"So... what are we going to do?" Aurae asked after a few minutes of silence, trying to work through her frustration alone.
"Well, if we're lucky, we'll have a fourth God in our world by the time the enemies reach the Spiritual World," Vico commented to her. "Makai may succeed in his advance in the next decade."
"Makai?" Aurae immediately thought of the strongest being in the world, an old acquaintance of hers, one of the oldest beings in the world in this generation. "Did he get a Divine Medicine? I heard that the medicine of the Sky Whales would take 29,000 years to mature."
"He found a wild Divine Medicine. That guy is really lucky." A level 99 elf commented.
"So that's it. Is he in the middle of his seclusion right now? How long has it been since he started?"
"About four years, ma'am." Another elf answered her question.
"I see. I feel that he will not fail. In fact, I feel that anyone with the minimum talent and resources will succeed in their advancements starting from today." She commented as she cooled her head and talked about what she had felt during her breakthrough.
"What do you mean?" Vico asked her.
One of the level 99 elves standing around the large Tree of Life asked. "Does it have to do with a last effort before death?"
"Yes, it does," Aurae confirmed an ancient elven theory that when the world was in danger of ending or being completely exhausted by something, the world itself would change its laws to continue to exist.
As was already known, this world was alive and depended on the "metabolism" of important spiritual organisms to function as it did.
As a living being, it could work below what it was capable of, which usually resulted in temporary weakening, or it could work above what it was capable of, which resulted in overgrowth.
The latter had never happened in the entire history known to the creatures of this world, but the former had happened a few times.
In any case, the elves had this theory that the world would try to defend itself if it was attacked by something capable of destroying it. The method of defense was quite simple: to facilitate the cultivation of the natives of the planet itself so that they could fight off the threats.
As she progressed, Aurae felt that things were easier than she had expected. When she discovered that Vico and Maximillian had also advanced and that an unexpected Divine Medicine had appeared for Makai, she couldn't help but feel that the world was helping them.
She explained her theory to those who didn't know much about it. "The world has its defense mechanisms, but it can't fight back in the normal way that we can. The most it can do is use Lightning Tribulations to destroy threats. Still, with so many living beings in the world, it's hard to distinguish between enemies and allies. So only we can do that.
Therefore, the Spiritual World probably uses its foundation or origin to temporarily increase spiritual wealth, which should make it easier to advance from any cultivation level," said the elf.
A Level 99 elf said. "If that's the case, it will be easier for Divine Medicine to mature and for those who consume it to reach level 100."
"Not only that. It will be easier for everyone to cultivate; even Spiritual Kings and Emperors will be able to advance more easily from now on." Aurae said, very sure of her words.
"If that's the case, good. We'll need it." Vico said before continuing what he had said before. "While this news is not bad, there aren't many known Divine Medicines that will mature in a short time. Moreover, the number of low-level cultivators won't be important in the future.
Only the number of Demigods and Gods will make a difference, so let's focus on that. That's why we're working on alien technologies. You must see this, Lady Aegolor. Go to the North Sea as soon as you can. Most of what the enemies left is there. You'll understand why I said all this when you get there."
"I will." She agreed quietly.
But before she could move, the second strongest of the elves' tribe stepped forward and said. "Before you go, Aurae, we have a problem developing in the world that you might want to know about right away."
"What is it?" She asked, looking seriously at the elf.
"As we speak here, around the Divine Continent and the Central Continent, low-level people are gradually spreading rumors about the future and the arrival of enemies." He said, returning to the topic they had discussed before the end of their foray.
"And what's wrong with that? The people of our world must know what will happen next, so they'll cooperate and fight alongside us." She said naively, unaware of the disturbing signs that some groups had already noticed.
Vico closed his eyes while some of his men there took a deeper breath as they considered what was emerging on a larger scale on these two continents and what was already appearing at the bottom of the seas.
The elf from before said. "The problem is that some people think that the Spiritual World doesn't stand a chance against the aliens. They think that if we fight, we'll only bring disaster to everyone. Some people just think that surrender is worth considering."
"What?" Aurae couldn't believe her ears.
Vico confirmed it. "We already have reports of groups holding protests, demanding that we give up fighting the enemies and prepare to surrender. At least a small portion of the people on my continent seem to prefer living as slaves to facing almost certain death in 27 years."
"But that's not the worst of it, Aurae. A minority of these people are radicals who are gradually taking action to try to hinder our progress with alien technologies!" Another level 99 elf said.
"As much as we are making significant progress in various areas and hope has not yet died, more and more people in the Spiritual World are programming this madness of surrender.
If we're not careful, we could face a widespread internal crisis before the enemies arrive in 27 years!"
Everyone was worried at the thought of this, imagining what would happen if 80% of the world's population, who were weak but responsible for almost 99% of the world's production of food, resources, minerals, etc., stopped working in a kind of strike against the powerful people trying to strengthen themselves to fight the aliens.
