Chapter 70: Do You Still Want a Skill Compendium?
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren was fiddling with the tallic object in his hand like a normal toy. There was nothing particularly special about it.
It was a diamond-shaped tal piece, the size of a palm. It looked like a tal wedge on a rusty old farming tool. It was black with a tinge of grey and the surface was wrought with marks of wear and tear. One part of it was particularly smooth, with wavy lines arrayed across the surface. They looked almost identical to the character that represents ‘elephants’ in old Chinese script. Hao Ren was pretty sure it was just another piece of tal. He tried to use a magnet on the thing.
“Let have a look.” Vivian grabbed the object. Her voice had a tinge of concern in it. She played around with the object, trying to discern its origins. Looking at her actions, Hao Ren asked curiously, “You’ve seen this before?”
“…I’m not very sure but, it does look familiar…” Vivian frowned. “Not exactly the sa object but, I’ve seen the markings on the surface before. Where did you get it?”
“I don’t know…” Hao Ren ruffled his hair. “I do rember having this when I was very young, around four or five. Back then, I was a brat. I could rember it being missing from my toy box. I rember clearly that I picked it up sowhere and I treated it like treasure. Just couldn’t bear to throw it out.”
Vivian clearly looked unsatisfied with Hao Ren’s response. She held the tal piece tightly and brushed her finger against the marking. It took her a good couple of minutes before she recalled sothing. “I rember seeing this symbol. It’s been a very, very long ti ago… At least 1000 years ago, give or take? I don’t rember the details though. You know how it is with and my mory. I can’t recall anything too far back.”
Hao Ren gulped. He totally missed what Vivian said except the part about ‘1000 years’. He yelped excitedly. “You an, this is a piece of antique? A thousand-year old antique?”
Vivian rolled her eyes. “Well, you could try selling it at the antique fare.”
Hao Ren laughed awkwardly. He knew his old habits had erged again and they left the subject at that. He stored the tal piece back in the box carefully. Valuable or not, it did not really matter when it gave an old hag like Vivian a scare. That itself was golden.
The both of them continued cleaning the basent. There was not much junk to begin with and Hao Ren cleaned the place rather frequently,.So, it only took a mont before they were done with it and all the junk was moved to the storeroom next door. They also took the chance to clean out whatever useless junk that should have been discarded years ago.
Within a few monts, the basent had turned into a clean, new bedroom. It ca furnished with the necessary furniture, it even had an internet port and best of all, it was devoid of the sunlight, which Vivian hated. There was only a small window in the western part of the wall, half buried in the house’s layer of foundation. Only by dusk did rays of light perate through the window port. It suited Vivian perfectly.
Hao Ren still felt bad about letting a pretty lass like Vivian (please rember that vampires are eternally 17) stay in the basent. However, seeing that the room had beco spick and span, he did not feel as guilty as before. Most importantly, Vivian looked extrely pleased. She even dusted off the dirt that had gathered on Hao Ren’s shirt during the course of the cleaning. “Mr. Landlord, you’re too kind. No one has treated this nicely before. That other ti…”
Well, it would have been centuries before Vivian would finish recounting her sob stories. All we need to know is, Lily finally felt like she had found paradise after living in hardship and poverty for about 1000 years. Surprisingly, Vivian was easily satisfied and that was a plus point. It made her an easy person to support.
Y’zaks on the other hand, took a few days to get used to his new life. So did Vivian, who was the ho chef. She had to contend with two big eaters at ho. (The first one being Lily who could wolf down three bowls of noodles in one go). Hao Ren noticed that new tenant seed to be getting along well with the rest. The demon was a content creature and had a surprisingly good temper as opposed to the stereotype. This at least, reassured Hao Ren that his life would not beco even more haywire than it already was. Heaven knows with Vivian and Lily around, another tenant with a grumpy mood would have probably sent Hao Ren sleeping on the streets.
With everything in the household settled for the mont, Hao Ren moved on to the most pertinent matter at hand: eting Raven 12345. They had not t for a good few days and Hao Ren had even more questions to ask now.
Hao Ren took off to Bastard Barrio the next morning in the usual rickety bus. After a while, he got off near the grand looking place: Heaven’s Office on Earth or HoE for short.
Raven 12345’s luxurious mansion looked the sa as it always had, perpetually stuck in a pocket of space and ti where it was eternally a misty dawn. Around the periter, a cloud of seemingly impenetrable mist swirled about. At tis, Hao Ren wanted to see what was beyond the mist. Perhaps he could have seen what ‘heaven’ looked like. It never actually happened though and Hao Ren did not have the guts to even bring it up to Raven 12345. Who knows, the crazy Goddess may not have taken too kindly to his curiosity and proceeded to off him right on the spot.
A cerulean elental slave led Hao Ren to Raven 12345’s office. Upon opening the door, he saw the Goddess focusing on a holographic image floating above her desk. A frown appeared from ti to ti, followed by a look of deep thought. Hao Ren was surprised. He never thought Raven 12345 would have a serious mont while working.
By then, Raven 12345 sensed that soone had entered her office. She looked up and greeted Hao Ren loudly, “Yo, Hao Ren! Haven’t seen you for a while. Looking fine there I see. Got rid of your jet lag already?”
“Oh, I’m okay.” Hao Ren just could not take the Goddess seriously enough to treat her with reverence. As ti passed, his attitude towards her had transford into sothing like running into a superior in office. “I’m here to―”
“Hold your horses! I need you to give a full AAR of the mission.” Raven 12345 waved her hands “The stuff you told the other day was too brief. I can’t write a report with that.”
Oh, that was just bloody rich. A Goddess needing to submit a report…
Hao Ren cleared his throat and recounted what happened in England two days ago. He also made ntion of the wraiths beneath Yorkford Castle and Nangong, the demon hunter. He felt that they were the biggest surprises of the mission and thought they were worth the ntion. Raven 12345 hesitated for a mont after listening to Hao Ren’s account of the events. She asked, “What do you think was the biggest obstacle during the mission?”
Hao Ren looked down thoughtfully and finally spoke, “My mortal body. I seriously can’t deal with this god forsaken job. I an… I need so sort of combat or survival ability. I almost died trying to keep up with Lily in the crypt. Most of the ti, I wasn’t even fighting the creeps. It was more like trying not to get beaten up by them. I could have seriously died from that! The strengthening of the body did work but it’s not sufficient to keep alive. Maybe try not to give such a dood mission?”
“Uh… that was one of the easiest missions around. The other’s to negotiate a peace treaty in Mintaka. You’re up for that?” Raven 12345 rolled her eyes. “But it’s true that you do need to strengthen your body. Conditioning will only give you the basics but combat prowess requires training. How about this… I’ll give you―”
Hao Ren quickly interjected before Raven 12345 could finish her sentence. “You’re giving a Secret Skill Compendium isn’t it? There’s actually sothing like that?!”
“Hehehe…” Raven 12345 glanced at Hao Ren. “You’ve been reading too many fantasy novels. Do you think that you’ll be invincible with just the Skill Compendium? Even that takes ti to master. Most people take months to even get the spell casting sequence of a fireball right. A high level spell would require an even more complex mathematical algorithm. Do you think this is a ga? Double clicking a skill book is gonna allow you to shoot frost bolts from your hands? Hah, good luck with that. You think that soone who moans at a simple mathematical equation can survive studying a to of forbidden spells? The first chapter itself would probably put you to tears. So… do you still want the Secret Skill Compendium?”
Hao Ren could only look on in silence.
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