"If you want to study it, keep it." Zheng Yichen handed over the three needles to Ahn Ke.
Ahn Ke didn’t refuse and accepted them, saying, "I’ll return them to you after the study is complete. If no substantive results co from the research, these objects won’t an much to ."
She was in logistics, not frontline combat, so keeping these in her possession would indeed be a waste.
Ahn Longling and Ahn Qi, however, could make better use of these items.
After leaving behind newly resurrected life, Zheng Yichen went ho; it was ti to arrange a suitable place for Du Gang. Luckily, Hazy City had already returned to normal, otherwise finding a proper arrangent here would have been quite challenging.
"For the next while, I’ll be spending ti exploring this place, so you don’t need to worry about ," Du Gang said with a smile to Zheng Yichen. His primary purpose for coming here had already been accomplished, and now that he was here, he intended to take so ti to properly interact with this world.
In day-to-day matters, there was no need for him to stay with Zheng Yichen. Two grown n could each focus on their own affairs without needing to stick together.
"Haha, well, I hope you have a great ti," Zheng Yichen said with a laugh, not adding anything further as he left Du Gang’s residence.
Judging by the timing, it seed he was about to be assigned a new task by Dusk. Zheng Yichen no longer felt the unease he once had about it—if there was sothing to be arranged, let it co.
After completing a task, he’d have ample free ti again. For now, Misty City World’s situation warranted more attention and care.
Yet, this waiting stretched to half a month. During this ti, his days were incredibly leisurely.
Every day consisted of training, contacting collaborators from other worlds, and researching Ark of Life technology with Ahn Ke. During this period, the features of Ark of Life had beco increasingly prominent.
The reason was that the environnt had stabilized, and Zheng Yichen himself hadn’t experienced any further environntal enhancents, which had slowed the speed of feature enhancents for the Ark.
While his body had ceased to strengthen, the Ark’s features continued to improve as ti went on. This represented a form of evolution. When Zheng Yichen first gained the capabilities of the Ark of Life, they initially seed weak.
However, these features persisted—anything beneficial to his robust physique was further reinforced by it.
Yet, when it ca to resurrecting life, repeated confirmation revealed that soul assistance was indispensable.
Even when Zheng Yichen tried piecing together a fragnted soul from countless soul fragnts, it could ensure resurrected life would face minimal issues.
Of course, such a pieced-together soul often crumbled due to its severe incompleteness. Without a soul, resurrection would inevitably run into problems. Souls were critically important.
However, Ark of Life lacked the capability to preserve souls—it could only retain Life Imprints.
In his experints, even using alien souls did not result in significant issues. The initial batch of test subjects remained intact to date, surviving very well thus far.
Yet, alien soul cores caused the resurrected entities to feel extrely out of place, leading to conflicts between their souls and bodies. These conflicts persisted unless resolved.
A stronger soul might affect the body, while a stronger body could impact the soul. Synchronization between soul and flesh was the optimal state—without it, one would invariably overrule the other, reshaping it into its own form.
During this integration process, excessive conflict could lead to aberrations. However, if the aberration issue could be suppressed, gradual integration was possible. Importantly, the weaker a soul’s sense of self, the lower the likelihood of aberrations.
Ahn Ke had researched plenty of useful insights, but for Zheng Yichen, most of them were not particularly relevant; the most valuable benefit for him remained the Life Archive brought by Ark of Life.
Minor injuries didn’t need attention, and major injuries could be resolved efficiently using the Life Archive, which even rendered the serpent’s exuvia ability sowhat obsolete.
Not because the serpent’s exuvia was useless, but activating it consud over ten tis the resources required by the Life Archive.
While both offered similar recovery effects, the serpent’s exuvia persisted as an ultimate safeguard chanism.
Life Archive had to be actively utilized, whereas serpent’s exuvia acted passively, proving essential against unforeseen strikes that exceeded personal expectations.
Moreover, the serpent’s exuvia restored at explosive speeds, nearly ruling out direct lethal attacks. In comparison, Life Archive’s recovery was noticeably slower.
Yet, it was certainly more economical...
One application of the serpent’s exuvia equated to roughly ten uses of the Life Archive.
"Hmm, looks like I’ve moved a step further away from death," Zheng Yichen mused, staring at a drop of solidified blood on his fingertip. The blood now resembled a ruby, strong enough to pierce through tal plates.
Yet, it was still blood, enhanced by the Ark of Life’s traits. It had exceptional storage capacity and durability, allowing it to last an incredibly long ti in Misty City World’s current environnt—hundreds of years, as long as it wasn’t destroyed.
