271: Chapter 272 The Mythical Realm Appears

Su Qingyue stayed in Lin Muyang's study for almost half the night.

Under the soft light of the psionic lamp, she bent over a light screen piled high with data, her expression focused as her fingertips quickly swiped through streams of data and complex statistical charts. Lin Muyang sat on a nearby sofa, quietly flipping through ancient books about the essence of elements, occasionally looking up to see the former beautiful homeroom teacher's efficiency and sharp insight in her professional field.

Outside the window, the night in the Eternal Garden was deep, with only a few scattered lights in the distance reflecting the bright screen light inside the study.

Finally, Su Qingyue stopped her movements, let out a soft sigh of relief, and rubbed her slightly aching brow. She was draped in a soft windbreaker that Lin Muyang had placed on her earlier; it carried his faint scent, giving her a sense of peace and warmth.

“The analysis is mostly done.” She looked up at Lin Muyang and began to report her findings, her voice clear and organized. “First, one thing is certain: a mythic grade existence is not a conventional Dungeon, but a secret realm with a larger scale and more complex rules.”

“The number of people entering these secret realms is basically over twenty, making them massive in scale. According to global records from the last thirty years, they appear between 1 to 5 times a year, with significant fluctuations.”

“As for the locations...” Su Qingyue pulled up a world map marked with the coordinates of mythic grade secret realms over the years, which seemed to have no pattern at all. “It's completely random. In some years, three could appear consecutively within the borders of the Xia Country; in other years, there might not be a single one around the Xia Country, with all of them refreshing on the far side of the ocean or in uninhabited polar regions.”

She enlarged a detailed list marked with a timeline: “According to this record, so far this year globally, a mythic grade secret realm has only appeared once near the Nesia Archipelago in Southeast Asia. That time, a super-luxurious team of twenty-eight people was temporarily formed by drawing the top Nation-Guarding Level and quasi-Nation-Guarding Level Experts from various countries to enter and clear it.”

Su Qingyue's tone became more serious: “According to the limited declassified battle reports afterward, that conquest took nearly a month and was extremely brutal. Two powerful Nation-Guarding Level Experts were lost during the process, and they only barely managed to clear it in the end. Although the rewards were huge, the price was heart-wrenching.”

She switched pages to display abstracts of academic papers and expert opinions from various research institutions: “Synthesizing the prediction models of these top researchers, they generally believe that the next appearance of a mythic grade secret realm should be coming soon. A key argument is that the average interval between the appearance of mythic grade secret realms is shortening in a slow but certain trend. A situation like this year, where only one has appeared so far, has been very rare in the last decade. One theory suggests that as the time since humanity entered the class-change era continues to accumulate, the energy activity of the entire Blue Star is increasing. The high-level secret realms being catalyzed are not only increasing in difficulty, but their frequency of appearance may also be accelerating.”

Lin Muyang nodded thoughtfully after listening. “In other words, Blue Star itself seems to be entering a high-magic or high-energy activity period? The overall trend of appearing secret realms is that their levels are getting higher and their scales are getting larger. So theoretically, it's not impossible for a heaven-opening grade secret realm, which surpasses the mythic grade, to appear one day?”

This deduction caused his emotions to stir slightly. If he could directly enter a heaven-opening grade secret realm, wouldn't he have the chance to obtain treasures of a higher grade than heaven-opening grade equipment? In that case, how terrifyingly solid would the foundation he used for his Level 100 breakthrough be?

But the question was, when exactly would a heaven-opening grade secret realm appear on Blue Star? There were currently no definitive answers to this crucial question concerning his future path, not even reliable theoretical predictions.

However, Lin Muyang's thoughts shifted to another direction of investigation.

“Alice...” he mused. “The cycle of entering something similar to a class-change era in her home world has lasted for hundreds of years, far longer than Blue Star's. The history of secret realm development in that world might provide us with an important reference template. We can have her find a way to investigate the time points, background conditions, and developmental context of the first appearance of mythic grade, or even higher-level secret realms in that world's history.”

This idea was feasible. Although he currently couldn't accompany Alice back to her world in person, he could have her use a Disguise to infiltrate human society there, go to libraries, academy archives, or use their information networks to investigate. With Alice's strength and wisdom, it shouldn't be difficult to complete this investigation task.

Of course, there were bound to be risks. The biggest risk was her identity being exposed—a Vampire Progenitor blending into a human city. However, Lin Muyang had a countermeasure. Seraphina possessed a mythic grade Disguise skill that could not only change her own appearance and aura but could also be applied to others. With her help, forging a perfect human identity for Alice would not be difficult.

The only concern was whether the top experts of Alice's home world possessed the ability to see through a mythic grade Disguise. This point could not be fully guaranteed.

“But thinking carefully,” Lin Muyang quickly weighed the options, “we are just going to investigate public historical records and academic research, not to infiltrate some top-secret organization or provoke local peak existences. Going to ordinary university libraries, city archives, or even just accessing their civilian networks to search, the probability of encountering an expert of that level is minuscule. As long as Alice acts low-key and doesn't proactively cause trouble, the safety factor should be very high.”

