"Mr. Magician!"

When the Magician—blinded in one eye, his spine gone, his entire body charred, and all ten fingers broken—purified the Palace Demon in the forest's Ear Hall, commanders like Caroline from the Supernatural Squad immediately approached him.

Lunpena, Elaine, Red Hood, Nimue, and others still retreated swiftly, indicating they would wait at the next level without interacting with anyone else, conveniently creating space for Ren Suo.

Chen Zhishou came over and bowed in thanks. "Thank you for your assistance and protection during the battle, Mr. Magician."

Caroline also said, "Your skill in command is on par with any Magician I know."

The Magician, sitting on the ground, laughed. "It was merely my duty."

During the half-hour-long tug-of-war battle that had just taken place, the Magician's Holy Light Bullets had hardly ceased. Although Elaine, also a Holy Hand, possessed a Healing Offering, she only used large-scale healing auras to help other Magicians. Getting a share of her healing aura was not easy.

Therefore, throughout the entire battle, it was actually only the Magician controlled by Ren Suo who was healing the Supernatural Squad.

To achieve minimal casualties, Ren Suo had also reloaded saves several times. Incidentally, because he knew the boss's moves like the back of his hand after reloading, Ren Suo's commands were almost always effective, allowing the Supernatural Squad to avoid several deadly crises.

"Salute!" Chen Zhishou suddenly shouted.

Commanders from other countries also ordered loudly. The temporary super force from six different countries simultaneously saluted the Magician sitting on the ground, disfigured beyond human shape. Every face, even though beautified by the game, still revealed a look of profound respect.

The Magician's skill in command and his actions in battle had won their respect.

Caroline asked, "Are you going to die too?"

"Die? No. My Offering will be taken over by other Magicians, and my body will turn into fertilizer to continue nourishing the World Tree. Although I don't consider being a Magician a particularly good profession, all my successors will receive my Inheritance and continue to fight to protect the World Tree."

"Combat is no dinner party. I was prepared to make sacrifices before I came here, and I take pride in that. Precisely because I sacrificed so much in this battle, I earned the honor of purifying the Demon. Even if I return to the World Tree, there will be a day of rekindling... The World Tree will not fail us."

The Magician's words revealed a great deal of information, and the expressions of Caroline and the others changed slightly. However, they still remembered their purpose and asked in unison, "Then, Mr. Magician, do you have plans to come to Earth and recruit more Magicians to protect the world?"

The Magician said, "Recruit Magicians? The World Tree will guard the secrets of Magic, because spreading the secrets of Magic will only lead to this outcome: the world becomes polluted, humans degenerate into Demons, and in the end, they bear rotten Forbidden Fruit that falls…"

Chen Zhishou and the others understood that it was unlikely they could extract secrets from a dying Magician, so they changed the subject and asked, "Then can the World Tree help us select children with the talent to become Magicians?"

The Magician said, "The World Tree won't do that either. Being a Magician is not a promising future, but rather a sorrowful path, strewn with thorns. Unless a Magician, after Awakening, cannot control their own power and harms people indiscriminately, the World Tree will never proactively contact anyone who has not yet Awakened."

Chen Zhishou sighed. He had anticipated this outcome. The World Tree asked nothing of them and had no desire for money, status, or any other external things. Its actions were to protect the world—a 'great responsibility.'

As long as the Magicians were unwilling, there was almost no way to force them. These people were zealots who cared nothing for broken fingers, removed spines, or burnt skin. They could be befriended but not offended.

Moreover, these Magicians all possessed the ability of spatial transfer, moving freely at will, so detaining them was impossible. The only one who remained was the dying Magician…

"If there is any way we can help you, please just say so," Caroline said.

The Magician replied, "It's not about helping me; it's about helping yourselves. We've already cleared four Halls, but three remain. Once the Palace Demons fully merge with Earth, the creatures from the Halls will swarm out."

"The World Tree will never allow such a thing to happen, even if it means sacrificing every last Magician. But humanity is no longer as it once was. You possess weapons comparable to ours; you now have the ability to protect yourselves."

"I look forward to your choice."

Having said that, the Magician turned into particles of light and completely dissipated.

***

"Level 2 Researcher Suo, the results for the query you initiated have been obtained."

"Keywords: Ancient Yellow River, Wild God, Dou."

"A comprehensive search of existing records yields the following result: Subject exists."

It had taken nearly twelve hours to clear the fourth level. Even Ren Suo had to breathe a sigh of relief before turning to Cultivation and his other work—the Palace boss had reactivated the Goddess Jade Pendant.

Besides, he owed the Tactical Bureau two papers this month.

Ren Suo looked at the text on the computer, a little surprised. So it really exists…

After completing *Infinite Intrusion*, Ren Suo began to doubt Ilina's background. He submitted the information about the 'Ancient Yellow River Wild God, Dou'—revealed in *Pass the Hat*—and conducted a search using the internal network's query function.

This query feature, it was said, would access the Mysterious Country's vast database for any search, as long as the query did not involve classified information. This database included almost all the textual information the Mysterious Country had preserved to date—indeed, since the turn of the 21st century, the advent of text scanners had made preserving ancient texts a breeze.

Ren Suo had once seen a scam advertisement online: 'Information entry clerks, 50 per thousand words.' He had sneaked into the group, shared links to an online store for text scanners and a smart text-recognition app for phone cameras, and was promptly kicked out the next second.

However, the internal network's search function was described as having an 'intelligent recognition' feature. It was capable of identifying keywords even if they had been 'replaced,' used homophones, or 'phrased differently'—sounding much like an enhanced version of a plagiarism checker.

Because of this, however, each search not only consumed Research Points but also took several days to complete, as many researchers and organizations used this function simultaneously.

Initially, Ren Suo hadn't held out much hope, so finding information on Dou surprised him. Moreover, this Dou was a deity traceable to before the Common Era; although not widely worshipped, continuous textual records of him existed.

That means the background information in the Mini-World Game Console is all real… Ren Suo pondered. But it still feels strange…

Ren Suo had never heard of Dou before, but now a search had turned up information on him.

He had also never heard of the Ren Family before, yet now the academic world could find traces of Ren Family Cultivators in various unofficial histories from the Late Eastern Han Dynasty.

Even for the three deities of the Jedi Priests, related antiques had recently been excavated, proving they had once had followers active on Earth.

Before Ren Suo played the game, none of them had caused any ripples. It was only after he started playing that they began to appear, one after another.

What exactly is my role…? A hero fighting against evil? But if I don't play, would evil even appear?

Just as a sliver of self-doubt began to creep into Ren Suo's mind, his phone suddenly went DING-A-LING.

It was the dinner alarm.

Ren Suo was slightly startled, his mood suddenly lightening.

Regardless, he had saved many people and brought hope to many: Euphy, Karen, the mountaineer, the civilians of the Late Eastern Han Dynasty, that bullied middle school boy, Dong Chengling…

His gaming experiences were not meaningless. Ren Suo couldn't control the game console; he was just a fortunate mortal, and the only thing he could truly control was himself.

Believing he was doing the right thing—that was enough.

"Alright, let's clear this Palace of Forbidden Fruit too!"

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