novelraw Chapter 207-2: Tsukishiro Murasakiyo, Tisi Island’s Forbidden Rear Mountain (2)
Chapter 207-2: Tsukishiro Murasakiyo, Tisi Island’s Forbidden Rear Mountain (2)
“Hm? Karmic Fire again?”
Lin Xun opened the panel to look, his new attribute now read [Calamitous Fallen Karmic Fire: 2 Stacks].
He tried switching shells and attacking a lucky thief to test it, but still could not trigger the Karmic Fire attack effect.
“Could it be that Karmic Fire requires certain conditions to activate?”
[The thieves who had been surrounding the Chunin knew they had no hope of escape. They all threw themselves to the ground, wailing and begging you to spare their lives.]
[Will you kill these thieves?]
Lin Xun thought it over, there was no rush to finish them off.
A three-masted warship clearly needed many hands to operate. If he killed all the thieves now, who would serve as his crew?
Once they reached Sakura Falls, he could still dispose of these witnesses at leisure.
He ordered the ship to return to Tisi Island, then possessed the freshly acquired Chunin shell himself.He opened the inventory to inspect the items he’d just gained.
[Ninja Grappling Hook (Special Equipment): A grappling claw forged from refined iron, with a long rope affixed to its end. Can be thrown onto buildings that ordinary people cannot scale, such as city walls, attics, and high eaves, to climb them. This is an essential climbing tool every ninja carries.]
“Not bad, perfect for burglary and petty theft.”
After checking the item, Lin Xun opened the panel to review the attributes.
Under his possession, the Chunin shell’s quality had improved by one tier, becoming Rare+. Its level was also five higher than the previous Genin.
At this quality, it was already much stronger than the Dancer shell.
Though the Chunin’s gear was still the same old junk, standard-issue ninja sword and shabby ninja garb.
Lin Xun removed the Dancer’s hidden blade and equipment and fitted them onto the newly obtained Chunin shell, further boosting its combat strength.
Worth mentioning was the fact that this shell now had an additional new skill.
[Heartless Flow Ninjutsu (Rare): The ninja way of the Heartless Flow school, incorporating methods of harnessing Qi passed down from the Vermilion Empire. After years of grueling cultivation, every movement of the practitioner carries the flow of Qi, granting a modest improvement to all aspects of their abilities.]
“Hiss~ could this be an internal cultivation technique?”
Lin Xun had loved wuxia novels since childhood and had always longed for the inner force and true Qi they described.
If he could somehow extract a few manuals for internal cultivation from the game, wouldn’t he become a martial arts master in real life?
“But this Sakura Falls ‘Qi’ is clearly a knockoff of the Vermilion Empire’s. If I’m going to search, it has to be for the authentic version. I wonder if this chapter includes any Vermilion Empire content…”
He set aside his fantasies of becoming a grandmaster for now, the ship had already returned to Tisi Island’s dock.
He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. He left the Valkyrie to guard the ship, ordering that if any thief dared step off the deck, they were to be killed without mercy.
He boarded the island again and returned to the ninja dojo.
So far, the chapter’s difficulty remained quite mild, not at all like a Hell Difficulty scenario, but Lin Xun did not lower his guard.
He knew the last World of Omniscience had been the same way, early mobs were easily steamrolled, but as the chapters progressed, the difficulty steadily increased…
[You returned to the Heartless Ninja Dojo. The sight of the courtyard, like a hellscape, stirred a surge of bloodlust hidden within your Hermit Bloodline.]
[But with no enemies left before you to vent it upon, will you search the entire dojo for anything useful?]
Before beginning his search, he didn’t forget to perform some corpse-looting, possessing every intact shell in the courtyard and stripping all their equipment.
“Frugality is a virtue, just because I’m accustomed to having a lot of Spirit Essence doesn’t mean I should forget my roots.”
“Now then… it’s treasure hunting time!”
[Searching…]
[In one of the training rooms on the side, you discovered a blowpipe and several darts.]
[You obtained Ninja Blowpipe (Fine Weapon).]
[You obtained Poisoned Blow Darts *5 (Ammo/Arrows).]
[Searching…]
[In another training room, you found a pile of caltrops.]
[You obtained Poisoned Caltrops *3 (Throwing Item).]
