1706 The Outside World Stay Up Late was just a soldier, not a high-ranking officer or important individual in the crystallizer civilization. He only knew the history of the crystallizers from what he learned in the history books. The history he knew about the crystallizers placed their origins in the sanctuaries. The crystallizers wished to avoid a war, and so they sought refuge in the sanctuaries. Heaven knew how long it took after that before their civilization developed into what it became. Many elites wished to leave the sanctuaries and return to the outside. They did succeed in doing this, but they were also destroyed. Something bad happened inside the sanctuaries that resulted in the destruction of their entire civilization. That was what became their recorded history. Stay Up Late didn’t exactly know what had happened, amidst the downfall and disaster. It affected him, anyway, and put him to sleep inside the geno fluid. He remained there in stasis until Han Sen woke him up. Stay Up Late only remembered the powers passing over him that made things feel as if the world was ending. He couldn’t resist it and passed out. Nowadays, all that remained of the crystallizers were fragments and remnants. Only ruins had been left behind, following what transpired. Stay Up Late said the crystallizers were far more advanced than humans, at their peak. They had evolved more than humans, as well. Even elites like him were just soldiers back then. He was in the Special Forces, but that still put him a long way from being the best of the best There were four crystallizer elites: the Northern King, Eastern King, Southern King, and Western King. Aside from Eastern King, the others wished to escape the sanctuaries. They wanted to leave and reclaim the lands they had lost. But the crystallizers had been gone from that world for too long, and they had no clue how scary it had become. Their developments made them too confident, and Han Sen knew the end. Humans were a tribe of crystallizers, or to put it in a slightly starker way, they were test tube results of beings that had been spliced with crystallizer genes. Many test subjects were regarded as the lowest of the low in the sanctuaries, so they were given the opportunity to grow. The crystallizers were hoping to produce a greater race that would one day help them reclaim the lands they had lost. There were many races based on the crystallizers. Some were immediately sent out of the sanctuaries, but none were able to survive longer than a month. Stay Up Late recalled there was a place they used as a graveyard, where they could also store their geno armors. But after the disaster, most of their civilization was destroyed, and the location of that place was unknown to him now. Han Sen could guess he was talking about the Hero Spirit Hall. “What humans died there? Amidst the fighting?” Han Sen asked. Stay Up Late went silent for a bit before responding. When he did, he said, “The creatures were given crystallizer genes, but the splicing also included the genes of other beings, too. As a result, they were different. To the best of my knowledge, the humans were incapable of reaching the Alliance before the disaster. Humans did eventually get there, but it was only after our downfall. Once there, you started to breed.” “But you only created one creature. How was it able to reproduce?” Han Sen asked. “So? Your race is called human, but you have other genes within you. Still, your body kept the same height as the crystallizers. The other genes may have come from more crystallizers belonging to a different tribe,” Stay Up Late said. Han Sen asked Stay Up Late a number of other questions. Han Sen was worried, as the last time the crystallizers opened the sanctuary, it remained open. If someone generated a geno armor, they’d be sent out of the sanctuary. It was impossible to close the sanctuaries now, and in regards to how that might be done, only the four kings had known. But even if Han Sen and Stay Up Late did know how to close the sanctuaries, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do it by themselves. “What is the outside world like?” Han Sen was curious to learn about this. Stay Up Late gave a wry smile and said, “I don’t know. Like I said, I was merely a soldier. Even the high-class crystallizers didn’t know much about the outside world, though. If they had, they wouldn’t have made the mistakes they did, which resulted in the near obliteration of our race. They hid in the sanctuaries for too long, not learning about the outside world.” Han Sen thought this might be the case. After they were done talking, he decided to go and see Han Yufei. He explained the situation to him and told him not to generate his self geno armor. Too many elites were known to have died out there, so it was too risky for him to do it, as well. Still, Han Sen needed to practice, and he didn’t dare slow down. He went as fast as he could. Even though the sanctuaries were open now, Stay Up Late said the creatures from the outside could not get in. But if that was true, that made Han Sen wonder how the crystallizers ended up getting destroyed. So, Han Sen did not feel too safe being inside the sanctuary. He kept on practicing. If something happened, having a great deal of power amassed would be the best thing. And Han Sen did not believe that the creatures from the outside could not get in. If they couldn’t, then how had the Nine-Life Cat entered and gained so much authority? The officer did not show up again. Aside from constant practice by himself, Han Sen also spent some time practicing with Stay Up Late and crystallizer technology. He also spent time learning about Heart Eye. He spent a whole month on that subject alone. If he had to go up against the officer again, there wouldn’t be much of a risk. He’d be able to use Heart Eye. But the officer did not show up. Han Sen wasn’t sure whether that was because the officer knew he was too weak to go up against him, or whether he had gone back to concocting a new scheme that would take some time. As Han Sen rested, he took time to investigate the Western King Sword. It was a crystallizer’s geno armor, like the glove and crystal shoes. Han Sen asked Stay Up Late what the difference between this geno armor and the others were. Stay Up Late did not know, though. He said every crystallizer could generate geno armor, but only the four kings could generate these special geno armors. The crystallizer glove and crystallizer shoes had wills of their own, but the Western King Sword seemed entirely inanimate. Han Sen could not sense that it had a will, and neither could he sense any special power it may have possessed. After Han Sen and Stay Up Late examined it, they thought the officer must have used a special method to combine the sword with himself. The sword had probably become lifeless because it was away from the officer. Han Sen had nothing to do right now, so he used the Blood-Pulse Sutra and dropped a smidgen of blood on the Western King Sword. The Real Blood geno core had become a part of who he was. It was in his blood, and Han Sen’s blood could therefore be called Real Blood. It was no weaker than the actual Real Blood geno core. And as Han Sen grew and became stronger, it would develop too.