The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 433 Bronze Tree

The communication on the altar did not last long; as the flames in the brazier went out, everything returned to normal.

"We should go," the hunter reminded them.

Wu Chang nodded and followed the hunter out of the private space, but his mind was still replaying the conversation he had just had on the altar.

The speaker is just a silhouette, making it impossible to discern their specific identity, but judging from their manner of speaking, the world instance should be set in the feudal period.

He had been wondering why the stone altar was covered with talismans.

Cultivation methods such as talismans and Taoist magic focus more on combat and self-improvement. For example, Wu Chang's thunder magic is more of a technique for dealing with enemies. Whether it is offensive or supportive, it is aimed at people.

From the perspective of cross-disciplinary communication, mystical rituals are more stable and should be dominant, but stone altars are dominated by talismans.

Now he understood that the Light Society did this because the dimensional rules of the world instance were more compatible with the talismans, and it was easier to open the passage between the two worlds using the talismans.

After exiting the ritual connecting the world instance, the two did not rush to leave the private space, but instead explored further into the space.

The ceremony was held deep in a forest. They walked outwards to the edge of the forest and found a large number of heavily armed soldiers guarding the forest with solemn expressions, prohibiting unauthorized personnel from approaching.

The style of the armor worn by the soldiers suggests that the private space where the Guangming Society is currently located is similar to that of the ancient Xia Kingdom.

The soldiers were on high alert, but it wasn't uninvited that no one went in or out.

Not far from them, you can see a specially built driveway that leads directly into the forest.

The long convoy of vehicles entered the forest in a line. Each vehicle was carefully inspected by soldiers before being allowed to pass, and the control was extremely strict.

The two men intended to lie in wait and try to eavesdrop on some information, but they found that the atmosphere was very serious, whether it was the convoy transporting supplies or the soldiers on guard duty. Their faces were full of awe, and they rarely smiled, let alone talked about what was happening in the forest.

Left with no other option, the two found a driver who was about to leave and subdued him.

Wu then used his long-absent "Mind Resonance" technique to exert mind control over the driver.

As the difficulty of the dungeon increases, the chances of "Mind Resonance" appearing become fewer and fewer. It is difficult to mentally control slightly important targets in the dungeon, but even with the mental fortitude of an ordinary coachman, he is still unable to resist mental control.

The driver's pupils dilated for a moment, then returned to normal, and he became completely open and talkative.

Unlike the Hunters, who operate in seclusion in the city, the Koushō Society's existence in this private space is akin to that of a god.

According to the coachman, Mercury was regarded as a true immortal by the common people, but he descended to earth because he could not bear the suffering of humankind.

The forest where they were located was called the Immortal Abode Forest. Normally, without an invitation from the immortals, ordinary people were not allowed to approach within ten miles.

Starting a year ago, Mercury and his associates began building temples and monasteries in various places and collecting incense offerings.

A month ago, they ordered the collected incense from various places to be sent to Xianju Forest, which led to the long convoy of vehicles that we see now.

Finally, the driver added that the dense caravan had been going on for a whole month. For the first three or four days, the incense being transported came from all over the country, after which the caravan headed specifically for the capital.

"Perhaps it is because the officials in the capital are more sincere and donate more money for incense that so much incense is produced."

The term "incense" is simply another way of saying the power of faith.

Judging from the size of the convoy, one can tell that the amount of faith power being transported is certainly not small.

As for what the coachman said at the end, most of the power of faith comes from the imperial city, but it is probably not produced in this plane, but in other private spaces under the control of the Light Society.

With such a massive amount of faith power gathered here, the Light Society's goal cannot be merely to establish a connection with the world instance.

Moreover, as they just saw, connecting to the world instance dimension did not consume much energy.

What exactly is the purpose of all this accumulated faith power? We'll probably only find out when we enter the world instance.

Wu Chang told the driver to forget this memory and then let him go.

The two sneaked into a carriage carrying incense offerings a little distance away from Xianju Forest and followed the carriage deeper into the forest.

Inside the carriage were numerous sealed wooden boxes. Wu Chang casually opened one and found it filled with white incense ash.

If it weren't for the different texture and the smell of ash, in another location, one might think it was being transported as contraband.

