Chapter 118: Powerful Treasure, terrifying beings. ’These beings are on a totally different level from anything I’ve encountered,’ Moon thought, a humbling realization of his weakness. He’d been like a toad at the bottom of a well, seeing only the small circle of sky above and believing that represented the entire world. He’d overestimated his own strength and underestimated how vast the true power hierarchy in this world actually extended. He’d thought the Winter Beast was extraordinary. The Three-Armed Mountain Bear had seemed like the pinnacle of what First Sanctuary beasts could achieve—an S-rank threat that required a Base Lord and dozens of awakeners to defeat. But he’d been terribly, catastrophically wrong. There existed creatures that could swat him like an annoying fly. Beings so massive and powerful that Moon and Selene navigating through this one’s circulatory system was probably as significant to it as bacteria moving through a human’s bloodstream—completely unnoticeable and utterly irrelevant. Moon couldn’t help but swallow hard, his throat suddenly dry despite being soaked in the creature’s blood. "Moon?" Selene’s voice cut through his dark thoughts. "What are you thinking?" Moon forced himself to focus on their immediate situation rather than spiraling into existential dread about their insignificance. "I’m thinking," Moon said carefully, "that we need to find a way out of this creature before it does something that kills us incidentally. We’re inside something so powerful that we’re not even threats—we’re just... foreign objects. Irritants at best." Selene nodded slowly, processing that sobering assessment. "So what do we do? We can’t navigate back the way we came—that would mean swimming against blood flow through vessels we barely survived traveling with the current." Moon looked around the massive heart chamber again, studying the four vessel openings where blood flowed in and out with each contraction. Thump-thump. "We need to figure out which vessel leads toward an exit," Moon said. "One of these passages might lead to respiratory organs—lungs or gills or whatever this creature uses to breathe. If we can reach those, there might be a connection to the outside environment." It was a desperate theory based on limited anatomical knowledge, but it was better than sitting here waiting to die. "Or," Selene suggested grimly, "we find a way to injure this creature badly enough that it expels us as part of an immune response or defensive reaction." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚 Moon considered that option and immediately discarded it. "With what? We can’t damage its tissue. We’re like two cells of bacteria trying to hurt a human." Selene’s expression darkened, but she couldn’t argue with the logic. They were trapped inside a living nightmare, and their survival depended on finding an exit before the creature’s normal biological processes killed them incidentally. Moon stood, his wet clothes clinging to his body, still stained with the creature’s blood. "We rest for five minutes. Let Mirage recover his strength. Then we choose a vessel and commit to finding a way out." Because standing still in a beating heart wasn’t survival. It was just delaying the inevitable, Moon couldn’t help but gulp his increasing saliva. Five minutes had barely passed when something that shocked the both of them to their core occurred. "Moon... are you seeing what I’m seeing?" Selene muttered, her voice carrying pure disbelief as she stared at something only she could perceive. Moon’s eyes widened as identical notifications appeared in his own vision. His attributes were increasing spontaneously, without leveling up or spending points. He nodded slowly, still processing the shocking revelation. "Yes. I see it too." There was only one possible explanation for this phenomenon, and both awakeners understood it immediately. "The blood..." Selene breathed, looking down at her hands still stained with the deep red liquid. "It’s a natural treasure. A treasure amongst treasures." She couldn’t contain her excitement despite their dire circumstances. "We’re gaining permanent attribute increases just from exposure to it!" Moon felt another subtle shift in his body as more notifications appeared. [You have gained +1 Strength] [You have gained +1 Mana] [You have gained +1 Mana] This was extraordinary beyond measure. In the awakener world, there were only a handful of ways to improve your base attributes. The primary method was leveling up, which granted attribute points you could allocate according to your build strategy. This was the standard path everyone followed—kill beasts, gain experience, level up, distribute points. The second method was through certain rare equipment that provided attribute bonuses while worn. Moon’s Cloak of the Two Extremes gave him environmental resistance, for example, but those benefits vanished the moment he removed the item. The third method was through incredibly powerful skills, but they were so rare that it was almost never put into perspective. The fourth and most difficult method was through natural treasures. It was so rare that most awakeners, even those with deep backgrounds never encountered it even once in their entire careers. These treasures came in various forms. All of them shared one characteristic: they were extraordinarily rare and valuable. And here Moon and Selene were, literally bathing in what was apparently one of the most potent natural treasures either of them had ever encountered. "At the highest levels of power," Selene continued, her mind working despite her excitement, "attribute advantages make enormous differences in combat outcomes. When you reach level twenty-five and everyone’s undergone their first class evolution, the things that separate exceptional Evolvers from merely competent ones are skill rank, combat experience, and base attributes before transformation." Moon nodded, understanding the implications completely. "Two Evolvers at the same level with similar classes can have vastly different combat effectiveness based on their attribute totals." "Exactly, someone who’s only gained attributes through normal leveling might have, say, forty points in their primary combat stat. But someone who’s consumed natural treasures throughout their career might have fifty in that same stat. That’s a twenty five percent power advantage from attributes alone. This gap becomes even more pronounced when they become Evolvers." She gestured around the massive heart chamber, at the pool of blood beneath them. "This creature’s blood is providing permanent enhancements. If we could safely harvest even a small amount and preserve it..."