526: Chapter 526: Sunshine (Double-Length Chapter for Monthly Votes) 526: Chapter 526: Sunshine (Double-Length Chapter for Monthly Votes) “Not a single survivor?”
Wu Lan looked at Yang De next to her in shock.
“The World Tree people are all dead?
The Moonlight headquarters has been outright destroyed?”
At this point, she paused in her speech, “Minister Yang, hearing you say this, why do I get the feeling that this ruthlessness, this style of leaving no survivors, seems eerily familiar…”
He Ao, who was drinking his morning milk, blinked in confusion as everyone in the video conference turned to look at him.
“Ahem,” coughed Yang De, “This incident involves a C-level, and the situation is not so simple.
The Dean is currently on his way to Eren.”
Hearing this, He Ao was startled, “The Dean is coming here?”
“Yes,” glanced Yang De at He Ao, “The Dean thought the suggestion you made before was very good, and given the occurrence of this incident, he has decided to personally preside over the matter.”
“The Dean went there?”
Surprise was clearly filled in Wu Lan’s eyes, then she spoke with so dissatisfaction, “He hasn’t left Central Earth in so many years, and now he is willing to go out.
We had several problems before and couldn’t find him when we wanted help.”
“The Dean and other Transcendents have an agreent not to act rashly, as it could quite possibly provoke a joint action against us by other Transcendent organizations.”
Ji Po explained softly.
“Oh,”
Wu Lan propped her face in so disappointnt, but then she saw He Ao, who was drinking milk across the screen, and steered the conversation back, “So, how are things over there?
Are you in danger, little brother He Ao?”
“All is well,”
He Ao smiled and took another sip of milk, “For now, at least, there should be no danger.”
“However, caution is still needed, since the people involved in last night’s event are not simple.”
Yang De pondered, “You’ve previously been attacked by so mysterious organization, and that organization might be one of the core participants in last night’s event.”
Then, he lifted his head to look at He Ao, “Do you have any other intelligence over there?”
“There is so,”
He Ao spoke softly,
“Moonlight’s remaining people have sealed off the scene and the nearby streets, but they seem incapable of handling the situation.
“According to the data obtained by Li Le, Moonlight currently estimates that last night’s incident involved at least a C-level or higher entity.
Right now, parts of Moonlight’s headquarters and Ruonati Royal Palace Museum have fallen into so distorted and bizarre state.
“Moreover, on the top of the Moonlight headquarters building, they found a huge monster corpse that can affect the human mind.
“Moonlight lacks the ability to investigate for the ti being, so they are just temporarily sealing it.”
He Ao paused a little before continuing, “According to the information from a gendarrie captain I know, last night, there was an incident of mass unconsciousness affecting hundreds of thousands of people in South Eren City.
“The entire event ended quickly, and all the unconscious individuals subsequently woke up with no casualties.
“However, so have reported seeing strange shadows attempting to devour their bodies.
These individuals are sowhat unstable ntally, with most missing parts of their mory and experiencing hallucinations.
For now, these reports have been taken over by Moonlight.
“In fact, I’ve also had dreams for several consecutive days about a shadow getting increasingly closer.
I’ve asked around, and those with higher sensitivity also had similar dreams.”
“It’s generally the case that Transcendents are more sensitive to supernatural phenona, which ans,” Ji Po mused, “it’s very likely that this was a ‘bizarre event’.
“Last night was probably a bizarre event that impacted the whole of Eren City, or at least South Eren City, causing tens of thousands to fall into slumber.”
He went on to say, “Judging from the condition of those who reported the incident, since so are naturally more prone to touching upon the bizarre truths than ordinary people, maybe last night’s event wasn’t just about sleeping, it was…”
“Murder.”
Wu Lan took up the topic, her long-term cooperation with Ji Po enabling her to quickly grasp his line of thinking.
