"Mr. Ansel, seeing as you shone so brightly in this Freshman Invitational, as the Vice-President, I'm here on behalf of the Student Council to pay a visit and offer our regards."

  Lance Wolfe put on a look of utter sincerity. "After all, Mr. Ansel, you are the future of our Star City High!"

  Dean Sterling glanced coldly at Lance. Although he didn't have much goodwill towards the people from the Student Council, he wouldn't directly burn bridges with them either.

  "Oh, is that so?" Dean Sterling nodded casually, then stopped looking at Lance and turned his head towards Fly.

  "Fly, you should be about to break through to Level 3, right?"

  "That's right, Vic. I've been busy with that recently. Do you have any pointers?" Fly answered with a smile.

  "There's a lot to cover. Let's talk inside the Inner Realm," Dean Sterling said. Then, glancing at Lance, who looked eager to join in, he added coldly, "Not you."

  "Hah? Me?" Lance put on a surprised expression. He indeed wanted to fish in troubled waters—taking the opportunity to enter Fly's Inner Realm to take a good peek and spy on some intelligence.

  Being stopped by Dean Sterling at this moment made him feel like he had lost face. But since the other party was the Head of the Grade 10 Martial Studies Department, it wasn't appropriate for him to flare up, so his posture and expression looked particularly awkward.

  Dean Sterling paid him no further attention and simply said to Fly, "Fly, hurry up."

  Hearing this, Fly hesitated no longer. He took out his Beast Totem Card and invited Dean Sterling into his Inner Realm.

  A burst of faint light flashed, and Fly once again arrived in this void space. As the number of times he entered the Inner Realm increased, he became more and more familiar with the ropes.

  "It's still so empty here," Dean Sterling looked around and said. "Fly, you really have devoted your whole heart to cultivation."

  Hearing this, Fly didn't respond much but cut straight to the chase, "Vic, between you and me, let's skip the pleasantries and get straight to the point. Didn't you say just now that there were 'a lot of things' to discuss?"

  The friendship between Dean Sterling and Fly was indeed quite deep. Since they met at the start of the school year, Dean Sterling had often come to guide his cultivation. Before the Freshman Invitational, Dean Sterling had even specially given Fly private coaching sessions. The contact between them could not be said to be infrequent.

  But a serious and formal private conversation like this was still very rare. This forced Fly to suspect that there was something important.

  Sure enough, Dean Sterling's next words confirmed Fly's guess.

  "Fly, be honest with me... does your Cockroach Totem... evolve?"

  As soon as these words came out, Fly instantly sucked in a breath of cold air.

  Good lord, has this day finally come?

  With the help of the Insect Fusion System, his Cockroach Totem constantly fused with other insect-type Beast Totems and evolved continuously.

  Fly had long known that this kind of thing would be detected by others sooner or later.

  After all, everyone's Beast Totems had fixed forms. While "mutation" of Beast Totems did exist, it was a one-in-a-million phenomenon, extremely rare. How could it be possible to change forms multiple times within a month like him?

  It might be possible for someone like Gideon King, who relied on technological means to induce artificial mutations multiple times. But Fly was just a poor kid with no connections; how could he possibly conduct artificial induced mutations privately time and again?

  Under these circumstances, it was only a matter of time before his secret was noticed.

  But...

  Fly looked up at Dean Sterling in front of him.

  Having an experience like possessing a System was probably unique in this world. Once this kind of thing spread, what it would bring him would definitely be a disaster! How many prominent families and official organizations would spare no cost to arrest him and slice him up for study?

  Even if he wasn't dissected on a lab table, restrictions on his freedom would certainly be inevitable.

  Fly didn't want to be a lab rat in someone else's laboratory.

  So, should he confess to Dean Sterling? Or rather, how much should he confess?

  Seeing Fly's hesitation, Dean Sterling chuckled softly and said, "Fly, relax, I won't harm you. In my heart, I already treat you as a friend and a junior. I just want to help you properly."

  Dean Sterling paused for a moment and continued, "You see, precisely because I was worried about you, I chose to enter your Inner Realm before talking to you about this. Fly, do you trust me?"

  As he spoke, Dean Sterling took a few steps forward, came in front of Fly, and gently placed his hand on Fly's shoulder.

  "Vic, my Beast Totem can indeed 'evolve,' and it evolves continuously," Fly said. "It can evolve constantly by relying on the insect-type Beast Totems it comes into contact with."

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  After some internal struggle, Fly decided to confess to Dean Sterling.

  After all, things had reached this point; ordinary concealment methods wouldn't work. Dean Sterling was a favored genius who graduated from one of The Eight Elite Universities of The Tulip League, and his knowledge of Martial Studies was extremely rich. In front of him, Fly was like an ordinary student facing a grand professor—even tiny flaws in his words would have nowhere to hide, let alone a large-scale lie.

  But Fly still decided to keep the secret of the System and only state the fact of the totem's evolution. After all, the matter of the System was too bizarre; it was better to keep some secrets for himself.

  A trace of surprise flashed in Dean Sterling's eyes, followed by a nod of realization. "Sure enough, it's just as I guessed. Ever since our duel, I've had speculations in this regard. After all, after fighting my Thunder-warden Beetle, your Common Species Cockroach Totem suddenly mutated into a Mythical Species Beast Totem possessing the power of lightning—the Thunder-Roach."

  "It's just that at that time, I wasn't certain. After all, natural mutations, while rare, are not non-existent. Later, after you fought with Marshall from the Student Council, you suddenly possessed the ability of compound eyes and black sickles. That made me realize something was wrong..."

  "It is good that you can be honest with me and trust me now," Dean Sterling said.

