No wonder the Drowner had sounded a little resentful. So that was how he had come into being.
"But with the Sea of Knowledge as vast as it is now, anyone below Third Order who enters it wouldn't even qualify as nourishment. Their reason would be hollowed out, their consciousness erased, and some eerie entity would take over the empty shell of their body. Then they'd become a menace to everyone around them."
Lu Yuan's mouth twitched. "You certainly are a menace to everyone around you."
Still, Lu Yuan was curious. How did Oden and the others guard against the Sea of Knowledge's erosion? Oden's answer left him speechless.
"Why guard against it?" Oden shrugged. "Just don't stay that long."
"Huh? If you don't stay long, can you find what you're looking for?"
"If one trip isn't enough, can't you make a second or third?" Oden looked at Lu Yuan as though he were an idiot.
"But don't you end up somewhere different every time?"
"Yes, you do," Oden said, entirely unapologetic. "There's no need to end up in the same place."
Lu Yuan had no answer to that.
"Then what do you go to the Sea of Knowledge for?"
"To try our luck, of course," Oden said. "The best part of exploring the Sea of Knowledge is never knowing what you might come across, or when."
Lu Yuan was baffled.
What did he mean, running around trying their luck? Was every trip inside basically a lottery draw?
Oden sighed at the stunned look on Lu Yuan's face.
"What do you think the Sea of Knowledge is? It's a Forbidden Land. We're lucky Forbidden Studies found a way in at all. Plenty of people want to enter and can't."
Oden gave a disgruntled snort.
"Besides, I know that, judging by