“Spiritual energy?
You mean that unknown energy circulating within this mountain range?” Eris, goddess of discord, reached her hand into the void.
With divine sight, she could perceive that unfamiliar energy—something that had never appeared in this world before.
“Its activity is incredibly strong.
It’s practically tailored to strengthen a living being’s body and soul.” Phobos, goddess of terror, spoke in a tone full of disbelief.
The world of Danmachi possessed the concept of magic.
But that was a form of biological energy converted from mental power and used to cast spells, not a natural energy that permeated heaven and earth.
Yet what the Celestial Emperor called spiritual energy clearly belonged to the latter—an energy freely circulating throughout the world itself, whose primary function was to strengthen body and soul…
It could only be described as wondrous.
That other world they anticipated might be even more interesting than imagined.
“That’s right.
Compared to this world’s Falna system, which is built upon great feats, the cultivation system of the Vast Expanse—built upon spiritual energy—is far more convenient.” After capturing Ares, Tian’el naturally obtained the crystallized wisdom of the gods—namely, all the information regarding this world’s Falna system.
It was a transcendent system unique to this world.
At its core lay a contract system engraved through divine blood, granting mortals an ability akin to a character growth panel.
It quantified “experience.” As long as one trained, one’s basic ability values would grow.
However, upon reaching the current level’s limit, growth would be halted.
Only by accumulating sufficient “great feats”—achievements that even the gods, viewing them from their lofty perspective, would deem truly great—could one break through the limit and level up.
There was no doubt that the threshold for accomplishing great feats was extremely high.
It could even be said that ordinary people would never touch it in their entire lives.
Even in Orario, the center of the continent where adventurers and gods gathered, more than half of all adventurers remained stuck at Level 1.
Merely reaching Level 2 was enough to earn the title of a high-class adventurer.
And that was only because Orario possessed the Dungeon as a dedicated leveling ground, rich in monster resources.
In contrast, in Rakia—with nearly a hundred thousand combat personnel—the overwhelming majority were merely Level 1 soldiers.
Fewer than a hundred commanders had reached Level 2, and as for Level 3, there were only a handful.
Matching the difficulty of leveling up was, naturally, the reward after doing so— Every time an adventurer leveled up, all their basic abilities would reset to zero, forming the foundation of the next level, and on that basis they would gain new skills.
The crucial point was that each level increase brought about a fundamental sublimation of both body and mind.
In this world, fighting above one’s level was nearly an impossible miracle.
Numerical superiority meant nothing at all.
“The Falna system places excessively high demands on willpower.
And with the restriction of divine blood, it’s neither suitable for widespread adoption nor conducive to stable order.” In Tian’el’s view, the transcendent system of this world was rooted entirely in the soul and will—not in the body or in energy.
This was evident from the skills and magic of many adventurers.
In this world, whether skill or spell, everything was tied to the individual adventurer’s interests and convictions.
It was the manifestation of their innermost desires, awakened through divine grace.
Without a doubt, this was a system designed specifically to cultivate heroes.
Ordinary people lacking steadfast will, brilliant souls, and heaven-defying fortune should not even think about advancing far along this path.
And the emergence of world-saving heroes was fundamentally at odds with peaceful and stable order.
They were like wandering knights in martial arts novels—capable of compensating for imbalance when order faltered, yet incapable of founding or building a flourishing dynasty.
Many of them were little more than brutes who caused destruction and slaughtered innocents.
Thus, adventurers were merely adventurers.
The future Three Realms would certainly not lack such individuals.
But the foundation would still be ordinary citizens.
The Falna system could serve as a reference—but it could only ever flourish within a limited scope.
Tian’el still needed to create a more suitable cultivation system for the Vast Expanse.
“Uh…
we didn’t think that far ahead at the beginning.” One subordinate god spread his hands, a nostalgic look flashing in his eyes.
“When we first created the Falna system, we used ourselves as the reference standard.
So the requirements for willpower might have ended up just a tiny bit high.” Tian’el was not surprised by this explanation.
Any world’s transcendent system either gradually develops from nothing while adapting to its environment—or directly imitates naturally powerful beings.
The Falna system was clearly the latter— The foundation of the gods lay in their souls, connected to Heaven—ageless and undying, capable of resurrection even if they fell.
Divine power and physical bodies were merely incidental.
Thus, the Falna system naturally imposed extremely high demands upon the soul and will.
“Back when we first came up with this thing under the leadership of several great gods, we even imagined that one day, perhaps a child of the lower world might refine their vessel to the absolute limit and ascend to Heaven to become one of our kind.” “Unfortunately, a thousand years have passed.
The strongest among adventurers has only reached Level 9.
Who knows how far away that goal still is?” Phobos shook her head in regret.
In this world, there had never been a taboo forbidding mortals from touching the domain of the gods.
On the contrary, these ancient relics who had long grown bored were eager for the lower world to produce a multitude of dazzling souls that could astonish the gods.
Should a war ever erupt between Heaven and the mortal realm, it would surely be a most exquisite game.
But unfortunately, in just a thousand years, the Falna system had clearly not developed to that extent.
It could even be said that compared to the peak period more than a decade ago—when several Level 8 and Level 9 adventurers appeared in succession—the present age had regressed significantly.
Excluding gods and monsters, the two most powerful beings on the entire continent were merely Level 7.
“That’s only natural,” Tian’el commented matter-of-factly.
“A system that relies on great feats—on creating miracles again and again at the brink of death in order to level up—will inevitably see its path narrow the further one walks.” It was a simple truth.
A miracle was called a miracle precisely because it could not be predicted.
Luck would not forever favor any single individual.
Yet adventurers had to stake their lives on the gambling table again and again.
They might win once, twice—even seven or eight times.
But they could not win forever.
And losing even once meant eternal damnation.
As for bringing the Falna system to its ultimate end—truly becoming an immortal existence equal to the gods?
Forget it.
Surely no one believed that reaching Level 10 would equate to stepping into the domain of the gods?
Placed within the Vast Expanse, even Level 9 would merely stand at the peak of low-tier exotic beasts.
One would still need to cross three major realms beyond that to correspond to the mid-tier exotic beasts equivalent to the gods of this world.
In other words, if one could only progress step by step, level by level, without some special mechanism akin to the Magic Gods of A Certain Magical Index, the Aeons of Honkai: Star Rail, or Madoka’s ultimate apotheosis in Puella Magi Madoka Magica—then an adventurer would need to reach at least Level 28 to truly rival an ordinary god of Heaven.
Setting aside whether anyone possessed such heaven-defying fortune—surviving after creating twenty-seven consecutive great feats— The key problem was that even if the Dungeon were completely cleared out, it might not produce enough high-level monsters to support that many level-ups.