"Compared to the answer about your spirituality, the answer about you is actually much simpler, my good brother..."

"Do you want the direct conclusion, or do you want to hear the entire chain of cause and effect?"

Kanzaki Rei fell silent for a moment.

His mind instinctively simulated countless future possibilities.

Knowing more was always better than knowing less.

"Tell me everything."

"Do you remember the origin of Earth?"

Rei replied, "Yes. It came from the Astral Realm, right?" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Huang Minzhi nodded.

"That’s right. The Astral Realm... which also happens to be Perga’s Divine Kingdom."

"But only a very small number of people know that."

"For a very long time, countless powerful beings have ventured into the Astral Realm searching for its unique opportunities, completely unaware that the moment they enter the Astral Realm... they are also entering the Divine Kingdom of a Moon Sovereign."

Thinking about it carefully—

That was genuinely terrifying.

Entering a Moon Sovereign’s Divine Kingdom was practically equivalent to placing oneself completely at the mercy of that Moon Sovereign.

Still...

For ordinary people, a Moon Sovereign probably had no interest in doing anything to them.

Especially Perga, who represented peace itself.

But for a special existence like him...

There was no telling what might happen.

A being who carried the sum total of every branch and leaf of the Tree of Wisdom.

Thankfully, Rei had never once entered the Astral Realm.

"And before that, Perga once possessed another ideal nation—the predecessor of the Void..."

"Perga constructed two ideal worlds."

"The purpose was to create a perfect realm of eternal peace, a flawless world without conflict of any kind."

Hearing this, Rei’s brow twitched slightly.

Kuromironi wished to create a world without death or suffering.

Perga wished to create a world completely devoid of conflict.

The ambitions these beings pursued were unimaginably vast.

Comparing himself to them—

Rei realized he had never possessed any grand ideal.

Finding a way to restore his parents, surviving, and steadily growing stronger until nobody in existence could defeat him—

That alone encompassed nearly all of his desires.

As for changing the world?

He had never considered such a thing.

At most, he only intended to resist the Nest invasions enough to ensure the world didn’t become completely devoid of humanity.

"Yeah. I’ve heard about that."

Huang Minzhi continued:

"But... there’s another secret no one knows."

Rei sighed.

"Do you really have to keep dragging this out?"

Huang Minzhi grinned.

"Brother, don’t you think major revelations are more interesting with a little suspense?"

Seeing Rei frown, he finally continued:

"The Astral Realm... is actually a Nest as well."

Rei’s eyes narrowed.

"The Astral Realm is a Nest?"

He had never heard such a theory before.

No wonder it was considered a hidden truth.

"Mhm... doesn’t it strike you as strange?"

"The people of Earth clearly look identical to the people of this world, yet they cannot sense elemental power at all... nor do they possess any talent for class advancement."

"And if you attempt to perform an advancement ritual on them..."

"It always fails."

"And why do you think Earth’s people were specifically sent to the Aberrant Nest for experimentation, where they were transformed into monsters?"

Rei paused briefly.

A terrifying hypothesis had already begun forming in his mind.

"You can’t possibly mean..."

Huang Minzhi smiled knowingly.

"Looks like you’ve already figured it out."

Rei spoke slowly.

"The people of Earth were originally monsters themselves. Which means every person on Earth originally lacked spirituality."

A mysterious smile spread across Huang Minzhi’s face.

"Brother... you finally realized it."

"Though your guess still differs slightly from the truth."

"The people of Earth actually do possess spirituality."

"It’s simply so weak that it may as well not exist."

"But even without meaningful spirituality, Earth’s humans still learned how to think like beings who possessed it."

"In this world, the fundamental distinction between monsters and intelligent races has always been whether they possess spirituality..."

"But on Earth, ’monsters’ were born that were almost indistinguishable from humans."

"And what’s even stranger is that after these monsters were born, they naturally possessed faint traces of spirituality."

"Do you understand what that means?"

"It means living beings developed spirituality on their own, without receiving it from the Tree of Wisdom."

"And with only that tiny trace of spirituality, combined with their original biological structure, they were somehow still able to function like genuine intelligent beings possessing rich spirituality."

Huang Minzhi slapped his stomach.

"Damn it, when I first learned this myself, I was stunned too."

"What the hell was I before this? Was I even human?"

"And those monsters you saw today—the ones capable of thinking and speaking human language..."

"They’re simply recreations of the results achieved back then."

Then Huang Minzhi pointed toward Rei.

"But brother, you were different."

"Out of everyone on Earth, you were the most perfect specimen."

"Everyone else possessed at least faint traces of spirituality."

"You alone had none whatsoever."

"And yet despite possessing absolutely zero spirituality, you could still think like a normal human."

"Live like a normal person."

"Humans completely lacking spirituality weren’t unheard of, but they were always mentally broken, insane, or born malformed and incapable of thought."

"You alone were the sole perfect example of an entirely empty shell that could still survive normally."

"So you became the perfect vessel."

"That’s why you were chosen."

"Spirituality is also the source of a being’s cognition."

"Transferring such an enormous quantity of spirituality wasn’t comparable to ordinary spiritual-transfer rituals. Even now, transferring one person’s spirituality into another almost always requires completely destroying the original spirituality."

"And once a living being with spirituality has its spirituality destroyed, death quickly follows."

"And under those conditions, all the branches and leaves gathered from the Tree of Wisdom would scatter completely."

"In other words... all prior effort would be wasted."

Rei muttered quietly:

"So... you needed someone like me. Someone completely without spirituality."

Huang Minzhi interrupted him.

"Not just someone without spirituality."

"They also had to be capable of normal thought."

Rei frowned.

"And if they couldn’t think normally?"

"Then they’d never be able to level up."

"A class-advancer incapable of thought can never comprehend principles, can never level, and besides... madmen cannot be contaminated."

Huang Minzhi’s voice became colder as he continued:

"Don’t forget—the Source Nest of Filth didn’t merely want to transfer all that spirituality into you."

"It wanted that spirituality to become fully contaminated."

"And the only way to deepen contamination was to level up with everything you had."

"That’s why you became the optimal choice."

"This is the entirety of your origin, brother."

"You—and my previous self—were both special monsters incubated within the enormous cultivation vessel of the Astral Realm."

"If we’re being precise..."

"You and I were both originally parts of the [Starry Sky Nest] itself."

"And honestly, the you of now and the you who once lived on Earth are still deeply connected... Heh. If you became even stronger and returned to the Starry Sky Nest one day, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call you the Lord of the Nest itself."