Chapter 3211: Chapter 3212: Assimilate

Aor Shanzhuo, upon learning that he could not recreate the black mist, seemed to be completely engulfed by shadows, dim and discolored.

Khuntela wanted to offer a few words of comfort but couldn’t bring himself to say anything... After all, he hadn’t tasted the polluted Azure Noble Wine; who knew what it tasted like? Even if it was really delicious, the thought of the consequence being the spread of a foul-smelling black mist made Khuntela instantly lose interest.

Unable to empathize, unable to understand, and unable to comfort.

However, the initiator of all this—Angel, because of his renewed culinary confidence, found Aor Shanzhuo much more agreeable. Seeing him saddened by his inability to drink the "self-mixed" fine wine, he thoughtfully came up with an idea after a moment’s deep reflection.

"Although I cannot recreate it using the Secret Ceremony Box, the water near the Rock Palace also has slight pollu..." Angel originally wanted to say ’pollution,’ but after thinking it over, decided to change his wording: "What I mean is, the nearby water has some residual traces of black mist, maybe it could be used in the wine?"

Angel had just purified the internal pollution in the Rock Palace, but there wasn’t enough time to clean up the stains in the outside water; moreover, water is living, and even if not cleaned, it would eventually settle down.

Aor Shanzhuo was still feeling a bit down, but upon hearing Angel’s words, his eyes began to gather focus from distraction, and then he stood up abruptly: "What you said was right, it can blend in with the water! And there’s no need to go outside to find it, there’s a fountain pool just next door!"

Angel coughed and raised his hand: "...I already cleaned the fountain pool, there’s none left there."

...

Aor Shanzhuo took the Crystal Book Pages and flew out to search for the "polluted" water bodies.

Khuntela originally wanted to stay in the main hall, but seeing Laplace’s clearly expelling gaze, he hesitated and followed Aor Shanzhuo out.

After the two of them left, Laplace turned to Angel: "Luigi sent a message."

Actually, Laplace didn’t need to say it, Angel already knew, because he had sensed that Kukurus had gone offline not long ago.

"What was the statue test that Kukurus went through?" Angel asked curiously.

Laplace: "As you guessed, it was a test of comprehension."

Immediately, Laplace explained the detailed information that Luigi had transmitted.

The first statue Kukurus encountered was the Dragon-Eating Sunflower. When the test commenced, his body remained on Mist Isle, while his consciousness was pulled into a scene space constructed from ’memory fragments’.

In this space, Kukurus transformed into a budding Dragon-Eating Sunflower.

Surrounding him was a forest of jagged and bizarre stone formations.

The sky was gray and murky; one couldn’t distinguish day from night, only barely providing some illumination.

Through the thin visibility, Kukurus, now a Dragon-Eating Sunflower, could see that the ground around him was littered with grayish rubble, with many stones bearing claw marks, suggesting that some ferocious beasts roamed the stone forest.

As Kukurus wondered about his location, a prompt from the Immortal Realm appeared.

"The trial of ’Dragon-Eating Sunflower’ Yevelan has commenced."

"Background story: Yevelan’s birth was an accident; as a Dragon-Eating Sunflower, it should have been born in a dense forest or deep swamp, or perhaps in a Demon Lord’s garden; anywhere with plants could have been its birthplace. But unexpected as it was, when Yevelan gained a vague sense of self-awareness, it found itself not in any forest but in a vast desolate stone forest stretching hundreds of miles. It was the only ’plant’ in this expansive stone forest.

Yevelan had no time to lament its accidental birth because it discovered that a powerful Magical Creature, the Dow Jones Demon, actually inhabits this stone forest—the unconscious bloodline waves released by the Dragon-Eating Sunflower upon its birth have attracted the attention of this greedy Magical Creature, and it is slowly approaching you..."

"Task Overview: Yevelan understands that its nascent self cannot possibly compare to the Dow Jones Demon; if discovered, the only fate is to be devoured. Now, the only way to survive is to comprehend the talent recorded deep within the bloodline of the Dragon-Eating Sunflower before the Dow Jones Demon arrives—Assimilation."

"Task Objective: Challenger No. 2, you will become Yevelan, within the limited time, strive to comprehend the ’Assimilation’ talent to avoid the impending death."

"Task Reward: Immortal Realm skill ’Assimilation’."

"The current remaining challenge count is: 3/3"

This lengthy Immortal Realm prompt can roughly be understood as: Kukurus transformed into the nascent Yevelan, and he must understand Yevelan’s talent before being devoured by the Dow Jones Demon.

Only by comprehending the talent and avoiding death will he pass the test.

Kukurus only has three challenge opportunities.

Success in the challenge not only earns him a skill reward from the Immortal Realm but also allows him to remain on Mist Isle to further explore the mysteries of the Dragon Tomb. Failure in the challenge will result in being expelled from Mist Isle, unable to return.