He grabbed a handful of incense ash, crushed it in his hand, and could feel a portion of the power of faith within it.

Roughly estimated, it would only take one hundred cartloads of incense ash, whose power of incense, when converted into the power of faith, to replenish Eileen's divine power.

In one month, the amount of incense ash transported to Xianju Forest was at least several thousand, if not ten thousand.

Even taking into account the losses incurred when traversing planes, it is still a terrifyingly large amount of faith power.

What exactly is the Light Society planning to do with so much faith power?
The hunter's stealth techniques were so advanced that even Mercury couldn't see through them, let alone the ordinary soldiers inspecting the carriages.

The two sat in the carriage and entered Xianju Forest openly and legitimately.

The carriage followed the designated route into the deepest part of the forest and stopped in front of a huge tree.

The tree's surface has a bronze-like metallic texture, and between the bark's veins are red lines like blood vessels, with red light flowing through them.

Under the watch of a member of the Guangming Society, the soldiers unloaded the incense ash and poured it under the tree.

The tree roots absorbed the power of faith from the incense ash at a speed visible to the naked eye, transmitting it to the tree crown through blood-red veins.

The thick branches in the tree canopy resembled a cradle, nurturing a powerful life force within. Without the hunter's prompting, Wu Chang's intuition told him that he would be discovered if he approached any closer to the tree.

The Light Society's preparations for the world instance were even more thorough than he had imagined.

As the most powerful organization in the Realm of Reason, they schemed against the players of the Desolate Realm, not only by secretly connecting to the world instance ahead of time and transmitting the imagined divinity to the Desolate Realm, but also by using divinity to carry out such a big operation behind the scenes.

If the villains are working so hard, what chance do the good guys have?
Inspiration told Wu Chang that keeping what he had in front of him would definitely cause big trouble.

However, if they wanted to nip the danger in the bud, not to mention whether they would alert the enemy, they were not strong enough in terms of direct combat power.

Mercury and the others were on the altar on the other side of the Fairy Abode Forest. On the surface, the four people on the altar were all powerful lower-level gods. This was the Realm of Reason, and without the restrictions of the plane barrier, each of them was no less powerful than Irene.

Not to mention, under the giant tree in front of them, there was a member of the Light Society whose strength was impossible to discern.

Even if the hunter and he got carried away, they still couldn't destroy the giant tree.

Since things are beyond our control, we have no choice but to leave.

With the help of the Divine Rune Decipherer and the Hunter's Stealth, the two successfully left the Light Society's private space without leaving a trace, as if they had never been there.

The hunter piloted the aircraft and took Wu Chang back to the border of the controlled area. Instead of taking Wu Chang back to meet with the Order Faction and tell them about their progress, he suggested that Wu Chang leave directly.

Did Xu Dejun tell you that the decision to take this operation did not go smoothly?

Wu Chang said, "He didn't say it explicitly, but we can roughly guess the result from his choice of words."

In the information Xu Dejun told Wu Chang, it stated that more than half of those who agreed to use the Faith Virus—more than half, a very subtle degree.

If it had been passed unanimously or by an overwhelming vote, Xu Dejun wouldn't have needed to mention this sentence at all; he could have simply said that the Order faction agreed to release the Faith Virus.

Xu Dejun specifically told Wu Chang that the difference between those who agreed and those who disagreed was not significant.

Just as Wu Chang had worried, many high-ranking members of the Order faction were unwilling to go to extremes and even hoped that the Guangming Society's plan would succeed.

Seeing that Wu Changneng understood his meaning, the hunter continued;
“You purged an internal mole once before, but nobody knows how many spies the Illuminati and the Evolutionists have planted within the Order faction.”

"So I suggest you go straight back and don't say much to them. If you have any questions, you can go back to the Wasteland and seek answers from the Wasteland Administration Bureau."

The hunters also understood that, setting aside the conflict between the Light Society and the four major organizations, the issues between the Wilderness and the Realm of Reason were even more irreconcilable.

His meaning was clear: although they were temporarily on the same side, Wu Chang still had to be wary of the Order faction in the Realm of Reason. If he told the Order faction about the successful planting of the Faith Bomb, it might soon reach the ears of the Light Society.

