We Are the Palworld

As the game progressed, the grind required by the entire illusion realm was visibly increasing.

At first, the only materials available were wood, stone, Paldium fragments, and iron ore.

Every ten levels, new materials and new equipment would appear.

For a better gaming experience, players had to gather vast quantities of new resources to craft better equipment and Pal Spheres.

The game was becoming more and more of a grind.

Once they started, they would play for an entire day.

With any other game, players would have been complaining bitterly by now.

But Palworld was different. The more they grinded, the happier they became.

Lu Ze had never understood it before. But now that he was looking at everything from a god’s-eye view, he did.

It was because, although the players were working themselves to the bone, the Pals at their bases were working even harder.

The capitalists only had to lift a finger and issue an order. The Pals on the front lines of production, however, had plenty to worry about.

Exploiting the Pals was one of the game’s pleasures. Watching them frown and whimper as they worked made the players feel much better about all the grinding and exhaustion.

Sure enough, people never got tired when they were doing something bad.

Lu Ze was much the same. Every time he created an illusion realm, constructing the world with his divine sense at high intensity for ten days or half a month at a time, all he had to do was imagine the players’ wails of despair and the satisfying influx of demonic cultivation points. Much of his fatigue would immediately fade away.

Most importantly, cultivators were still cultivators. Once their cultivation reached a certain level, they could go without sleep or rest.

High-level cultivators could often grind through several consecutive all-nighters.

Of course, that only applied to high-level cultivators.

The majority of cultivators in the cultivation world were still ordinary Qi Refinement and Foundation Establishment cultivators.

The Outer Sect of the Spiritcloud Sect.

The sky was just beginning to brighten.

“B-Bad news! Senior Brother Huang, stop playing! It’s almost dawn, and we’re on duty today!”

A chubby menial disciple suddenly jolted awake from the illusion realm and shook the tall senior brother beside him.

“On duty? What duty...?”

The tall senior brother rubbed his dark-rimmed eyes, his voice somewhat dazed.

“We’re supposed to enter the mountains and dig for spirit ore today! We’re leaving in half an hour!”

The chubby menial disciple spoke anxiously.

“Hahahaha, mining? I just caught a Flame Dragon. With Mining Level Five, I can dig as much as I want... Huh?”

The tall disciple laughed halfway through his sentence before suddenly realizing that the other man was apparently not talking about something happening in the illusion realm.

He rubbed his eyes. It took quite a while for his blurry vision to clear.

The sky outside the window was growing pale. He had pulled another all-nighter.

Yesterday had been his day off, and he had immersed himself in Palworld for an entire day and night.

The moment he opened his eyes, he had to enter the mountains and mine ore.

A feeling of physical and mental exhaustion enveloped his entire body.

“Why do I feel like...”

“We’re the real Pals here???”

...

...

The Beast God Hall of the Beast Taming Sect.

“Lu Zhenchuan truly deserves his reputation as an illusion master favored by the Heavenly Dao... This illusion realm is simply marvelous!!”

Watching Taixu Mengchi’s expression gradually improve, He Muye was so excited that tears streamed down his aged face.

After the Corrupted Soul had been beaten into submission by the Heavenly Dao’s remnant spirit and obediently accepted the identity of the Withered Star Dragon, it had merged with the illusion realm perfectly.

The Corrupted Soul’s instinct was to cause the bloodlines of spirit beasts to decline and hunt cultivators.

The Withered Star Dragon’s racial talent, meanwhile, was to drain a planet’s energy, cause Pals to perish, and control frenzied Pals to attack players.

What a coincidence.

Therefore, after the ancient storyline on the main server had been completed, the Corrupted Soul was having the time of its life.

Every day, it controlled frenzied Pals and randomly selected one lucky player to torment.

As the Corrupted Soul’s resentment gradually shifted into the world of Palworld, Taixu Mengchi’s condition in the real world improved more and more. Its body grew visibly larger.

When Lu Ze had first seen it, it had been only the size of a puppy. Now, it was already taller than He Muye.

“At this rate, we’ll be able to interrupt the seal and isolate the resentment tomorrow!”

He Muye excitedly clenched both fists.

What he wanted to do was separate the Corrupted Soul from Taixu Mengchi’s soul.

Although doing so would still damage the foundation of its soul, it would ultimately be far better than allowing it to be tormented by the Corrupted Soul for the rest of its life.

“Don’t be hasty, Sect Leader He.”

Lu Ze shook his head calmly.

The moment he thought of the Corrupted Soul sharing the Pals’ senses, and of how the players were currently straying ever farther down the path of capitalism...

He had a feeling that perhaps this resentment would not need to be isolated at all.

“Let’s wait two more days. Maybe... the Corrupted Soul can actually be cured?”

...

...

Luofeng Continent, Illusion Alliance headquarters.

Deep in a secret pocket dimension at the heart of the headquarters.

The fingers of the alliance leader, “Heart Demon,” twitched slightly.

The next moment, the hollow eyes behind the Four Symbols Mask suddenly opened.

“Heart Demon” abruptly sat up and touched the mask on his face. There were no signs that it had been tampered with.

He looked around the area, his brows drawing together slightly.

“Alliance Leader, you’re awake!?”

Sensing Heart Demon’s awakening, White Crane’s figure instantly appeared within the pocket dimension.

“How long... was I asleep?”

Heart Demon held his mask, his mind racing.

“Two months and three days... Alliance Leader, what happened?”

White Crane hesitated, unable to conceal his curiosity.

That day, everyone had joined forces to activate the Heaven and Earth Four Symbols Formation. After deducing information from Lu Ze’s Illusion Tower, Heart Demon had suddenly fallen unconscious.

His vital signs were normal, and his spiritual meridians were functioning normally. Yet he seemed to have lost his soul, and no one could wake him.

They had speculated that Lu Ze had tampered with the Illusion Tower.

But no matter how hard they tried, they could not understand how Lu Ze, with his cultivation, had managed to catch a Body Integration cultivator like Heart Demon off guard.

“Heh. Perhaps he borrowed the Heavenly Dao’s techniques...”

Heart Demon’s gaze turned cold.

Recalling the peerless ball of light he had seen that day, Heart Demon knew that the secrets within it ran extremely deep.

Although Lu Ze’s cultivation was far inferior to his own, Lu Ze had found a clever loophole.

While the Heaven and Earth Four Symbols Formation was breaking through the technique, it had triggered some sort of switch during the reverse deduction process, using the spiritual energy within the formation to reconstruct the Heavenly Dao Incense-Burning technique.

Therefore, the one who had activated that technique had not been Lu Ze, but Heart Demon himself.

Caught without any preparation, even Heart Demon could only fall victim to it, his divine sense sinking into an endless labyrinth.

“Let’s put that matter aside for now...”

“Tell me about the recent developments.”