Huan Zixu had a strategy in his dialogue with the Protection Organization. He and Feng Kui had lost the System’s power. They were fish on the Protection Organization’s chopping block, ready to be slaughtered. Feng Kui had been restored to normal and wouldn’t continue upgrading in the direction of artificial intelligence. If nothing unexpected happened, this would be their last world. He had to make plans. 

The last world…

Huan Zixu looked at Feng Kui, not expecting that Feng Kui would also be gazing at him with a pure smile. 

Since this was their last world, then he would have to strive to obtain the Protection Organization’s trust and richly live out the future decades in this world with Feng Kui. Huan Zixu made his choice. 

“How will a person’s mind change if he lives thousands of years?” the Protector with the handsome uncle’s face who used the spatial ability suddenly asked. 

Huan Zixu was surprised. Director Xiao was leading the interrogation, and the other Protectors had remained silent from beginning to end. Why would the handsome uncle Protector steps out of bounds now? 

“I don’t know,” Huan Zixu said, shaking his head. “I only know that in my 199 worlds, I didn’t only feel time. There was also the constantly increasing power, and the experience of going through different worlds. Sometimes I even got muddled, thinking that I’m not human anymore, but a god, a completely different species from humans. If a mere 199 worlds can do that, then 3,841 levels… That number is appalling. A person who has passed so many levels, I think he must have changed at the genetic level. He isn’t human anymore.” 

“How many years have you been alive?” the handsome uncle Protector asked. 

“Three hundred…four hundred…or five hundred?” Huan Zixu struggled to remember. He shook his head. “Time is a human sense of movement. One cycle of the earth’s rotation is defined as a day, one cycle of the moon’s orbit as one month, one cycle of the earth around the sun as one year. With different worlds, different celestial bodies, different reckonings of time, I can’t calculate it.” 

“Four-hundred fifty-three years, six months, and eighteen days,” Feng Kui said suddenly. “I used the first world’s time reckoning to keep track. This world’s time reckoning is about the same.” 

Huan Zixu was a little surprised. Feng Kui’s storage had been so small that he had constantly been deleting his memories. Why would he remember this? 

“A document. It doesn’t take up much memory.” Feng Kui’s speech didn’t seem very smooth. He spoke haltingly. “I deleted—the videos and the pictures, but kept the written records. I’ve always—remembered.” 

Huan Zixu didn’t want to display too much emotion in front of the Protectors, but hearing Feng Kui speak, tears came to his eyes. 

Huan Zixu turned his face away and lightly wiped the corners of his eyes with his thumb, brushing away the tears. He took a deep breath and said, “Then let’s say 453.5 years. Things that happened before I became a leveler feel a dozen lifetimes away. I don’t remember them clearly.”

Only when he spoke did he discover that his voice was hoarse. 

“How does the passage of time feel? Can you tell me concretely?” The handsome uncle Protector asked another question, and the plain-faced Protector next to him yanked him, reminding him not to go outside his rank again. 

Huan Zixu drank a mouthful of water to wet his throat and calm his feelings, then said, “The world is different in the eyes of different creatures. Humans experience the world through their five senses, but the colors and pixels our eyes can distinguish are limited, and the audio frequencies our ears can distinguish are also limited. I’ve lived four hundred years and more, but if you really asked me whether I’ve felt four hundred years, my answer would be that I haven’t. To me, it feels like those four hundred and more years have taken tens of thousands of years to pass, but also as though they passed in an instant. 

“Humans can live for several decades, so naturally they think that the lifespan of an insect that can only live for one summer is very short. But for that insect, it’s a whole lifetime.

“I think that in his eyes, the only thing that can oppose him is the System. I don’t know how he looks upon us levelers, and I don’t know his true position, so I had to use some means that wouldn’t harm me to test him out. That was my goal.” 

Director Xiao looked at You Zhengping, saw that his subordinate didn’t intend to ask another question, then said, “It wouldn’t harm you, but you wanted to drag us under.” 

“In the three-sided battle among the System, the world law, and the clearer, all people are only chess pieces. You exist within the game. What do mean by ‘dragging you under?’”

“You’re good at confusing the issue.” Director Xiao was unmoved, his mind as steady as a boulder. “Go ahead and tell me about the world law. From Zhen Li, we’ve only heard about the System and the clearer who passed 3,841 levels. We still don’t have a clear notion about the world law. We need you to clear up some confusion.” 

Huan Zixu said, “As far as the world law is concerned, I also only have guesses. They need to be validated. Could I borrow that eraser on the table?” 

There was someone taking notes on the interrogation. The table was supplied with all the necessary paper and erasers. Director Xiao nodded faintly, and Lian Yufan picked up an eraser and passed it to Huan Zixu. 

“Since you were the one who picked up the eraser, keep a portion of it. We can call that another experiment,” Huan Zixu said. 

Lian Yufan cut off a corner of the eraser and tossed the larger part to Huan Zixu, not knowing what he was up to. 

Huan Zixu squeezed the eraser and said towards Zhen Li, whose mind was wandering, “I heard that the black-cloaked man left you an alternate dimension stomach ability?” 

“Yes, that’s right,” Zhen Li said, calling back his attention. 

Huan Zixu said, “Can you only eat food items?” 

“Yes.” Zhen Li was still considering abstruse questions like the passage of time and thinking about Yu Hua, who went around deducting wages and making things difficult for the studio’s personnel, who had personally rolled up his sleeves to decorate, who carried a tiny notebook to record whether the employees had made full attendance. His thoughts were rather floating. 

“Open your mouth,” Huan Zixu suddenly ordered. 

