Class

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Heavy knocks resounded from the front of a classroom as an old lady, dressed in a robe, rapped on the podium in an attempt to draw the attention of the class.

"Attention. Attention. Little lads, you only have one month before you will be sent out on your own. Before that, you will also have a trial after half a month. I hope that many of you can survive for a while before descending. You definitely won't have it this easy once you leave layer one ... "

In the classroom, rows of students of different statures stared forward at the old grandma who was lecturing in the class.

These students, with ages ranging from youthful teens to dashing middle-aged adults, were dressed in different outfits ranging from robes to tunics to cloaks and even a rare, modern set of t-shirt and jeans ... it goes without saying that this was Pro.

After he passed out due to exhaustion, he was delivered to the school dormitories by the old man. A note was left with instructions on what to do next to get to class, and that was the end of his relationship with his guide.

Fortunately, the dorms, classes, and food were all free or Pro would have been stuck at the very start. Well, it was only for one month and these seemed to be the only benefit for newcomers.

It had been many days since classes started.

So far, Pro had learned the basic rules of the negative zone along with some glorifying history of ZOO. It was a simple, cheap attempt to brainwash the newcomers, but it seemed no student fell for it. After all, they all were powerful existences before coming here, albeit not the most powerful seeing how they ended up here in the end.

Taking a glance at the strange combination of students who exuded frightening aura while some secretly juggled unknown negative energy spells in their hands, Pro couldn't help but slump himself lower in his seat. If he was correct, he was the weakest of this bunch.

All traversers had most of their power washed away on the journey here. This was an automatic process in order to facilitate the cultivation of negative energy.

Even though the traversers all lost their cultivation, all their skills, talents, innate abilities, and possibly even golden fingers were all still there.

Not only that, most of the traversers had cultivated their soul to a strong state in their previous life and this was partially retained even after being washed.

So, all these other students basically have a stronger basic body strength due to a stronger soul. A stronger soul meant that they were physically stronger in the Negative Zone because everyone's 'physical' body was their soul.

They are also constantly comprehending new skills through experiments by combining their old skills with negative energy. By modifying their existing methods brought from their previous worlds, they were able to gain a new method that could be used with negative energy as its energy source.

Meanwhile, Pro had basically nothing exemplary compared to the others. If there was anything special, it would be his golden finger, Negative Chronicles. Staring at the book that appeared in his mind, Pro still felt that it was as mysterious as before.

Ever since he arrived, Pro actually didn't dare to take out his golden finger because he feared some existence would be able to see it. Fortunately, the basic class actually taught the students how to access their spiritual realm.

This spiritual realm is where the negative energy is stored. It is located within the core of the soul body, the source seed. Even a mortal has a source seed, but it may simply not be a source seed that can grant power, and it would most likely have a thinner 'shell' than powerful source seeds.

The source seed was like an egg. The seed's shell was like an egg shell, protecting the container within. Within the seed, there is a seemingly vast space when viewed from within. This is the spirit sea. It was like the egg white of an egg.

The spirit sea was where the stored negative energy roamed. Negative energy stored here are under the control of the host and could be used as an energy source for their abilities.

Note that the outer shell or the seed itself may not grow in size, but the spirit sea within can still grow boundlessly. The mysteries behind this phenomenon was not mentioned in class, but it was hinted that this could be purchased later.

In the central area of this sea, the core control of the soul existed. This spiritual core is also known as consciousness, true soul, mind realm, divine soul, and many other similar terms in other worlds. It was the egg yolk in the egg, protected by the rest and at the same time, it had the possibility of giving birth to infinite possibilities.

These three parts, the shell, the sea, and the core, were the main components of the source seed. However, there were also many extra variations that may appear in each individual's spirit sea depending on their secrets and source seed type.

Most of the traversers could already access their own spiritual realm. It didn't take long for the remaining, who didn't know how, to do so as well.

After all, it was just simply learning to open your eyes to see yourself inside your own home. In this case, the house was the source seed that had already established a connection with the soul's core and the soul's core was already 'inside' the house.

Still, it took many days before Pro managed to learn to 'see' inside his god seed, but it was worth it. After examining his spiritual realm, Pro discovered three interesting additions in his spirit sea!

One was a miniature orb that had a separate space inside it. There was also an illusory bronze throne, with a mysterious pupil pattern engraved on the central area of its headrest.

These were interesting at most. What shocked Pro was the Negative Chronicles floating within his spirit sea! He also discovered he could actually read the book without taking it out!

So, Pro finally found a way to keep his golden finger hidden while reading it. Although other traversers may not care about his golden finger because some traversers may also have their own, Pro still thought it would be better to be cautious lest he attracts unnecessary trouble.

With this new method, Pro now had no scruples when reading. This let him spend more time to read through the book and understand his abilities.

[Host Name] Pro Con

[Zone] Negative Uno

[Identity] Neo

[Source Power] Demigod (Negative God Sequence)

[Abilities] {Danger Perception I} {Negative God Seed (active)}

Glancing at the changes in his status screen, Pro meekly smiled.

