"Is the Lord's Heart really that difficult to obtain?"
Zi Liyuan glanced at the Lord's Heart in his Spatial Backpack, for him, acquiring it truly wasn't hard.
But without this item, entering the Sea of Realms would mean being suppressed by the heavenly way, with one's strength barely able to exhibit a tenth or a twentieth of its potential.
"If I want to accumulate a vast foundation and then develop in the Sea of Realms, perhaps I could use the Lord's Heart to cultivate a core team. Once a Boundary Sea Contract is signed in the Sea of Realms, reneging on it means suffering divine punishment."
In Blue Star, loyalty can be very fickle; as long as the stakes are high enough, there's always the risk of betrayal.
But it's different in the Sea of Realms, where once a Boundary Sea Contract is signed, any violation is punished by the Sea of Realms with divine penalties. Apart from emperors of a certain caliber, few can survive such divine punishment without dying.
"When I reach Level 100 as a Tier 4, I'll specifically look for wild instances in the wilderness and get several more Lord's Hearts. I'll recruit a few loyal subordinates, especially ones like Shen Yurou, who possess talents in scientific research."
When he thought about the scene of pairing the scourge of the Undead with a mechanical disaster, if he didn't steamroll several star systems, enslave those elite beings of myriad races, and ascend to the position of a deity or demon, how could he live up to his identity as a transmigrator?
As Zi Liyuan pondered how to cultivate his core team, he walked in the direction of his home.
After several days of intensive leveling through instances without a wink of sleep, and now with some Evil Organizations' forces eyeing him, leaving the city to level up was out of the question. Since that was the case, it would be better to go home and rest properly.
After all, there were still three days until the college entrance examination, and he was confident that he could reach Level 40 as a Tier 2 before the exam. Scoring as the nation's top scholar across the entire Great Xia wasn't a difficult feat for him.
After all, there has never been a top scholar of the college entrance examination in history who had grown to Level 40 as a Tier 2 within seven days.
Zi Liyuan's residence was located in the Green Garden community, which was considered a low-end area with decent security forces staffed by low-ranking professionals with physical souls.
He wanted to move into a mid- or high-end community, but there were restrictions in place.
To live in a mid-tier community, one must be at least a Tier 2 professional of Level 40 to bring their family;
for a high-tier community, it required being a Tier 4 professional of Level 80.
Originally not a professional and born an orphan, even with substantial funds at his disposal, without connections, there was nothing that could be done.
Even though the city was protected by an anti-magic barrier, which sealed the skills of professionals, the presence of basic attributes alone meant that relying solely on physical strength, they were all somewhat superhuman.
During the day, the crime rate in the city was extremely low due to the presence of the City Guard's patrols, but at night, dark corners always harbored some form of sin.
In the slums, robbery and murder for resources happened from time to time.
As an ordinary person originally, he could only spend a large amount of Dragon Coins to move into a low-tier community. At least the security here was infinitely better than in the slums and the civilian areas.
Despite the countless professionals on Blue Star, an untold number are stuck below Level 20 in the novice stages.
Not to mention those who become professionals in lifestyle careers, many who became combat professionals also gave up on leveling up.
Even though this was a reality world infiltrated by gaming, and every professional was regulated by the gaming rules, pain and the like still existed.
Some battle occupation practitioners, fearful of pain and death, did not dare to venture into the wild to fight monsters and level up.
As for entering dungeons to fight monsters and level up, that was even more impossible.
Apart from a few low-level dungeons below Level 20 that were officially free for all citizens, entrance to the rest of the public dungeons required an admission fee!
Since these dungeons were often controlled by certain families or major powers, sealing a dungeon cost at least a hundred million Dragon Coins, so why would they share access for free with the general public?
If you wanted to go in and fight monsters to level up, and to gather materials, equipment, and items, you had to pay for a ticket!
Those professionals who refused to grovel at the bottom tier and sought to quickly increase their strength had only a few options: join the city guard, join the army, or join one of the major families or powers, but this also meant a precipitous increase in the death rate.
The city guards protected the city but also had to frequently organize teams to clear wild beasts outside the city and face some illegal forces within the city, and the number of brave souls who sacrificed themselves each year was not small.
The army guarded the Great Xia Empire, not only to brace against monster rampages in the Nine Great Divine Provinces but also to exterminate their nests, as well as contend with the Coalition of Nations for rare resources—with soldiers dying by the hundred thousands each year!
Great families and major powers often formed pioneering teams to venture deep into wild monster zones, searching for bosses, Secret Realms, and wild dungeons in the depths of mountains and forests; deaths from monsters' attacks and entire teams being wiped out were common occurrences, with no small number of fatalities.
Beyond that, low-level professionals could only band together for warmth and build small-scale forces, but such forces often disintegrated due to unequal distribution of benefits.
Amongst the billions of people in the Great Xia Empire, those low-level professionals who eventually rose up were, after all, in the extreme minority.
For these low-level professionals, the most critical opportunity to defy the heavens and change their fate came when they awakened and switched occupations at the age of 18 and then take the college entrance examination, obtaining decent scores that would allow them to be admitted into major institutes.
Don't look down on Nine Great Divine States Academy for only recruiting ten thousand students each year; its subsidiary institutes at the second, third, and fourth levels recruited many more students, starting from at least fifty thousand and up to hundreds of thousands.
The Nine Great Divine States Academy relied on quality to come out on top, specifically cultivating Lords capable of entering the Sea of Realms.
As for the lower-tier academies, they relied on quantity, attempting to sift through the vast number of students to select a few geniuses for cultivation.
Moreover, Lords entering the Sea of Realms need talented aides. If you were to occupy a vast land, wouldn't you need to recruit subordinates?
Can you ensure the loyalty of recruited members from different races?
Keep in mind, the races recruited within the Sea of Realms are enslaved tribes whose homes have been destroyed or occupied, and they certainly will demand various conditions to loyally serve you.
In the Great Xia Empire, there is an old saying: "Those not of our race will have different hearts."
Even the countries of Blue Star target Great Xia, and they are all part of the Human Race; how could other races not harbor ulterior motives?
Often, Lords from previous years at the Nine Great Divine States Academy, before entering the Sea of Realms, would head to the lower-tier academies to recruit the talents they needed. After all, many prodigies entering the Nine Great Divine States Academy did so based on their awakened talents and professions, and some came from commoner families.
That is why Zi Liyuan thought of using the Lord's Heart to recruit talents and wanted a Boundary Sea Contract to bind the people under his command.
The temptation of a Lord's Heart was an immense opportunity for those professionals who wanted to venture into the Sea of Realms and risk it all—even if it meant becoming subordinates to others, there would be countless individuals willingly taking the opportunity.