This…

Li Ku basically confirmed what he had suspected when he heard Wan Xin’s description—

The monster revival wasn’t limited to the 18th floor of the Blood Pool Elevator.

It was just that he had only been on the 18th floor at the time, so he had only witnessed the monster revival there.

Meanwhile, on the 1st floor of the Blood Pool Elevator where Lin Jing had stopped, the same monster revival phenomenon had occurred!

And during the monster revival, unknown to what means Lin Jing had used, or if the Jade Flask had done something—

A Jade Flask passageway had actually appeared on the wall of their floor!

Li Ku was stunned in his heart, so he followed Yang Wenchao’s lead and asked:

“And then? Did you enter the so-called next maze space through that passageway?”

Yang Wenchao was silent for a moment, then slowly shook his head:

“Lin Jing did suggest we go through the Jade Flask passageway to see what was inside.”

“But I directly raised a doubt—”

“When it came to dripping blood on the wall, Lin Jing was cautious enough to use Wan Xin as a test subject.”

“So why wasn’t he cautious about the Jade Flask passageway that appeared out of nowhere?”

“So I suggested that Liu Re act as the lab rat to scout ahead, just like Wan Xin did.”

“Liu Re didn’t agree, and Lin Jing didn’t force him either. He just led the way into that pitch-black passageway.”

“After that, the remaining three of us—me, Liu Re, and Wang Lingling—were hesitant.”

“In the end, Liu Re decided that following Lin Jing was a better bet, so he went into the Jade Flask passageway as well.”

“Wang Lingling chose to follow me and head to the 99th floor to take a look.”

“So we returned to the elevator and pressed the button for the 99th floor.”

“But when the elevator stopped at the 99th floor with a ‘ding,’ the front door didn’t open normally…”

“Instead, the floor beneath our feet split open like elevator doors!”

“Below the elevator was nothing but pitch-black darkness, like an endless abyss!”

“As I fell into it, I thought I heard the grinding sound of gears turning, along with even more sinister and terrifying ghostly howls.”

“But those ghostly sounds were different from the ones we heard on the 1st floor that were mixed with laughter and crying. The howling below the elevator sounded more like agonized screams of torment.”

“Later, I started screaming too, because that same torturous pain fell upon me.”

“It felt like a dual torment—from both the physical body and the soul—”

“My physical body felt like it had been thrown into a meat grinder, the pain unbearable!”

“What was even more terrifying was that my consciousness was exceptionally clear, as if it was constantly magnifying that pain…”

“Such pain made it impossible for me to think. But… I don’t know if it was because she had experienced Lightburn before, but Wang Lingling seemed to have a better tolerance for the pain.”

“I heard her voice, like she was calling my name, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.”

“I forced myself to focus and barely made out that, besides calling my name, she was also shouting ‘watch’…”

“I couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying. I wanted to study my own watch, but at that moment, my physical body had probably been crushed into a fine paste. Only my consciousness remained, enduring the pain, and I couldn’t control my consciousness without a physical body.”

Hearing this, Wan Xin couldn’t help but chime in: “Same here! I couldn’t control myself at all in that state of consciousness! I went through the same torture!”

“Brother Chao, could it be that you also fell into the World Tree root system, and misinterpreted the World Tree’s torment of consciousness as a meat grinder?”

The World Tree root system…

Li Ku actually agreed with Wan Xin’s guess.

The 99th floor of the Blood Pool Elevator, opening from below…

Then the abyss it reached did indeed look a lot like the World Tree root system?

So…

There really was a passage at the bottom of the Blood Pool leading to the World Tree root system.

But this passage was not something ordinary people could get through!

Everyone who tried to pass through it died?

Well, not completely dead…

Both Wan Xin and Yang Wenchao had been resurrected in this “dungeon.”

Li Ku pondered this in his mind, then directly asked Yang Wenchao: “And then? After enduring the torment of consciousness, did you also somehow end up in this coffin?”

Yang Wenchao didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked at Wan Xin with a strange expression:

“Did you also end up in the coffin somehow after going through the torment of consciousness?”

Wan Xin nodded repeatedly, then said in surprise: “Didn’t you?”

Yang Wenchao’s expression grew even stranger, and even the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

After a moment of silence, he took a deep breath and said:

“At first, I really couldn’t control my consciousness at all. I could only let it be tortured by the pain.”

