Ascension of the Sylvan Cosmos

After leaving that small gift to the "top-ranked heroes," Liu Shu glanced at the leader of Etheria Cathedra. To clarify, that attack was meant to be "healable," as she made sure not to damage them too badly. Any recovery skill of B Rank and above would do the trick easily.

After all, while Etheria Cathedra was better for her plans, those "heroes" were not called as such lightly. Most of them had good hearts and truly believed that they were chosen ones to protect the common people. Naturally, like in all human organizations, there were corrupt heroes here and there who looked down on those who didn’t Level Up.

The leader of Etheria Cathedra, kneeling in respect, glanced up slowly at the wooden Avatar Liu Shu, manifested and sat in a wooden throne. The blue-glowing sap flowing through those visible veins gave the whole thing a majestic and unreal beauty.

Liu Shu looked at the woman with an indifferent and divine look and spoke. "You’ve been chosen to lead this world in the right path. From today, you’ll be my Saintess and lead this world to a future where everyone will have the same chances to Level Up. I will make sure that Level 99 is not the limit, and also open everything and spread you beyond the stars."

The woman’s eyes trembled, her blood rushing in excitement. This had been her deepest wish, and while her method had been quite twisted and cost several lives, it also helped this world be above the rest in this Solar System in one thing: quality.

Few people Leveled Up in this world, but those who did were chosen due to their outrageous talents. From what Liu Shu had secretly absorbed with her roots, there were records of humanoids reaching Level 99 in less than 10 years.

That speed was outrageous even in Ceperet, Liu Shu’s home planet, not to mention here.

Once she got to know of this information, Liu Shu expanded her Divine Tree Eye together with World Tree Wisdom and scanned all active heroes.

To her utter stupefaction, she saw at least five people with 20 overall stars (S+ Rank), forty with 19 (S Rank), around 90 with 18 (S- Rank), and a few hundred with 17 overall stars (A+ Rank), which was Liu Shu’s current tier.

Not to mention, due to Etheria Cathedra’s threat, talent bloomed to the point that C+ Tier was considered the minimum to become a low-ranking Hero. That kind of selection criteria was not far behind what Liu Shu used to select her soldiers!

Due to her , almost all her army had varying tiers from B+ to A Tier. As for S+ Tier talents? Liu Shu recalled that there were around 10 of them across her entire Golden Sap Empire!

’It’s honestly quite ridiculous. If this entire civilization decided to actually take arms and Level Up collectively, their potential would be high.

There weren’t only humans. Beastkin, Sylvans, and Humans. Those were the "accepted" races as intelligent species. As for World Trees and Life Trees, they were actually not considered special.

The reason? Governments that took control realized their potential and made sure that no World Tree or Life Tree could reach Level 75. Due to this, there were World Tree striker groups, led by one of the five S+ Tier talents.

As a consequence, this S+ Tier talent was riddled with negative . It was to the point that Level 74 Liu Shu would’ve been able to deal with him because of the negative multipliers against World Trees.

The woman who had been trembling in joy spoke up. "L-Lady Heavenly Willow, this servant is delighted to serve your purpose and bring a new dawn to society!"

Liu Shu escaped her ruminations and refocused on the woman in front of her. "Your Villain name has been Etheria. Is that your given name as well?"

"This servant has long discarded my own name. In my divine page, the name Etheria is written as my True Name."

Liu Shu blinked. ’Divine page... ah. The System Interface.’ Her eyes were curious as to why this woman was so religious, so she scanned her System Page in detail.

As if she was feeling it, the woman trembled under Liu Shu’s analytical gaze.

’...Wow. Look at this. No wonder she acts as a servant of the divine. She has a special