She continued along these lines,
“Last night’s odd phenonon very likely originally intended to kill everyone in South Eren City, but this bizarre event was sohow stopped due to an accident.
This ‘accident’ might be related to last night’s incident at the Moonlight headquarters,”
She paused, her voice trembling slightly as she spoke, “A bizarre incident that could cover half a modern city and kill hundreds of thousands of people in an imperceptible manner—whatever is driving such a phenonon must be terrifying.”
From the information currently in the possession of the Research Institute, the broader the coverage of a bizarre incident, the stronger the supernatural item powering it must be.
Even so, the most complex bizarre event the Research Institute has dealt with to date only covered a small village and was a short-lived, low-damage C-level bizarre event.
South Eren City is many tis larger than a small village, with a population in the hundreds of thousands.
To simultaneously kill so many people requires a trendously horrifying power.
Wu Lan felt that such a level of power was beyond her understanding.
Just like placing a world-class mathematics puzzle in front of a baby still learning to count from one to ten.
“At least from the current intelligence, more than one C-level died at the scene, but sadly, up to now, not a single informant claiming to know the truth about last night’s events has erged,”
Yang De said slowly.
“Hao Yi might know sothing,” Ji Po speculated, “He was the only C-level in Eren last night.
Maybe he was also one of the parties involved in last night’s events.”
“That guy is too mysterious to track, and he’s holding the Velora, making it impossible to find him.”
Wu Lan chid in from the side, “Moreover, we still haven’t figured out his motives, and he may not be willing to cooperate with us.”
“Everything will probably still have to wait until the dean arrives there for a personal inspection,”
Yang De concluded the topic, then turned his head to look at He Ao,
“We’ll have to trouble you now, the dean should be able to arrive at Eren by tomorrow morning at the latest.
During this ti, it’ll be up to you to control the situation and prevent Moonlight and the World Tree from being provoked into taking drastic actions.
However, the sa principle applies; everything is based on ensuring your own safety.”
“Okay!”
He Ao nodded slightly.
After so more discussion, the eting ca to an end.
He Ao turned his head to look at the scenery outside the window, where the bright morning sun shone upon the warm earth, draping the ancient city in a golden glow.
On the dry land by the road, fresh green shoots were sprouting.
He raised his hand and drank the milk in the cup in one gulp.
He sensed the Divine Sense in his mind, and, compared to the ten Divine Senses remaining after the last Copy World ended, he now had five and a half left.
In this period, resisting C-level had consud four and a half of his Divine Senses.
The Mountain Collapse Tsunami, a C-level Miracle, along with his own strong physical condition, ant that his consumption of Divine Sense when fighting C-level was not as much as in the Copy World.
Then he opened his personal information interface.
[He Ao]
[Permission Level: Advanced Player]
[Physical Fitness: 1194]
[Skills: Talent Sequences 272: Super mory (C-level), Basic Firearms Proficiency, Talent Sequences 72: Secret Mage (C-level)]
[chanical Modification: None]
[Martial Arts: Qi Refinent and Spirit Transformation (C-level)]
Physical Fitness had increased from 782 to 1194, a growth of 402.
The increase wasn’t much, it wasn’t the terrifying 500 jump seen when entering C-level in Martial Arts, but Secret Mage wasn’t a Talent Sequence focused on close combat, so this increase was probably the limit for this Talent Sequence.
After advancing, He Ao also acquired the skill information of the Secret Mage.
Firstly, the Miracle Magic ‘Retrieve objects from the air,’ which He Ao mastered at the Magician stage, had been enhanced; the distance it could be used at, the cost of use, and the restrictions on the objects used had all been improved.
The original version of Retrieve objects from the air could only handle relatively small items, and the effective distance was very short, at most ten ters.
For greater distances and larger items, it required the expenditure of ntal energy, placing a burden on the body.
Now, after advancing, the effective range of this ability had expanded fivefold, and the size of the objects that could be manipulated had increased as well.
