"Thank you." Zhang Rongfang accepted it and examined the book in his hands.
The surface of the booklet was warm, with the smooth texture of human skin.
A line of crimson text clearly floated on the front: World Geography.
He opened the first page, filled with lines of entirely unfamiliar text.
But soon, he retrieved all the living memories he had devoured in his mind, separating out the language parts, absorbing and integrating them.
The unfamiliar text before him began to rapidly become familiar.
’Our world is spherical, this is indisputable. From a high vantage point looking down, one can discern this fact.’
This was the introduction.
’But we can never escape the gravity of the white pupil, until it completely consumes us, igniting everything.’
The sentence on the second page revealed a deep despair.
Zhang Rongfang narrowed his eyes and quickly flipped forward.
Following was a massive map covering two pages.
The map of the entire world.
No oceans, this was a land-only world.
Dry, charred, divided by three massive chasms into three regions.
These three parts are: Black Sand, Lingtu, Evil Forest.
"Black Sand is the land we reside on, here lie my Eternal Palace, Chana Tower, and various interaction zones. It’s the only continent with living creatures." La explained beside him.
"Lingtu is the area filled with enormous ruins left by the Spirit Eye Race, with extremely dangerous burial grounds everywhere. Guardians exist within the ruins. The burial grounds are the Spirit Eye Race’s burial places, their tradition was to create the strongest guardian with all their life’s wealth before dying.
Protection is the sole theme from the beginning to the extinction of the Spirit Eye Race."
"So they created strong guardians to protect the corpses?" Zhang Rongfang couldn’t understand this concept.
"Yes. They believe death is merely sleep, and as long as the body is intact, they can awaken again someday. The guardians maintain the corpses in the meantime." La nodded.
"What about the last, Evil Forest?" Zhang Rongfang continued to ask.
"That’s a dead land. If Lingtu is the dangerous continent artificially created by the Spirit Eye Race, then Evil Forest is the absolute dead land caused by the white pupil.
There is no cloud coverage or atmospheric protection, constantly exposed to countless rays of heavenly light. Evil Forest is composed of vast forests of light pillars seen from afar. Moreover, these forests can move and change at any time." La said blandly.
"You must have entered it, right?" Zhang Rongfang asked. "With your Martial Dao Furnace ability, heavenly light should not hurt you."
"I have entered, but not deeply, the furnace consumes too much energy. Constantly eroded by thousands of degrees of high temperatures, and also by the evil energy radiation of the white pupil, I can only last an hour inside." La confessed. "Frankly speaking, this world is about to be destroyed, the Evil Forest’s expansion is increasing rapidly. Nothing can stop the destruction that is coming."
"So, you want to find a way out, seek another world on the other side of the passage?" Zhang Rongfang understood.
"I’ve done everything I can. But compared to the power of the white pupil, all these efforts are pale and weak." La said deeply, despite persevering for hundreds of years, her voice still carried traces of weakness and despair when mentioning the white pupil.
Zhang Rongfang quickly went through the entire geography book and placed it back on the shelf.
The content of the book was no different from what La described, just a bit more about the terrain, climate, and creatures of the three continents.
"A question. Have you considered curbing the Evil Forest?"
"It’s impossible to curb it; I’ve tried every method possible. Even hiding underground doesn’t work.
Evil energy radiation can pierce through layers, penetrate the sky canopy I’ve created, completely killing all hidden living creatures." La replied indifferently.
"How much time until the Evil Forest expands and destroys everything?" Zhang Rongfang thought for a moment and asked.
"At most, there’s four hundred years left." La answered solemnly.
"....." Four hundred years! Then what is there to fear?
Zhang Rongfang was speechless inside. But then he thought, La and the others were all ancient monsters who had lived for hundreds of years, completely different from someone young like him.
He probably wouldn’t live even a fraction of their lifespan across two lifetimes.
Having such anxiety is only natural.
"Have you considered that relying solely on your own strength and wisdom is incredibly inefficient? If you had many research scholars assisting you, sharing the burden of secondary difficulty branch projects, wouldn’t your progress quicken dramatically?" Zhang Rongfang thought for a moment and spoke carefully.
"I tried, but no one believes me." La’s expression grew increasingly cold. "Everyone thinks I destroyed everything. They believe I used the Spiritual Line of the Spirit Eye Race to contaminate everything, transforming living people into puppets parasitized by the Spiritual Line."
"That’s their misunderstanding of you." Zhang Rongfang said, slightly moved. "It’s like me."
He showed a trace of empathy.
"I clearly pioneered an unprecedented Human Immortal Martial Dao, allowing everyone to embark on the path of long life and self-strengthening Bloodline, yet many still don’t understand me. Even after emerging, some people have labeled me as an Evil Spirit!"
"I have evidently made everyone around me better, stronger, happier. But why are so many still unable to understand?" He questioned in a deep voice.
"Yes.... I’m the same." La’s eyes inevitably showed the same emotion.
"I lead the Spiritual Line, parasitizing human bodies, clearly saving everyone. The divine and Buddha systems of the interaction zones further ensure that everyone can gain the most with the least cost.
Offering a bit of brain matter to sustain the divine and Buddha, then sending the immortal divine and Buddha to explore this desperate world in search of hope.