“But I knew deep down that this wasn’t going to work, so I started trying to take control of my consciousness.”

As soon as he said this, Wan Xin was completely stunned, unable to believe it as he blurted out: “No way? Are you saying… you actually managed to master the method of controlling consciousness under that level of pain?!”

Yang Wenchao nodded with a complicated look in his eyes: “I guess… you could say so?”

His tone wasn’t very certain, but hearing it was enough to completely break Wan Xin!

What the hell?

So he really was the unlucky one!

They had similar experiences, yet Yang Wenchao had mastered the method of controlling consciousness, while he could only passively endure the pain…

Truly, comparing yourself to others is just infuriating!

This Brother Chao… could he be some damned chosen one?!

Or was it that… anyone could master the consciousness control method, and he was the only unlucky one who couldn’t?

Wan Xin felt a slight crack in his will…

However, what broke him even more was what Yang Wenchao said next:

“Emm… although your shock makes me seem pretty impressive…”

“But isn’t it possible… that the whole torment of consciousness process was actually meant to evolve consciousness into being able to control itself, thus becoming a true monster?”

Huh?

Wan Xin was taken aback: “What do you mean?”

Yang Wenchao rubbed his brow and explained simply: “From what I observed later—”

“The ability to control consciousness doesn’t seem to be unique to me. It’s a skill that all monsters develop during their evolution.”

“Once I took control of my consciousness and escaped the pain, I encountered quite a few monsters in that abyss below the elevator.”

“Based on the different monsters I came across, I found that monsters, like normal humans, can be classified into different levels according to ‘age.’”

“For example, the pure consciousness bodies that just crawl out of the wall, screaming and shouting like emotionally broken mental patients, I’d call them newborn monsters, or monster infants.”

“At this stage, monsters are just born, their consciousnesses are naive and ignorant, like the crying and laughing sounds filling the air right now. They can only cry and laugh, unable to produce any meaningful sound.”

“But after going through that extreme torment of consciousness, they gradually learn to control their consciousness.”

“Using a standard similar to human age, the stage after monster infants might be called toddler monsters.”

“Toddler monsters have the basic ability to control their own consciousness. They can sense their own consciousness like they sense a physical body. They can also use their consciousness to develop unique five senses.”

“To use normal humans as an analogy, toddler monsters are equivalent to having a simple ability to walk and rudimentary language skills.”

“Monsters above that level could be called child monsters.”

“Child monsters can control their consciousness more precisely, like human children control their physical bodies. More importantly, they can attach their consciousness to specific ‘containers.’”

“For normal humans like us, the specific ‘container’ we use is the physical body of flesh and blood.”

“For child monsters, their container can be any physical object.”

“However, not all child monsters can attach themselves to all physical objects unconditionally. The object they attach to must have a certain degree of compatibility with the child monster.”

“For example, some monsters can only attach themselves to rocks; some can only attach themselves to plants and flowers…”

“A child monster might only have one compatible container. Or it might have several compatible containers.”

“But most child monsters will choose a single monster item as their dwelling container and won’t change containers frequently.”

“The next stage of monsters is the integration of the monster with its dwelling container—juvenile monsters, young adult monsters, middle-aged monsters…”

“Monsters at these stages are essentially complete in nature. They just differ in survival time and corresponding strength.”

“The container a monster inhabits can be transformed by the monster, giving rise to various abilities. At the same time, monsters at this stage gradually awaken their Glyph Pattern abilities.”

“The container’s abilities, though granted by the monster, are only attached to the container. But the Glyph Pattern abilities belong to the monster’s consciousness, which is why they become the most important ability of a mature monster.”

“That’s the monster system I briefly understood in the elevator abyss.”

“But this system doesn’t apply to all monsters. It seems there are always some special monsters.”

“Like me…”

Yang Wenchao paused, seeming lost in thought for a moment, before continuing: “At that time, I should have turned into a monster too.”

“But I didn’t go through the infant or toddler stages, and it didn’t seem like I needed a container.”

“Also, other monsters didn’t have memories of their past lives. But at that time, I retained my memories.”

“Speaking of which,” Yang Wenchao looked at Wan Xin, “that process of consciousness being ravaged and tortured that we both went through feels like a kind of purification for the consciousness.”