Even if the limits were exceeded, the cost beca minor, improving the efficiency.
While the original Retrieve objects from the air couldn’t affect living creatures, it could now do so with relatively weak lifeforms after paying a certain price.
This gave the ability a sowhat bizarre aspect.
Besides Retrieve objects from the air, Secret Mage also ca with an inherent Talent-type Miracle, ‘Concealed Being.’
When this Miracle was activated, people around would naturally ignore the existence of the Secret Mage.
This form of ignorance wasn’t like the Nightwalker’s ‘Night Walk,’ which made people directly invisible, but rather people were aware of the person’s existence but would naturally and subconsciously fail to consider them.
Put simply, it made one’s presence extrely low and difficult to notice.
During the Velora incident, Jin Ya had used this ability.
However, this ability, unlike other combat abilities He Ao had encountered before, doesn’t have much effect in battle.
‘Concealed Being’ is more inclined towards ‘secrecy.’
It would work through a certain special connection, influencing everyone related to or paying attention to He Ao.
In simple terms, when He Ao caused trouble, this ability would passively reduce the chances of He Ao being suspected.
He Ao always felt that Jin Ya’s ‘Concealed Being’ might be slightly different from his own.
Because if Jin Ya’s ‘Concealed Being’ at that ti had been this version, she wouldn’t have failed to activate it, and He Ao wouldn’t have been able to easily deduce her issues so readily.
Moreover, the ability to influence all related individuals through a special connection was sowhat too terrifying.
But the consequences of wielding such power were also imnse.
‘Concealed Being’ could be used for a maximum of seven days at a ti and had a very short cooldown period of just twelve hours.
aning it could, in a sense, be used continuously.
But like Mountain Collapse Tsunami, it affected everyone indiscriminately.
The longer it was used, the fewer people in the world would pay attention to the user, and eventually, those around the user might lose their mories related to the user.
This ant if used without breaks continuously, the user could very likely be ‘forgotten’ by everyone.
Although he would still be alive, no one would be able to see or rember him.
This situation was likely to severely affect a person’s self-identity, ultimately driving Transcendents to madness.
Besides, while using ‘Concealed Being,’ the user’s affinity with the mysterious would increase, making them more susceptible to becoming entangled in those strange occurrences hidden beneath the surface.
Power and danger are always two sides of the sa coin.
Besides, He Ao also had an empty “skill slot.”
After becoming a Secret Mage, He Ao could have up to three “Miracles.”
“Retrieve objects from the air” and “Concealed Being” each occupied a “Miracle” slot, leaving one Miracle for He Ao to acquire on his own.
And the way to obtain this third Miracle was quite simple,
Murder.
Kill a C-level, then solidify the opponent’s ability within oneself to beco a personal “Miracle.”
Overall, the abilities of a Secret Mage were powerful and carried a certain strong and strange attribute.
And perhaps it was because the ritual was completed so well, He Ao felt that the power of this Secret Mage seed excessively strong.
If Jin Ya had these abilities back then, with just two C-level skills solidified and “Concealed Being” on top, it wouldn’t have been certain who would have won or lost between her and He Ao on Velora.
However, this also indirectly proved that He Ao’s speculation was correct.
When he first saw the promotion ritual for the Secret Mage, he had pondered what exactly a “Miracle” was.
Eventually, he deduced from the nature of things like “Miracle Magic” and “Miracle Wand,” which have miracles in their nas, that here miracles ant “making the impossible possible.”
The greater the difficulty, the more impossible the deed, the more it t the requirents of a Miracle once achieved.
So, He Ao set his sights on the Mysterious Shadow.
Playing a divine gambit, a common person opposing a Divine Being, that was a Miracle.
Of course, choosing the Mysterious Shadow as the object of the ritual also had a forceful elent because the Mysterious Shadow had clearly shown that once it arrived, it would not spare any of the ‘sacrifices’ in the city, including He Ao.