The hunter then pointed to the baseball cap on Wu Chang's head and said:
"Its effect will last for another five hours. During this time, no one will be able to tell that you have returned to the Desolate Realm." Wu Chang said, "Thank you."

As they parted, the hunter couldn't help but say:
"Although I have great faith in your potential, potential needs enough time to be realized as real ability."

"What Xianju Forest saw at the end was beyond the scope of what the Desolate Realm could handle. If the Abyss Suppression Force triggered by the Faith Virus cannot eliminate that thing, do not act rashly."

Wu Chang nodded and said, "I will pay attention. When I officially advance to the Realm of Reason, I'll treat you to drinks next time."

"Good luck." After saying that, the hunter vanished into thin air right in front of Wu Chang.

Wu Chang rubbed his eyes. He hadn't seen how the hunter disappeared at all; he could only vaguely sense through his intuition that the hunter had left.

The hunter's move made him realize once again that while his current strength was more than enough to deal with ordinary players in the Realm of Reason, there was still a considerable gap between him and top-tier players, especially those with unique skills like the hunter.

After parting ways with the hunters, Wu Chang did not linger in the Realm of Reason and returned directly to the Desolate Realm.

Instead of rushing to find Hou Jingchuan, he first entered the underground shelter dimension and arrived at the Yongguang Research Institute.

With only two days left until the start of the world instance, the 100x time flow of the Eternal Light Research Institute has been activated. He can still cultivate for a while before the world begins.

Before infiltrating the Light Society's private space, he allocated all his free attribute points to prevent his stealth from being detected and to prepare for combat.

When the Steam Phantom dungeon ended, he gained 115200 experience points. Since he had reached the level cap in the Wasteland, these excess experience points were converted into 115 free attribute points.

He hadn't figured out how to allocate his points, so he kept them on his person. After his battle with Hela, he discovered that one of his hidden dangers was that his strength attribute was too low in his normal state.

Although strength is his main attribute, outside of dungeons, before he could stack up his strength through the Sea Giant transformation, he was still able to deal with players from the Desolate Realm, but he was not good enough for fighting against players of higher levels.

Therefore, he mainly focused his stat allocation on strength and health attributes this time.

He increased his health by 27 points and his strength by 74 points, bringing the two attributes to 150 and 200 points respectively. He then used the remaining 14 points to compensate for his weaknesses, increasing his agility to 84 points.

Just before the world instance began, he used the 100x time flow to adapt to his body after allocating points.

Upon entering the Yongguang Research Institute, he saw He Yun operating various machines and assembling her experimental platform.

The Light Society has extensive experience in studying utopian divinity. Through numerous experiments, they have designed various instruments specifically for studying divinity and have also found ways to quantify various indicators of divinity, making their equipment more effective than the one developed by Schultz through trial and error.

He Yun only needs to make slight modifications before she can use it directly for her research.

The servers here also store a large amount of experimental data, which is extremely valuable to her regardless of whether the cases are successful or not.

Moreover, besides the cold data on the server, Eileen, who is training in the Divine Training Room, is a living example.

The data collected through the Divinity Training Room is more vivid and intuitive. She can also get Eileen to cooperate with her in some research to revise her previous understanding of divinity.

In addition, the feature of a hundred times the time flow makes this place a near-perfect research environment.

This allowed He Yun to temporarily set aside matters concerning the Holy Song Company and devote his main body to the Everlight Research Institute.

He Yun's arrival gave the Yongguang Research Institute a soul. She not only opened various training facilities for Wu Chang and Eileen, but also formulated scientific training methods for them based on their data and past cases in the server.

For example, as soon as Wu Changyi returned, He Yun arranged a thorough "physical examination" for him, comprehensively testing all aspects of his physical condition.

According to the test results, Wu Chang's two main attributes, Strength and Energy, have been used at a level higher than normal for a long time due to the influence of the Breakthrough Master and Deep Sea Alien Transformation. He has an extremely high degree of control over these two attributes, and the actual effect he shows is 5% higher than the panel attributes.

However, due to his reliance on the "lock" of Mamba Iron Elbow and the use of Deep Water Bite to reduce the opponent's movement, Wu Chang's actual agility attribute is only 87% of the displayed value.

Stamina is slightly better than Agility, but it's only 92%, which doesn't reach the value shown on the character sheet.