It seems he didn't really gain much, especially since the method of viewing his own spiritual realm didn't count as an ability as it was something any soul was 'naturally' able to do.

However, there were still some minor changes, the most obvious being that he was in layer one (uno) of the Negative Zone.

It took a couple days to figure out the rest of his new abilities that he gained by combining his experience with the info he learned in classes.

Firstly, there was his new source power, a negative demigod. Source power was basically like the cultivation levels or ranks in the novels he read.

This power is usually named differently based on the seed that the traversers has and the path of power they climb, but basically all of them were attached with the word 'negative' because they had assimilated negative energy, the main source of energy in the Negative Zone.

Here was one of the main reasons for Pro's meek smile.

Although demigod sounds badass, it was actually one of the weakest possible ranks available in ZOO. Perhaps there were lower ranks in other organizations, but most who appear in ZOO comes from the zeroth dimension where strong existences were like stars in the universe. A demigod? That was still an ant.

On the path of god sequences, any owner of an activated god seed is deemed a demigod, the phase between a mortal and god.

Still, there was no need to focus much on the classifications for each source of cultivation in the Negative Zone because of all the mixed traversers.

Instead, a grading system from F- to Ex+ was used, treating each traverser like an adventurer.

Of course, Pro still wasn't clear exactly how these strength are gauged at the moment. He was only clear that he was at the bottom of F-. If there was a rank G, he may have dropped another level.

On the bright side, his Negative God seed had been activated.

After deep introspection, Pro speculated that this seemed to be his yin seed, but it was probably activated and mutated into a god seed by the evil god he encountered in the zeroth dimension.

Pro had no clue how he survived that because he had lost his memories after being invaded by the black aura, but he somehow got some benefits out of that. After assimilating negative energy, the god seed became a negative god seed that could use negative energy for its growth.

Although the Negative God seed was displayed as one simple ability, it actually came with multiple sub-abilities that were inherently part of the god seed.

[Negative God Seed (active)]

A god seed that can automatically assimilate negative energy to further its growth and the growth of the host's soul. An unknown trace of law is being nurtured inside the seed.

{Faith Core} Can absorb faith power to further the growth of the seed. Absorbed faith must be without an owner or directed towards one of host's identities. Only faith power within the same dimension as host can be gathered.

{Negative God Pocket} A small spatial pocket that will grow as the seed grows. Can store non-spiritual items. Current space: 1x1 cubic meter

{Soul Recovery} The soul can be slowly recovered over time by consuming faith or negative energy.

Seeing his new abilities, Pro was thankful for his luck. Yet at the same time, he bemoaned his pitiful knowledge.

Although he was lucky enough to get a god seed and even a possibly powerful trace of unknown law, Pro unfortunately didn't have a single, godly skill or ability that he could use, with the exception of the innate soul recovery skill which every other traverser seemed to have some variation of.

Pro wanted to flip the table when he recalled his experience.

He simply traversed too fast and had no chance to gain any knowledge of the worlds he had been through! It was like a carrot dangling from a stick in front of him, but he only got beaten by the stick and then sent to the slaughter house.

With no foundation of extraordinary knowledge, just having general knowledge from reading light novels wasn't going grant Pro a spell out of thin air.

Also, don't look at the soul recovery ability and think it's useful.

Right now, Pro's damaged ankle is still in a state of recovery. The recovery speed is at a snail's pace and Pro couldn't increase the amount of energy in order to speed up the recovery pace.

This may change in the future, but right now, his negative energy recovery speed actually exceeds the expenditure needed for this ability by a great amount.

So now, Pro basically had a bank opened with lots of power slowly being stored up, but he had no way to invest this power in any way except to increase the size of the bank, which will let him store even more power ... power that he couldn't really use. This is bad ... very bad.

His bank is getting bigger and he is filling it with 'money'. Why this is bad? Well, it had to do with the cultivation in this world.

The Negative Zone's FUNEZ cultivation is truly fun and easy. Besides the fact that negative energy can assimilate with any seed from any world, anyone that has gotten started literally doesn't have to do anything in order to grow their negative energy.

After assimilating the first trace of negative energy, all future negative energy will be automatically absorbed from the surrounding world that was full of negative energy.

There is no need to gather it manually nor run any cultivation method. It was like the world was spoon-feeding your cultivation.

Just by doing nothing, one could grow their negative energy capacity as long as their negative energy had fully recovered to their max capacity!

Although the growth rate is not as fast as the regeneration rate, one could still speed this up if they purposefully absorbed more negative energy or used special treasures.

Not only that, specific source seeds also may have special effects on the negative energy cultivation speed. Some seeds grant faster growth speed, some grant recovery speed, and some may increase the max energy capacity.

Outside of these techniques, there were even more special and crooked ways to increase negative energy.

Basically, cultivating negative energy is a breeze even for a soul that had never cultivated before, such as Pro. Climbing up the power ladder of any sequence of power can't be easier.

Such an easy way to get stronger, who wouldn't desire it? Well ... basically everyone in the Negative Zone rejects it after they knew the truth. There was one cold, hard fact that was reiterated many times in class.

Negative energy is a trap. It is a curse. Why? Because ...