Therefore, He Ao had no way out but to stop the Mysterious Shadow.
This was also one of the reasons why he had to send his clone to receive the advent of the Mysterious Shadow’s offspring.
If the Mysterious Shadow’s offspring truly arrived and the location of the main world was confird, it might forcibly descend and begin the sacrifice, leaving He Ao with no escape but death.
But if He Ao himself opposed it, relying on his relatively strong ntal resistance, there was a glimr of hope.
However, in terms of the ritual, apart from the Miracle, this incident affected hundreds of thousands of people and attracted the attention of all Transcendent organizations in the main world, truly completing the ritual in excess.
This “excess” directly resulted in He Ao’s Secret Mage abilities becoming excessively strong after his promotion.
And at the instant of the promotion, he almost fully mastered the Talent Sequence of Secret Mage, skipping the lengthy mastering and familiarization phase.
With just a bit of fine-tuning, he would be ready to advance to B-level.
However, this gamble with the Mysterious Shadow did not only complete the ritual for “Secret Mage” promotion.
Super mory’s C-level Talent Sequence was “Chess Master,” and by disrupting the Divine Being’s arrangent this ti, turning the outco towards He Ao’s set direction, the proficiency of Super mory also greatly increased.
But mastering Super mory was indeed much more difficult than mastering Secret Mage.
Although this incident did not result in He Ao fully mastering Super mory, it certainly pulled the progress bar a good deal forward.
The direct effect was that the sensing range of Super mory was further enhanced, and the boost to physical fitness after using Super mory rose from 490 to 540.
Adding that to his original physical attributes, under the activation of Super mory, his sheer physical fitness could reach 1744, which was four tis that of an average C-level Transcendent.
Moreover, the cooldown ti for the three marks of Super mory was also reduced.
The cooldown ti needed to modify a B-level choice dropped from around thirty days to about twenty-one days.
This nearly one-third reduction, coupled with the soul amplification brought by the Secret Mage promotion, ant that the mark, which had gone into cooldown after He Ao modified Ruonati’s choice last night, now had only five days left on its cooldown ti.
At this mont, He Ao picked up the Miracle Wand at his waist and placed it on the table.
With his promotion to Secret Mage, he felt a stronger attraction to the Miracle Wand.
Perhaps the Miracle Wand truly originated from a high-ranking Talent Sequence very close to that of the Secret Mage.
But thinking about this was still premature, as he didn’t even know the na of the subsequent Talent Sequences of the Secret Mage yet.
However, by killing Ruonati, the progress bar for Mountain Collapse Tsunami also reached 8/5, aning he could now use Mountain Collapse Tsunami once, giving him a last resort to save his life.
He Ao averted his gaze, lifting his head to watch the spires outside the window.
Moonlight had found many huge opaque plastic sheets during the night to cover the body of the gigantic snake that lay atop the building.
He Ao was staying in a hotel not far from the Moonlight headquarters.
He Ao slowly rose to his feet, feeling a slight tugging sensation from the wound on his back that had already ford scabs.
With the completion of the promotion ritual, so of the injuries he had sustained the previous night had already healed under the stimulation of Secret dicine, and the injuries to his body were not a significant problem anymore.
However, his clone was a different story.
It had sustained more injuries during the fight and didn’t have the benefit of promotion Secret dicine to help it recover.
That’s why last night, as Hao Yi, he visited Lei Cheng, the doctor at the Research Institute, asked for treatnt, and got so healing dicine to use on his own body.
He Ao wasn’t worried about being suspected as Hao Yi.
As Eren’s only “B-level,” Hao Yi being suspected was almost a foregone conclusion.
Going openly, on the contrary, would make those who suspected him doubt themselves.
And wonder about any connection between Hao Yi and He Ao.
After the completion of the ritual, He Ao no longer needed to strictly adhere to secrecy.
