Ender followed Ye Qingyun to his room. At first, he thought she would simply arrange some temporary lodging for him.
However, upon seeing the room, he couldn't help but feel that this girl was treating him exceptionally well.
"This world must have required an immense amount of resources to create. If I had to do it myself, it would probably take me many years to gather enough resources to guarantee success. And this girl really is good to me. Maybe I should destroy this planet and leave her as the sole survivor? No, it's better to just let her depart quickly and painlessly." he thought to himself.
What is real? What is illusion? As long as the will persists, everything is real.
God preserved Ender's will so that he could experience this world. In some sense, it could be said that this world was real.
In truth, the only difference between it and the vast universe outside lay in scale and some rules.
But that didn't matter. Even in universe, humanity's reach is limited due to expansion.
This configuration served both as a protection and a limitation for all species.
No race could conquer the entire universe, as the maximum speed of matter was always less than the speed of light.
The protective aspect ensured the survival of nascent divine races against true deities.
If true deities could travel anywhere in the universe at will, humanity would have gone extinct long before they evolved into Homo sapiens.
Ender's privilege was unique. God paid close attention to him, granting him special permission to live in a game-like world.
But what is the difference between a game and reality when every character in the game possesses independent thought?
They experience birth, aging, sickness, and death. They have nations, civilizations, cultures, languages, emotions, dreams, and aspirations.
There is essentially no difference. God simply used a method similar to creating a universe to construct this virtual world with minimal resources.
The reason for this approach was due to the rules of the universe. Universal laws represent logic and are immutable.
The only way to create phenomena like superpowers was to construct a virtual world where rules could be arbitrarily set, much like in a game.
Although he had already decided to let Ye Qingyun pass away peacefully, he still bowed his head and said:
"Thank you very much, Miss. This room is more than enough for me. I don't want to delay your work."
Ye Qingyun nodded and left.
After a while, someone brought him some items. It was a traditional black Chinese-style outfit, simple and inexpensive.
Alongside it were a few books containing basic knowledge about this world.
Ender immediately bowed his head, accepting the items, and said:
"Thank you for your care, Miss."
Even though Ye Qingyun was no longer present, Ender still expressed his gratitude to her, maintaining the appearance of someone humble, and indebted to her for granting him a new life.
The person who delivered the items nodded and then left, leaving Ender alone in the room.
After changing into the clothes, Ender looked a bit less like a beggar. Holding the books in his hand, he thought:
"I wonder how advanced the science in this world is. From what I've seen so far, it seems to suffer from a similar affliction to humanity back on Earth."
The "affliction" he referred to was their way of thinking.
Humans had been a divine race tens of thousands of years ago, yet they failed to recognize their true identity.
Without recognizing their identity, their mindset remained restricted. Limited to an animalistic level of thought, humanity's progress had been painfully slow.
If not for the intervention of the nine of them, who used their power to correct humanity's trajectory, humans would still be nothing more than a species of intelligent animals.
While it was true that Ender had contributed to humanity's progress, his sins were too great to forgive.
After all, he had once tried to turn Earth into a black hole, which would have resulted in humanity's extinction.
Flipping through the pages of the books to examine them, he hadn't read far before his brows furrowed, and he muttered:
"Martial souls? So this world really does feel like a damn game, with supernatural elements like these. God really knows how to play. Wait, according to this book, when one's body reaches a certain stage of development, they can awaken their martial soul. So, what is my martial soul?"
His curiosity wasn't something he could resolve on his own, so he figured he might as well ask Ye Qingyun for help to get a quick answer.
Reading further, he learned about the basic power structure of this world. The continent was called the Martial Soul Continent.
Although it was called a continent, it spanned the entire planet, making it extraordinarily vast.
Only the eastern third of the territory was inhabited by humans. The remainder was primarily the domain of soul beasts.
At the border between the human territories and the soul beast domain lay a disputed area.
While called "disputed", it wasn't overly dangerous because it was rare for human powerhouses or soul beast kings to linger there.
However, if either side—humans or soul beasts—ever wanted to expand their territory, this disputed area would inevitably become the battleground for a massive war.
As for humanity, there were only two major empires, each with a collection of insignificant dependent nations hardly worth mentioning.
The place where Ender was currently located was the Tian Qi Empire, while the opposing empire was Ming Ye. These two empires had maintained a state of balance for 3,000 years.
"Reading this just makes me realize how absurd this place is. They've been stuck in a kingdom-based civilization for tens of thousands of years. This is even worse than humanity back on Earth. They don't even bother with science. All they care about is cultivating martial souls."
The fundamental difference between humanity in the two worlds was the path they chose.
Humans on Earth, unsure of their ultimate destination, had chosen science almost by accident.
After the nine of them achieved immortality, they made the path God had left for humanity clearer.
Only then did most humans come to realize they were a divine race all along. Sadly, they had already wasted far too much time.
In this world, however, humanity had discovered a different path to immortality—cultivating martial souls.
Thus, they had no reason to choose something as nebulous and uncertain as science.
Instead, they opted for what seemed to them the easier and more straightforward path: cultivation.
But how could they know that science was the shortest and most powerful path God had left behind in any world He created?
"Hmm? The strongest force among soul masters? The Martial Soul Association? Elections? And there are two major clans that always win. This feels oddly familiar. There's a country like this back on Earth too." Ender muttered.