Chapter 184: Grant Me The Bug For A Significant Advantage!
[Nightmare has been purified.]
[Purify the nightmare with a designated ident.i.ty. Evaluation ratings increased.]
[Sever the Curse: The Tongue in the Mirror. Evaluation ratings increased.]
[Ensure Don Juan survives until the end of the dungeon instance. Evaluation ratings increased.]
[Learn all the truth. The evaluation ratings increased significantly.]
[Completed a powerful purification. The evaluation ratings increased significantly.]
[Comprehensive Evaluation—A++]
[Obtain 68 points in Shared Experience. Perception+1.]
[Obtain dungeon instance clearance reward: Profession (swordsman) rises by 1 level]
[Profession not detected (swordsman)]
[Hidden secrets have been cracked: 100%]
[The third stage reward is available (Obtained when completion reaches 100%).]
[Obtain dungeon instance decryption rewards: Random spells available (choose one out of ‘Soul s.n.a.t.c.h,’ ‘Alteration,’ ‘Shaping,’ and ‘Idol’).]
[The current purification progress is 3/3—the nightmare is over.]
[Based on the area of the nightmare, you got the holy light engraving of Silver Sire.]
[Current total engraving(s): 3 (Silver Sire)]
It’s finally over. Annan watched the rapid flow of text before him and sighed softly.
The good news was that he acquired many details on “Don Juan” behavior. This would undoubtedly make his acting more real.
The bad news was that even Benjamin didn’t know the specifics of what Rotten Man Church intended to do or how their ritual would be held.
Benjamin wasn’t from the future, after all.
Since Annan, as a “future person,” asked about the future enemy’s thoughts, Benjamin naturally wouldn’t be able to answer it.
“However, I can tell you one thing.” Benjamin said to Annan back then, “Rotten Man isn’t a complete deity. It is impossible for him to conceptually ‘eradicate reincarnations’ because he does not have the concept of ‘immortality’ at all. This authority does not belong to him yet. “
“…That is to say?”
“That is to say that for this ritual to work, they need to summon some kind of visible and tangible ent.i.ty.”
Benjamin added, “The false deity ritual you come into contact with may be relatively less. In fact, there are many false deities rituals, which are cla.s.sic rituals modified from their truths. Perhaps, some are simply rituals copied from an upright deity’s ritual. After all, the truth held by false deities is basically limited, while the requirement for believers is strict.
“If I’m not wrong, they should summon otherworldly monsters that can attack the soul. It will be on par with a ‘soul hunter’ at the peak of Silver Rank, who isn’t armed with a curse vessel. The prerequisites are [Hunter] and [Lurker] in the Bronze Rank, and they can advance into this profession via attaining the Silver Rank.
“The otherworldly monster should have some difference in their abilities. Though, they are often regarded as a race. This is the most direct and cost-effective way to attack the soul without the direct partic.i.p.ation of the Gold Rank Transcended.
“The prototype of this ritual is Silent Lady’s ritual ‘Summoning the Soul Eater.’ What Rotten Man can use should be its alternate and even a version modified multiple times. But, we can be certain that the monster must belong to the dark realm.”
“So, could this ritual cause natural disasters or accidentally injure civilians?” Annan asked, “I heard that the Rotten Man Church intends to send a disobedient member of the royal family to Roseburg.”
“—Impossible.” Benjamin a.s.serted, “The statement you heard should be that they intend to attack Master Michelangelo with the summoned monster, and then issued the monster to attack the royal family member later.
“Because Rotten Man isn’t a complete deity, and he isn’t a wizard who specializes in Idol school. When the truth is incomplete, he cannot transmit power at will. His believers can only attain miraculous effects like bestowing lifespan, rejuvenation, resurrection, recovery, cure, and reducing lifespan through rituals. Unless…”
“…Unless?” Annan pondered.
“Unless Rotten Man comes in person.” Benjamin shrugged and gave the final explanation, “But in that case, there’s no point to struggle.”
Rotten Man was almost the weakest false deity with no completed truth. Even if he disposed of his nanny-like authority and dispersed his divine power, he was still a proficient Gold Rank Alteration Wizard in the end.
[TN: Nanny-like authority should refer to the replenishment of longevity (hence like healing support in the games) since the Rotten Man is the deity of immortality and heirless.]
After he became a deity, he lived for hundreds of years. He would be at least capable of overpowering five Bronze Rank. Defeating Annan and Bread Daryl would be just a piece of cake.
But after receiving this information, Annan was somehow relieved.
Since Rotten Man couldn’t conceptually defeat the soul of the reincarnated Michelangelo, Annan was limited to having “find the ritual area” and “interrupt the ritual” as the only victory conditions.
Defeating the summoned monster would promise the same result.
That should be much simpler.
The monster would be at the Silver Rank’s peak, having dual profession — the tracking ability and high-speed movement ability of the hunter profession, and the stealth ability and a.s.sa.s.sination ability of the lurker profession. The monster had no curse as a weakness but no curse vessel to further amplify its power at the same time.
It’s still a brutal enemy.
But it still has a health bar.
“This reminds me of Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac. Back then, Athena could use five Bronze Ranks to defeat the 12 temples. Today, I have five Bronze Rank and one loaf of bread. It shouldn’t be a problem to kill one Silver Rank.”
Annan thought for a while, feeling calmer.
Since you have an HP bar, and I can break your defense, why can’t I defeat you?
It was a pity that Annan no longer had a swordsman profession anymore.
Because of that, Annan didn’t acquire any level upgrade aside from the guaranteed experience after the dungeon instance was cleared.
Benjamin said before that this was a dungeon instance dedicated to the Bronze Rank Transcended.
It was because even those inferior to Bronze Rank could acquire the dungeon instance reward.
The reward was far inferior to its difficulty.
This should be an adjustment Benjamin made to keep this false information alive.
But fortunately, after Annan completely decrypted the dungeon instance, the “gift” left by Benjamin was still sufficient.
“A spell from one of the four schools…” Annan murmured, frowning slightly.
Soul s.n.a.t.c.h, Alteration, Shaping, idols.
Soul s.n.a.t.c.h was undoubtedly the school that best fit Annan’s character and personal abilities. However, Annan didn’t have a situation in which he needed it in particular.
Alteration was of no use to Annan. After all, Annan had senior Salvatore. Having the same and repeated ability was of little significance.
Shaping still seemed pretty okay.
The spell that Master Benjamin used, which looked like a semi-finished product of Buddha with thousands of hands, was a composite spell of Shaping and Alteration School. In Nightmare: White Tower, Annan also saw the scope of the Shaping spell.
It was close to the kind of “mage” Annan imagined—trans.m.u.tation.
Having a few fireb.a.l.l.s that could turn into shooting arrows floating behind him and the flowing water rotated at high speed like a knife would be super cool.
But, Annan still fixed his attention on Idol school.
He immediately realized that this was his only choice.
His other disguise, “Ghirlandaio·David·Buonaro,” was at the peak of Silver Rank, who practiced two schools: Prophet and Idol.
David could inherit Annan’s spells list and activate them at Level 30. In other words, if Annan had a spell that only could be learned at Silver, he could use it through this functionality.
But the problem was that Annan didn’t even have a Prophet school and Idol’s spells, let alone having Silver Rank spells.
“But if I claim a spell now…” Annan quickly made up his mind. He wanted to try to see if he could get a high-level spell.