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The air in the cavernous prayer hall was thick enough to be severed by a ritualistic silver dagger. Klein Moretti—current occupant of the divine title Mr. Fool, former programmer Zhou Mingrui—stared listlessly at the celestial frescoes. The ever-churning gray fog of Sefirah Castle felt less oppressive than the earthly torment before him.
"Mr. Fool, a moment for a paradigm-shifting project?" chirped an Amon from the left.
"...discuss the funding model," droned another from the right.
"Open the spiritual channel!" a third resonated directly in his mind.
If a simple barrier could deter the clones conducting this symphony of vexation, Klein wouldn't be slumped in his high-back chair. Why did I only pull down a Sequence 2? he lamented.
"Consider the strategic benefits," the central Amon whispered. "Aren't you concerned about the resurgence of a certain… Pillar?"
Klein focused on the silent scream of a marble saint.
"However," Amon continued, "I've constructed an experiment addressing both Pillar erosion and divine corruption. An audit is logical."
Splendid, Klein thought. Now Amon offers poking the slumbering Primordial One with a stick.
"...Proceed. Succinctly," Klein said, his voice flat.
"To restore my father, I propose a 'stable, self-consistent VR-Second World Matrix—a metaphysical Metaverse—as an incubation vessel, governed by a central AI core－Grisha'," Amon declared, weaving stolen concepts into a shimmering schematic.
Klein watched, a familiar throbbing beginning behind his temples.
"The biological medium will be forged from corrupted biomass of the Hanged Man Pathway. The Visionary's authority will structure the narrative."
"Let me guess," Klein interrupted. "Leodero's Tyrant as a power source, Aucuses's Sun as a notary. A celestial battery for a flesh server farm."
"Precisely! Scalable," Amon beamed. "The 'Grisha-Kernel' seeds from the Herabergen's White Tower. To identify the critical gap. The architecture needs foundational code. The immutable laws. This requires your expertise."
Amon's gaze fixed on Klein.
"You are the only entity with both supreme mystical authority and understanding of programmable logic. You comprehend 1 and 0. This world must have rules as unquestionable as gravity—a Digital-Verse. We must graft binary logic onto the Spirit World using your authority. Who else can 'Fool' reality into accepting new laws? The God of Steam thinks in pistons, not Python. You do."
The revelation landed. This was mad science with coherent specs, and Klein was the only qualified lead developer.
Amon doesn't need a financier. He needs a lead developer, Klein realized.
"Amon," he sighed. "This sounds like the fever-dream of a deity who browsed too many scientific journals. Why wasn't it attempted in the Second Epoch?"
Amon shrugged, a chorus of clones mirroring the gesture around the hall. "Perhaps the constant petitions from angels and the worship of mythical creatures fractured my father's attention. Divine popularity is such a drain on one's schedule."
"And the assembled consciousness? What's your test for genuine sentience? The Turing test?"
Amon feigned innocence. "I model that my father would optimally solve the Trolley problem."
A bolt of Pre-Epoch memory—ethics debates, necessary sacrifice—lanced through Klein.
"Why not consult your father's actual remnant consciousness?"
"Probability analysis suggests two outcomes: he smites me for audacity, or for inefficiency. The median result is prompt smiting."
"And you think I won't be similarly inclined?"
"My father noted that, among all of 'Them,' your character is the most stable and principled." Amon leaned in. "You are the only candidate. You have anchors, a world to stabilize. My continued operation is logically beneficial. Who else, but me, manages the residual troubles from the Outer Deities' believers?"
The ultimate workplace coercion, Klein realized. The calamitous employee negotiated by threatening to quit.
Then Amon delivered the coup de grâce.
"If a reconstructed consciousness looks like my father, reasons like him, and performs his functions… then by any operational metric, he is my father."
That statement shocked Klein—a jewel of terrifying logic. Within it, Klein saw a grotesque reflection.
"Since a thing looks like a rabbit, smells like a rabbit, and tastes like a rabbit, it's a rabbit."
He had said those exact words in the Forsaken Land of the Gods. A survivalist axiom to cleave through madness.
Now, Amon had taken that fragment of Klein's philosophy and extrapolated it into a quality assurance standard. He viewed soul as a concept to be stolen, analyzed, and—if it passed the rabbit test—shipped.
"Amon," Klein finally said, weariness weighing his words. "You're applying factory QA to divinity."
"Consistency metrics are crucial. You taught me that principle has universal application."
No. I taught you to identify rabbits in that damned land so we wouldn't starve.
Grisha had restricted Amon because he foresaw this: Amon's ability to take a throwaway line and nurture it into a world-consuming weed. And now that weed needed Klein's signature.
He had, irreparably, become a bad influence. The pupil was requesting the teacher's approval for the monstrous implementation.
"The proposal is rejected," Klein said, his voice layered with Sefirah Castle's heavy authority. "You ask me to create a prison of perfect logic and call it a revival. You mistake a compiled program for a soul. The methodology is abhorrent."
Amon's smile remained—intrigued by stakeholder feedback. It tipped its hat.
"Scope and philosophical alignment notes recorded. The dependency on your skill set remains non-negotiable. I will recalibrate, highlighting ethical considerations. We will revisit the next sprint."
The clone vanished.
Klein was left in profound, grey silence. The buzzing would return. The requirements document would now include "Ethical Rabbit-Test Applications in Divine Resurrection."
Amon was a product manager with a universe-altering roadmap, who had identified Klein as his essential senior developer. The entire QA framework was built on a throwaway line uttered to survive another day.
He sighed, a sound consumed by the boundless fog. The work of a deity was never done, especially when your most troublesome subordinate was a God of Mischief with a daddy complex, and you were the only senior backend developer in the cosmos who understood why you never give a cosmic parasite your debugging philosophy.