Published: March 2, 2025
Walking on the vast land of the Second Layer of the Heavenly Palace, Wen Yu slowly calmed his emotions, casually harvesting the second-tier demonic creatures and undead from the Immortal Heroic World along the roadside while continuing to communicate with the Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine.
"Is there anything else that needs to be explored above?"
"There's nothing on the Third Layer, but there is one spot on the Fourth Layer, and there are even more above the Fifth Layer!"
"There are plenty of treasures within the Heavenly Palace, but they are primarily concentrated in the upper layers. Given your current strength, I recommend you go to the Sixth Layer to improve your abilities before heading higher."
"I think I can go to the Seventh Layer to hunt level 7 demonic creatures and boost my strength."
Wen Yu had a clear assessment of his abilities—his peak physical quality at level 7 was 20,000 points, which was not an insurmountable gap for him.
"What I'm suggesting is a reasonable balance of risk and reward. If you go to the Seventh Layer now, the difficulty will be significant."
"You can easily calculate how strong you might be at level 7, and then you’ll understand how high the combat power of the strongest among the level 7 creatures will be!"
"If you encounter those guys, you might not even be able to escape!"
"I must remind you that the Immortal Heroic World once could contend with the demonic clan; strong beings can be described as numerous and varied. In reality, we may encounter danger even on the Fifth Layer."
Encountering danger on the Fifth Layer...
In other words, beings with strength comparable to Wen Yu would appear on the Fifth Layer of the Heavenly Palace.
Wen Yu had always been self-aware; if he could reach such heights at the peak of level 5, why couldn't the demonic clan do the same? Why couldn't the Immortal Heroic World?
The world does not revolve around oneself.
So...
"Let’s head upwards first and discuss it later. By the way, you mentioned that there’s a place on the Fourth Layer that needs exploration; where is it?"
"The plantation, the spiritual medicine garden, whatever you want to call it; it’s just a place for growing some Immortal Grass spiritual medicine."
Spiritual medicine? Immortal Grass?
Hearing the words of the Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine, Wen Yu immediately thought of the scenes he saw in Xianxia novels online before the apocalypse.
Suddenly, a conjecture sprang up in Wen Yu’s mind.
"Those spiritual medicines should all be plants, right?"
"Yes."
The Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine replied affirmatively.
"Then do you think they could mutate? Could the Immortal Grass and spiritual medicine originally planted on the Fourth Layer mutate into a variant plant and suddenly jump to a higher level?"
This was just a simple conjecture from Wen Yu, like idle chatter between companions discussing "how's the weather today."
However, the response from the Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine made Wen Yu abruptly think of another possible truth about the entire situation.
"How could that be possible!"
The Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine responded very definitively.
"Those are recognized by the sovereign as prop-like plants, which have already lost certain characteristics of living organisms and their potential for evolution!"
Lost certain characteristics of living organisms...
On the surface, Wen Yu remained expressionless, but deep inside, a storm was brewing.
He quickly calculated everything that had transpired.
The Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine was very similar to the vines he encountered in HL Town, but one belonged to a variant organism while the other was a prop...
What was the essential difference between the two?
The soul...
So, does this mean...
But that didn't make sense; the Faceless also lacked a soul but was still evaluated by the sovereign as a living entity and could be contracted by him.
The continuous stream of conjectures flooding Wen Yu's mind turned his thoughts into a tangled mess!
"We've arrived."
The Heaven-Piercing Demon Vine's mental fluctuation interrupted Wen Yu's conjectures.