[2000 PSs bonus]

    If he was correct, the second go-around was when he should have grasped Madness or died trying. Even the Dungeon hadn''t expected him toprehend Madness the way he had.

    Since then, he had stumbled onto another Comprehension, and this should be the third time. But both this second and third time seem to have been stifled by Madness.

    He didn''t really understand why this was happening, but by this point he did have more than enough beasts randomly strewn about to find out.

    [Why is my Comprehension being stifled by another?]

    [A Comprehension is a kernel of enlightened understanding toymen, but in practice, it represents a path. The requirement to elevate your strength from F-ss to E-ss is a Comprehension.]

    [When a Comprehension manifests, it bes a part of you. This is why its activation can directly influence your stats. It is intertwined with your Genes and as such can bolster their function.]

    [For another Comprehension to appear after one already has, it either must suppress your original Comprehension and force it into Dormancy, or it must form a synergistic link and bnce.]

    [If this is not possible, you will never form another Comprehension.]

    Ss'' gaze shed.

    He never really thought about the mechanism through which his Comprehension raised his stats, but it made sense. How else could it raise his stats if it wasn''t fused with his Genes somehow?

    ''The Quest is implying that it can help me with this… it seems I''ll have to take it much more seriously…''

    It wasn''t that Ss wasn''t satisfied with Madness, but the secrets surrounding it were… troubling. The Madness Key, the Scorned Wraps, the mysterious loss of three months, the system, and the Legendary Era…

    It wasn''t smart to put all his eggs in one basket, especially if that basket bit back.

    Ss absentmindedly cut down his five trees. He made another cut to slice away their branches and tten out the tops. After that, he began to pull them over.

    The trees they brought over were quickly processed and cut into two, forming a five-meter-tall wall that surrounded the portal.

    Ss noticed some debris from the town, but much of it had actually been processed and repurposed. One didn''t need to be a genius to know that Lucius nned to use them to build some of the town''s facilities.

    "There won''t be much time between the activation of the City Stele and the Judgment, so rest now and prepare yourselves."

    The city felt out of ce, as though it fell from the skies and onto a random plot ofnd, ttening whatever had once been there.

    It had tall, steel-like walls that rose 20 meters in the air, and within, there were buildings and skyscrapers that dwarfed even them. It looked like a metropolitan city had randomly spawned in the middle of a dense forest, and it felt distinctly Earth-like… but almost too much so. Almost like an alien race had read what Earth was like in a book and recreated a fanciful version of it.

    This ce was none other than the first System City of a long list of many, and it just so happened to be less than a hundred kilometers from Paradise''s portal.

    Whether that was a coincidence or not, it was hard to tell.

    It was deep within this city that seemed already bustling with people that a shield of light was hidden within in view.

    The location was known as the Capital Building, and it wasn''t much unlike the White House of the United Coalition of Terra Nova. Just after the city fully formed, a silver fox of a man slowly opened his eyes, a radiant blueing from their depths.

    [Rond Orciulius]

    [Level: ???]

    **

    Ss stood up high on the smooth surface of a log. The footing was solid, far more solid than he had thought possible. But who would have thought that Lucius would prepare arge amount of concrete?

    Now that they had a portal between the outside world and the Aether ne, there was no need to restrict themselves. As long as it didn''t rely on electricity, the other forms of human ingenuity were all a go.

    And now it wasing.

    The vige that Lucius built with their help was simply constructed. On the inside, there was another fence structure that marked the outer region of therge spherical portal. The actual living structures were nothing more than simple tents for now that surrounded it.

    The portal had swallowed up what felt like half of Paradise, so you could imagine the size of it. Luckily, the part that was near the ground was still manageable.

    Ss had a hard time wrapping his mind around exactly how it worked, but the portal seemed somewhat unstable despite its construction seeming to belie that fact.

    The portal looked like a smooth snow globe without a base, reflecting the images of the world on the other side and projecting them right onto its surface.

    But there was a bit of distortion nheless. It was akin to how one could never perfectly project a t map because the world was round. So there were some imperfections, almost like looking at a fish through the water.

    Due to that, when Ss, Mark, and Bloom entered from the other side, though their point of entry was almost identical to the others, when they made it to the other side, they were actually a long distance away from the other teams.

    Ss silently took note of all of this, taking a breath as a pir of light shot into the skies.

    A screen appeared before him.

    [Judgment Commencing]

    [Time: 00:00:30]

    The time ticked down, a feeling of oppression spreading through the battlefield

    ''There''ll be three waves, each one having one BOSS. The strength is proportional to the City Lord''s, but Lucius almost certainly had someone else take up this responsibility.''

    There was a reason this loophole was there. Controlling a city was a huge power boost.