Isn’t that perfect?"
Clearly, La had suppressed these words in her heart for an exceedingly long time.
"So.... we need to make everyone understand, understand what we have to face. Only through understanding can more join us. Together, we strive to seek hope." Zhang Rongfang said sincerely.
La seemed like a very good tool person and appeared to be someone with a strong streak of idealism.
He hoped to persuade her to work together towards the same goal.
For a moment, the small parlor fell into silence.
La stood in place, quietly staring at Zhang Rongfang, remaining silent for a long time.
After all, she had lived for hundreds of years. Although most of her time was spent researching, exploring, and learning, making her relatively pure in character, the inertia of those centuries made it not so easy to rashly accept the opinion of a stranger.
"You... what can you help me with?"
After waiting for a while, she finally spoke up and asked.
"I can eliminate all interference for you, gather all kinds of forces. Those under your command are too weak; facing the Chana Tower and other potential threats, they can do nothing."
Zhang Rongfang said seriously.
"Moreover..." He stretched out his hand, fingers pointing upward.
Poof!
Suddenly, the tip of his fingers exploded, transforming into a vast array of black spiritual lines, randomly dancing between the two.
"With sufficient nutritional supplementation, I can, in the shortest time, create a large interactive area covered by a massive canopy!"
La widened her eyes, staring at the dancing black spiritual lines.
It should be noted that she had spent an untold amount of mental effort to grasp these black core spiritual lines back then.
But now, this person in front of her can actually master the black spiritual lines!
This is the foundational technology of the Spirit Eye Race.
"I have a certain ability talent," Zhang Rongfang confessed, "I believe you have roughly deduced this from the previous skirmishes."
"To simulate all opponents’ abilities?" La asked in a somewhat hoarse voice.
She couldn’t imagine how such a perverse ability could exist in the world.
"Of course, there are limits." Zhang Rongfang disclosed his weakness, "My body has a fixed amount of energy total, if the simulated object requires too much consumption, I can’t simulate it."
This is indeed the weakness of his ultimate original body.
After all, energy is conserved; it doesn’t disappear into thin air or appear out of nowhere.
His simulation of transforming into other creatures is essentially using his own life force to convert.
And if he encounters a being whose life-energy level exceeds Zhang Rongfang’s current life value, even if he gets the opponent’s genetic cells, he cannot complete the simulation.
Of course, he also did not reveal where his limits lie.
"How about it?" Zhang Rongfang restored his fingers, looking at the other party with burning eyes.
"Very strong... So, regarding the perfect, happy, stable world you mentioned earlier, do you have any ideas?" La had to admit, she was indeed tempted.
If such terrifying abilities were adversarial, it would be really troublesome.
But if they were companions... that would be simply fantastic.
"We need to create a gathering place that can protect everyone. A city that links everyone together." Zhang Rongfang stated seriously.
"Then select the most intelligent few from among them, let them participate in passage research together. Thus, progress will definitely be greatly accelerated."
"Chana Tower will not allow it." La shook her head slightly. "There are simply too many evil spirit bodies on the ground."
"I’ll talk to them." Zhang Rongfang said solemnly, "To open the passage, Long talked to me as well, his goal aligns with ours."
"Aligns? Yes, if the evil forest expands, even he can’t escape, he will surely die." La nodded understandingly.
"In this way, we join forces as three parties, then eliminate all obstructions and unify all forces. The time can be minimized to the greatest extent."
"What if Long has ulterior motives?" La asked with a frown.
"Then we join forces, and before success, find a chance to kill him." Zhang Rongfang said decisively. "To accomplish great things, sacrifice is inevitable. If he truly wants to open the passage, I believe he will understand."
"Long has a mysterious origin... His physical body was crafted by the Spirit Eye Race, but his consciousness appeared mysteriously." La shook her head.
"Let’s find an opportunity to sit down and talk." Zhang Rongfang seriously proposed.
"I’ll arrange the meeting."
"I’m not a match for Long. If I leave the Eternal Tower, face-to-face at close distance, I will die." La shook her head and refused.
"No problem, you don’t have to personally intervene, I will be the intermediary." Zhang Rongfang suggested.
Immediately, he walked up, eyes scanning over the bookshelf one by one.
"Besides, can I see how you open the passage?" Since there were so many heads of strong beings from other world passages hung in the hall.
La had presumably opened an unknown number of world passages.
He wanted to explore how to open the passage as well.
"Follow me." La gently clasped her hands together. "Don’t resist."
Hiss...
An invisible ripple quickly enveloped both of them.
In the blink of an eye, the two simultaneously vanished from the original spot.
Underground in the Eternal Tower, within the massive underground palace that was connected.
The two appeared out of thin air in a grim hall wrapped in purplish-red flesh.
In the center of the hall, a round silver metal door that was still spinning continuously was supported by a metal and rock composite pedestal, standing on the flesh ground.
The entire metal door was like a giant copper mirror over ten meters high, its mirror surface full of flowing, spinning gray mist.
"This is the passage base; with proper data modulation, it can utilize it to burst forth tremendous energy, piercing through the spatial weak point to form an elongated passage leading to other nearby worlds." La walked to the side of the round door, introducing in a deep voice.