Chapter 383: The Fifth Rite and Quest Rewards (Two-in-One)

"..."

The Old Man looked at Yan Jing, who had returned to his original state. A few seconds later, he finally seemed to break free of his terror, his face the color of dead ashes.

He sighed softly, as if foreseeing his own end. "Is there any room for negotiation?"

"I've accumulated some savings over the years."

Yan Jing smiled. "I don't trust you."

"Fair enough."

The Old Man closed his eyes, accepting his fate. Instantly, his entire body exploded with a resounding boom.

Weird energy and mechanical fragments forged from special metal formed a storm of shrapnel. Before it could fully take shape, however, threads surged from Yan Jing's pupils, wrapping around the storm and crushing it into nothingness.

By this point, the Old Man's strength was completely exhausted. The power of his final storm only amounted to the level of an ordinary Fifth Tier.

Glancing at the final dozen seconds of the countdown, Yan Jing switched his consciousness, transforming into Mao Si. He issued a command to stow the Old Man's corpse and wreckage, then immediately switched back to his original body and exited the Dungeon.

After leaving the Dungeon, he checked his phone. He threw on a warm brown overcoat and walked out of the house.

Autumn had arrived.

The wind carried a trace of chill. The leaves on the trees next to the villa were beginning to turn yellow, and the few lonely clouds in the sky looked somewhat bleak.

For the current Yan Jing, even temperatures dozens of degrees below zero wouldn't bother him if he didn't want them to. Yet, he didn't intentionally ward off the cold, instead letting the chill rest against his skin.

Arriving at Shen Youran's door, he took out his phone and dialed her number. "Hello? Teacher Shen."

"Xiao Yanzi, I'm here."

Shen Youran's slightly flustered voice came through. "Are you out? Wait for me at home, I'm doing my makeup. I'll be right over."

"It's fine, no rush."

Yan Jing smiled. "Though, if you don't mind, I can wait inside your house."

Thump!

A loud crash echoed, as if someone had run into a cabinet. Shen Youran's stuttering voice came from the phone. "Xiao Yanzi, y-you—where are you?"

"I'm right outside your door."

The moment Yan Jing spoke, another thump echoed. A few seconds later, the front door opened. Shen Youran stood there with both hands covering her face. She looked at Yan Jing, who was standing in his overcoat with a gentle smile, and stared blankly for a second before saying in a panic, "I—I'm not done with my makeup yet. W-wait for me in the living room."

With that, Shen Youran fled.

Inside her bedroom.

Shen Youran looked in the mirror at the red, swollen bump on her forehead from hitting the cabinet. Mortified, she clutched her head. What are you doing, Shen Youran? You were doing just fine earlier. Keep a normal mindset. Stay normal, just be normal.

Ren Tongtong's voice came through her earpiece. "Didn't you say you had it all figured out? Didn't you keep it together pretty well last time? What, did your heart flutter when you saw him fly into a rage for a beauty?"

"No, I didn't. I've already figured it out. I've thought this through completely."

Shen Youran immediately denied the accusation.

Despite her words, the thought of Yan Jing waiting for her in the living room made her heart race wildly again, and her face burned.

"Teacher Shen, are you all right?" Yan Jing's voice drifted in.

"I'm—I'm fine!" Snapping back to reality, Shen Youran hastily replied. "I'll be right out! Just wait a little longer, Xiao Yanzi!"

She took off her earpiece and smacked her cheeks hard. Quickly applying some ointment to the bump on her forehead, she threw on the clothes she had laid out in advance and checked the mirror.

Looking at her reflection, she secretly cheered herself on. No problem, Shen Youran. What haven't you seen? Keep a normal mindset. You two have spent so much time together, what's there to be embarrassed about?

Friends. Just normal friends.

Having fortified her mental state, she took a deep breath and walked out the door.

Before she could speak, Yan Jing, who was brewing tea, smiled.

"Teacher Shen, tea or milk?"

"I—"

Looking at Yan Jing's smiling face, Shen Youran froze. Feeling her cheeks flush boiling hot, she hurriedly said, "Either is fine. You sit down, Xiao Yanzi—I can brew it."

She reached out to take the teapot from his hands. However, Yan Jing suddenly lifted a hand and touched the red swelling on her forehead, which was poorly concealed by makeup. A faint light blossomed from his fingertips.

Fine threads extended from his touch. In an instant, Shen Youran felt the bump on her forehead completely heal. In fact—

Her forehead felt even better than it had before the bump.

"So you did hit your head just now," Yan Jing smiled.

Poof! Shen Youran felt as though her face was exactly like the teapot in her hands—fully boiled and giving off steam.

"Are you feeling unwell, Teacher Shen? Your forehead feels a bit hot." Yan Jing blinked, then reached out to feel her forehead. "Your temperature is a little high."

