novelraw Chapter 203-1: The Sacred Wine of the Goddess of Wushan (1)
Chapter 203-1: The Sacred Wine of the Goddess of Wushan (1)
[Star Glaze: ???]
[Star Glaze: Are you planning not to pay back the Spirit Essence?]
[Swordsmith: …If you hadn’t mentioned it, I would’ve almost forgotten I’m still carrying a three million debt.]
[Swordsmith: Right now, there’s one good news and one bad news. Which do you want to hear first?]
[Star Glaze: The good news!]
Lin Xun’s mouth twitched. This female superior wasn’t following the script.
[Swordsmith: I’ve decided to tell you the bad news first.]
[Star Glaze: ?]
[Swordsmith: A small accident occurred during the Offering Ritual. The proxy agent position is probably out of the question.]
[Star Glaze: What happened, did Amos discover something?][Star Glaze: If you exposed your personal information, then immediately abandon the infiltration mission!]
[Star Glaze: No, hurry up and come to the office!]
[Swordsmith: Team Leader Li, don’t be so anxious… I haven’t told you the good news yet.]
[Swordsmith: The reason I can’t be a proxy agent is because Amos wants me to become the Twelfth Disciple…]
[Star Glaze: ?????]
[Star Glaze: Get to the office! You’re working overtime!]
—
Half an hour later, in the Cultural Bureau conference room.
“…It hasn’t even been that long, and you’re already about to enter the Fifth Difficulty?”
“And why did Amos find out before I did, do you not trust the organization, or do you not trust me?”
Li Xingyue wore a fitted office skirt suit, her arms folded across her chest, making her already ample figure stand out even more. She stared at him expressionlessly.
“I didn’t have time to report to leadership before Amos discovered it…”
The alluring superior rolled her eyes at him. “I also have one good news and one bad news to tell you.”
“The bad news is that headquarters has no remaining stock of Legendary-grade Divine items.”
“Ah?!”
“The good news is that the Divine item I have on hand wasn’t acquired through the headquarters channels.”
Something suddenly materialized in Li Xingyue’s hand.
It was a small grayish-white clay jar.
[The Sacred Wine of the Goddess of Wushan (Legendary-grade item): The jar holds the wine brewed by Yao Ji, daughter of the Red Emperor, during her lifetime. A sweet wine prepared by the ancient method of chewing and fermenting, it is fragrant and mellow, containing a portion of the Goddess Yao Ji’s enigmatic divinity. Upon use, grants 1 point of Divinity.]
Lin Xun’s heart surged from this sudden turn by the black stocking lady.
“I believe you were able to clearly feel the physical enhancements during the previous Talent Fortification, but that was only laying a foundation for subsequent Talent upgrades.”
“When your Soul Talent advances to +4, it will be different. To be precise, it will strengthen your mental power…”
After an in-depth discussion with Li Xingyue, he gained a lot.
Once his Soul Talent reached +4, it entered a new stage. It no longer focused solely on physical augmentation but shifted to emphasizing mental power.
Although Li Xingyue hadn’t explicitly said what changes would occur at +7, Lin Xun vaguely suspected it would have something to do with the soul itself.
Regarding the New World and the game, Li Xingyue’s arrangement was the same as Amos’s: to have him cultivate diligently and conquer the new difficulty as soon as possible.
Lin Xun returned to his rented apartment.
The hardworking Valkyrie hurriedly put down the broom and handed him a pair of slippers.
“My female superior is also hoping I’ll get promoted soon. But competing for a Disciple position isn’t so easy. If I want to rise higher, I’ll inevitably need her and Amos’s support.”
“Huh? Why does this feel like eating from both sides?”
Lin Xun opened the game and clicked on the Divine item in his inventory.
[You have used the Sacred Wine of the Goddess of Wushan (Legendary-grade item)!]
[You have gained 1 point of Divinity.]
He opened the Apostle Panel. Behind the Thousand Faces, Ten Thousand Forms talent, a small plus sign that had been absent for a long time reappeared.
Lin Xun clicked the plus without hesitation.
[You have consumed 1 point of Divinity. Soul Talent level +1!]
[Soul Talent: Thousand Faces, Ten Thousand Forms +4. Your soul possesses a unique flavor, embracing all forms, rejecting none. Possessing any Shell becomes effortless. Talent Effect: Greatly increases compatibility with Shells (+55%), Shell Slots +11.]
As expected, compatibility increased by ten percent increments.
The number of Shell Slots now rose to 11. Including the 1 slot granted at the start of the game, he now had 8/12 Shell Slots unlocked.
He was confident he wouldn’t have to worry about running out of Shell Slots for quite some time.
Along with the rise in Soul Talent, he felt a force swelling and rampaging in his mind.
The veins on his forehead bulged. His head felt as if someone were hammering it with a massive mallet, or as if something inside was about to burst out of his skull.
The intense swelling pain made him clench his fists and bite down hard to keep from crying out.
The agony only intensified, spreading and fermenting.
Lin Xun finally couldn’t endure it any longer. His eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness.
—
When he woke again, he felt he was lying in a soft embrace.
The girl’s arms were soft and cold.
Before he even opened his eyes, he could already ‘see’ himself half-reclined on the sofa, leaning against the Valkyrie’s chest.
The girl looked anxious but didn’t know what to do, so she only hugged him tighter.
He abruptly opened his eyes.
The scene before him was exactly the same as what he had ‘seen’ with his eyes closed!
“I’m fine.”
After reassuring the Valkyrie, he closed his eyes again.
This time, he ‘saw’ the Valkyrie sitting beside him. The folds of the apron around her waist and the knot of the strap at her back appeared so close and clear, as if within reach.
Lin Xun shifted his ‘gaze’ to himself and immediately… saw a very handsome man.
He tried expanding his ‘sight,’ discovering that he could see no more than about two meters around him. Anything farther became vague and blurred, like it had been pixelated.
“So this is the perception granted by enhanced mental power?”
Lin Xun was filled with joy for a moment, like he had gotten a new toy, and couldn’t help using the perception ability over and over again.
After a while of testing and exploring, he came to a conclusion.
The perception ability only applied to the area surrounding him as the center point, with the current perception range being about one and a half meters.
He could only ‘see’ the surfaces of objects; the perception couldn’t even penetrate clothing, the Valkyrie could attest to that.
According to Li Xingyue, this was because his mental power wasn’t strong enough.
“I’d thought I’d at least be able to look inside myself or something…”
Suddenly, he felt groggy and a little sluggish.
He knew this was probably because using the perception ability repeatedly had drained a lot of energy.
Yawning, Lin Xun went back to the bedroom. He fell face-first onto the bed and soon drifted into a deep sleep.
The girl in the apron quietly walked into the bedroom, gently tucked the blanket around the sleeping man, then silently left and softly closed the door.