In short, it is about comprehending the skill amidst danger.

It sounds simple, but in practice, it’s very difficult.

Firstly, Kukurus is a Cave Dragon, belonging to the Mirror Dragon lineage; how is he supposed to comprehend a bloodline talent like the abyssal dragon line Dragon-Eating Sunflower?

At least Angel couldn’t imagine it because this was not just cross-grade learning but was a cross-energy-system learning.

Secondly, Kukurus only has three challenge chances; such a cross-species, cross-bloodline, and cross-energy-system talent, can he truly comprehend it in just three tries? In Angel’s view, it’s not enough.

Thirdly, the challenge time is too short. When Kukurus entered Yevelan’s memory, the Dow Jones Demon had already noticed the abnormal aura within the stone forest and began patrolling it.

The newborn Dragon-Eating Sunflower cannot move; without moving, it cannot hide and can only be a sitting target.

The stone forest is seemingly hundreds of miles wide, which seems pretty expansive, but for a Magical Creature like the Dow Jones Demon, which reaches Wizard Level upon maturity, patrolling the entire stone forest wouldn’t take very long.

It might not even take half a day, perhaps within a few hours.

In other words, the time available for Kukurus to comprehend the ’Assimilation’ talent is only a few hours.

Even if stretched a bit, counting the time for all three challenge opportunities, it wouldn’t exceed a day.

Using just one day to understand the assimilation talent, this difficulty is simply terrifying.

Angel even felt that challenges like Tomorrow Town or Uriel’s cannot compare to this. And this was not the final test of the Mist Isle Dragon Tomb, just the first step in the trials.

Angel found it hard to imagine, going forward with this difficulty, how tough could the subsequent tests of the Mist Isle Dragon Tomb be.

Angel, while sighing, expressed his thoughts.

Having listened, Laplace shook his head at Angel: "You are overestimating the difficulty; the actual challenge isn’t that hard."

Angel: "???" This difficulty isn’t high?

Laplace: "It’s a simple logic; the Dragon-Eating Sunflower statue on Mist Isle isn’t its nascent form. In other words, the true Dragon-Eating Sunflower Yevelan, within its lifetime, overcame this challenge."

"And whatever little wisdom newborn Dragon-Eating Sunflowers have, it is definitely not very high. Despite their low intelligence, they can still comprehend the ’Assimilation’ talent, indicating that the talent comprehension difficulty isn’t high."

Even the naïve Yevelan could comprehend the assimilation talent in dire straits. For Kukurus, who already possessed the wisdom of an adult dragon, wouldn’t it be easier?

As for the "cross-energy-system" comprehension worry Angel had, Laplace actually considered it an over-interpretation.

The Fairyland instance is not an actual reproduction of reality, so-called authority is far from the true Laws.

The energy rules of the Crystal Origin of Dreams are not yet completed, how can there be a complete Abyss energy system?

Since the challenge is to comprehend the "Assimilate" skill, it definitely won’t be that complicated. It’s very likely that through bloodline memory and bloodline inertia, one can comprehend it, which is much simpler.

"Is it really that simple?" Angel was still somewhat incredulous.

Laplace: "To know whether it’s simple or not, let Luigi ask about Kukurus’s completion rate."

After Laplace finished speaking, he lowered his brows and proceeded to communicate further with Luigi.

About half a minute later, Laplace looked up and said: "Kukurus’s first challenge completion rate reached 31%."

According to the progress of the challenge, reaching a completion rate of 80% should be barely comprehending the ’Assimilate’ skill, and for Kukurus’s first challenge to reach nearly half, it shows that the difficulty of this challenge is there, but not as high as Angel imagined.

As long as the mindset doesn’t decline, and no unexpected events occur later, Kukurus has a good chance to complete the challenge in three attempts.

However, Angel was right about one thing, although the difficulty is not too high, as the first challenge of the Mist Isle Dragon Tomb, it is already quite high.

Bear in mind, the Mist Isle is quite large, with countless statues inside.

The further you go, the tests by the statues will surely get more challenging, and by then the difficulty will likely be terrifying. To completely clear the Mist Isle Dragon Tomb, for now, it’s still an unattainable dream.

But the future... can be discussed in the future.

At least for now, Angel sighed in relief. The difficulty is not very high, and the so-called consciousness space doesn’t seem to have dangerous areas, so for now, there’s no need to worry about Kukurus and Baba Ragon getting stuck inside.

Perhaps, having let go of his hanging concerns, Angel finally had some space to talk about what was temporarily ignored before: "What exactly is the assimilative talent of the Dragon-Eating Sunflower?"

Laplace: "You could understand it as a special concealment ability, allowing the Dragon-Eating Sunflower to merge into the surrounding environment colors, and even its presence becomes completely consistent with the surrounding environment."

