Once, I wanted to be a good person

"I only heard from my family that the earliest names for the Spirit Realm were 'Soul World' or 'Spiritual World.' The current name was gradually simplified from those," she said.

"Simply put, the Spirit Realm and the Real World, this material world, are two sides of the same coin," she explained.

"Before there were Ability Users, or before Ability Users reached the Spirit Ascension phase, humans had no idea that another world existed. Thus, many bizarre occurrences in reality remained unexplained," she continued.

"They could only attribute all those things to myths about ghosts and gods, or to coincidences or mental illnesses," she added.

"It wasn't until Awakeners reached the Spirit Ascension phase and entered the Spirit Realm that they saw another world. They saw the Disaster Creatures living unseen, untouchable among the people. Only then did people learn about the location of the Spirit Realm," she recalled.

"Afterwards, as more and more Awakeners reached the Spirit Ascension phase, humans became increasingly powerful, and the conflicts with Disaster Creatures became more severe, resulting in more ordinary people dying from these conflicts."

"Later, to prevent the Disaster Creatures in the Spirit Realm from affecting the lives of ordinary people, and to ensure the conflicts between humans and Disaster Creatures in the Spirit Realm did not impact ordinary people, countries began gathering people to live together, constructing new cities. They also stationed powerful Ability Users on the outskirts of the new cities in the Spirit Realm to build defensive structures against Disaster Creatures and perform regular patrols," she described.

"This is how various advanced cities began," she stated.

"However, forcefully gathering all nearby residents together caused endless problems with ethnicity, clans, and gangs. In the initial years, many conflicts erupted in the advanced cities," she remarked.

"Eventually, after negotiations among various factions, some forces that were neither weak nor willing to integrate, nor could they integrate into the advanced cities, left the advanced cities and occupied the originally abandoned cities nearby," she detailed.

"Although those abandoned cities received some basic defensive structures against Disaster Creatures from the advanced cities, their security is definitely far inferior to that of the advanced cities," she pointed out.

"Later on, those cities began to grow by attracting people who could not establish themselves in the advanced cities, and also a mix of refugees, combined with natural population growth. They gradually developed into satellite cities of the advanced cities, that is, lower-tier cities," she explained.

"Since the population in lower-tier cities kept growing, the range certainly expanded, so gradually places not covered by the defensive structures emerged, and those places gradually became slums," she noted.

"Regarding lower-tier cities, the Federation maintained the most basic of control, but granted a great deal of autonomy. As for the slums, the Federation generally did not intervene, leaving them to fend for themselves. Defending against Demigods and protecting various advanced cities from the invasion of Disaster Creatures from the Spirit Realm had already stretched the Federation thin. They had no extra resources to manage so many areas," she expressed.

"Moreover.... those living in the lower-tier cities are inherently the losers or the underprivileged, and those living in the slums of the lower-tier cities are the losers among losers, the bottom of the bottom, lacking legal status, or even criminals or descendants of criminals. There isn't enough resources to protect them," she said.

"And those people generally, if they don't die in the power struggles, will eventually die at the hands of exposed Disaster Creatures," she added grimly.

"As for those who manage to survive, they naturally progress step by step into the core areas of the lower-tier cities and slowly move to the advanced cities, being reabsorbed by the Federation," she concluded.

"This itself is both a compromise due to the Federation's lack of strength and a brutal selection mechanism," she analyzed.

"So, when the captain hesitated upon hearing that the incident occurred in a lower-tier city, it was because... the establishment of lower-tier cities was the result of compromises among various factions. No one knows what backs that city. The Federation intervening proactively, especially without a request for help from the lower-tier city or the backing powers, is a delicate matter, easily misinterpreted by those with intentions," she pointed out.

Fang Ze suddenly understood why the cities in this world were so clearly ranked and their relationships so complex. He also realized why there were peculiar places like slums and why Jiang Cheng would wait for Miaohua City to ask for help.

Shuishui, this girl, clearly had a simple nature. After spilling all these secrets, she paused and continued, "As for Spirit Realm Mountain and Demigods..."

"I'm not very clear about that either," she admitted.

"I only accidentally heard my grandfather mention that Spirit Realm Mountain isn't actually a mountain. But he didn't specify what it is," she shared.

"And the goal of Demigods seems to be to descend into the Real World to enslave humanity," she revealed.

"However, it's very difficult for them to make their descent whether into the Spirit Realm or the Real World," she explained.

"So, they use their Bloodline to create Disaster Creatures to increase the world's receptiveness," she continued.

"Or they attract Believers or those with their Bloodline to help them fulfill certain conditions that aid their descent into the Spirit Realm and the Real World," she added.

Having said this, Shuishui paused and commented, "How to put it? Over the years, the Federation and the Demigods have always been in a stage of tug-of-war."

"The Demigods cannot come to the human world, but it seems that humans also cannot completely prevent the Demigods' relentless attempts to descend. Everyone is waiting for a moment that breaks the balance," she reflected.