  Fly thought to himself. In front of an expert with encyclopedic knowledge like Dean Sterling, lying was very difficult. But telling only half the truth didn't count as lying, right? Moreover, it confirmed his guess and made him believe his own conclusion even more.

  As for the System, Fly believed that even if he really told the truth, Dean Sterling might not necessarily believe it; instead, he might think Fly was lying to brush him off.

  Sometimes things are just like that: when your words match the other party's guess, the other party believes it easily; if the words spoken are too outrageous, even if that is the truth, the other party will think it is a lie.

  The truth was right there in his mind; it just needed third-party verification.

  "Vic, didn't you say there were 'a lot of things'? What's the second one?" Fly said.

  Fly only wanted to change the subject quickly at this moment, to avoid Dean Sterling thinking too long on this matter, lest he start connecting the dots.

  "As for this second matter," Dean Sterling pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and said, "it's about your level breakthrough, Fly."

  "Fly, you've been in the Peak of Level 2 stage for a while, right? Through observation during the Freshman Invitational, I believe you have already met the standards to break through to Level 3. Have you felt... the existence of a bottleneck? It's like a layer of transparent gauze that seems to be there but isn't. You can feel the path ahead, but you are unable to cross this layer of gauze for a long time. It is so soft that all fierce attacks hitting it are like punching cotton, unable to damage it in the slightest?"

  Fly froze for a moment, thought carefully, and said, "I seem to have that feeling."

  Dean Sterling said, "This is what we call the bottleneck before leveling up."

  "So that's what it is," Fly nodded thoughtfully. "Then..."

  Dean Sterling said, "If you want to break the bottleneck, you need to 'Return to the Source'."

  Fly asked, "Return to the Source?"

  Dean Sterling said, "Correct. It means finding the location of your Beast Totem within your Sea of Consciousness, thereby truly merging with your Beast Totem in spirit."

  "Fly, this Inner Realm is actually your consciousness space. You need to feel it slowly and find the whereabouts of your Beast Totem in this vast void space."

  Hearing this, Fly immediately closed his eyes and began to use his Psychic Energy to explore this vast and boundless void space.

  During the cultivation process, Fly had gradually become aware of the existence of Psychic Energy. Once upon a time, Fly wondered why there was a "Spirit" value on the System panel.

  Later, as his strength continuously improved, Fly gradually felt the existence of Psychic Energy. It seemed to be a unique power that did not belong to reality but resided in the mental space. Yet, this power could deeply affect reality.

  For instance, when a person is downcast, their combat power will be greatly discounted; but when confident, they can perform beyond their normal level.

  When drowsy, it is also when Psychic Energy is weakest. At this time, no matter what one does, one cannot work up any interest; but when sleep is sufficient, one feels full of motivation when doing things.

  This is the function of Psychic Energy.

  In the finals of the Freshman Invitational, the Hallucinations of cockroaches that Gideon King saw were the practical application of Fly's Psychic Energy.

  "I... I think I feel it." After exploring for a period of time, Fly seemed to have found some clues.

  "Very good," Dean Sterling said with gratification. "Feel it tangibly, pull it closer, pull it right in front of you."

  Fly tried to use his Psychic Energy to gradually wrap around that substance, gently yet quickly pulling it before his eyes.

  Subsequently, Fly opened his eyes and was shocked to find that the scene before him had undergone earth-shattering changes.

  The vast and boundless void from before had all disappeared, replaced by the entrance of a gigantic cave...

  Bursts of cold, damp wind assailed him.

  The height from the bottom to the top of the cave was at least ten meters.

  "This is..." Fly muttered slightly, slowly walking towards the depths of the cave.

  After passing through a long tunnel, the world ahead suddenly opened up.

  This was a massive cavern space. Visually, the vertical drop exceeded thirty meters.

  Standing here, Fly only felt a damp stickiness, as if he were in the depths of a swamp.

  Coffee-colored insect eggs covered the entire inner wall of the cavern space.

  The insect eggs were pulsating with different rhythms, like gigantic hearts.

  "This is the location of the Beast Totem in my Sea of Consciousness?" Fly couldn't help but exclaim.

  "Those... are they cockroach egg cases? Just... how many are there?" Looking at those continuously pulsating cockroach egg cases—oothecae—Fly only felt his scalp go numb.

  "Probably no fewer than three thousand," Dean Sterling, who had followed up, answered.

  "Three thousand!" Fly felt a wave of shock.

  "It could also be four thousand." Dean Sterling looked at the cave full of egg cases and said with emotion, "A single cockroach egg case can usually produce twenty to thirty cockroaches. That means... there could be over one hundred thousand cockroaches being nurtured here!"

  "One hundred thousand!" Hearing this number, Fly was almost frightened to the ground.

  "Vic, do the Beast Totems in everyone's Sea of Consciousness exist in this form?"

  "No," Dean Sterling shook his head slowly. "This is the first time I've encountered such a situation... I estimate this is the power of Skaar's Phantom Hivequeen."

  "The Phantom Hivequeen?" Fly thought for a moment. "That wizard who cast witchcraft?"

  The scene of thousands upon thousands of Spectral Wasps chasing him back then surfaced in Fly's mind again.

  "Vic, are you saying... because I absorbed Skaar's Phantom Hivequeen, the form of existence of the Beast Totem in my Sea of Consciousness has turned into such... an army?"

  "Mn, that is my guess," Dean Sterling said. "But it's likely pretty close to the mark."

  "Fly, in this case, you are in trouble..."

  "Trouble?" Hearing this, Fly instantly became alert.

  "Social insects often have a mother, and the habitat of the mother is often not far from the egg area," Dean Sterling scanned the entire cavern space nervously. "In other words, a powerful Roach Matriarch is somewhere in this cave, watching us like prey!"

  Fly: "!!!"