"N-no, no, I'm fine."

To dodge Yan Jing's hand, Shen Youran stumbled backward, almost tripping over. Fortunately, Yan Jing grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto the sofa.

"Something's off about you, Shen Youran."

Yan Jing stared closely into her eyes. The distance between them was less than half a meter.

"I'm not! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!"

Shen Youran shut her eyes tightly and turned her head away, shouting, "My feelings for you are completely innocent, Xiao Yanzi! I don't have any other intentions!"

I'm doomed.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she had the urge to just die right there. What kind of nonsense was she spouting?

Unexpectedly, Yan Jing suddenly laughed. "If you really do have other intentions, just say it straight, Teacher Shen. Your investee is a hot commodity now. After this live broadcast, the domain lord of Yueyin might even be looking for me. If I ask, they might even play matchmaker for me."

Shen Youran's tightly wound heart suddenly relaxed at Yan Jing's direct teasing. Opening her eyes, she looked at his smiling face opposite her and laughed in exasperation. "Who has other intentions? You narcissist."

She threw a pillow at him. Then, she stood up and walked over to a massive object covered by a red cloth nearby, her expression turning triumphant. "Hmph, all right, enough joking around, Xiao Yanzi. Look at this! This is a gift I went through a lot of trouble to prepare for you!"

Yan Jing looked at the object draped in red and blinked. "This isn't—"

"Ta-da!"

Shen Youran whipped off the red cloth, revealing a Piano that looked somewhat dilapidated.

The Piano's keys were covered in a thick layer of dust. A worn sheet-music book sat on the stand, looking as though no one had turned its pages in years.

Various intricate patterns were carved into the massive instrument's body. Yan Jing looked at one of the carvings and faintly understood it; it seemed to depict a moon surrounded by a tribe of people singing and dancing.

[Item Name: Moonlight (Cursed)]

[Quality: Red]

[Tier Requirement: Fifth Tier]

[Effect: This is a Piano born for greatness. Regardless of whether you understand music theory or have ever touched an instrument, the moment you press its first key, you are destined to become a great pianist. Of course, this requires a certain price.} {Description: A casual creation of a great entity. It was reborn in the Mutation and sealed away in the Mutation. It is no longer as easily playable as it once was. It awaits the descent of a great person. If you force a performance, you must be prepared to be transformed into greatness.} "This thing—it must have cost a lot of money, right?"

Yan Jing looked at Shen Youran.

The absolute limit quality for the Fifth Tier was orange. For an item that exceeded this limit by two whole quality grades, a price in the billions of surface coins was entirely possible.

During this period, much of his money had been transported to the Heavenly Kingdom. He recalled that he shouldn't have too much cash left on the outside.

"No need to worry, this thing was very cheap."

Shen Youran smiled radiantly. "Because this thing is a bit bizarre and nobody can use it, it's just been sitting as a collector's item for decades. The seller only asked for eighty million, and Domain Chief Wang covered half of it."

Yan Jing blinked. "You still have... forty million on hand?"

"I do!"

Shen Youran's expression was perfectly natural. Then she smiled. "You don't need to worry about that. How about it? Do you like it?"

"I like it."

Yan Jing nodded.

Shen Youran's smile grew even wider. "Well? Your investor is pretty reliable, isn't she?"

"Didn't you ever consider what would happen if I couldn't accommodate it?" Yan Jing chuckled.

"If you can't accommodate it, we'll just keep it in the house," Shen Youran said as if it were a matter of course. "Besides—I never thought for a second that you wouldn't be able to accommodate it, Xiao Yanzi."

Yan Jing smiled. "Then let's take a look at the quest rewards this time, Teacher Shen."

He snapped his fingers, pulling up the rewards for the recent quest.

Because he had to fight a Sixth Tier earlier, he hadn't had the time to closely examine them.

He had only taken a quick glance on his way over, and they were extremely generous.

[Supreme Status Dungeon Peace Heavenly Kingdom Completed]

[Dungeon tallying...]

[Quest "Sin Live Broadcast" tallying. The player's Sin Value is approximately 7.67 million. Defeated all other encountered participants, and even defeated a powerful entity of a much higher tier than yourself. Quest Rating: S+ (Highest rating is S+)]

[Overall Dungeon Rating: S+]

[Rewards tallying...]

[Base Rewards: 3% Experience, 40,000 Eerie Coins]

[S+ Rating Extra Rewards: 40% Experience, 40,000 Eerie Coins, Divine Source (Bound Item) 1, Ritual Blessing Coupon (Bound Item) 1, Double Experience Card (Bound Item) * 1]

[Chaos Mode Extra Rewards: 20% Experience, 20,000 Eerie Coins, 2 Lucky Scratch Tickets] [Detected that player experience is full. You have advanced in tier.] [Excess experience automatically converted to the next tier's experience at a 50% ratio.] [Based on your performance in the Supreme Status Dungeon, your Personal Title "Chaos Missionary" has been upgraded to an honorary title.]

