Chapter 946: Chapter 818: The So-Called Crisis

The night spread, and a crescent moon hung upon the black curtain of the sky.

Specks of starlight dotted it.

Under the Moonlight, a villa stood within the dense forest.

Through the villa’s windows, one could see that in the hall on the first floor, Kane and the others were still sitting around the living room.

They were still listening to Umberto talk about all kinds of strange Spirits. It was obvious that this man’s understanding of Spirits far exceeded what ordinary people could imagine.

When he spoke of Spirits, Umberto no longer looked as calm and expressionless as usual; instead, the more he talked, the more excited he became.

"All these Spirits affect humans—do they pick their targets, or are they not picky at all, and whoever meets the conditions will be affected?"

After listening to some of Umberto’s stories, Kane suddenly asked.

Umberto answered Kane’s question without much thought.

"Almost all Spirits will first try to influence those whose life force is relatively active.

And some of the more powerful Spirits will almost only be stirred into action by people whose life force is highly active."

"For example, the Mercury Spirit, Dream Bird, Saint Sakura that I mentioned before, or existences of similar level."

After Umberto’s earlier explanation, Kane and the others had gained a deeper understanding of what this world called Spirits.

On the positive side, some would make a person’s Constitution robust, grant them great strength, great speed, or allow them to breathe underwater.

More exaggerated ones could make dreams come true, turn stone into gold, or let one foresee the future.

Where there is good, there is also bad. Various bizarre Spirits would also cause humans to lose their sight, lose their hearing, be unable to speak, grow an extra arm, be unable to walk, and so on.

And those that could grant people peculiar powers would always exact a price in some other respect.

To maintain a certain balance among these required extremely strong self-control, as well as experience and knowledge.

After listening to Umberto, Kane suddenly turned his head and stared at Meizike.

"Have you thought of something?"

Meizike nodded. "Active life force is what we call active Magic Power—those with talent."

What he wanted to express was already self-evident; even Longbei more or less understood.

They might already have grasped the core of their objective in coming here this time.

Kane fixed his gaze on Umberto. "Do you know? In the world of the Mist, because Magic exists, everyone’s Magic Power is relatively active, and the most active of them are the Explorers born with talent."

"These people are the very foundation of the Mist."

As he said this, Kane pointed at them, indicating that they had once been such people.

"If we let this world merge into the Mist, and these Spirits regrow and spread out again, they will definitely bring even more danger to ordinary people, and for those with active Magic Power it will be downright fatal."

These Spirits would yearn for those with active Magic Power and would influence them more easily, even merge with them.

If you tell Explorers to show restraint, to exercise self-control, that’s nothing but a pipe dream.

Explorers are driven by desire itself: the desire for wealth, a better life, and greater power.

It is precisely this that drives them to risk their lives again and again, to explore, to clear Dungeons, to consume the power of Dungeons.

Putting aside for the moment the limited benefits of these various Spirits, let’s just talk about those that negatively affect people.

Those that are beneficial to humans are ultimately in the minority, and most of the beneficial ones come with all kinds of side effects.

And these Spirits simply don’t care whether their host wants them or not; they instinctively exert influence on their hosts.

If one’s knowledge is insufficient, it’s very likely they will be left with permanent scars.

Every type of Spirit has a special handling method, all summarized by the people of this world over a long period of time.

All the relatively powerful abilities must also be used with strict restraint.

It’s not that Explorers are incapable of such abilities; it’s that these so-called Spirits, no matter how you look at them, are absolutely more harmful than beneficial.

And they would severely reduce the number of Explorers.

So once this world truly merges into the Mist, it will certainly cause no small amount of trouble.

"So the so-called crisis events are these omnipresent Spirits in this world?"

Kreya thought for a while and said.

Kane nodded. "Very likely. Of course we can’t make a final judgment yet. If Spirits could be controlled, could be constrained, then they would instead become the defining feature of this world."

The claim that they are more harmful than beneficial is entirely based on the premise that these Spirits act on instinct and cannot be constrained.

If someone, or something, could restrain these Spirits, keep them from wantonly and recklessly influencing those with active Magic Power, then in fact the benefits would outweigh the harms.

But judging from Umberto’s expression and what he said, such a thing clearly doesn’t exist.

Still, Kane asked, "Is there anything in this world that can somewhat constrain these Spirits? Make them not so instinctive and unbridled?"

Umberto had already heard the exchange between Kane and the others.

His heart was far from calm now.

Because if things were really as Kane and the others said, and the problems of their world came from these Spirits—

He had absolutely no idea what to do.

If Spirits were to disappear completely, wouldn’t this world be destroyed?

From birth he had been able to see Spirits. Spirits had deeply fused with this world and almost completely coexisted with humans.

But if Spirits still existed, the Mist would not accept them. If their world slipped away from the Mist again, how would that be any different from death? It would just be a slow death.

As he pondered, he heard Kane’s question, came back to himself, and frowned in thought.

"There is, but it only exists in legendary records. I have never truly encountered or seen such an existence, let alone now, when the world itself has been shattered to this extent."