[Searching…]
[In a training room tucked in the corner, you discovered many shuriken.]
[You obtained Poisoned Shuriken *5 (Throwing Item).]
[…]
There were many things in the ninja dojo, but they were all small trinkets of limited value.
For an ordinary Apostle, this might be a decent haul, but for someone like Lin Xun, accustomed to the finest delicacies, there were only three words to describe it: better than nothing.
“Picking up scraps isn’t shameful, not at all…”
[After clearing out the training rooms on both sides of the courtyard, you proceeded straight to the dojo’s main hall…]
[The main hall contained several separate chambers, quarters for ninjas who had passed the trials.]
[You stepped inside and began searching them one by one…]
[…]
The rooms were not as well-stocked as Lin Xun had imagined. He found only more small items, the most numerous being Purple Mist Pellets.
He estimated that for quite some time, he wouldn’t need to worry about running out of stealth tools.
[…]
[One private room held a faint fragrance that drew your attention, but there was nothing useful inside. You left that room and approached the last chamber at the end of the main hall.]
[Judging by its design, you guessed this was the ninja teacher’s room.]
[Sliding open the paper door, you saw a small shrine enshrined within. The idol was shaped like a mass of burning black flames.]
[You stepped forward and fiddled with the shrine, but after a while, nothing happened. Soon losing patience, you began rummaging through everything.]
[Searching…]
[Under the tatami mat, you discovered a letter.]
[You obtained Letter from Murasakiyo (Document).]
[Searching…]
[Inside a cabinet, you found a map.]
[You discovered Hidden Hut in the Rear Mountain of Tisi Island (Map).]
[Searching…]
[Everything of use in the room has been looted.]
Lin Xun stroked his chin and tried switching back to the Chunin shell.
Perhaps there were hidden objects here that the Hermit shell couldn’t detect, and only a specific shell could uncover.
[You possessed the shell of the Fire-Worshipping Heartless Chunin!]
[As you looked at the letter and the map in your hand, fragmented memories of the shell resurfaced…]
[Murasakiyo, that was a name you had long admired. Unlike you, who had only become a Chunin a few years ago, the senior sister called Tsukishiro Murasakiyo had already reached the rank of Jonin when she left Tisi Island, at the age of sixteen.]
[Strange, isn’t it? For someone so young to become the senior sister. And to have to call a girl a few years your junior ‘senior sister’, such a shameful honorific. It made everyone hesitate to speak it… Everyone but you. You were the first to say it aloud.]
[You still remembered, when you called out ‘Senior Sister Murasakiyo,’ the girl’s radiant smile brightened the entire dojo. It was a smile so dazzling it made you lose yourself completely…]
[Senior Sister Murasakiyo had not left the dojo of her own will. Her astonishing talent was noticed by the No-Illusions Shrine. One of the lords of the shrine personally came to the island for the sake of this girl who was far too gifted.]
[You knew very well, ninja were a lowly profession, far inferior to samurai of noble standing, and utterly beneath the shrine’s lords. That Murasakiyo’s talent was so overwhelming it made the shrine abandon all pretense and personally descend, what an extraordinary thing…]
[Sigh… From that day on, you never saw Tsukishiro Murasakiyo again, never again glimpsed that beautiful ‘little senior sister.’]
[Only in the occasional letters she sent to the teacher did you learn that the girl who once trained alongside you had now become a shrine miko elevated far above your reach.]
[Since then, you had trained ever harder, just to one day become a Jonin yourself, so you could sneak into the shrine in secret and see that unforgettable smile again…]
[As for the map of the rear mountain, all you knew was that the rear mountain was a forbidden place, as your teacher often said, off-limits to ordinary people. Anyone who approached would be severely punished.]
[The fragmented memories ended there…]
Lin Xun’s face darkened.
What kind of ultimate bootlicker was this?
Did he care about some senior sister named Murasakiyo? He cared about whatever was hidden in the rear mountain!
Yet the entire memory had been devoted to expressing adoration for Tsukishiro Murasakiyo, with only the briefest mention at the end that the rear mountain was a forbidden area.
“Damn it, bootlickers always come to a bad end!”
Lin Xun opened the inventory to inspect the two items.