novelraw Chapter 93: The Mythical Species Hypothesis
Chapter 93: The Mythical Species Hypothesis
After lunch, Cynthia led Fly down to the villa's basement.
The decor here was a stark contrast to the other floors. The ceiling, floor, and walls were all a uniform, pristine white, and the room was partitioned into several distinct zones.
The space was filled with punching bags, sparring bots, and even a regulation-sized combat arena. It was designed exactly like a martial arts dojo.
In the northwest corner of the room sat a massive black crystal orb. It emitted a cold, metallic sheen. Thick black tubes and cables extended from its back, snaking off into some unknown destination.
Muse was already waiting for them. Without wasting a single word of small talk, he led Fly straight over to the black crystal orb.
"Beast Totem Card," Muse said, offering no extra explanation. He pressed his palm against the crystal orb and instructed Fly to take out his card.
A stream of azure light slowly seeped from beneath Muse's palm. Following a crisp click, a rectangular slot popped out from the other side of the orb.
Although the design was different, staring at the black crystal orb before him, Fly couldn't help but be reminded of the testing orb from the Power Assessment Test.
With that, Fly pulled his Beast Totem Card from his pocket and inserted it into the slot.
Instantly, the azure light beneath Muse's palm flared with blinding intensity, surging forward to engulf Fly.
Faced with the piercing light, Fly instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. Only after five or six breaths did he feel the glare beginning to fade. He slowly opened his eyes once more.
"Is this... my Sea of Consciousness?" Fly looked around, finding himself standing inside a damp, frigid cave. This highly unusual setting immediately reminded him of the habitat of his Beast Totem's origin.
Weren't we supposed to be evolving my Beast Totem?
Why did I get dragged into my Beast Totem's origin habitat?
Muse shot Fly a glance and said, "You must be feeling pretty confused right about now."
Fly remained silent, merely offering a slight nod.
"As I mentioned before, the 'Evolution' technique I utilize is fundamentally different from what everyone else uses."
"Other methods involve implanting a stronger Beast Totem's power into the original one, forcibly making the new power overwrite the old. While this artificial mutation technology is highly matured, it is far from perfect. The quality of a Beast Totem evolved through such means can never compare to a naturally born one."
"My Evolution technique, however, aims to fully draw out the latent potential naturally residing within the Beast Totem itself."
"But the source of your Beast Totem's power is incredibly complex and chaotic. The machines couldn't analyze it properly."
"Therefore, I needed to take a trip into your Inner Realm to see things for myself first."
"Based on what I'm seeing, there are two potential paths for your Beast Totem's evolution. The first is to continue along the original close-quarters combat route of the 'Thunder-Roach'. The second is to pivot towards a mage-style 'The Roach Wizard' route."
Muse broke down the evolutionary choices for Fly.
"The Roach Wizard, obviously," Fly replied without a second's hesitation.
During the Freshman Invitational, the sight of Skaar's The Phantom Hivequeen commanding an army of spectral wasps had left a profound impression on Fly. Just imagine—if he could control his own army of Spectral Roaches to battle his opponents just like Skaar did, what an overwhelming advantage that would be!
"Don't jump to conclusions just yet. Let's go take a look first." With that, Muse pushed the joystick on his electric wheelchair, venturing deeper into the subterranean kingdom of the roaches.
Seeing this, Cynthia quickly quickened her pace to keep up.
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After all, this was a cavern inhabited by roaches. They didn't exactly share human concepts of interior design. At best, you could say the layout was perfectly adapted to roach habits.
Walking through the cave wasn't much of an issue for a person, but navigating a wheelchair was a different story.
Worried that Muse's wheelchair might catch on the uneven, bulging ground, Cynthia had to stay close to Muse's side, following him carefully.
As the trio delved deeper, various massive roaches began to emerge. The massive interior space of the underground cavern also made Cynthia feel the insignificance of humanity.
"Fly, did your teachers never mention anything to you about the sheer number of these roaches?" Cynthia couldn't help but ask.
She had been keeping track of their numbers from the start. They hadn't been in the cave for long, yet she had already spotted more than twenty giant roaches scuttling about.
Maintaining such a massive swarm of roaches would undoubtedly drain a colossal amount of resources.
And what was this place?
Within Fly's Sea of Consciousness!
As for their food source? Fly's own Psychic Energy, of course.
Even though it was possible the roaches cannibalized each other, just as the energy of Earth's biosphere comes from the sun, the energy here ultimately originates from Fly's Psychic Energy.
