The two of them walked until they arrived at a gazebo. Inside, Han Wu noticed a man and a woman conversing in a casual manner.
Xiang Meng approached them with enthusiasm and announced, “Xia Tian! Ye Ling! Look who I brought. This is the junior I was telling you about.”
The two individuals turned their attention to Han Wu, meeting his gaze as they introduced themselves.
The man spoke first, saying with a friendly tone, “Hey, I’m Xia Tian, a first-year here at Imperial College. Nice to meet you, junior.”
Casting a skeptical gaze upon Han Wu, the woman introduced herself in a doubtful tone. “And I am Ye Ling. Is it actually true that you defeated Xiang Meng in the Blood Coliseum?”
“Good day to you, Seniors Xia Tian and Ye Ling,” Han Wu replied respectfully. “I am Han Wu, the new student placed on the reserve list. And about beating Brother Meng? Honestly, it was all just trickery on my part.”
“Well, that’s still a strength in its own way,” Ye Ling said, nodding slightly. “It’s actually pretty impressive that you got the skeleton race to listen to you. But seriously, take it from someone who’s been around longer—it’s best to focus more on your core race. The resources you put into your regular races are permanently lost if those races are ever entirely eradicated. Do you understand my point?”
Finding Han Wu’s attitude agreeable, Xia Tian spoke candidly. “Actually, there’s another reason we got Xiang Meng to drag you over here. Yeah, we wanted to meet the legendary junior who took down Xiang Meng’s mammoth army, but we also kind of need your help with something.”
Han Wu was confused. His seniors were all Demigods, leading him to wonder what possible help he could offer.
Xia Tian reassured him calmly, “Hey, don’t worry about it. Let me explain why we’re asking for your help. The decision to assist us will, of course, be yours. See, once you’re on the reserve list, Imperial College gives you special training. And we just got some intel about the next major class for the students on the reserve list.
“You will be entering a particularly valuable Basic Secret Realm called Zombie Town. It’s like a survival training ground for if you ever end up in some strange foreign civilization at some point in the future.
“Within this Basic Secret Realm exists an exceptionally rare resource known as the Wisdom Fruit. This fruit has the unique effect of improving the intelligence of non-humanoid life forms. And we were really hoping you’d be able to grab at least one of those for us.”
Xia Tian paused, and then said, “Oh, of course we wouldn’t ask you to do it for free. We’ll pay you one Divine Essence for every single fruit you bring back. You can check the Imperial College portal online, and you’ll find that it’s a reasonable price.”
After providing the necessary details, Xia Tian looked at Han Wu and asked, “Alright, Junior Han Wu, is there anything at all you want to ask us right now?”
Han Wu cleared his throat, a curious look on his face. “Alright, I’ve got just one question. Why don’t the three of you just go into this Secret Realm and grab the fruits yourselves?”
Ye Ling clarified, “Han Wu, you probably don’t know this, but Zombie Town is a Basic Secret Realm that Imperial College really keeps an eye on. It’s not a big deal for someone in their first year to clear, so it’s really just for training the students on the reserve list.”
Xiang Meng nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s right,” he said. “If Zombie Town was used for our classes, we would’ve cleared it hundreds of times by now! I would’ve gone in there and just crushed the whole place by myself.”
Han Wu rolled his eyes a little but nodded anyway. “Alright, I understand. I’ll help you guys out.”
Clearly overjoyed, Xiang Meng exclaimed, “Yes! This is perfect! I knew you were the right junior for this! You’re the best!”
Xia Tian grinned. “Well then, I’m really hoping you’ll come in first in your very first major class.”
Ye Ling then produced a bag of seeds from her divine realm and handed it to Han Wu. “Here you go, junior,” she said. “These should be helpful to you.”
Han Wu took the bag of seeds and hung out with his seniors for a bit before finally heading back to his hostel. Once he was back in his hostel, he wasted no time in checking the college’s official portal to find out all about Zombie Town and those Wisdom Fruits.
Xia Tian’s information proved accurate; the market value of a single Wisdom Fruit was roughly equivalent to one Divine Essence. Han Wu was really glad his seniors were being honest, so he went back into his divine realm. He took the opportunity to thoroughly inspect his realm and assess the current condition of his units.
