Chapter 117: The Truth of Hope

Lin Yifan heard Keluositin's words, momentarily stunned, couldn't help but ask:

"What exactly happened back then? Please, Mr. Kelisiting, could you tell me the whole story?"

"Since you want to know so badly, I'll tell you clearly!"

Keluositin slowly closed his eyes, his face showing recollection, and slowly began to speak:

"Everything started 300 years ago. At that time, the world where our Merfolk Tribe lived began to collapse due to resource depletion. The World Spirit, in order to give us living beings a path to survival, sent us all to the Survival Realm."

"Wait, Mr. Kelisiting, you said you're Merfolk?" Lin Yifan stared at Kelisiting's legs in surprise, then looked down at his own legs, utterly confused, and said:

"Merfolk shouldn't be like I am now? Why do you have legs?"

"Moreover, you were actually sent to the Survival Realm too? Since you're also Survivors, why did you become NPCs in the Instance?"

"Our fish tails turned into legs because our Life Tier evolved." Kelisiting opened his eyes.

"Actually, the innate physical conditions of our Merfolk Tribe are roughly the same as yours, Humans; only our strength is somewhat greater, and the only other difference is that you live on land while we live in the sea."

"When we first arrived in the Survival Realm, we had over ten billion people; after arriving, we were divided into 100,000 small districts, each district containing……"

"Each small district has 100,000 people; I know that." Lin Yifan picked up the thread, wryly smiling, and said:

"Because we are currently experiencing these."

Keluositin glanced at him and nodded:

"Since you already know these, I won't repeat the earlier part; I'll directly tell you what you don't know."

Keluositing pondered for a moment, then said: "According to the time you arrived in the Survival Realm, you should have just experienced the First Disaster and are about to face the Second Disaster."

"We were the same back then; every few days we would experience a disaster, sometimes a violent hurricane sweeping the entire region, tearing everything to shreds."

"Sometimes it was scorching magma erupting from underground, devouring all life; sometimes it was extreme cold frost, freezing everything, making time seem to stand still. Each disaster's arrival would take countless lives."

Keluositin's voice was low and slow, as if each word carried a heavy memory.

His gaze seemed to look past Lin Yifan to a distant past, an era filled with despair and struggle.

"Soon, the people of each district under the terrifying disaster kept dying; after a month, the district I was in had fewer than 20,000 people left."

"Then we underwent the first district merger; only then did we realize each district had different environments and rules, but the one thing they all shared was that the disasters never ceased."

"But after the merger, disasters continued unabated; although our Life Tier was also evolving and becoming ever more terrifying, death remained inevitable."

Keluositin's voice grew heavier: "Then it just kept going—people dying, dying until hardly any left, then merging districts, after merging, people kept dying."

"Later, we finally found hope for survival!"

Lin Yifan listened with trepidation; upon hearing this, his eyes lit up and he hurriedly asked: "What hope?"

Keluositin gave a wry smile: "Actually, it can't really be called hope for survival, because we haven't truly survived."

"We merely…… were forced to adapt to this world's rules, because we realized that only constant evolution could allow survival in the disasters."

"In the process of survival, we also discovered the existence of other tribes; we then learned from them and found our own path of evolution: studying magic to become mages!"

"But the prerequisite to becoming a mage is that we must first become human—that is, turn our tails into legs!" Keluositin took a deep breath, looked at Lin Yifan's fish tail with nostalgia, and said in a deep tone:

"The Merfolk Tribe's tail is our symbol and the source of our power; losing the tail is tantamount to losing half our lives for us."

"But to learn magic, we still chose to use the transformation fruit, turning our fish tails into legs, and then began studying magic."

"Although turning the fish tail into legs raised our Life Tier, our strength and vitality actually weakened, so we could only rely on magical power to protect ourselves."

"However, we discovered that not every Merfolk can cultivate magic; only a tiny minority with talent can cultivate magic, and those who cannot cultivate magic cannot evolve further, forever stuck in place."

"Thus, my people began dying in large numbers again; only those who cultivated to become mages could survive the disasters, even protect the tribe, and they became our tribe's hope."

"And the tribe, in order to receive the mages' protection, began to exhaustively support them; slowly, everything began to change!"

When he said this, Kelisiting's face showed a mocking smile, and he spoke with utter ridicule:

"Sometime ago, mages with magical talent became lofty gods, treating their fellow tribespeople who shared the same blood as slaves, continually exploiting and oppressing them."

"They merged with other races, formed alliances with the strong of those races, and began to wantonly enslave and exploit weaker tribes; beings that should have been protective gods became disasters more terrifying than the calamities."

"This…… Lin Yifan didn't know what to say for a moment, but upon reflection, everything seemed quite normal."

"Under the drive of profit, where is there any humanity left?"

"Today's humans have merely not yet reached that level, but if everything follows the Merfolk Tribe's path, human powerhouses will only exploit even more."

"However, from Kelisiting's remarks, Lin Yifan can actually summarize a few pieces of information."

"Although at first the Survivors each developed on their own, later they would gradually gather together and head toward tribal development."

"Then this world has many races; those people likely arrived earlier than them, so their numbers may be few, but their strength is absolutely formidable."

"Perhaps now, due to the rules, those powerhouses cannot act against these novice Survivors; otherwise, they would likely have already been captured and made slaves."

"But if we don't quickly develop our strength, becoming slaves in the future will also be inevitable."

"In that light, preserving the total number of humans might also be very necessary."

"Only with a huge population base can we nurture many talents and cultivate many powerhouses."

"And given human nature, it's highly unlikely they'd be willing to work as oxen and horses for others."

"More likely, they will unite together and fight to the end against other races!"

"So as long as enough of them survive, their future path will also become easier to walk."