"So the current world may not even be able to condense Spirits that powerful. No, they can’t be called Spirits—those Spirits pushed to the very extreme, we call them Gods!"

Hearing Umberto’s words, Kane nodded, propped his head on one hand, and started thinking.

"This is troublesome."

If they really stripped this world of its Spirits, then wouldn’t this world lose all its special powers?

The power and abilities of this world were all built upon interaction with these特殊 beings, the Spirits; without Spirits, there would be no distinguishing trait.

It would be just like an ordinary, mundane world. Aside from providing the Mist with more population, it would have no value at all and would definitely not count as a relatively rare World Fragment.

And if they wanted to strip away all the Spirits spread across this world without harming its people and things, who knew how much effort it would take.

This would severely slow their pace and waste their time. Even if they had time to spare, they still couldn’t squander it like this.

At the very least, they had to do something more meaningful.

Moreover, even if they really managed it, the result of such a huge cost in time and effort would be nothing more than an ordinary, mundane world.

Feels like a huge loss.

Totally not worth it.

Even if they were Three-Color level now, having reached a god-like rank, they were still Explorers in the end, essentially driven by profit and desire.

If there’s not much benefit, there’s not much motivation.

But if they could find a way to obtain something that could restrain these spirit existences—

Then this world would be directly promoted to a relatively rare world. Kane believed that there was nothing like this power yet in the Mist World.

A completely new power system, and the benefits that would bring were way too many. Kane believed the Mist would give out a pretty good reward.

Thinking of this, Kane made up his mind.

"Don’t rush it. First let’s see if we can find the kind of spirit you mentioned... god. If we can’t, then we’ll think about whether we can artificially create one. We’ll help you tackle the difficult parts."

As he said that, Kane fixed his eyes on Umberto.

"I’ll be blunt: you don’t want these spirits to disappear either, right? That would strip your world of its uniqueness, and its importance to the Mist would drop."

"But if we succeed, the importance of your world will rise, and you also won’t lose these spirits that coexist with you."

"And correspondingly, we’ll get more rewards too."

Hearing Kane’s straightforward words, Umberto nodded hard.

"I know, and I understand."

"Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to find an existence that can restrain these spirits."

"Mm, then let’s wish ourselves good luck."

Kane nodded as he spoke.

No such thing, so just create it? Create a god?

That sentence Kane had just said kept echoing in Umberto’s mind.

...

The next morning, Kane dispelled the temporary villa he had made last night, and they once again set out with Umberto.

"Now that we have a goal, do you have any leads?"

Kane turned to Umberto beside him.

In response, Umberto only shook his head. "No leads yet, I don’t know where to start."

Huh?

No leads, and you already set off? You even look all confident about it.

He seemed to realize his behavior was a bit off too. Seeing the strange looks from Kane and the others, he explained:

"I just have to move forward following my intuition. Wherever I go, there will be existences that need me, and things I need."

As he said this, he closed his eyes and tapped his own heart.

Since Umberto put it like that, Kane and the others couldn’t say much more.

These spirits were really mystical and mumbo-jumbo, way more metaphysical-looking than Magic.

This was way too idealistic.

But this instead made Kane even more determined to preserve this kind of power.

If this kind of power were lost, wouldn’t that be way too much of a waste?

At this moment, Longbei walked over and patted Umberto.

"Bro, do you really have to walk on your own two feet? Can’t you make some kind of vehicle? Who knows how long we’ll be walking like this."

To Longbei’s question, Umberto shook his head.

"I must measure the land with my own legs."

"Alright, alright."

Longbei waved his hand and didn’t say more. Walking it is.

Anyway, if there was one thing they weren’t short on now, it was time.

Inside the World Fragment, Synesthesia wouldn’t recover, but it wouldn’t keep draining either.

So they weren’t in any hurry.

"Speaking of which, where’s Lilulu?" Kane realized he hadn’t seen Lilulu at all since morning.

Kreya was walking beside Kane. Hearing him, she chuckled. "She said this morning she was going to catch a Dream Bird, then she disappeared."

"Dream Bird?"

Wasn’t that the strange spirit Umberto mentioned last night?

Umberto had also said that in this area, it was very hard to encounter a Dream Bird now. Even if you did, there would only be very few left.

But that did fit Lilulu’s personality perfectly.

If she didn’t insist on going to look for it, that would be the weird part.

"Forget it, let her be."

After all, Lilulu was a Three-Color level existence already; the time when they needed to worry about her was long past.

If there was some danger that could keep Lilulu from even sending out a distress signal—if she ran into that kind of danger, then Kane and the others going over would be pointless anyway.

As he was thinking this, Lilulu suddenly flashed into existence in front of them.

Acting as if nothing had happened, she continued onward with them.

"You caught a Dream Bird? Why’d you come back so soon?"

Kreya walked over and tapped Lilulu on the head as she asked.

Lilulu floated along with her chin raised, and just from that proud little expression you could tell.

"You really caught one?" Kane asked in some surprise.

His words also piqued everyone’s curiosity; after all, they’d just heard the story yesterday.

"Hmph hmph!"

Lilulu stretched out her hand and stroked the air.

A colorful environment appeared.

Several black-and-white birds were flying within it.