In the Abyss, Dragon-Eating Sunflowers are very special Magical Creatures. Mature Dragon-Eating Sunflowers have extremely strong close combat abilities but almost zero long-distance combat ability.

Since Dragon-Eating Sunflowers prey on Draconic Beasts, they need special methods to lure them close and also the ability to conceal their presence.

The method to lure Draconic Beasts is very straightforward: just use bloodline aura to tantalize, most Draconic Beasts are simple-minded, teasing them is almost guaranteed.

The method to conceal their presence, though, is the Dragon-Eating Sunflower’s talent ability or what is inherited from the bloodline: Assimilate.

Assimilate has only one standard: merging into the environment, becoming the environment.

Once thoroughly assimilated into the environment, it becomes extraordinarily masterful concealment, so much so that even Draconic Beasts and some Abyssal Dragons may not be able to detect the Dragon-Eating Sunflower.

It can be said that the assimilative ability may not be the strongest ability of a Dragon-Eating Sunflower, but it is an essential ability for each Dragon-Eating Sunflower.

"The statue test of the Dragon-Eating Sunflower rewards the Assimilate ability..." Angel murmured softly: "If it’s indeed the same as assimilation in reality, it’s quite powerful."

In many puzzle or combat types of, especially those requiring decapitation, Fairyland instances, having a concealment ability makes it much easier.

Once you possess the Assimilate skill, many other combat instances can be completed in one go.

Unfortunately, this ability can currently only be obtained through the Dragon-Eating Sunflower’s test. And the Dragon-Eating Sunflower’s statue is located in the Mist Isle Dragon Tomb, and the entry conditions to the Mist Isle Dragon Tomb are very stringent... Otherwise, training a team of assassins possessing the assimilative ability, clearing instances would be a breeze. By then, Fairyland Tools could start circulating, and as long as Fairyland-produced tools can circulate, the energy system will gradually establish.

But it’s just wishful thinking.

Laplace: "The assimilative ability is indeed well-suited for some Fairyland instances. However, rather than considering the suitability of the assimilative ability to Fairyland instances, what I’m more interested in is... the Fairyland instance can actually directly reward abilities."

Previously, the Fairyland instance has rewarded items roughly divided into: tangible goods, pets, titles, and constitutions.

Of these, tangible goods are the most numerous, including doll costumes, long whips, and even detective agency-like buildings, being the most direct feeling rewards.

Title rewards are the second most numerous, although the direct feeling is not as strong as tangible items, the titles can grant you "identity," and this identity seems to be universal in the Fairyland, which also counts as a good reward.

Pets and constitutions are the least.

Currently, the only existing Fairyland pet is Glaipnir’s reward: Black Tiger... or perhaps, Black Cat.

And constitution rewards, as of now, only Laplace has received: Helen’s Imaginative Constitution.

From the distribution of rewards, they are basically all external forces, not inherent abilities.

Even when some Fairyland tools possess special abilities, they are abilities inherent to the tool, not ones you own.

Today, the Dragon-Eating Sunflower’s test directly rewarded the ’Assimilate’ ability, for the first time.

The reason Laplace is concerned is that this directly bestows a personal ability. It is not an external force; it is an internalized ability.

Once an internalized ability takes root, it will bring about many interesting issues to consider, for instance: Is this ability granted for usage, or is it granted for absolute control?

If it’s the latter, does it mean that ’Assimilate’ could turn into knowledge, enter your mind, and contribute to your personal foundation?

Moreover, if ’Assimilate’ is knowledge, is it possible to learn it in reality and ultimately make it usable in reality?

If it cannot be used in reality, does this mean the ability is exclusive to the system of the Crystal Origin of Dreams?

What kind of energy system would this exclusive system be? Could it be used for reference?

In short, a reward that internalizes an ability will bring about numerous follow-up scenarios! Moreover, different answers will lead Fairyland to different final directions.

Upon Laplace’s reminder, Angel also considered this aspect. After pondering for a moment, he asked:

"Do you think, once the assimilative ability materializes, it can impact reality?"

Laplace thought for two seconds and shook his head: "It’s hard to say, even if it materializes as knowledge, it might not be knowledge that can be applied in reality. If it really could impact reality, then Mirror Domain creatures would probably flock to the Crystal Origin of Dreams..."

Angel didn’t comment on Laplace’s answer.

However, his internal conclusion was completely contrary to Laplace’s opinion.

After learning that Uriel’s true body would dream into Fairyland, Angel instead felt that it’s really possible for reality and the Crystal Origin of Dreams to intersect.

If they really could intersect... even if it’s just an intersection on the level of knowledge, it would be enough to prove the value of the Crystal Origin of Dreams.

But whether it is or not, perhaps it will be revealed once the ’internalized ability’ is manifested.

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