Moreover, Lin Muyang had a stable soul contract connection with her. If any uncontrollable danger occurred, he could instantly forcibly recall her to Blue Star, ensuring nothing went wrong.

“This plan is worth a try.” Lin Muyang made a preliminary decision in his heart. Of course, the specific execution didn't need to be rushed tonight; everything would be decided after discussing it in detail with Alice and Seraphina tomorrow.

Just then, a somewhat hurried but excited knock came from outside the study door, accompanied by Shen Muyao's crisp voice: “Lin Muyang! Are you in there? There's urgent news!”

“I am, come in,” Lin Muyang replied.

The door was pushed open, and Shen Muyao darted in like a cheerful skylark. She was wearing comfortable loungewear, her face flushed with obvious excitement. Seeing Su Qingyue there and draped in Lin Muyang's clothes, her large eyes blinked with a flash of mischief, but her attention was immediately occupied by more important matters.

“I just received an encrypted urgent message from a member of the Oracle Organization!” Shen Muyao stepped up to Lin Muyang and handed him her phone, which displayed a message that had just been decoded. “He said that deep in the Amazon rainforest within the Republic of Goya in South America, an energy vortex fluctuation suspected to be a mythic grade secret realm entrance has been monitored! The coordinates are attached!”

“Oh?” Lin Muyang raised an eyebrow and took the phone to check carefully. Su Qingyue also leaned in curiously.

“What a coincidence?” Su Qingyue said in surprise. “We were just analyzing the patterns of mythic grade secret realms and speculating that the next one might appear soon, and then... here it is?”

“It seems Teacher Su brought good luck.” Lin Muyang looked at Su Qingyue and made a joke.

“That's not it...” Su Qingyue's face reddened slightly, and she shook her head. “I feel like I can't be of any real help here other than looking at data...”

“Don't say that,” Lin Muyang said seriously. “From the early stages of the class change until now, the data you've organized and the information you've coordinated have played a significant role. Professional people do professional things; data analysis is a crucial link.”

“Exactly, exactly,” Shen Muyao also took Su Qingyue's arm and said affectionately, “Teacher Su, don't go back tonight, okay? There are plenty of empty rooms in the garden anyway. Just stay with me; we haven't chatted in a long time!”

“Ah? Okay.” Su Qingyue was a bit helpless against Shen Muyao's enthusiasm, but she readily agreed. Seeing the harmonious relationship between the two women, Lin Muyang was also much more at ease.

His attention returned to the message on the phone. Detailed intelligence showed that the discoverer was a peripheral member of the Oracle Organization stationed in South America, responsible for monitoring psionic anomalies in specific areas. Using hidden monitoring equipment, he captured an unusually strong and stable spatial vortex signal on the edge of a dangerous area known as the Serpents Nest in the Amazon rainforest. Its characteristics highly matched the mythic grade secret realm entrances recorded in the database.

It was worth noting that after discovering this major intelligence, this member did not follow the regular procedure to report it to his country's official institutions. Instead, he chose to report it directly through the Oracle Organization's internal encrypted channel to the higher-ups interfacing with Shen Muyao. This was clearly aimed at Lin Muyang.

“It seems the name Lin Muyang has more prestige and attraction within the Oracle Organization than I imagined.” Lin Muyang smiled. “Being able to make them give up potential national rewards and merits to send the information directly to me shows a lot of sincerity in this gesture of loyalty. It feels good to have valuable information and talent gravitate toward me voluntarily.”

Since the existence of a mythic grade secret realm was confirmed, Lin Muyang naturally had to start preparing. He carefully read the subsequent evaluation report.

This was a 32-person mythic grade secret realm with a recommended entry level of 188. Both the scale and level were higher than many previously recorded mythic grade secret realms. This seemed to confirm Su Qingyue's analysis that the overall difficulty of secret realms appearing on Blue Star was climbing. In the past, epic-grade secret realms started at Level 100, legendary-grade ones were generally above Level 150, and mythic grade ones were basically over Level 200. Now, the threshold for this mythic grade secret realm had actually dropped to Level 188, which meant the average level and strength of the monsters inside might be more concentrated and terrifying.

The report also mentioned that the Serpents Nest area, where the secret realm entrance was located, had long been occupied by a group of Mythical-grade Demonic Creatures called Abyssal Forest Anacondas. Human adventurers rarely dared to set foot there, and even if they did, most became food for the anacondas. Therefore, although this secret realm entrance might have been formed for some time, it had never been officially discovered or recorded by the human world.

Lin Muyang could even imagine that if it weren't for him, after learning about this secret realm, countries around the world would have had to pay a huge price and form a massive coalition to clear out the peripheral 'Abyssal Forest Anaconda' group and attempt to conquer this unprecedented 32-person mythic grade secret realm. Even if they succeeded, the casualty figures would probably be shocking.

But with him, everything was different.

“A mythic grade secret realm...” A sharp light flashed in Lin Muyang's eyes, the anticipation of seeing the road ahead. “In it, I will surely be able to harvest heaven-opening grade equipment or core materials! By decomposing them, I can obtain heaven-opening grade elemental essence!”

This would be the key opportunity for his Level 100 breakthrough!