observing how they react when faced with a third party completely different from each other, yet equally perceived as ’ugly’ by them, presents itself as a valuable opportunity to study their intellectual evolution and social interaction!"
This proposal piqued interest in both Jeming and Viola, and they quickly expanded into discussions around this new possibility.
"We can design a controlled experiment," Viola suggested with quick thinking, "select several regions of comparable scale and intense conflict, where some areas we appropriately reveal presence or even create some non-hostile contact, while other areas can dispatch other creatures for contact, to see if there is a change in reaction, whether the appearance of a ’uglier’ third party will ease their conflicts, or produce other unexpected interaction patterns."
"A very good idea!" Lord Starfall excitedly operated the console, beginning to organize experimental areas, set observation parameters, "We need precise control of the variables, to record all energy interactions, spiritual fluctuations, population behavior pattern changes... this might uncover the deeper connections between aesthetic preferences and social conflicts during the early stages of spiritual wisdom’s birth!"
"However, this way, we’ll need more samples to conduct experiments, meaning the creation of more creatures... by the way, we can use illusory elements to create more intelligent races and also the races we’ve modified to probe the two races, regarding illusory element consumption I can reimburse..." Jeming directly took out a tube of crystal storing ultra-compressed Spiritual Qi.
In no time, all three Wizards fully dove into the intense and efficient work of experimental design and deployment.
They busied themselves around the light curtain and console, sometimes engaging in fierce discussions, sometimes swiftly operating.
Only Anya was left standing in place, watching her grandmother and the two guests instantly enter a state of absorbed research, mouthing silently but saying nothing, her face fully expressing shock and awe.
The topic jump and shift in research direction were too fast, weren’t they?
They were just discussing the plane’s rebellion and element supply, and in the blink of an eye, it turned into a controlled experiment about "ugliness triggering war"?
She quietly retreated to the corner, deciding not to disturb these researchers clearly having found new toys.
Just watching her grandmother’s reinvigorated profile, Anya silently lit a candle in her heart for the two races outside still fighting desperately.
