Three months later.
"We're here. This is the backbone of Edva Forest, Hall Jumu Mountain."
"This place is seriously far away. The whole way here was either swamp poison water or high-level elite monsters."
"Stop dragging your feet. The deadline Lai Anding gave us is almost up. We need to keep moving."
Tearing through the morning mist, Long Yuqiong and his two companions advanced along the mountain trail.
Over the past few months, under Lai Anding's urging and training, their auras had stabilized at Kappa-rank (10). They ranked among the top five players. Aside from their somewhat shabby equipment, which was hardly any better than that of ordinary Abyssal Realm civilians, they could be considered the very best among players in every other respect.
"Whew, this mountain is pretty hard to climb."
Ye Zhangjian wiped away his sweat. The air was extremely humid, and combined with the Abyssal Realm's peculiar nature, it created a bone-piercing sensation of damp heat—moisture clung to their bodies and radiated heat into them instead, forming a layer of white frost.
"Even after being here for months, this environment is still unbelievably awful. Now I get why the Abyssal Realm has such a tiny population. Out in the wilderness, forget beasts—this natural environment alone is enough to make people suffer."
In such an environment, let alone industrialization, even the most primitive steam engines could not be developed. The fact that Narrative Civilization had emerged in a place like the Abyssal Realm had little to do with its native intelligent species. It was entirely because all four Narrative Civilizations were hegemonic civilizations that had immigrated from elsewhere, three of which relied on importing immigrants from outside to increase their populations.
This was a paradise with inexhaustible resources, but also an uncivilized wilderness beyond the reach of enlightenment.