Chapter 364: Good Stuff, Use with Caution

Chapter 364: Good Stuff, Use with Caution

“Hiss… that hurts so much.” In the Underground Base, Zheng Yichen lay sprawled on the floor, rubbing his head desperately with both of his Dragon’s Claws. His expression was twisted with pain. When the Undying Witch’s attack touched his Projection, it instantly exploded it. A part of the power even traveled a long distance and reached him.

It did not cause any real physical harm, but it struck his brain heavily. Combined with the loss of Mental Energy from the Projection exploding, he felt extremely uncomfortable right now. Fortunately, the effort paid off. After flailing on the ground for a while, Zheng Yichen lay there and took out the transparent sphere holding the black orb. The thing inside had gradually stabilized…

It was still pitch black, just a bit smaller in size. Nothing else had changed much. The slight distortion around it had also disappeared. Zheng Yichen thought for a moment, then pointed a laser pointer at it. The light shone on the black orb and disappeared completely, not even leaving a speck of light.

“Hiss, that’s amazing.” Zheng Yichen said in wonder. His eyes glanced slightly upward, catching a glimpse of a skirt hem. He wanted to tilt his head back further to see more, but nothing else was visible. He quickly rolled over and saw Loris looking up at him. Her gaze then fell on the black orb he held in his hand.

“……”

She did not speak. From her silent expression, Zheng Yichen could see that Loris was feeling very conflicted right now. “You’re injured.”

“Uh… I should be fine after some sleep.” Zheng Yichen rubbed his forehead, not speaking honestly. If damage to one’s Mental Energy could be healed by just sleeping, then a lot of Spellcasters would be seeking danger every day. This time, the damage would not ease off for at least ten days to half a month.

“I’m not blind.” Loris glanced at Zheng Yichen and shook her head slightly. “That is a good thing, but it’s also very dangerous. Use it carefully. You should… rest properly first. Don’t do any experiments these few days.”

Experiments? Zheng Yichen had no such thoughts right now. The consequence of his Mental Energy damage was not only a throbbing headache but also a big drop in his control over his power. Under such conditions, he couldn’t perform any precise operations at all. Doing experiments would be nothing more than a waste of materials.

What he needed to do now was look up information. Arriving at the Library, Zheng Yichen flipped through a thick book, searching for relevant data. He had only looked at records about how to find an Element Heart and the conditions for its formation before. He hadn’t read carefully about details like its specific form or other such information. Now that he had it in hand, of course he needed to understand it well.

But while looking through the materials, Zheng Yichen didn’t know if it was because he was being overly sensitive or because his Mental Energy was damaged, but his mind felt a bit off. He kept feeling like someone was secretly watching him. Whenever he looked back, he found nothing.

“Hmm… Within the influence range of the Element Heart, all external factors belonging to the element type are forcibly overridden and cannot be used. The Dark Element is the most intense of all, overriding not just Elemental Power but also most other special powers… Tsk, this thing also has an anti-magic effect… Oh, not completely. Within the influence range of the Element Heart, Magic of the same attribute passively receives a boost to Maximized Spellcasting, while the cost can be reduced by more than two-thirds.”

That was amazing. Zheng Yichen continued reading down and nodded slightly. This effect ignored friend or foe. Once you took this thing out, it meant everyone in the range would get the related boost. It was quite a special Divine Artifact.

The shared boost didn’t matter, right? Who could guarantee that their enemy must also master Dark Magic? Against enemies who mastered Dark Magic, one wouldn’t have any advantage… No, it wasn’t that there wouldn’t be any advantage, but in that situation, the combat power of both sides would be raised to a level where they could kill the enemy in one strike.

At that point, what mattered wasn’t direct combat power, but things like judgment, reaction speed, and other abilities to perform under pressure.

But if you used it against enemies of other magic types, creating such a special home-field advantage, the opponent wouldn’t stand a chance. Especially for Spellcasters, losing their ability to cast Magic meant their combat power was largely gone. Would they use their staffs to hit? Before they could even swing it down, a Magic spell would drop and finish them off.

No chance at all.

Hmm, all these characteristics matched… It should be an Element Heart. While flipping through the materials, Zheng Yichen confirmed the effects of the sealed black orb. There were many detailed descriptions about the Element Heart’s effects. According to the records in this book, from after the gods vanished until now, less than twenty Element Hearts had appeared.

Among these less than twenty Element Hearts, five were used to seal the entrance to the Abyss!

