A hundred thousand origin crystals—this was what Gu Nan needed at present.
The exchange ratio of origin crystals for active world origins was 1:1, so he was only limited by the number of origin crystals and nothing else. However, with the increase of Gu Nan's Evil Value, the benefits brought by active world origins were gradually weakening.
Based on Gu Nan's estimate, the last 500 or so Evil Value he needed to advance to Tier 5 roughly translated to about 100,000 origin crystals.
But after reaching Tier 5, Gu Nan suspected that active world origins would no longer have any effect on raising his Evil Value—from the Evil God Temple's stingy temperament, it was normal that he'd need to change the method used to acquire Evil Value at every new level.
Now that Gu Nan looked back, everything was particularly clear.
Tier 1 was normal dungeons, Tier 2 was reincarnation, Tier 3 was Evil Events and personal dungeons, and Tier 4 was active world origins. Although there were some interruptions, the crux of the matter really was like this.
If not for the influence of a Godhead during this period, Gu Nan might've spent even more time pursuing the aforementioned activities and realized this pattern earlier.
But it didn't matter now. The current Gu Nan was only 100,000 origin crystals away from Tier 5.
So Gu Nan's offer to Zi Yi was exactly 100,000 origin crystals; any more would be useless. He wouldn't be able to spend it.
As for accepting Zi Yi's "employment" to help save Ying Ge and Zi Dian, Gu Nan had no psychological resistance—in any case, both Zi Yi's mission and Astral Gate's missions were missions, and Zi Yi's mission wasn't anymore troublesome than Astral Gate's!
"Then it's settled." Gu Nan said thus to Zi Yi, "Can you pay everything upfront first?"
"In your dreams!"
...
In a remote little world, Gu Nan and Zi Yi appeared in a loft.
"You really won't consider paying upfront?" Gu Nan was still working tirelessly to persuade her, "If you pay upfront, my strength will increase, and the rescue will be more assured!"
Zi Yi remained expressionless as she calmly walked out of the room, leaving a message, "I'm going to prepare the materials. We leave in three days."
As for Gu Nan's "suggestion" of paying upfront, Zi Yi completely ignored it.
"What a pity." Gu Nan shook his head.
Paying upfront would greatly improve Gu Nan's strength—this was true; after Gu Nan's strength improved, the chances of a rescue would also improve greatly—this was also true.
It's just that Gu Nan's claim that he would still help after his strength improved and after Zi Yi paid in advance was, of course, nothing more than a casual remark.
With players' moral integrity levels, it was all too normal for them to take the money and not do the mission. And after taking the money, some even hacked the NPC to death to loot equipment.
However, Gu Nan wasn't being serious either, because he knew that it was basically impossible for Zi Yi to pay in advance.
The reason was very simple: both sides were the best choice right now; it wasn't a purely unilateral market.
Out of certain considerations, Zi Yi could only ask Gu Nan for help right now. And as for Gu Nan, it would be extremely difficult to find another mission that rewarded 100,000 origin crystals besides Zi Yi's.
The purchasing power of origin crystals was very strong, especially for Void Cutter cultivators. Under normal circumstances, a Void Cutter would at most spend hundreds of origin crystals a year.
Although Gu Nan could eat active world origins like candy, other Void Cutter experts couldn't do the same. It took them years to learn from each observation.
At the end of the day, Zi Yi was still a Star Ruler existence, which was why she could take out 100,000 origin crystals at once. She had quite the deep pockets.
After Zi Yi left, Gu Nan also settled down and began to prepare for this mission—analyzing and assessing each mission in advance had been Gu Nan's habit for many years.
Ying Ge and Zi Dian's situation really wasn't good.
Ever since Zuo Zuo learned of Ying Ge's existence, he'd always been purposefully searching for them, but he hadn't made much progress.
After all, Zuo Zuo only just found out about Ying Ge, while Ying Ge was hiding in the dark and had made preparations for such a situation well in advance, so it was even more impossible for her to reveal any traces.
But Zuo Zuo was still someone capable of fighting with Red over Star Realm. He had too many methods. Even if he couldn't find Ying Ge's whereabouts for the time being, he could nevertheless still achieve his goal.
He didn't need to find Ying Ge; he just needed Ying Ge to die.
Thus, Ying Ge and Zi Dian were currently trapped—trapped in dreamland.
"Dream World…" Gu Nan flipped through the document in his hands, but his brow wrinkled slightly, because this small plane was too special.
Dream World was a small world located on the edge of the Myriad Heavens Universe. Like all small worlds on the fringe, it was at the junction of the Outer World and the Inner World.
But what was special about Dream World was that it exhibited the characteristics of the Inner World. It was still a normal world that couldn't be reset, yet it held the characteristics of the Inner World itself.
Yes, it was just a "World" Level plane, but it had the characteristics of the Inner World—that is, the "hub" of the world.
The balls of light in the Inner World were the cores and inner manifestations of all the countless planes in the Myriad Heavens Universe, which was why the Inner World was called the "hub" of the world, and the same was true of Dream World.
Here, one could find manifestations of the dreams of countless living beings in countless worlds.
To put it simply, all living beings gathered on this plane by means of "dreaming."
Gu Nan didn't particularly understand the principle behind this, but it didn't hinder his current mission—find Ying Ge and Zi Dian inside Dream World and kill them.
As long as he killed the living beings trapped in Dream World, he would be able to destroy their dreams, allowing them to escape. This was the simplest way.
But the more troublesome thing was that when people dreamed, their minds wouldn't necessarily be lucid, and most people might even completely lose their sense of judgment, only acting according to their instincts.
What was instinct? "If you want to kill me, then I'll kill you"—that was instinct.
But if you tried to explain to them just then: "You're actually dreaming, and I'm killing you to save you…" That would sound like utter nonsense. Nobody would believe it.
"Communication is impossible. We can only kill them." After combing through the mission information, Gu Nan quickly determined his victory condition.
And what was the condition for defeat?
Awkwardly enough, the condition for defeat was also Ying Ge and Zi Dian being killed.
Living creatures trapped in Dream World could be killed via special methods that would simultaneously erase their consciousness and cause their true bodies to enter a state of brain death.
To put it simply, what entered Dream World was a sliver of a living being's soul. Since it was the soul, there was certainly a way to trace it back to its origin and destroy the person's true body.
What Gu Nan and Zi Yi had to do was find and kill Ying Ge and Zi Dian before they could be killed by Zuo Zuo's people.
"This really is hard…" Gu Nan shook his head helplessly. Such a victory and defeat condition meant that not only was this mission full of difficult battles, but luck was also involved.
The luck component meant there was a time limit. Gu Nan and Zi Yi must race against time to find Ying Ge and Zi Dian.
If they were unlucky, maybe Ying Ge would've already died at the hands of Zuo Zuo's underlings before Gu Nan and Zi Yi even entered Dream World.
Sure enough, it wasn't easy to earn 100,000 origin crystals.