Chapter 782 Missing

“Osgiliath Rudolph? Duke Tulip?” Chen Xiaolian thought about it carefully before shaking his head. “I have never heard of the name before.”

“Of course not.” Miao Yan stood up, looking dazed. “He is not someone from your era. He is a legend from five thousand years ago.”

“Five thousand years ago?” Chen Xiaolian frowned. “Your history… is that long?”

“From the looks of it… inside this world that is of an even lower level, you and I are no longer under the system’s supervision.” Miao Yan released a faint sigh.

“Didn’t you always wanted to know what the Upper Plane is like?”

“So, you can tell me now?” Chen Xiaolian’s eyes lit up.

Although he had managed to comprehend and read the information within the wings, that information did not contain anything about the Upper Plane.

Chen Xiaolian had always been curious. Rather, every Awakened was curious, what did the Upper Plane that the Players resided in looked like?

However, no one in the Lower Plane could know about the relevant information regarding the Upper Plane.

In the past, in London, Miao Yan had answered this question once. But even though Chen Xiaolian was an Irregularity, he was still restricted by the laws of the system, causing him to lose all his memories of that time.

But this place – created using the seeds of the World Tree – was at an even lower level. It would seem that… they had escaped the control of the Development Team.

“Truth be told, if you had paid attention to how much time passed the last time, you should already know that the answer is not that complicated. I had only used five minutes to tell you about it,” Miao Yan said slowly.

“The Upper Plane and your world. Honestly, there’s not much difference.”

Chen Xiaolian focused on Miao Yan, not letting a single word coming out from her mouth escape his attention.

“You should have heard before that some Players fell in love with Awakened ones, right?”

“Yes.” Chen Xiaolian nodded. He thought back to the time when he had only just become an Irregularity. Back then, he had heard rumours about it.

“So, it should be easy to guess that we have the same appearance as you. At any rate, if you have to enter a different world inhabited by monsters with seven heads and eight hands, you would not feel any love for them, right?” Miao Yan revealed a faint smile.

“Yes.” Chen Xiaolian smiled as well.

“With the exception of the differences in writings and languages, our two worlds are practically identical. Even the level of technology is almost the same. We are probably… slightly higher in that regards. However, our mode of transportation is the same. Airplanes and cars. Our tools of communication are also the same, mobile phones.”

“However, the biggest difference between us lies in… the fact that our history is much longer than yours.

“Since we began recording, our Upper Plane has a recorded history of 20,000 years.

“Around 10,000 years ago, our Upper Plane has already progressed to this current stage… computers, mobile phones, airplanes, cars, etc. It is almost the same as Earth.

“But the problem began after that. Science stopped making any progress. The development of our entire world came to a halt, becoming stagnant.”

“For 10,000 years… not a single progress?” Hearing that, Chen Xiaolian found himself incapable of understanding. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“When something has existed for a sufficiently long time, everyone will become accustomed to it.” Miao Yan sighed softly.

“Perhaps, many years ago, things like scientists and researchers had still existed. But, possibly due to the inability to make any progress in all their researches during a certain period, and as time passed, everyone came to acknowledge our current situation.”

“Then… participating in the instance dungeons, what is it to you all?” Chen Xiaolian continued, “Would dying in instance dungeons mean true death for you people?”

“Naturally.” Miao Yan did not hesitate to nod her head. “If it weren’t for that, why do you reckon Players would fight to the death in instance dungeons?”

“Then why participate in instance dungeons?” Chen Xiaolian quickly asked the most important question.

“Our world, what exactly is it to you all?”

“Honestly, I am not too sure about that myself.” Miao Yan gave a wry smile. “Rather, there isn’t a single Player who could figure it out.

“Firstly, not all the inhabitants of the Upper Plane are Players. Most of them are just ordinary people living ordinary lives. Just like… the ordinary people in your world.”

“As for us Players, compared to the number of people in the Upper Plane, there are very few of us. The others do not know about our existence.

“We also do not know why we became Players. It is roughly the same as you Awakened ones. One day, a system suddenly appeared in our consciousness with a “ding”.

“Then, we received a message from the ones who call themselves the Development Team. They informed us that we have been selected to participate in the game.

“Other than issuing quests, the Development Team would have no other communication with us. They would just regularly issue quests and summon us into instance dungeons.

“Due to that, our knowledge about them is as little as you fellows.”

“In other words, you Players and us Awakened ones… there’s actually not much of a difference between us.” Chen Xiaolian digested what Miao Yan said.

“You fellows do not know the identities of the Development Team, what is the reason for participating in this game, and you also need to put your lives at risk here. It is as though…”

He suddenly broke into a smile. “You fellows do not have anything to deserve the ‘Upper’ title!”

“There are some.” Miao Yan shook her head. “There is at least one thing we can be certain of. Your world will be refreshed regularly while our world would not.

“It is as I’ve said, the number of Players in the Upper Plane is very small. Unlike you Awakened ones, we do not communicate with each other at all in real life.

“No Player would reveal their identity in real life. The names we use in the Lower Plane are all fake names. Take me for example, in the Upper Plane, I am not called Miao Yan.

“Outside of participating together in instance dungeons, even if they are members of the same guild, they would only communicate with one another using the guild channel. Trying to find out the real identity of other Players in real life, even that of a guild member, is the biggest taboo in the Upper Plane.

“Players who are not guild members would communicate with one another through the internet and share intel.

“When participating in the game in the Lower Plane, Players can end up dying for real, but new Players would constantly join. And so, this underground network for Players to communicate with one another has existed for 10,000 years.

“At the same time, the farthest we can trace back – in terms of history – is up to 10,000 years as well.

“That is also why we can record everything that happens in the Lower Plane.

“We could see that your world is constantly being refreshed. With every refresh, your world would be completely reset!

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

“Due to that, most of the Players are certain that this world that was prepared for us to descend into and participate in the game with instance dungeons is a virtual world, something on a lower level!”

“Refresh… how many times has it happened?” Chen Xiaolian took a deep breath.

“Five times.” Miao Yan had a very serious expression on her face. “Strangely though, the intervals between these five refreshes are not the same.”

“When?”

“The first refresh happened 5,000 years ago. Since then, it would be refreshed once every 1,000 years.” Miao Yan looked right at Chen Xiaolian. “It’s not an absolute. There would always be a difference of a couple years, give or take. Generally, though, it will always be around that. Additionally, it has been 992 years since the last refresh.”

“In other words, our world might be facing the next refresh at any time, right?” Chen Xiaolian sighed with a wry smile. “If so, doesn’t it mean that you Players could also fall in danger at any moment?”

“That won’t happen.” Miao Yan shook her head. “Before each refresh, the Development Team will stop issuing summons for instance dungeons. At the same time, they would forcibly log off all the high-level Players who are logged in even though they are not participating in any instance dungeons. Due to that, the refresh of the Lower Plane does not threaten us, except…”

“Except what?” Chen Xiaolian was quick to ask.

“Except for the first refresh,” Miao Yan said in a hushed tone. “The one that happened 5,000 years ago.”

“It has something to do with this fellow?” Chen Xiaolian was able to keenly sense the connection. Turning, he looked at the tombstone beside him.

“I do not know. No one knows.” Miao Yan shook her head. “However… the first refresh did indeed happen after Duke Tulip went missing.”