Raising this many roaches all at once... Fly, can your body even handle the toll?
Could Fly's teachers really be ignorant of such a basic concept?
Or perhaps...
Because Fly came from an ordinary background, he was deliberately ostracized by the faculty?
"Well, about that..." Fly chuckled. Dean Sterling had indeed warned him about this very issue. He was simply the one who stubbornly chose to keep things this way.
Just as Fly was about to explain, Muse stepped into the conversation.
"While Star City High might not hold a candle to places like Sovereign High, the majority of their teachers are incredibly dedicated and responsible. Every year, they feed plenty of fresh blood into various Martial Studies universities."
"If Fly hasn't immediately discarded these relatively weaker Spectral Roaches, he must have his own reasons."
"My guess is..."
"Fly is raising a Gu-horde. By gradually cutting off the Psychic Energy supply here, he's forcing these Spectral Roaches into a deathmatch, ensuring that only the absolute strongest specimens survive."
Muse voiced his deduction.
"So that's how it is..." Dawn broke on Cynthia's face.
The ones that survive a bloody massacre are the true apex predators?
A flash of surprise flickered in Fly's eyes.
He never expected Muse to see through his plan with a single glance.
Is this the true weight of a Grandmaster Realm Beast Warrior?
Or perhaps Muse had witnessed a similar situation in the past?
"Does this kind of thing happen with the origins of other people's Beast Totems too?" Fly pressed.
"This world of ours is incredibly vast," Muse said, gently shaking his head.
"Vast enough that humanity remains profoundly ignorant when it comes to Beast Totems."
"Take Mythical Species totems, for instance."
"Over thirty years ago, scientists proposed that Mythical Species totems were amalgamations—combinations of natural creatures infused with elemental forces of nature, such as fire, wind, thunder, and water."
"Only a highly exclusive group of genius Cardwrights were capable of creating Mythical Species Beast Totems."
"Cardwrights?" Fly paused, caught off guard. It was the first time he'd ever heard the term.
"They are individuals who make their living through Cardcrafting—specifically, forging Beast Totem Cards," Muse explained. "It is one of the exceedingly rare professions that commands even more respect than a Beast Warrior."
"Whether they live in clans or in isolation, one thing is certain: they are highly secretive and almost never interact with anyone outside their own circles. Because of this, the current popular theories regarding how Beast Totem Cards are crafted are nothing more than outsider hypotheses. No one knows the actual truth."
"Due to the limited understanding of Beast Totems at the time, some even believed that Mythical Species Beast Totems were divine blessings bestowed upon humanity by the gods."
"But, as technology advanced, people began utilizing cutting-edge machinery to analyze Mythical Species Beast Totems. They even figured out how to extract Mythical Species genes and transplant them. This forms the basis of the artificial mutation technology so common today."
Hearing this, Fly felt the name Gideon King involuntarily surface in his mind.
"But this gave rise to a new paradox," Muse continued. "If, as originally claimed, Mythical Species Beast Totems are simply a patchwork of various natural animals fused with a touch of nature's elemental forces, why can stable, unified genes be extracted from them?"
"As we all know, genes from entirely different species do not fuse together stably."
"Thus, that particular cardcrafting hypothesis fell apart entirely."
Muse paused for a moment, seemingly weighing his words before he carried on.
"Yet, as humanity continued to explore The Martial Sanctum, people gradually began claiming that they had spotted the silhouettes of Mythical Species Totem Beasts within."
"Some even managed to snap photographs."
"As similar evidence continued to pile up, several scholars proposed an audacious hypothesis."
"The true source of Mythical Species is very likely not our real world at all."
"Or, to be more precise, they hail from some alternate world that intersected with our own. At some point, for reasons unknown, the gateway connecting that world to ours was sealed shut. Because of this, no one saw them for an agonizingly long time, and humanity's memories of them slowly faded into myth as the years rolled by."
"But over the last century, for some inexplicable reason, those gateways have been torn open once more. Humans have finally come into contact with Mythical Species Totem Beasts again, utilizing their genes to forge Mythical Species Beast Totem Cards."
"Those genius Cardwrights?" Fly asked, his voice laced with shock.
"Perhaps," Muse replied. "Though this is merely a popular hypothesis circulating within a small, exclusive circle of Beast Warriors. As for the actual truth, I'm afraid no one outside of those ancient Cardwright lineages truly knows."