Mrs. Yun and Liou Wenxin were already up early, busy in the kitchen.

It looked like neither of them had slept much last night.

Mrs. Yun got angry the moment she saw Mr. Ya. She snapped, "What’s with that useless skill of yours? I stood guard all night, terrified of assassins, but not even a mosquito showed up!"

Mr. Ya felt wronged. "It shouldn’t be like this. But I’d rather my skill be faulty. Being constantly in unknown danger is terrifying."

Su Ze also couldn’t pinpoint the source of the danger, so he decided to put it out of his mind for now.

After breakfast, he followed Liou Wenxin to the laboratory.

He planned to have Liou Wenxin first study the headless clone and the Bloodline Crystal to see if they were the source of the danger.

"Wenxin, be careful. Whatever you do, don’t directly touch the headless clone or the Bloodline Crystal," Su Ze warned her repeatedly as he handed over the two storage items containing the Bloodline Crystal and the headless clone.

Liou Wenxin nodded, took the storage items, and put on a special protective suit. She entered a sterile room shielded by Super Alloy. First, she took out the Bloodline Crystal and began scanning and analyzing it. While waiting for the data, she released the headless clone and gave it a "physical examination."

The process was quite long. As someone illiterate in the field of evolution, Su Ze couldn’t help, so he just played on his phone outside, bored.

He first contacted Xu Sheng, asking him to come over sometime today to "collect the scrap."

Then, he went online to search for information about the Divine Dice. However, information about the Divine Dice was high-level; ordinary people had never even heard of it, so there was nothing relevant online.

He had dominated the Divine Dice trial and taken first place, yet there wasn’t even a single news story about it. This gave Su Ze a sense of anticlimax, like an achievement no one would ever know about.

Just then, he received a message from Zhou Wenshan. It turned out Zhou Wenshan remembered yesterday’s matter and had helped him ask the Sovereign Country about the Bloodline Contract first thing in the morning.

The Sovereign Country had replied that they had never heard of any Bloodline Contract. They considered that perhaps this Divine Dice trial was different from previous ones, which was why it had a Bloodline Contract stage.

’Am I the only one who signed a Bloodline Contract? Did none of the other Bloodline Crystal recipients have to?’

Su Ze was skeptical. ’Could it be that the other recipients of Bloodline Crystals hid this information?’

’Is it possible they’ve already been mentally contaminated?’

These were all just Su Ze’s speculations. He had no way to ask, nor did he have the ability to investigate the matter.

The people who had obtained Bloodline Crystals in the past were all geniuses among geniuses. After so many years, they had long since grown into powerful figures. Rashly trying to uncover their secrets would be asking for a quick death.

’I should just wait quietly for Liou Wenxin’s research results.’

「A few hours later...」

Liou Wenxin took off her protective suit and walked out.

Su Ze quickly asked, "Wenxin, did you find anything?"

Liou Wenxin nodded, walked over to sit across from Su Ze, took a sip of milk tea, and said, "The Bloodline Crystal does indeed have a problem."

Su Ze wasn’t surprised. He sat up straight, waiting for Liou Wenxin to continue.

"I conducted a comprehensive scan and analysis of the Bloodline Crystal, but I didn’t actually find any issues. It’s just an extremely high-level Energy Crystal. Its energy level surpasses our current human understanding. Just as the legends say, it’s a ’God-level’ Evolution Item."

"Of course, not finding a problem doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It could also be that its level is too high for our current methods and knowledge to detect any underlying issues."

"According to past records, it can be used as a substitute for an extract for Saint-level experts to absorb. However, if it were a true ’God-level extract,’ ordinary Saint-level experts definitely wouldn’t be able to absorb it. Only legendary Saint-level experts might be able to withstand the impact of a God-level extract. Therefore, the energy within the Bloodline Crystal has been weakened."

"You can think of it as pouring out a portion of a God-level extract and then diluting it to create a Bloodline Crystal. Of course, the actual process is much more complex; it can’t be as crude as I’m describing."

Su Ze nodded. "So, in a way, the Bloodline Crystal really does contain the legacy of a God-level life form, including a Divine Skill Prototype?"

"That’s right. According to my hypothesis, the Bloodline Crystal does contain a skill from a God-level life form—a God-level skill. It’s just a weakened version, which is why it’s called a Divine Skill Prototype. However, as an evolver’s level increases, there’s a chance to restore the prototype back into the original God-level skill in the future."

"Then is it possible for a Mortal-level Life Form to absorb this Bloodline Crystal?" Su Ze asked.

"Impossible!" Liou Wenxin stated firmly. "Even after being diluted, its energy is still at the God-level. The fact that Saint-level beings can absorb it is already the limit. If a Mortal-level Life form were to take in even a tiny bit of the Bloodline Crystal’s energy, its body would explode. Forget Mortal-level, even an Extraordinary-level being at the Peak of Butterfly Transformation Stage couldn’t possibly absorb this Bloodline Crystal."