Steely and the others were still reconstructing their physical forms. Meanwhile, the Skeleton Lord, the Osteomancer, and the Skeleton Reanimators were still working on refining their Divine Essence.
Han Wu decided to concentrate his efforts on improving his core race. He suddenly remembered that the Origin of Mutation had promised to fundamentally transform his locusts from innate Common life forms to the more powerful Elite life forms.
Upon summoning it, Han Wu received a somewhat impatient reply from the Origin of Mutation. It then directed him on the process, instructing him to apply Controlled Mutation by himself in order to fundamentally transform his locusts into Elite life forms.
Han Wu felt somewhat deceived upon discovering the method, as it struck him as remarkably uncomplicated. All that was required was to utilize Controlled Mutation and carefully select beneficial mutations that would not significantly diminish his locusts’ natural lifespan.
Through the process of natural selection across multiple generations, the beneficial mutations would become the dominant characteristics of the locusts. He would just need to continue this procedure, and within a few generations, his locusts would inherently be Elite life forms from birth.
With a sigh, Han Wu began the repetitive process of enhancing his locusts. The entire process took him about half a month in real time. He’d go to his classes during the day and then spend all night mutating his locusts. It wasn’t exciting, but it was simple and satisfying.
Thanks to his diligent research, Han Wu’s locusts were now born as Elite life forms. This transformation also bestowed upon them a default talent known as Swift, which increased their flying speed. Quite frankly, it was totally useless.
Han Wu had also successfully completed the refinement of two units of Divine Essence during this period and subsequently merged them with his body.
There was, however, a slight complication. Han Wu had started with five units of Divine Essence after absorbing the last one from his high school. Based on his calculations, he should now possess seven units, but he noted that his current total was only six.
There was no way he was going to let that slide. A single Divine Essence was worth 145 million Divine Points! Han Wu quickly turned to Lina with his question, and she provided a clear explanation in response.
Upon accumulating six units of Divine Essence, a Divine Being became eligible to commence the Demigod ascension ritual. However, ascending at this stage would lead to becoming the weakest tier of Demigod, restricted to absorbing only the most basic Rank 1 Divine Aspect. As a result, the students of Imperial College typically continued to gather more Divine Essence to avoid limiting their future potential.
However, once the initial six Divine Essence were collected, acquiring additional units to increase the total required absorbing even more. For example, to have seven Divine Essence integrated into their body, one extra unit needed to be absorbed, meaning a total of eight Divine Essence needed to be gathered. The benefit of this extra accumulation was that, upon Demigod ascension, they could accommodate Rank 2 Divine Aspects.
To possess eight Divine Essence in his body, Han Wu would need to absorb an overall total of eleven. For nine Divine Essence, the total absorbed would need to be fifteen. Finally, to reach the maximum potential for a Divine Being, he would need to absorb a total of twenty Divine Essence to have ten integrated into his body.[1]
Divine Beings who possessed ten Divine Essence would ascend to become the most powerful Demigods, capable of absorbing the highest-ranked Rank 5 Divine Aspects. Divine Aspects served as the fundamental basis for a Demigod to transcend to become a God. Furthermore, the rank of these Divine Aspects directly determined their strength and power as a God.
Having heard Lina’s explanation, Han Wu made up his mind. He decided that he would accumulate ten Divine Essence before ascending to become a Demigod, driven by his curiosity to experience the capabilities of Rank 5 Divine Aspects.
Nevertheless, Han Wu knew that he still needed to obtain a substantial amount of Divine Essence. That next major class was definitely going to be his best shot.
1. Basically, from Rank 1 to Rank 6, one Divine Essence is assimilated per rank, so, at Rank 6, a total of 6 Divine Essence would be absorbed. This, however, changes from Rank 7 onward:
Rank 7 = 2 Divine Essence
Rank 8 = 3 Divine Essence
Rank 9 = 4 Divine Essence
Rank 10 = 5 Divine Essence
The total number per rank is all the Divine Essence up to that Rank combined. ☜