He Yun's training plan for Wu Chang was to familiarize him with various skills while adding special training in endurance and agility.

The training was very targeted and effective; the only drawback was that the methods were somewhat too harsh.

The Guangming Society cultivates experimental subjects in a manner similar to raising poisonous insects, with the aim of pushing them to the brink of death as long as they are not killed.

Agility training involves entering a specially designed training room and dodging increasingly intense attacks while simultaneously picking up designated items.

If the pickup fails and the designated item is destroyed by an attack, the attack level in the training room will be increased by three levels. If the pickup is successful, it will only increase by one level.

What Wu Chang had to do was survive in the training room for half an hour.

Having witnessed the methods of the Light Society through Hela's resentment, he did not choose the "Elite Trial" where Hela was located, but instead chose the "Normal Trial," while conservatively setting his agility at 80 points and selecting a moderate training difficulty.

But he soon realized that his choice was not conservative enough. He only lasted for seventeen minutes before the knight's shield, which prevented him from dying by hand, was broken, leaving him to rely on his body to withstand the damage.

He really wanted to stop the training, but then he remembered that Eileen and He Yun were watching outside, and it would be too embarrassing for him to say it was too late so he forced himself to continue training.

He even killed Hela, who guarded the Temple of Death, so how could he possibly lose to an ordinary agility trainer?

As it turns out, it's hard to say.

In the final thirteen minutes, he barely survived the first training session solely thanks to the health of the Sea Giant and the Titan, as well as the crisis warning brought by his high level of inspiration under the threat of death.

After his first training session, he successfully improved his health, pain resistance, injury-bearing posture, and acuity. He even improved his endurance during the health recovery process, but he improved agility the least.

Although he didn't say it, He Yun, who watched the entire training session, still helped him lower the difficulty level and adjusted the focus of the training according to his weaknesses.

After agility comes endurance.

Generally speaking, there is only one way to improve endurance: exhaust your physical strength and energy, and then force yourself to recover quickly.

The method used by the Guangming Society to train the endurance of experimental subjects was also very simple and brutal, similar to a real-life version of Temple Run.

Wu Chang must complete an obstacle course with constantly changing terrain while being chased by a giant spiked iron ball. At a certain point, a wall will appear in front of him, requiring a large amount of energy to raise the wall.

If you don't have enough energy, you'll be caught up by the iron ball and crushed into a meat patty.

The training process is meticulously calculated, requiring exactly 10% more energy and physical strength than the trainee's capacity. To survive, the trainee must compensate for this 10% through endurance recovery during training; otherwise, they will die.

Similar to agility training, Wu Chang's first pass of endurance training relied not on endurance, but on strength.

He transformed into the Sea Giant and used his strength to perform a feat of throwing an iron ball with his bare hands.

The style of other training programs can be seen from agility and endurance training.

No wonder Hela, an ordinary surface girl, possesses swordsmanship that rivals that of a master-level melee weapon user. With skills honed in such an environment, it's no wonder she's so powerful.

This is when He Yun's importance becomes apparent.

After He Yun adjusted the training parameters, the difficulty of the training was just right, putting him under extreme pressure without causing him to fail due to excessive pressure.

After twenty days of training, his actual performance in terms of agility and endurance reached the values ​​shown on the panel.

While completing these two training sessions, his body also adapted to the newly added strength attribute, eliminating the need for separate training.

After completing twenty days of grueling training, Wu Chang began to relax and entered the divine training room where Eileen was, attempting to sense the divine spark within the power of origin.

The realization of divinity and the enhancement of physical attributes are two completely opposite extremes.

What Wu Chang needed to do was endless meditation, trying to capture the spark of divinity through his soul and inspiration.

Unfortunately, his current level of understanding is still insufficient. There is always a thin layer between him and the divine spark, making it impossible for him to clearly sense it.

Just as he gave up sensing divinity and was about to ask He Yun to check on the progress of the peace envoy's transformation, He Yun approached him first.

He followed He Yun with a blank expression to the circular control panel in the center of the research department.

He stared blankly at the omniscient crystal in front of the control panel, which had grown to almost the height of a person, and asked He Yun:
"What's happening here?"

(End of this chapter)