Heart of the Earth.

Named for the sound of beating hot iron resembling the heartbeat of the earth, this hammer made of pure black iron is a symbol of the Dwarf Grandmaster, coveted by all dwarves.

Made of pure adamantium, the hardest metal in the world, dwarves hold a competition every 5 years to vie for the chance to wield this hammer, capable of refining any metal. The winner earns the right to use the Heart of the Earth for 5 years, along with the title of Dwarf Grandmaster.

Of course, this also comes with the duty to represent all dwarves, but the honor of being the finest craftsman among dwarves and obtaining the Heart of the Earth is well worth it.

In a way, it can be said to be a crown that rules over all dwarves.

However, its power should not be underestimated just because it's a craftsman's hammer. Made of the hardest adamantium, it's said there's nothing this hammer can't break, and legend has it, it could even shatter dragon scales.

Of course, whether those scales were truly from a dragon remains unclear.

- Encyclopedia of Legendary Weapons.

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The world began to develop at a rapid pace.

Humans started to combine their strengths with other groups of humans to create villages, both large and small.

With primitive forms of clothing and significant advancements in agriculture, humans now had a living environment incomparable to before, leading to another explosive population increase.

While previous population increases were much faster than the supply of food, causing humans to spread across the world, now, with an ample supply of food, the growth of human villages became the driving force.

Leaving human stories aside for now. As for the stories of other races... Dwarves dug into mountains, going deeper to mine new metals.

Wait, that hammer was given to refine metals, not to smash rocks and dig caves! Sure, there's no rock it can't break, but that's not the point! That's not what it's for!

Ahem. Let's not worry about the dwarves for now. It's hard to keep track of them as they go deep underground. I tried creating some magic to see through the ground, but it gets harder to see the deeper you go, and it's annoying. I was speechless seeing them use the gifted hammer to dig deeper into caves.

Next, the elves. The elves lived quietly, not straying far from the World Tree. They hunted animals with bows and arrows made from trees, cooked meat with the power of fire spirits, and devoted themselves to communing with spirits.

Excluding the fact that they're pure carnivores, they are the epitome of fantasy elves, slowly increasing their numbers under the shade of Yggdrasil.

There were quite a few new elves being born. It seems that the transformation from human to elf has become somewhat rarer.

Probably because it's known that elves hardly eat any vegetables, the number of humans wanting to become elves has decreased. After all, humans were half carnivorous and half vegetarian.

Next, the lizardmen. As always, they lived peacefully. They expanded their territory using magic borrowed from spirits and campfires, but since they're not a particularly greedy race, conflicts with other races were rare.

Well, facing the sturdy bodies of lizardmen, anyone would lose the desire to cause friction.

Anyway... Lizardmen are doing well on their own, so there's no need to worry too much.

Beastmen were living among humans, blending in.

Despite having beastly features, those who wished to be human utilized their unique skills to integrate into human groups.

And finally... Giants continued their lives battling beasts in cold environments.

Still, their size and weight alone were significant weapons, allowing them to live as apex predators within their territories.

Anyway, various subraces and humans formed villages, large and small, competing and sometimes cooperating with each other, leading to growth.

Thus, several cities were born, and in the largest of these cities... the owner of the crown I gave was reigning.

Thanks to their overwhelming charisma in leading other humans, their city was the largest and most prosperous.

Soon, the first nation might be born….

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I quietly observed the development of civilization.

Without interfering with humans, watching which direction they would develop felt like watching a simulation game filled with AI.

Or like watching a strategy game broadcast? Even without my interference, just watching was fun.

As I watched humans, new things began to emerge among them.

First was writing. A method to record language.

Although the language I taught to dragons and lizardmen had spread everywhere, allowing various races to communicate, there was no writing system to record it…. Primitive writing began to emerge among humans.

It started with pictographs, drawing objects. Naturally, the origin of this writing system was the lizardmen.

They carved pictures on stone tablets to communicate many things. It was only natural for their pictures to evolve into writing. Their carved stone tablets would become the first records.

As lizardmen's records were passed down to humans, the pictures gradually simplified and became primitive ideograms through human hands.

However, primitive ideograms, despite their symbolic status as the first writing system…. were not widely used.

A single word carrying a single meaning made understanding the characters not too difficult…. but there were a vast number of characters, and since it was closer to drawing than writing, learning how to use it was not easy.

Had I not, in disguise, spread an alphabet made of consonants and vowels…. they might have suffered for hundreds of years trying to learn ideograms.

Anyway, as writing spread among various races, civilization faced both big and small changes.

The most notable change was primitive religion.

Primitive religion was born to explain natural phenomena that humans could not understand.

These disparate gods, barely even formed, began to take shape little by little, powered by human belief.

Well, even though they were called gods, they were only slightly better than lower spirits.

For example, the god born to explain lightning and thunder originated from the faith of giants who feared them.

Being taller than trees and often struck by lightning, giants believed that when they sensed lightning, it was the fearsome Father Giant scolding loudly. To avoid Father Giant's wrath, they would lie flat on the ground, and after adopting this behavior, the number of giants killed by lightning dramatically decreased.

A fearsome Father Giant, tall enough to reach the sky and scolding his children with a booming voice, was thus born from the giants' fear.

And I, too…. was already being called a god.

As writing spread, the lizardmen's faith, which had been without direction, began to pour into me.

As if spreading writing was a prerequisite for a god's existence.

And what made this fact clear was.

✉️

The appearance of a small envelope icon in the corner of my vision.

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What is a god?

What is faith?

The lizardmen say. The Creator Dragon God is the greatest god who created this world.

The elves say. The great mother, World Tree Yggdrasil, is the guardian deity of nature.

The dwarves say. The silent Sacred Mountain Sagarmatha is the pillar that supports the world.

The beastkin who admire the first beast, the giants who respect Father Giant, the merfolk who worship the great flow.

The Church of Life that adores the Goddess of Life.

All live calling upon gods, yet they do not know the truth. No, they are ignoring the truth.

The fact that gods were originally born to explain phenomena that intelligent beings could not understand.

I write this book to correct such perceptions.

I have some idea of the shock this book will bring to the world, but still, I will not put down my pen.

For human intelligence cannot develop further until the illusion of gods is dispelled.

 - The Illusion Named God.

   This book has been designated as a banned book in the kingdom, and merely reading it results in being declared a heretic by the pantheon.