My Weekly Refreshing Mentor Spirit

Only when the population is about half saturated with the environment, is growth fastest, but the Apostles only continuously exploit, causing the population to remain at the bottom of the S-shaped curve, with growth never increasing.

At least, the Apostles he has seen now behave this way, and he isn’t sure if there are other Apostles with far-reaching foresight who recognize this issue and find the key point therein.

That’s why when Xue Dili saw this corpse, he was still looking for Apostle-related traits on it, namely, what’s in the pants.

He didn’t even consider the Demons from Susu’s old home.

But now that the Mimic Venerable King brought it up, Xue Dili immediately realized what felt off to him.

Yes, this manner of death, this expression of fear before death that shows no pain, as if having experienced the most brutal torture right before dying, isn’t that exactly the expression humans who die at the hands of Demons have?

Because Demons are meme conceptual organisms that survive on human fear, the humans from their realm are completely different from other Apostles.

And now as Xue Dili looked, hey! It really does resemble them.

Thus, Xue Dili called Susu over directly to have a look.

"Susu, Susu, come to the sports field, I seem to have found something related to Demons again." As soon as Xue Dili sent this message, Susu, who was still in the dormitory happily scrolling through funny videos and laughing nearly to the point of getting abs, suddenly froze.

Then with a swift move, a small bamboo segment appeared in her hand, her entire face seemed to be covered with shadows: "Demons? Where are the Demons, those naturally evil Demons, come on! You lowly creatures, disgusting trash monsters, you’re all in the Pure Land that this young lady has opened with her own hands!"

She immediately opened the window and jumped straight out from the fifth floor of the dormitory.

"Thud!"

Xue Dili and Mimic Venerable King heard a dull thud from afar, and then both looked over in that direction.

Soon, they saw Susu limping over, with mud and leaves all over her face.

The school now had basic vegetation coverage; initially, there weren’t any, as the conditions for plant growth in the Subspace weren’t met, but after the Divine Tree settled in, the conditions met, so some basic vegetation appeared on the previously barren ground.

"What happened to you?" Xue Dili asked.

No one else could see the Mimic Venerable King, as the King’s fragments were merged with Xue Dili’s soul, so in Susu’s eyes, there was only Xue Dili.

"I accidentally fell to the ground and twisted my leg... It’s okay, bro, where’s the Demon?" she grinned painfully, then started asking about the serious matter.

The Mimic Venerable King couldn’t help but quip: "Where did you deceive such a silly little girl into coming from?"

Xue Dili: "?"

"What do you mean I deceived her?"

"This silly girl obviously seems like someone you tricked into working here, but forget it, she’s too silly; I feel like another look would pollute my computation power." The Mimic Venerable King turned his eyes away with a look of reluctance.

Xue Dili: "..."

Frustrated and cold, what has become of this world where us Planet Guardians cannot even function properly.

But this was merely Xue Dili bantering with the Mimic Venerable King in his mind, while outwardly he remained expressionless and asked: "Susu, I seem to have discovered a corpse that appears to be related to Demons. Use your Demon radar and have a sense."

Xue Dili looked at the limping Susu and then recalled the "thud" sound earlier, and suddenly suspected that this silly girl might have intended to jump out of the window, but accidentally tripped on it and thus flailed down the building?

Actually, because she was at the level of incarnating her soul in physical form, she wouldn’t suffer something like a fracture, at most the soul would hurt a little, serving as a reminder.

Similarly, the treatment method of Xue Dili’s Cursed Blood, which acts on the physical body, was completely useless.

Without further ado, Susu, appearing as if the pain had swiftly come and gone, limped over to the corpse and showed an expression of confusion.

"It does feel like something demonic, but also not quite..."

"Yes indeed, this should be someone killed by a Demon, because I’m too familiar with this scent..."

"Wait, no! Something’s off, how come looking at it from this angle, it doesn’t seem so demonic after all. A Demon shouldn’t kill directly, even if it’s to make an example, to instill more fear in others, but this seems a waste..."

"Exactly, but this does follow a Demon’s method."

"No, something seems amiss..."

"Wait a minute, is this right?"

Susu, after analyzing it all, appeared to be in a state of shutdown, staring at this Apostle, seemingly only able to think "Is it right? It’s right, right... not right, not right..." engaged in a tug-of-war within her brain, virtually frozen.

Xue Dili: "..."

Mimic Venerable King: "..."

Forget it, no point in looking. She died at 6 years old and left school to become a Witch, only knowing how to handle Evil Ghosts and Demons; hence, Xue Dili couldn’t expect much from her intellect. Even a middle school dropout would at least have reached a vocational school level, whereas she barely reaches kindergarten dropout.

With her foolishness, even the Mimic Venerable King lost interest in her as a Margaret vessel, since she was merely a fragment of World Consciousness, albeit one deeply entangled with the creature tribe named "Demon," providing them with some intel.

Nonetheless, Xue Dili and the Mimic Venerable King got the answer they wanted from her response, which was that this thing did indeed have some connection to the ancient Demons, albeit not particularly close.

Thus, Mimic Venerable King started mobilizing computational power for calculation, and Xue Dili also had a flash of inspiration.

Turning his head, they exchanged glances, and Mimic Venerable King spoke directly: "The origin of the Demons is the Artificial God created by a past civilization on the planet called ’Hell’ in imitation of the corresponding Apostle, which transformed into Demons after it completely lost control."

"Yes, if anything is to be associated with both Demons and Apostles, it has to be the Apostle who once invaded Hell. That Apostle should have been the blueprint for Demons, but we still don’t know who invaded Hell back then... Hell has no effective records." Xue Dili said.

"No, you haven’t thought of more points. You’re thinking only from the records in Hell, naturally, you can’t figure it out. But if you deduce from the Mist Council who invaded Hell, you could quickly conclude." Mimic Venerable King pointed out.

Xue Dili pondered, but within the Mist Council, he didn’t fully grasp the capabilities and rights of at least number two, three, and five, so he continued contemplating.

The Apostle who served as the prototype for Demons, who could it be...

Though the details regarding three of the Apostles and the Lord of Mist remain unknown to Xue Dili, from the existing Apostles, he instantly zeroed in on one Apostle.

"The Seventh Apostle!" Xue Dili and Mimic Venerable King both exclaimed simultaneously.

"Exactly, you’ve finally detected the blind spot. The Seventh Apostle’s jurisdiction is peculiar, not the eldritch deity we encountered beyond Subspace, but the extremely narrow concept of ’Fear.’" said the Mimic Venerable King.

"Right, the concept of fear is overly narrow, just a subset of emotion, and emotions are even a part of other concepts. This concept and jurisdiction are almost like a roadside level among Apostles; maybe there’s a corresponding Evil God at the end of Subspace, but it’s too weak to take seriously, practically akin to a mere roadside." Xue Dili added.

"Then why, is this Apostle, so far at the forefront, restricted to such a weak concept? Could it be, it wasn’t because they chose this concept, but for some personal reason, they could only select it, or perhaps they are this concept itself!" Mimic Venerable King theorized.

The two began a back-and-forth deduction like a duet within their souls.

"Therefore, there is only one truth, that the prototype Apostle for Demons is the Seventh Apostle! This Apostle harnesses fear as the source of power, hence the demonic vibe from the corpse, saturated with fear and torment!"

Were the Mimic Venerable King corporeal, Xue Dili would have high-fived, as it had been ages since encountering someone with reasoning akin to his own.

The last encounter was with the Great Sage.