The World Tree

The main storyline of Palworld isn’t particularly complicated.

Whenever players enter a new region, they inevitably encounter islanders who need help. Somehow, they then become entangled with the Tower Boss ruling over that area and eventually challenge them.

Each Tower Boss has a distinctive personality.

By now, Zhong Yi and the others have challenged the tsundere brat Tower Boss Zuo Yi, the yandere Tower Boss Lily, who adores Pals, and the hot-blooded Tower Boss Axel.

In the original game, only Zoe had additional story content and could be captured.

Within the cultivation world’s illusionary realm, however, Lu Ze had adjusted the setting so that all of them could be captured.

There were conditions built into the system, though, and each one could only be captured once.

For example, Zuo Yi had a hidden favorability system, requiring players to repeatedly raise her favorability.

As for the hot-blooded Tower Boss Axel, he quickly hit it off with the equally straightforward Mu Yawen and became a teammate.

The most difficult to capture was Lily, the yandere Tower Boss who adored Pals.

That was because her hidden condition required the player to treat Pals gently.

Given the cultivators’ current attitude toward Pals, it was entirely possible that no one would meet this condition even by the day they cleared the game.

Once the players’ map progress reached the volcanic region, the danger level of the Pals began to rise visibly.

The Pals became more aggressive, and the probability of encountering frenzied Pals increased.

The difficulty of the boss battles also underwent a tremendous transformation, completely different from the child’s-play fights of before.

Blazamut, Jetragon, Astegon…

These bosses better matched the cultivators’ imagination of “great demons,” shattering the cute and fantastical filter that had defined the game earlier.

They were often as large as small mountains, radiating an overwhelming sense of pressure.

At this stage, the number of times players died began to rise steadily.

They were beaten to death after passing through a Pal’s territory, instantly killed by a boss’s ultimate attack, or had their base invaded by a frenzied Pal while they slept at night…

Lu Ze was raking in demonic points.

The ways they died varied wildly, but instead of becoming discouraged, the cultivators all lowered their heads and focused on increasing their strength.

After growing accustomed to the adorable art style, they found themselves even more eager to capture the powerful, fearsome great-demon Pals that suddenly appeared.

…

Zhong Yi’s illusionary world.

“Junior Brother Mu, my Jetragon is down… Get yours in here!”

“Shock it, shock it… It’s almost there! Just one more hit!”

“Hahaha! I caught it!”

Mu Yawen and Zhou Yue watched with immense excitement as the Blazamut was sucked into their Pal Sphere.

“Tch, it’s only a Blazamut. You’re making such a fuss over nothing.”

Zhou Qiaoling’s voice came through the team’s voice channel.

To everyone else, Blazamut was something they were seeing for the first time. But that wasn’t the case for Zhou Qiaoling.

When she was only level twenty-something, she had wandered into the volcano and picked up a Huge Scorching Egg. To her surprise, it hatched into a Blazamut. From then on, every battle suddenly became much easier.

“You don’t get it. A Blazamut with the Great Demon bloodline has better stats. And it’s huge—it looks awesome!”

Zhou Yue immediately shot back.

“Tch… What’s so special about Blazamut? The Ice-type Pal I’m looking at right now is the truly beautiful one…”

Deep in the frozen wasteland, Zhou Qiaoling was trembling from the cold, yet she excitedly licked her pale lips.

On the blue ice beneath her feet, a noble-looking Pal covered in snow-white fur was lying on the ice, taking a nap.

“This is definitely the most beautiful Pal I’ve ever seen! It has to be a legendary beast!”

“Oh? There are Pals like that? Once I get back, I’ll have to go study it…”

Zhong Yi’s voice came through intermittently.

“Senior Brother Zhong is still alive? Your method really works… Using Jetragon against it is incredibly effective!”

Mu Yawen happily stroked the Blazamut they had just captured, smiling with satisfaction.

They were only level forty-three, nearly ten levels below Blazamut.

Everyone knew that Water-type Pals countered Fire-types. However, a level forty-three Water-type Pal might not necessarily defeat this Fire-type great demon with the [Flame Emperor] trait—unless it was the Water-type king, Jetragon.

But that created another problem.

Jetragon was a full level fifty-five, even higher than Blazamut.

