Decades passed by in the blink of an eye.
However, for the long-lived Logos people, several decades were neither short nor particularly long.
Al and his eldest son tread through the snow, climbing the peaks.
He once told God he would climb the mountain to see Him, and now Al had come, joining the city's hunters and craftsmen in their ascent to the high mountain.
The craftsmen measured the flat mid-mountain terrain in their minds, contemplating where the first wooden stake should go based on centuries of experience, then marking it roughly with an animal's rib bone.
After Al and the craftsmen had chosen the location, he instructed,
"You must ensure that this place will not be flooded by water, nor swept by wind, nor be buried by snow collapsing from the mountain."
The craftsmen repeatedly assured the Prophet that their site selection was deeply considered and would be a place where God could be worshiped eternally.
Only then did Al reluctantly ease his mind, and as he was about to turn and ascend the mountain, he suddenly thought of something else and said,
"After constructing the altar, build the King's Throne. He is my brother, our King."
The craftsmen were somewhat surprised, as the Prophet's request came so abruptly. The head craftsman surveyed their surroundings, and after a moment's thought, he agreed.
Al then nodded his approval, fearing the craftsmen might forget. He reiterated his instructions before departing.
It was a gift the Prophet intended for his brother, the Sapo King.
At noon, Al and a group of hunters began scaling the remaining steep path.
Having had a brush with death once before, Al was not unfamiliar with the route. By relying on the extraordinary physical gifts of the Logos people and Al's leadership, they made their way with ease, the mountain's cold and fierce winds slicing past their sharp ears.
After an indeterminate period, as dusk neared, Al arrived at the foot of the mountain summit following the same path as before. He ordered everyone to wait there, including his eldest son, Yarlessto.
Afterward, Prophet Al alone climbed a steep cliff face and finally reached the snow-covered summit.
God stood in the radiance.
Al saw God slightly bowing his head, as if admiring something.
"Al, you have come."
With his emotions in check, the Prophet slowly stepped forward.
As he stopped, he just so happened to see God holding something in each hand, shrouded in brilliance, resembling some kind of Divine Artifact.
One was a pale green plant, and the other was sharp like a sword.
Chen Yi lifted his hand as if deliberately allowing him to see.
"My Lord, what are these?"
Al asked in confusion.
"Choose, and do not ask what it is."
God simply said,
"Whatever you choose shall be granted to you."
The Prophet stepped closer, scrutinizing the two objects, comparing them carefully.
He was initially drawn to the one sharp as a sword but hesitated as he reached out his hand.
"Do the Logos people, who hunt beasts night and day, really need another sword?"
Al asked himself. He felt that the sharp object akin to a blade was mere embellishment for the Logos people.
Therefore, Al took a fresh look at the unassuming plant.
The pale green plant, segment after segment, appeared to have a soft fuzz, frail and weak, yet seemed to contain a powerful life force.
After thinking it over, Al made his choice.
"This is wheat."
God said to him,
"If you wish to build a great nation, wheat must be the foundation of that nation."
Al took the wheat, astonished. How could such a tiny plant be the foundation of a great nation?
The Prophet was skeptical, even feeling a twinge of regret.
God raised his other hand, which held the horn of a Unihorn, proclaiming:
"In the future, this too shall be bestowed upon you, to bless the nation of your descendants."
Al was delighted, somewhat dazed. He hadn't anticipated both items would be gifts to him.
"Lord, the Logos people will forever worship you."
Saying this, Al held back his excitement and added,
"My Lord, it is not I who wish to establish a great nation, nor my descendants, but my brother Sapo."
Chen Yi gazed at Al.
Al felt as if God was looking at him, yet not at him.
His gaze seemed to pierce the shackles of time, reaching into the distant future.
"What I tell you now, you cannot yet understand."
God spoke thus.
Then, God taught him how to sow the wheat into the ground, and how to tend and care for it.
As dusk neared, Al descended the mountain.
After Prophet Al left, God gazed toward the distant Logos people.