“Only after going through this purification can monsters grow normally and master the ability to control their consciousness.”

“And you…”

Wan Xin felt like he had completely shattered!

So, all monsters had gained the ability to control their consciousness through that purification…

And he was the only one who had died directly in that purification?!

So, it wasn’t that others were too amazing, but that he was too pathetic?!

This… this was too damn insulting to his pride!

But soon, Wan Xin thought of another possibility:

“Could it be that I didn’t die in that so-called consciousness purification process, but that there was some other reason that brought me directly from the consciousness purification process into the coffin?”

“Brother Chao, how did you end up in the coffin? Did you die as a monster?”

Li Ku had also gained some quite important information from Yang Wenchao.

He knew nothing about this strange species called monsters.

All he had heard from Li Si was that when people die, they can all become monsters…

In Li Si’s understanding, monsters were “another form of living.”

Even Li Si himself seemed to have become a monster.

So, according to Yang Wenchao’s account, had Li Si, after becoming a monster, also lost his memory?

Or was he like Yang Wenchao, special, and had retained the memories of his past life?

What was the purpose of these monsters?

And then there were the monsters in this dungeon too…

When Li Ku first encountered them on the 49th floor of Apartment 4869, they seemed to be the mature monsters that Yang Wenchao had described.

They all had their own containers.

For example, the Cardboard Box Monster’s cardboard box, and later the stone and toilet paper used to catch the three monsters.

And as for Guiwen, he seemed to be a special monster who could change “containers” at will.

When he regarded human players as his “containers” for possession, he directly achieved the effect of “seizing the body”!

But then again…

Following Wan Xin’s lead, Li Ku also asked Yang Wenchao:

“In that abyss you went to, there shouldn’t have been enough ‘containers’ for monsters to inhabit, right? So how did you encounter mature monsters with containers?”

Yang Wenchao shook his head: “Hidden within the abyss are places like the Soul Resting Mound.”

“And unlike human players exploring the Soul Resting Mound, when monsters explore it in their monster form, they can all sense a mysterious call.”

“Following that call, they can find the container most suitable for them.”

“And the container with the highest compatibility for them was clearly the burial artifacts produced by the Soul Resting Mound!”

Upon hearing this news, the amnesiac Jiang Ye maintained a calm expression, but inside, he had no idea what the Soul Resting Mound was.

Meanwhile, Administrator 4444 beside him looked both shocked and enlightened:

“No wonder there’s a chance to get powerful special items in the Soul Resting Mound…”

“Those so-called special items are essentially the containers of monsters, aren’t they?”

“And the monsters that can use burial artifacts from the Soul Resting Mound as their containers… are naturally much, much, much stronger than roadside wild monsters!”

The expressions on Yang Wenchao and Wan Xin’s faces showed that they clearly also knew about the Soul Resting Mound.

Fortunately, there was still Li Ku to act as Jiang Ye’s mouthpiece.

He asked curiously: “What is the Soul Resting Mound?”

This question was directed at Yang Wenchao.

Then, Li Ku turned in surprise to the administrator: “Why do you also know about the Soul Resting Mound in the elevator abyss?”

Yang Wenchao was the one who answered both questions in one go:

“In this Apartment 0000, within a special environment called the ‘Return Soul Abyss,’ there exists the Soul Resting Mound.”

“When I was still a game player, no one knew why that place was called the ‘Return Soul Abyss.’”

“But after this experience, I suspect that the place I fell from the elevator… is another Return Soul Abyss!”

If Jiang Ye had his memories at this moment, he would have immediately realized—

Lin Ling’s Jade Flask, including Zhou Qiming, were both products of the Soul Resting Mound in the Return Soul Abyss!

Unfortunately, Jiang Ye didn’t remember any of it…

He just listened as Yang Wenchao continued to explain:

“After I passed the monster infant stage, gained unique consciousness-based five senses, and could control my consciousness, I still continued falling with that group of monsters, just like how a human physical body can’t defy gravity.”

“Monsters kept being guided away, disappearing into the endless abyss.”

“And monsters kept returning from the abyss, carrying containers with them…”

“So, I did see those mature monsters with inhabited containers.”

“Apart from that, I also saw… you.”

Yang Wenchao looked at Jiang Ye with a strange expression.