"After completing the assessment, I received a puzzle piece as a reward and gained the right to accept the external inheritance. The inheritance included a divine skill, but accepting it required reaching legendary-grade, and my strength didn’t meet that requirement.
"Moreover, accepting the inheritance meant I would be immediately teleported away from Blue Star to some unknown location.
"Furthermore, accepting the external inheritance meant renouncing the internal, core inheritance. The puzzle pieces needed to open the internal inheritance couldn’t be taken with you during the teleportation.
"For me, there was no hesitation. Even if my strength had met the requirement, I wouldn’t have sent myself to some unknown place for an external inheritance. Besides, the main divine skill it offered held no particular appeal for me, so I passed on it."
Su Ze interjected, "After you passed on this external inheritance, could someone else still acquire it?"
’Most likely, yes...’ Su Ze thought of Lin Hua’s Legend. Lin Hua had accepted the external inheritance centuries ago, yet the King of Mu had explored it just over a decade ago and was still able to undergo the assessment. This meant the external inheritance was still available.
Su Ze had another question he didn’t voice. The King of Mu said he got a puzzle piece for passing the external inheritance’s trial, but as far as Su Ze knew, there were only four puzzle pieces in total.
’Does that mean only the first four people to pass the assessment get a puzzle piece?’
’And as of a little over a decade ago, fewer than four people had passed?’
The King of Mu replied, "By passing the assessment, I only gained the right to accept the inheritance. That right is permanent; I can go and accept it at any time. Furthermore, through experimentation, I’ve confirmed that the external inheritance isn’t a one-of-a-kind deal. Me accepting it wouldn’t prevent others from doing so later."
"Experimentation? You ran experiments?" Su Ze seized on the key word.
"Of course. I received a puzzle piece after passing the assessment, and there are four pieces in total. I wondered at the time if I could get more of them by having other people take the assessment."
"So I grabbed a young prodigy from the Mu Country and took him back to the place of inheritance. He also passed the external inheritance assessment successfully and earned the right to accept it, but no puzzle piece appeared this time."
Su Ze didn’t ask what became of the prodigy. To keep the location of the inheritance a secret, the King of Mu would have surely killed him.
The fact that no new puzzle piece appeared, however, was somewhat surprising to Su Ze.
’Could it be that the King of Mu just so happened to be the fourth person to pass the assessment, thereby claiming the last piece?’
’Was it really such a coincidence?’
Suppressing his doubts, Su Ze said, "Keep talking. After passing on the external inheritance, you must have explored the internal one, right? Is that where you got the Golden Bloodline Crystal with the ’Divine Grace of Evolution’ skill?"
The King of Mu didn’t hide anything. "Entering the internal inheritance requires three conditions to be met. First, you must pass the external inheritance assessment. Second, you must possess at least one puzzle piece. And third, you must be of the Human Race!"
’Just as I thought...’ Su Ze had always suspected the man on the butterfly’s back was a member of the Human Race and that the inheritance was his legacy. The King of Mu’s words now further confirmed his suspicions.
The external inheritance had no racial restrictions, but the internal one only permitted human evolvers to enter. This meant that powerful member of the Human Race did not want his core legacy to fall into the hands of other races.
The King of Mu continued, "I had possessed the King of Mu, so I was in a human body. I also met the other two conditions, so I entered the site of the internal inheritance full of confidence. Of course, I had also prepared some escape measures beforehand, just in case."
"Within the internal inheritance, there are four small Inheritance Treasure Vaults and a large gate. The gate has four indentations, clearly meant for the four puzzle pieces. The four small vaults correspond to the four puzzle pieces, and each piece can open one vault."
"I used the puzzle piece I’d obtained to open one of the vaults, and inside I saw a Golden Bloodline Crystal."
"But just as I reached for the Bloodline Crystal, my soul was struck a heavy blow. The place of inheritance had detected that my soul was not of the Human Race!"
"I nearly died in there. If I hadn’t prepared an escape route beforehand, I never would have made it out."
"But even though I managed to escape, my soul suffered irreversible damage."
As the King of Mu recounted the experience, a powerful sense of fear could still be heard in his voice. It was clear the damage to his soul had left a deep psychological scar.
Su Ze recalled that when he had inspected the King of Mu’s Storage Ring, it had been filled with nothing but medicine for treating soul injuries, aside from the puzzle piece.
Clearly, he had been relying on those medicines just to keep his soul stable.
"Then how did you get your hands on that Bloodline Crystal in the end?"
"Like I said, I ran another experiment."
Su Ze instantly understood. The King of Mu had obviously made that poor guinea pig enter the internal inheritance and retrieve the Golden Bloodline Crystal for him.
"So because your soul was damaged, and you still wanted to scheme for the internal inheritance, you decided you needed a new body... and you chose me?"
The King of Mu didn’t deny it. "My soul suffered irreversible damage, and the internal inheritance can even detect one’s very soul. That’s why I came up with the idea of abandoning my soul and having my consciousness possess a new body. For me, it was the perfect solution—it killed two birds with one stone."