Chapter 1535 — 1535: More mysteries

Lex blinked as he read the notifications, but the notifications weren't over just yet!

New Notification: Special material detected. Submit special material to the system to trigger a special quest!

New Quest: Accelerate the System's recovery by absorbing Primordial Energy!

Quest Reward: Midnight Monument

Remarks: If you're too lazy to do it, at least allow the System to recover on its own!

New Notification: Additional tasks/quests/rewards blocked due to insufficient system functionality!

Lex stared at that last notification for a long while, unable to discern if it was a good thing or not. While, in general, the System had only been good for him, each one of its rewards and quests came with great personal risk on his behalf.

Of course, all of that is also what enabled him to become so much stronger than all other cultivators to begin with, so he couldn't really complain. It was just that he had to make sure he didn't get pulled in over his head, ending up facing problems even he couldn't resolve.

He read all the notifications again, allowing his thoughts to run freely as he speculated on why there had been such a significant result of him encountering Primordial energy.

The first thing he focused on was the Primordial Energy Scale. It was a scale, not a completion or percentage bar, which meant that the amount of energy it could hold was much greater than mere '100'.

The fact, then, that some hidden features of the system would be unveiled at 100, whatever that signified, could signify that even greater rewards awaited him if he continued to tip the scale. Now whether he had to achieve 200 to get those additional benefits, or 1000, or even 10,000, or possibly greater, that was something he could only find out by actually achieving it first.

It was also interesting that mere exposure to Primordial Energy allowed him to unlock the Joint quest feature - something he had many thoughts about. This point alone deserved much contemplation.

Lex had always been curious about the history of Systems, and yet no one seemed to know their origin. The System itself surely had some information pertaining to its origin, but the System was uncooperative about revealing it.

The significantly detailed and complex nature of each System indicated to Lex that there was some great mastermind, if not a number of them, behind the System. Yet if one day he discovered that Systems were just a part of the universe itself and came into being alongside the universe, he wouldn't be so surprised.

Yet whether they were born alongside the universe or not, Lex had every reason to believe that they had been around for a very long time. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Lex suspected that the Systems came into being during the Primordial Age.

Now, due to how long it had been since that Age, Lex didn't know exactly what the universe was like back then. However, he felt safe in assuming that Primordial energy was at least quite abundant back then, if not making up the majority of the Spiritual energy.

If that was the case, then Systems were originally made or designed in an environment with plenty of Primordial energy, and didn't actually run on full power in its absence - at least unless whoever designed the Systems anticipated that Primordial energy would one day fade.

Either way, it wasn't a stretch to say that the Systems ran on Primordial energy as its main or original energy source. This theory was supported by his quest to accelerate the Systems recovery by providing it with Primordial energy.

Although it wasn't much, Lex felt like he had uncovered one of the numerous veils of mystery surrounding the Systems, giving him a bit of insight into their operations and origins. It was also scary to think about!

If Systems were so powerful without Primordial Energy, he couldn't imagine what they would be like with it!

Speaking of energies, there was another type of energy that Lex had encountered once that the System greatly coveted.

Back when he wanted to fix his cultivation technique so that he could continue to cultivate, and not die stuck at a single realm, he had done so by transferring Protos energy to his cultivation technique.

Back then, he recalled that his System also wanted it, promising a return to 100% functionality in exchange.

To be more accurate, he had received 1 Plank Protos, with plank being the smallest unit of energy possible - at least as far as he knew. That meant that whatever Protos Energy was, it was much more potent than Primordial energy even. Yet he had never even heard mention of it!

Primordial energy marked an entire Age of the universe, with the name Primordial carrying an immense weight even now, yet Protos, which was apparently even greater than Primordial, had no mention whatsoever!

It was highly interesting, and Lex wanted to look into it some more, but his instincts warned him to do so subtly. This was not the kind of thing he could easily ask questions about, or arouse any attention towards.

Next, Lex turned his attention to Joint quests. The mandatory nature caused a feeling of revulsion in Lex, reminding him of his early days where the consequence of failure meant death.

The punishment was nowhere nearly as severe in this case, but it was severe nonetheless! Lex had never encountered another System anywhere near his own in ranking, and he didn't want to lose that advantage by having it suffer devolution!

In fact, Lex was fairly certain his Systems rank played a significant role in keeping itself hidden. He couldn't afford such a punishment at all, so he either had to do the quests, or get his hands on a Veto token.

Veto tokens were, however, not available in the Token shop, which was a shame.

Another thing that aroused his curiosity was the statement that some missions were 'too important' to fail. What made them so important? Who decided the relative value of a quest? This was yet another mystery waiting for him to solve.