His gaze occasionally lingered on Al, and at other times, it swept over Al's progeny.
Dozens of faint golden Fate Lines appeared before His eyes.
Chen Yi muttered to himself,
"Al's children, Yarlessto and Dertulian, indeed, it is those two who will establish great nations in the future."
Though the Fate Lines were constantly fluctuating, the direction they pointed to didn't change much.
At that moment, God turned His attention to the progeny of the Sapo King.
God had never paid attention to the progeny of the Sapo King, and even the Sapo King himself was seldom noticed; this was the first time He examined those offspring's Fate Lines.
Subsequently, Chen Yi shook His head.
Among the dozens of offspring of the Sapo King, not even one would establish a great nation in the future.
Chen Yi lifted the Unicorn horn He had taken from the head of the Unihorn whale and examined the power it contained.
The sharp horn emitted an intertwining glow of blue and pallid light under the moonlight.
Undoubtedly, that pallid light stemmed from the power of Ancient Chaos.
But the blue...
"After the Unihorn whale submerged in the pallid rainstorm, this blue glow appeared... The quadrupedal trilateral snake I saw previously radiated a purple glow... Maybe, it's some kind of reaction between that ancient force and their life essence, which then intertwined."
After some thought, Chen Yi could only come up with this explanation.
The Ape-man, after bathing in the rainstorm, shed its fur, gained longevity, and developed an agile body; the saber-toothed tiger, after bathing in the rainstorm, grew wings on its back, transforming into the winged tiger; the Unihorn whales, after bathing in the rainstorm, their horns acquired the power to manipulate seawater...
Not only animals, but plants also changed, although not as drastically as the animals.
The Timopheevi wheat He had given to Al, He could see, harbored an astonishing fertility.
If the soil was rich and water was abundant, once planted, it wouldn't be long before a field of wheat turns gold.
That force bursting from the Ancient Chaos was driving life to evolve in a direction beneficial to life itself.
Then, He immediately thought of something.
If the force of ancient times could react with the life essence...
"What about my power?"
Chen Yi began pondering this question.
The gradual awakening of His memory allowed Him to gradually recognize who He truly was.
Chen Yi was merely a mishearing of the name Chen Yi, but He embraced the mistake; after all, both Chen Yi and Chen Yi were Himself.
Before His arrival, the world was enveloped in Chaos.
He didn't inherently exist in this world; He came in response to a call from the future, an outsider to this world.
God reached out, and a faint golden light spilled from the depths of His shell—His soul, floated above the palm of His hand.
"How exactly will my power change the form of life?"
Chen Yi was lost in prolonged contemplation.
He searched His past memories for a lead on this question, even just a fleeting clue.
What did He ultimately signify?
His arrival was like the birth of light amidst the endless, deathly still darkness.
Everything in this world was transforming and transferring, nothing was sudden.
Only He was abrupt...
In those distant memories, He recalled countless people who had tried to prove God's existence, as well as countless people who tried to prove God does not exist. No one could present evidence convincing enough to completely persuade the other side.
And a Philosopher found that for the same question, the formation of two contradictory answers could, under the defense of human reason, be considered correct. He called it a "dilemma," implying that the question transcended the current rational categories of humanity.
And the existence of God is such a dilemma.
Those wondrous memories echoed in His mind, and He remembered that someone had once asked how God would view the dilemma and how God would prove His own existence?
At that moment,
Chen Yi slowly opened His eyes, shaking His head with a wry smile,
"I am self-evident."
In His eyes now, the dilemma didn't exist.
Suddenly, He understood something.
Had He not come, this world might have remained forever in darkness.
People of the Golden Age revered the formidable ocean, the vast sky, feared earthquakes, Lightning, seas of fire... because they could not witness true miracles.
Because in that age not a single life understood the meaning of God.
And later on, the people of Logos,
could only describe it with great difficulty in a single phrase:
"The arrival of God is from nothing to something, bringing existence out of void."