Su Ze frowned. ’But the Bloodline Crystal carrying the Divine Grace of Evolution was absorbed by Miss Zhuzhi. How can that be explained?’

’The Bloodline Crystal that King Mu obtained was very special. Just how special was it?’

’I got the highest-tier Bloodline Crystal of the lot. Why would the one King Mu got be even more special than mine?’

’And another thing—if King Mu also signed a Bloodline Contract when he got his Bloodline Crystal, he wouldn’t have been able to give it to someone else to absorb.’

’So, did King Mu really not sign a Bloodline Contract? And the others didn’t either? Have I been overthinking this?’

Su Ze had originally entered the Divine Dice to figure out what King Mu was plotting, but now he found himself with more questions than answers. The truth of the matter was becoming more and more confusing.

Liou Wenxin continued, "I didn’t find any problems with the Bloodline Crystal itself, but I found a clue from your headless clone. I detected some residual, special spiritual energy inside its body. A preliminary analysis suggests that once this energy invades a person’s mind, it can interfere with their thoughts and have a profound influence on their behavior, such as changing your habits or making you do things you normally wouldn’t."

"What’s more terrifying is that once you’re contaminated by this spiritual energy, you won’t even realize that something is wrong with you."

"According to what you said, you started suffering from mental contamination from the headless clone right after it formed the Bloodline Contract with the Bloodline Crystal. So, this spiritual energy clearly comes from the Bloodline Crystal. It’s not hard to conclude that there is a problem with the crystal, we just can’t detect it directly."

Su Ze took a deep breath... ’Mental contamination that affects a person’s thoughts and actions... isn’t that a form of Mind Control?!’

’Just as I thought. The Divine Dice has malicious intentions. The difficult trials, the various rewards... it’s not about selecting a successor for some god. It’s about controlling the most outstanding geniuses of the Lin Hua Continent.’

Once he understood this, looking at the entire Divine Dice trial from a different perspective changed everything.

’The previous trials, with their rigorous screening, eliminated the less talented Trialists and only kept those with immense potential. Was it because the creator of the Divine Dice simply looked down on those who weren’t talented enough?’

’Were the various rewards just bait to attract more geniuses to participate in the trials?’

’Maybe even the final Trialist, who made it through all the selections, might not be good enough for them.’

’That’s why not everyone who reaches the end receives a Bloodline Crystal as a reward.’

’Only a true genius among geniuses, someone deemed worthy by the mastermind behind the Divine Dice, is considered valuable enough to be subjected to Mind Control.’

If all of Su Ze’s speculations were true, then who was the mastermind that built the Divine Dice?

Su Ze thought of the purple-skinned people he had seen in the Divine Dice.

He had suspected before that the Divine Dice might have been created by alien life, and it was highly likely those purple-skinned people were the ones responsible.

’Aliens created the Divine Dice to control the geniuses among Blue Star’s humans, as a way to eventually control the entire planet?’

It sounded a bit like the plot of a cheesy sci-fi movie.

’If the aliens really had this plan, why not just invade Blue Star directly?’

’They can create a miracle like the Divine Dice and wield God-level power. Their strength is clearly far greater than that of Blue Star.’

Since he couldn’t figure it out on his own, he might as well borrow someone else’s brain. Su Ze told Liou Wenxin everything he had learned, along with all his speculations.

After listening, Liou Wenxin said to Su Ze, "I remember you said you drew a tube of Tier 6 extract in the Divine Dice. We might be able to find some clues from that extract to support your theory."

So, Su Ze handed the tube of Tier 6 extract to Liou Wenxin for research.

This extract was an extra gain Su Ze had acquired by breaking the rules of the trial, so he felt it was probably fine—much more reliable than that Bloodline Crystal thing.

Liou Wenxin placed the Tier 6 extract into an instrument for testing. After carefully studying the various data, she said:

"This extract contains some very strange genetic fragments. They don’t match any known mutant beast on Blue Star... My preliminary hypothesis is that the clam-like mutant beast you mentioned is not a Blue Star creature."

"Blue Star has plenty of clam-like mutant beasts, doesn’t it? Are they different?" Su Ze asked, puzzled.

"They are different. For example, take a cat. No matter what level of mutant beast it evolves into, its genes will still have commonalities with an ordinary housecat, proving they are the same species. The clam-like mutant beast you mentioned only resembles the clams on Blue Star in appearance; in reality, they are not the same species at all."

"From this point alone, we can basically prove that the Divine Dice did indeed come from outer space and was created by alien life."

Su Ze nodded, though he suspected the higher-ups in Lin Hua Country had probably known this for a long time.

That the Divine Dice was created by aliens was an old speculation, and it wasn’t hard to find clues in the trials that the Trialists had gone through.

’The key question is, besides me, has anyone else suffered mental contamination from a Bloodline Crystal?’

’If every previous recipient of a Bloodline Crystal has been put under Mind Control by aliens, that would be terrifying!’