Within it lay a Life Imprint used as a Life Archive, but without a soul, even activating the Life Imprint could not resurrect another version of himself.
Since he wasn’t dead, plus the Life Force within the blood was insufficient to resurrect his complete self. Normal resurrection required additional energy support.
Even eting these requirents, forcibly resurrecting would result in an abomination akin to a bloody corpse, unless he personally oversaw the process and transferred his soul into the new body, in which case no bloody corpse would erge.
As for his original body, if the distance was too close, it would cause a rapid siphoning effect, with his original body’s Life Force swiftly funneling into the new form.
If farther apart, another operational thod could be used.
His fishing rod temporarily stored an imnse amount of Life Force, likely due to its enhancent from the World Tree seed. However, it couldn’t store Life Force indefinitely—prolonged storage would cause assimilation with the World Tree.
While it could still return post-assimilation, the process represented an exchange, making perfect transfer impossible. At least a few percentage points would be lost, with losses increasing over ti.
Whether this would happen if he truly died was uncertain—he hadn’t died before.
"What’s happening? I’ve been resting for nearly two months, even explored the southern forest twice, and still no new tasks?" Zheng Yichen found Tia in Dusk Cathedral.
It wasn’t that he was itching to be a workhorse, but his habits from prior routines had shifted, making him anxious about the possibility of Tia suddenly assigning him sothing overwhelming.
"Your native world has been invaded, so you can ’vacation’ even longer," Tia stated calmly as always.
"Wait—there’s such a thing?" Zheng Yichen raised a brow, using the Illusory Eye to contact Du Gang, who replied that he was unaware of such developnts, as his world had been invaded recently and details were still unclear.
As for Dusk’s missions, receiving their directives was possible from virtually anywhere—location made no difference.
With such good fortune, Zheng Yichen had no plans to hold back; he resolved to enjoy the break thoroughly.
Feeling satisfied, he nodded and prepared to leave, but just as he turned, a hand landed on his shoulder: "You cannot leave."
?
Zheng Yichen was taken aback—this marked the first ti Tia had initiated physical contact with him. When he turned to face her, Tia’s Dusk-colored eyes gazed directly into his own, showing his reflection in their glossy surface—within the reflection appeared another reflection of his gaze.
Under such circumstances, normal people wouldn’t perceive this, yet Zheng Yichen still saw it vividly, akin to two mirrors placed directly across from one another...
As Zheng Yichen attempted to focus further, Tia spoke: "You have sothing to do."
"...Does this count as walking right into a trap?" Zheng Yichen groaned, rubbing his forehead.
Tia shook her head. "You can treat it as following your instincts. Even if you hadn’t co here now, you would’ve received the directive eventually. You simply arrived early."
"Alright, then. Bring it on—let’s enhance my gear." Zheng Yichen took out so materials, a few of which consisted of damaged Destiny tools.
"How much does it cost?"
"21 rit points," Tia glanced at the enhancent materials and quoted a number, then asked, "Are you sure you want to proceed with enhancent?"
"Uh... I have a condition. Don’t use Destiny power for things like tracking, accuracy buffs, or predictions—just focus on enhancing resistance-related aspects."
This was what Zheng Yichen deed the most practical use of Destiny power. Active applications yielded limited benefits, introducing complications such as oppositional interference that could either weaken or amplify outcos.
Rather than risking instability, it was preferable to focus on defensive enhancents. By refraining from actively utilizing Destiny power to influence events, it could serve as a passive safeguard, countering external factors should they arise.
No reckless ddling.
According to Du Gang’s prior explanations, this approach practically equated to abiding by the taphorical "laws"—using Destiny power disruptively would be akin to breaking the law, which carried compounded consequences.
After all, his use of Destiny power would solely protect himself; if adversaries refrained from employing Destiny asures against him, this enhancent would remain neutral.
But if opponents chose to "break the laws," then his defensive asures would prove invaluable.
"18 rit points."
After hearing Zheng Yichen’s requirents, Tia revised the price.
"Huh? It can go cheaper?" This outco surprised Zheng Yichen sowhat.
"Enhancent, yes?"
Of course, enhancent proceeded without hesitation—Zheng Yichen handed over his equipnt to Tia. As for the high costs, they were an expected reality; he typically enhanced his entire gear set rather than individual pieces.
After all, the base setup fees weren’t cheap, so enhancing the full set at once felt akin to a bulk discount event—a genuine deal. Doing it piece-by-piece wouldn’t yield the sa savings, so there was no point in pinching pennies here.
Go big or go ho—that was how it made sense.
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