[Honorary Title Acquired: [Anomaly]]

[Honorary Title Introduction: Your existence is equivalent to chaos itself. No matter the region, your appearance will bring unimaginable changes—whether disaster or fortune. For the people of that region, they must make the correct choice for themselves.]

[Honorary Title Effects: Whenever any Dungeon descends, you can choose whether to apply [Mutation] to the Dungeon quest. A Dungeon that has undergone [Mutation] will have its difficulty drastically increased, and its quest rewards will be vastly improved. At the same time, you may select any number of targets to execute the [Mutation] effect upon; their Dungeon difficulty will be raised to match yours, but their rewards will remain unchanged. Furthermore, after entering a region, you can make another choice: whether to apply [Mutation] to that region. A region that has undergone [Mutation] will randomly suffer a rule-based disaster. If this disaster is stopped, you will receive no rewards. When this disaster completely swallows the region, you will gain ownership of it.} {You have entered the top three of the Yueyin Sector player rankings, currently ranked 3rd. You have entered the top thirty of the Southeast Sector player rankings, currently ranked 22nd.]

Yan Jing displayed the quest rewards in front of Shen Youran.

After reading them, she spaced out for several minutes before viciously pinching Yan Jing's arm.

"Does it hurt?"

She looked at him.

Yan Jing shook his head. "No."

Shen Youran then pinched her own arm, grimacing in pain. "Ow, ow, ow!!!"

Ignoring the pain, she grabbed Yan Jing's arm and shook it vigorously. "It's real! We're taking off! We're taking off, Xiao Yanzi! We are taking off!!!"

Yan Jing smiled as he watched Shen Youran jumping up and down while pulling his hand. "Are the rewards really that generous?"

"Of course!"

Shen Youran said with absolute certainty, "First is the effect of the honorary title. This is already terrifying, especially the second effect. It means that if you're willing to solo-run some small regions now, Xiao Yanzi, it should be very easy for you to completely take control of them. Like Rotten Vegetable Village from before, or Bianliu County—this means that you, a human, can take control of Inner World regions!"

"Think about it, this is something only people like the Yueyin domain lord, someone at the Summit, can do!"

"Then there's the Double Experience Card. For high-tier people, this is something you can only hope for but never seek. The higher the tier, the harder the quests become. At the same time, experience becomes harder to obtain. If you get a massive amount of experience in a certain Dungeon, then a single Dungeon run can be worth two!"

"And then, there's—"

Shen Youran took a deep breath. "The Divine Source."

"The Divine Source, as the name suggests, is a source substance of the gods. It can be used to upgrade absolutely anything. Whether it's the quality of a Ritual, Inner World items you've obtained, or abilities. And of course—that also includes—the abilities of a god."

Shen Youran's final sentence caught Yan Jing's attention.

His eyes narrowed.

Strictly speaking, he currently possessed two god-level abilities.

The first was the Hercules Potion. It was a counterfeit, but it was already incredibly strong.

The other was Xiao Xin.

It could be said that he had tapped into less than a third of Xiao Xin's potential, yet he had already benefited immensely.

This was especially true because Fei Yu and the Fear Bird both seemed capable of helping Xiao Xin grow continuously stronger. That was exactly why he had been able to transport money from Bianliu County to the Peace Heavenly Kingdom.

If Xiao Xin could become even stronger—

He hardly dared to imagine it.

Thinking of this, he clenched his fists.

Finally—

Finally, he had a tiny bit of strength to protect himself.

So, the most urgent matter at hand was to quickly accommodate the Fifth Rite.

Only by truly advancing to the Fifth Tier would he have a foothold in both the Inner World and the Surface World using his own means.

And only then would he be able to protect the things he wanted to protect.

Immediately, he looked at the Piano in front of him.

Inner World.

Peace Heavenly Kingdom.

Peace District, Nochen Bio Tower.

In her office, Zeng Ru stared in disbelief at a parcel that had been delivered to her.

After opening it, she found a metal shard bearing an identification number.

The shard appeared to be part of some mechanical component that had been forcefully torn away. She could see scorch marks on the edges from an energy impact, as well as jagged tears caused by the violent pull.

Looking at this seemingly ordinary piece of metal, Zeng Ru felt an incomparable chill run through her heart.

Because she knew this metal shard belonged to Uncle Su.

Moreover, it was a small piece of his core component.

And that meant—

Uncle Su had likely met a grim end.

A Sixth Tier!

Dead!

All because of her mistake!

She was trembling all over, as if she could already see her own end.