“Huh? This point doesn’t seem to be recorded in other materials.” Seeing such a line in the description records about the Element Heart, Zheng Yichen thought carefully and could completely confirm that indeed, other books had no related records at all. It was probably to prevent later generations from coveting the power of the Element Heart.

After all, as a special kind of Power Crystal, if used perfectly, according to the book’s description, it could unleash power comparable to a Witch’s Power. Because the ‘domain’ the Element Heart itself carried could also interfere with Witches. This wasn’t theoretical; there had indeed been actual cases.

Therefore, if such records were passed down, even if it could be ensured that people of the current generation or the next few wouldn’t plot against the Element Heart, who could guarantee that after many more years, some people wouldn’t have such ideas and intend to steal the Element Heart? If they failed, that was one thing, but what if one or two lucky ones succeeded, causing one or two of the Element Hearts sealing the Abyss to be lost? Even if it didn’t cause the seal to collapse, the sealing power would greatly decrease.

Having things frequently popping out from there would be annoying enough. Just the cults that kept springing up like weeds were troublesome enough. If more things came from the Abyss… Tsk, the world would really be thrown into chaos. After all, no seal was absolutely perfect. Even with the seal intact now, there had been things that coincidentally escaped from the Abyss. The Masquerader Evil God that was killed before was an example, though he was too unlucky, running into a nemesis like Dan Marina.

He was brutally chopped to death right outside his home.

That place was filled with all sorts of strange things. Among them, the various Veteran Evil Gods with incredible survival abilities were specialties of that place. Compared to the many powerful Evil Gods outside now, those inside were like rookies versus special forces soldiers. Once obvious loopholes appeared in the Abyss’s seal, many powerful Evil Gods would pop out… Zheng Yichen thought carefully. Would world chaos be good for him?

Not at all. If the world fell into chaos, his plan to harvest Mana would be hindered. Even if the Magic Weapon Summoning Book saw higher usage rates, with more people dying, especially more powerful people dying, a high usage rate would just be based on fewer people left. It would be better to have stable, steady development.

“Maybe I should go check out the Abyss later… See if there’s any way to reinforce the seal there or something?” Zheng Yichen poured himself a bucket of tea to refresh and clear his mind, gulped it down, and muttered to himself. Was it a bad thing to add insult to injury for a place that affected his development… no, world stability?

“I can’t take it anymore, time for sleep.” Zheng Yichen closed the book without putting it back on the shelf. Rubbing his head, he returned to his bedroom, threw himself onto the big bed, and almost instantly fell into a deep sleep. And then he woke up again.

He looked around blankly at the familiar surroundings, then looked at his own hands. They weren’t Dragon’s Claws anymore, but Human hands. The surroundings were his bedroom from before his transmigration. Opening the window, the outside was still the endless dark Void. It looked particularly creepy and gave him an urge to reach out and grab a handful of it.

This wasn’t the first time he had such a thought; every time he came here, looking outside gave him this impulse. If he could open the window… Hmm, this was probably his subconscious stopping him from seeking death, right?

Recalling the past, whenever he was mentally tired before, he had never appeared in this Dreamscape after falling asleep. Mental Energy damage… this was the first time he suffered Mental Energy damage. To have such a change now… He curiously pinched his own cheek. It felt no different from usual. He reached out and touched the window. A look of surprise appeared on his face.

Like a mural, the window that could never be opened before now felt slightly loose. When Zheng Yichen tried to pry it open forcefully, he could see the pulled window shaking noticeably. It felt like with a bit more force he might be able to open it. It made him hesitate. This… should he open it?

Opening the window wasn’t difficult, as long as Zheng Yichen didn’t have the thought of grabbing a handful of the Void, he could try. Once that thought appeared, it was just a fantasy. But now, this anti-death-seeking behavior didn’t seem very reliable.

After some thought, he let go of the window. How to put it? Since his subconscious was trying to avoid him seeking death, he shouldn’t do such a dangerous thing. Would he harm himself?

Alright, back to sleep. Need to recover his Mental Energy quickly.

Zheng Yichen yawned and went back to his bed, lazily flopping down. If he fell asleep in the dream, he should wake up. Right before ‘falling asleep,’ Zheng Yichen realized something. When he came in this time, he hadn’t looked in the mirror. Ah well, next time.

He fell asleep, but he didn’t wake up in the outside world. Instead, he continued to sleep deeply.

Loris watched the deeply sleeping Zheng Yichen for a while, then left the bedroom and went to his Laboratory. From the experiment table, she pulled out an anomaly record… On it, the Mining Zone location where the abnormal information appeared was marked.