novelraw Chapter 73: White Candle
Chapter 73: White Candle
[At the fifty-eighth tombstone, you sense something unusual.]
[At the one hundred and twelfth tombstone, you sense something unusual.]
[At the one hundred and eighty-sixth tombstone, you sense something unusual.]
[At…]
—
He carefully scrolled through the text and discovered that a total of five tombstones in the cemetery showed these messages.
Lin Xun tried clicking on one again.
[You walk up to the fifty-eighth tombstone and notice that it is perfectly intact. The inscriptions on the stone faintly glow.]
That was all the text displayed, no new options popped up.
Lin Xun clicked through the other tombstones with anomalies, and the result was the same every time.He frowned and thought hard about it.
Suddenly, an idea struck him.
He opened the inventory and clicked on the junk item he had found earlier, the Withered Lotus Flower.
[Do you want to place the Withered Lotus Flower in front of the tombstone?]
Lin Xun’s eyes lit up. Bingo!
[You place the Withered Lotus Flower in front of the tombstone and bow in silent tribute. The inscriptions on the tombstone glow even brighter!]
But the text ended there again.
Lin Xun suspected the offering wasn’t enough.
He opened his inventory again and clicked on the Withered Lotus Flower once more.
[You have already used this item to pay tribute. Using the same item again will weaken the effect of the tribute.]
“…”
“This tombstone’s a bit picky.”
Lin Xun then clicked on the junk item: Memorial White Candle.
[You place the Memorial White Candle in front of the tombstone and light it. After bowing in silent tribute, the inscriptions on the tombstone glow even brighter!]
[A faint rumbling sound comes from deep beneath the cemetery. You seem to have unlocked part of a hidden mechanism.]
Lin Xun instantly understood: the five tombstones were part of a mechanism’s activation sequence.
As long as he paid tribute to each of them, he could unlock some kind of hidden mechanism.
Following the same process, he quickly unlocked all the tombstones with anomalies.
Until he got to the last one…
[You place the Withered Lotus Flower in front of the tombstone and bow in silent tribute. The inscriptions on the tombstone glow even brighter!]
Just as he was about to click the White Candle, he realized he had run out of them.
He quickly checked the earlier marketplace text.
Back then, he had gotten five Withered Lotus Flowers and four Memorial White Candles.
“What the heck! Missing one candle?!”
Lin Xun hurriedly mounted his beloved lion and rushed back to the marketplace.
He re-entered the shop and searched every corner, but found absolutely nothing.
“…”
Lin Xun stared at the screen, baffled. Now what?
Without that last crucial item to complete the mechanism, the cemetery exploration couldn’t continue.
He thought it over carefully. The text had mentioned before that beyond the cemetery’s back gate, the next area was a rundown shed.
Could it be that the missing candle was inside the shed?
With that thought, he headed back to the cemetery.
Good thing he had a mount. Otherwise, half the game time would have been spent on just traveling back and forth.
[You enter the cemetery again…]
[In the distance, at the cemetery’s rear gate, a winding path stretches out of sight. Beside that path seems to be a rundown shed.]
[Do you want to search the cemetery again, or head out to investigate the shed?]
Lin Xun clicked to head toward the shed.
[You ride the lion, galloping through the cemetery’s back gate, following the path ahead…]
[Soon, you arrive at the Wilderness Shed.]
[You dismount and enter…]
[The ramshackle shed lets in the wind from every side, and inside, you see something familiar.]
[Floating in mid-air is a giant glowing page, giving off a faint light.]
[You have discovered a remnant page of the Book of Salvation—Resting Page!]
“…”
Lin Xun was speechless. He’d been expecting a treasure chest inside the shed, something that might have the crucial candle he needed.
Still, since he was already here, he figured he might as well set a new respawn point.
[You have set the Wilderness Shed Resting Page as your new respawn point.]
After rummaging through the shed, just as he expected, there was absolutely nothing useful to be found.
Lin Xun scratched his head, realizing he was stuck once again.
“If only I could bring real-world items into the game…”
He sighed.
If that were possible, he could just walk into one of those shops with a “one-stop funeral services” sign and buy candles.
Forget candles, he could even buy a paper villa or a paper sports car to really impress that picky tombstone.
With the shed now set as his new respawn point, he returned to the cemetery.
He carefully reviewed the earlier text, hoping to find something like [You see a white candle at the foot of Tombstone No. XXX].
If he spotted a line like that, he’d gladly go loot another tombstone.
Unfortunately, after searching for what felt like forever, his eyes sore from scanning, he found nothing of the sort.
Lin Xun put down his phone and let out a long sigh.
Now he understood why other Apostles were always complaining about getting stuck.
Not only were the monsters and NPCs devious, but even the progression mechanics were infuriating.
Out of leads for now, he turned on his computer and logged into the Apostle Forum to browse posts.
He didn’t bother looking for walkthroughs for Chapter 323; the noob Apostles on the forum couldn’t even pass the tower, so they had nothing useful to offer.
He finally found a C-rated guide for a different chapter.
Thinking “a stone from another mountain can polish jade,” he gave it a read.
But the Apostle who wrote the guide wasn’t like Lin Xun, who fully explored and looted every corner of the map.
Instead, they used a personal talent to skip some of the dead-end sections and eventually spent a huge amount of Spirit Essence to buy a powerful item to brute-force the final boss.
“This kind of guide is useless. Skipping steps only lowers your final score.”
Lin Xun shook his head and closed the forum page.
No point copying the homework of someone who was failing. Better to rely on himself.
He reopened the game and started combing through the earlier game text, hoping to find a clue.
“Huh?”
After searching for a long while, Lin Xun finally spotted a hint.
It was from the first time he entered the small church at Fox Castle.
[You enter the small church. Rows of pews are lined with burning white candles. The pure white candlelight fills the entire space, making you feel slightly uncomfortable. At the far end of the church, the host’s lectern bears the symbol of the Radiant Crescent.]
Lin Xun smacked his thigh and instantly decided to raid the small church for supplies.
He jumped onto his lion and sprinted full speed, spending a good chunk of time before finally arriving at the small church.
[You have entered the Small Church of Fox Castle.]
[Beyond the host’s lectern is the Resting Page. Do you want to approach it and resonate with it, or stay where you are?]
This cursed game had only described the church’s furnishings in detail the first time he entered. On return visits, it deliberately left out those details, trying to make him forget the key clues.
Lin Xun sneered and chose to stay and search.
[The Apostle with a photographic memory seems to have noticed something…]
[1. Yawn, lie down on the ground, and enjoy a nice nap. Everything is possible in your dreams.]
[2. Your little lion seems impatient, waiting at the church entrance. Hurry up and pet your lion.]
[3. (Hidden option) Steal a white candle from one of the church pews.]