If they couldn’t defeat Blazamut, there was even less chance they could defeat Jetragon.

Zhong Yi had solved that problem for them.

As someone who spent every day researching breeding, Zhong Yi had borrowed Zhou Qiaoling’s Blazamut to hatch eggs. By sheer coincidence, he discovered a method that could be summed up as “Blazamut Gives Birth to All Things.”

One had to admit that Blazamut truly lived up to its pure great-demon bloodline of [Flame Emperor]. It had hatched many high-level Pals.

Jetragon was one of them.

Once they had obtained both a male and a female Jetragon, their strategy became much simpler.

Mu Yawen and Zhou Yue each brought five Jetragons. After grinding their levels up, they relied on constantly switching Pals and taking turns in battle to bring down Blazamut.

“Whoa! I’m dead, I’m dead… I’m going to die, I’m going to die… Aah!”

Suddenly, a series of anguished screams rang out through the team’s voice channel.

Zhou Yue and Mu Yawen looked at each other.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of panic on either of their faces.

To them, Zhong Yi’s screams were practically protective charms—hearing them made them feel inexplicably reassured.

“I can’t believe I survived… That was terrifying!”

Zhong Yi patted his chest, still shaken.

“Stop! Old Zhong, you’d better shut up right now!”

Zhou Yue hurriedly cut off Zhong Yi’s incantation.

At that moment, Zhong Yi was high above a vast ocean, on his way to the World Tree.

The World Tree was located in the far northwest of the Palworld.

Between them stretched an enormous expanse of ocean.

Zhong Yi had first thought of crossing the sea and heading to the World Tree after hatching Jetragon.

As the king of the seas, Jetragon’s movement speed on water was superb.

However, Zhong Yi failed on his first attempt to cross the ocean.

In his previous life, limited technical capabilities had made it difficult for the game to properly implement underwater and ocean combat.

Thus, even Water-type Pals mostly fought on land, while the sea itself was instead a safe zone.

There was no such concern in the illusionary realm. Lu Ze had simply made the illusion even more realistic.

Pals such as Surfent and Cryolinx, which had only shuffled around near the shore in the previous life, now roamed through the open ocean.

As a result, attempting to sneak to the World Tree during the early stages of the game was extremely difficult.

Zhong Yi soon found a solution, however.

Suzaku Aqua.

It was a Pal capable of moving through water, across land, and through the air. Whenever danger appeared, it could take flight and escape, and there was no need to worry about running out of stamina and drowning in the sea.

Using this method, Zhong Yi successfully crossed the ocean in secret. The enormous World Tree, which pierced straight into the heavens, gradually drew closer.

To his surprise, the closer he came to the World Tree, the calmer the surrounding sea became. There were also far fewer Pals.

The journey proceeded without obstruction. He arrived at an isolated island floating in the ocean and began climbing upward along the enormous vines and branches.

“How strange. Why do these glowing trees and stones disappear the moment I get close to them?”

Zhong Yi grew even more interested in the secret hidden within the World Tree.

Unfortunately, the path soon came to an end.

Between the inside of the World Tree and the outside world stood a colossal, ancient barrier.

It seemed that he needed to fulfill some kind of condition to pass through it.

Zhong Yi immediately thought of the hint he had seen at the beginning of the illusionary realm:

[The towers are the key. The great tree hides all the truth.]

“Looks like… I’ll have to advance the story.”

Zhong Yi shook his head, his eyes filled with anticipation.

The feeling of discovering something new every moment was utterly addictive to him.

And for good reason.

The version Lu Ze had brought over was the official release that had been polished over the course of two years in his previous life.

Much of Palworld’s content had borrowed elements from games that came before it.

So calling it a “Frankenstein’s monster” was not entirely unfair.

But there was simply so much of it that players could never get enough.

There was an absurd amount of content.

It was no exaggeration to say that many players might still have plenty of features they had never experienced, even after clearing the main storyline.

Fishing, for instance. The arena. Oil fields…

There was simply far too much to do in Palworld.

Many players would log in, tinker with this and that around their base, and suddenly discover that dawn was just around the corner.

Zhong Yi was feeling the same way now.

The World Tree, the breathtaking frost divine beast Zhou Qiaoling had mentioned…

At every stage, there was a clear objective drawing him onward, urging him to keep playing.