Furthermore, since the matter was truly ‘unknown to any,’ even with reasoning based on the incomplete scene, it was impossible to fully reconstruct the sequence of events.
Rough guesses can’t be considered ‘knowledge’.
He Ao tidied up his blood-stained clothes and changed into the spare clothes kept in the pirate treasure box before leaving the inn.
The streets were full of people coming and going, the aroma of roasted at wafted into He Ao’s nostrils.
The city buzzed as usual, as if everything remained serenely normal.
“I don’t know why, but it seems that I stopped having that strange dream after going to bed at eleven last night.”
“I told you, it’s because you’ve been under too much stress lately and you’re hallucinating.
There’s no such thing as a horrifying shadow.
Yawn~ But why do I feel so tired when I wake up today?”
“Right, I feel so tired too.
Yawn~ Let’s go, it’s ti for work, or we’ll be late.”
Hurried pedestrians passed by He Ao.
“Last night around 8 PM, a chemical plant in South City had a leak, causing residents of several blocks nearby to fall into a sleeping incident.
The plant is now under control and shut down, and the leaked chemicals have been contained.
The chemicals produced by the plant are not highly toxic, so we ask all citizens not to panic,” ca the gentle voice of a news broadcaster from the restaurant TV at the roadside.
“What are these people building in the city, they’re even worse than that damned King,” a patron watching the TV muttered while putting a slice of roasted steak into his mouth.
A fluttering butterfly passed over He Ao’s shoulder.
“Don’t run away, little butterfly.”
A little boy in a white coat, holding a butterfly net, dashed past He Ao.
“Little fellow, you can’t co in here.”
A pair of large hands lifted the boy, turned him around,
He Ao watched the figure in the neat gendarrie uniform holding the boy and stopped in his tracks,
After sending the boy on his way, the gendarrie captain looked up and spotted He Ao.
He smiled, lit a cigarette, and took He Ao into an empty alleyway nearby.
As they chatted idly, they walked along the cordoned-off area, the burning cigarette tip sparkling with tiny lights.
By the ti they reached the end of the alley, the gendarrie captain had shared with He Ao the general plans he had gleaned about the Moonlight operation.
Because of significant personnel losses, many of the secrets normally not disclosed by Moonlight had to be handed over to the gendarrie.
This also allowed the gendarrie captain to grasp so key intelligence.
“So their current plan is to stall, waiting for reinforcents to arrive?” He Ao asked softly.
This ant that Eren’s situation was relatively stable for the ti being.
“Pretty much,” the gendarrie captain nodded gently.
He stopped at the boundary between sunlight and shadow at the edge of the alley, turned his head to look at He Ao, “Is there anything else you need my help with lately?”
“Probably not for now,” He Ao shook his head.
Hearing this, the gendarrie captain looked startled and then said goodbye to He Ao with a smile.
He then stood there, watching He Ao’s figure gradually disappearing at the end of the street, slowly lighting another cigarette.
“Boss, what did you guys talk about?
You seem very happy?” asked a subordinate who had previously interacted with He Ao, looking at the gendarrie captain with so confusion.
Although there was no change in the gendarrie captain’s expression, the subordinate could still distinctly sense that his boss was in a good mood after so many years of working together.
The gendarrie captain glanced at his subordinate, raised his head, and as the alley’s shadow slowly receded from his face, the early morning sun bathed his cheeks.
He spoke softly with a smile, holding a cigarette,
“The sun has co out.”
—-
Nightfall
In a small alley deep within North City of Eren:
An elderly man staggered as he slowly pulled down the shutter door of his barbecue shop.
Just then, accompanied by the roar of a car horn, a man with glasses and a Central Earth appearance slowly erged from the deep shadows.
“The barbecue for tonight is sold out; co back earlier tomorrow,” the elderly man said, shaking as he held the shutter.
Gazing calmly into his reddish-brown pupils, He Ao spoke softly, “Count, there’s sothing I’d like to confirm with you.”
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