Zhen Li automatically opened his mouth, and Huan Zixu instantly tossed the eraser into it. Zhen Li didn’t have time to react. He swallowed the eraser. 

“Water, give me water!” Zhen Li’s eyes rolled. 

“Focus a little,” Huan Zixu said. “Do you really feel like you’re choking?” 

Hearing him, Zhen Li dubiously rubbed his chest. “I think…I’m not choking. Did I swallow it?” 

He frowned and felt around, then shook his head. “No, that’s wrong. I didn’t swallow it. Did it go into the alternate dimension stomach? But…it has to be food for the alternate dimension stomach to work. You can’t call rubber food, can you?” 

“Why do you think that the alternate dimension stomach is an ability equipped from the System?” Huan Zixu asked. 

“Well…when I got to this world, I used most of my points so I could equip it and eat things. Later the black-cloaked man took my System and left behind this ability and my wardrobe,” Zhen Li said. 

“No.” Huan Zixu shook his head. “All the power that the System bestows can be withdrawn, except for the initial item and the origin power, because those aren’t given by the System. It’s the leveler’s power activated under the stimulus of world law. The black-cloaked man could absorb mine and Feng Kui’s systems but couldn’t entirely heal Feng Kui’s bones. That’s because the initial item can only be destroyed. It can’t be absorbed.” 

Zhen Li scratched his head. “It’s what the black-cloaked man told me, and also…I didn’t have an origin ability to start with. I’m pretty useless.” 

At this point, he flushed a little. Everyone was protecting the world, but he could only eat things. 

“The origin ability awakens within the first ten newbie worlds. You’ve only passed four worlds. It’s possible that yours has only just awakened,” Huan Zixu explained. “The origin ability hides in the System’s market at the lowest cost in points, waiting for the leveler to equip it. A leveler who doesn’t equip his origin ability within the first ten worlds is practically offering the ability up on a platter to the System, and the System will withdraw it.” 

“Really?” Zhen Li and Yuan Luori said simultaneously in astonishment. Neither of them had known this. 

The Protectors: “…” 

How had these two lived so long anyway? Pure luck? 

“Yes.” Huan Zixu was also stunned by their stupidity. “There’s inherently no difference between the origin ability and a Protector’s special ability. There’s only one way to activate the origin ability, and that’s to be acknowledged by the world law.” 

“Are you saying that our powers are all bestowed by the world law?” This information surprised even Director Xiao. He hit the table and stood up. 

Huan Zixu nodded. “I don’t know if you have records, but my guess is that the first special ability user appeared in this world at the same time as the first Destroyer.” 

Director Xiao, who was well acquainted with the history of the Protection Organization, said, “You’re absolutely right. The furthest we can trace back our history is over five hundred years. A Destroyer appeared in a certain town, and an officer of the time had his special ability awaken. He paid a tremendous price to kill that Destroyer. Since then, there have been special ability users in this world. We’ve never understood the reason for the appearance of the special abilities. According to you, the special abilities actually appeared because of the Destroyers?” 

“Strictly speaking, the world law noticed the invasion of outsiders and awoke the origin powers within the bodies of ordinary people to do battle with the outsiders, and to protect its own law. We are those outsiders. The true goal of the assignments given to us by the System is to use those assignments to capture the power of the world law and in that way occupy the world,” Huan Zixu said. “Your world is terrifying. After all these years, the System has been unable to have its way. If it had had its way…then it probably would have chosen a few people with potential from this world and thrown them into other worlds to carry out new missions of destruction.” 

Director Xiao’s right hand trembled slightly. He put his hand behind his back and said as steadily as before, “These so-called people with potential are…” 

Huan Zixu’s phoenix eyes lifted. He laughed mockingly. “Why ask when you already know the answer? It’s you Protectors!” 

The information Huan Zixu had provided stunned the Protection Organization. Even Director Xiao was having a hard time controlling his nerves, never mind You Zhengping and the other young men. Everyone involuntarily grabbed the people beside them, wanting to draw strength from their companions. 

“All of us who you call Destroyers, if our own homelands hadn’t been destroyed, we may also have been Protectors,” Huan Zixu said with a bitter smile. “Zhen Li’s alternate dimension stomach isn’t an ability that the black-cloaked man left him. It was his own ability awakening. Since the black-cloaked man couldn’t remove it, it’s a complete power bestowed by the world law!” 

“Me?” Zhen Li’s expression looked like he had won a lottery prize of five million. “Why would the world law give an outsider like me an ability?” 

“The world law doesn’t have feelings. It more closely resembles a supercomputer. It wouldn’t care where you came from. It has only one criterion: whether you’re willing to protect the world. Congratulations, the world law approves of you,” Huan Zixu said. 

“Me? Me!” If he hadn’t been inside the base, Zhen Li would have turned on his phone and livestreamed a celebratory dance. The dignified atmosphere around him cleared his head, and he suddenly thought of something. “But the black-cloaked man told me that this was a power he had left me. If you aren’t lying, then why would he trick me?” 

“How would I know?” Huan Zixu said carelessly. “I told you, the black-cloaked man’s way of thinking can’t be judged with conventional reasoning.” 

---

Author’s Note

—A little brain hole, don’t take it seriously—

The world law: I carefully selected You Zhengping from among billions as the one most suited to be the big shot’s sweetheart. After activating his power, I delivered him to the big shot to form a marriage alliance. The marriage of You Zhengping and the big shot symbolizes the alliance of the world law and the clearer against the System. 

You Zhengping (tearfully): So I’m only a prop in a marriage alliance. 

Yu Hua (forcefully): Don’t listen to that unfeeling supercomputer’s drivel, I was the one who made the choice.