“That’s right, I’ve already disposed of that deity corpse.”
Lin Ye glanced at the cult leader, considering how to handle him.
“That was just a deity corpse?”
The cult leader didn’t show any particularly excited expression. He only stared absentmindedly at the portal in the center of the courtyard.
The combat squad beside him, however, was extremely agitated. The captain held a deity item and kept trying to activate the deity power within it.
The deity power inside had completely disappeared.
“That’s correct. Everything you experienced was just a natural reaction from that corpse. There wasn’t even a consciousness influencing it from behind. Still, even a corpse was far more dangerous than I expected.”
Lin Ye could sense that the exploration mission had ended. Now he only needed to break the red wooden chest, and he would be teleported back to the Shelter.
But there were still some matters unresolved here, so he had to stay for a little while longer.
“I can’t believe you actually pulled it off. I was hoping the deity would take care of you, but it seems I’ll have to do it myself.”
The cult leader suddenly punched toward the red wooden chest in Catherine’s arms.
But before his fist could touch the red wooden chest, a cultist who had run out of the portal earlier caught his punch.
“If you’re going to fight, go all out. Acting like this just kills my mood… Unless you planned it that way on purpose?”
Lin Ye looked at the cult leader with a conflicted expression as he spoke.
“…You should just kill me. The evil deity is dead, and the evil cult leader dies in the cult headquarters. That kind of ending suits me.”
Now that the evil deity problem was resolved, the cult leader didn’t feel joy. He only breathed a sigh of relief, because this long, drawn-out mission was finally over.
He was the cult leader. Everything those cultists did was at his direction, so when it all ended, he should logically disappear alongside them.
“You want me to kill him?”
Lin Ye turned to look at Catherine.
“…I don’t know.”
As a victim, Catherine had very complicated feelings toward the cult leader. She had seen that deity corpse and knew how terrifying it was. If the cult leader hadn’t been maintaining humanity’s survival, humans might have gone extinct long ago.
“Then wait until you figure it out to decide. You’re pretty strong now anyway. You don’t need me to help you get revenge anymore.”
Lin Ye casually destroyed the red wooden chest. Before leaving, he suddenly thought of something and added:
“Oh, right. Your wish has already been fulfilled. After all, I am an all-powerful deity.”
………………………………………………
[Exploration Mission Completed]
[System Rating Improved]
[Obtained: Shelter Upgrade Blueprint]
[Obtained: Exploration Chest x1]
[Please draw today’s card]
“My turn! Draw a card!”
This time, the card face showed an octopus. On the card was drawn a red octopus the size of a human head with many tentacles. The card dissipated, and a many-tentacled octopus appeared in the center of the Shelter.
“Uh… is this still an octopus?”
Lin Ye grabbed the octopus. Those tentacles wrapped around his hand, feeling moist and soft.
The octopus made no sound. It slowly crawled across Lin Ye’s body, looking like a large shell-less snail.
[Would you like to use the Shelter Upgrade Blueprint?]
“Use.”
[Please collect ten fourth-stage Mutation Creature spiritual energy cores as materials for the Shelter upgrade. (0/10)]
Lin Ye directly submitted the spiritual energy cores he had prepared earlier. He could casually mutate a pile of these things anytime, but considering these were upgrade materials, he used the cores obtained from living creatures’ bodies.
[Shelter Upgrade Mission Complete. Would you like to upgrade the Shelter tier?]
“Yes.”
[Upgrade Complete]
Lin Ye checked the new Shelter information:
[Shelter Information]
[Tier: Fifth Tier]
[New Function: Communication Permission Upgraded]
[Status: Absolute Safety (42 days, 13 days remaining)]
[Note: Please upgrade your Shelter tier within 42 days]
After unlocking the communication permission, Lin Ye’s communication block was flooded with a massive amount of information. Most of it was messages from acquaintances, along with some greetings from strangers. Additionally, he could now send messages to people he had added as friends.
Lin Ye quickly scanned through those messages, but he didn’t reply to a single one, because each message sent consumed one Trade point.
Xiao Bai: Hello.
Middleman: Hello. Feel free to contact me anytime if you need anything.
Junior: When are you coming to play in the Gray World, Senior? I can teach you how to use that Gray World relic.
Little Ye: This is way too expensive. As expected, the platform is the most profitable.
Victoria: Click the link below to join the tenth-tier chat group.
Mia: So expensive.
Wei Bai: Deep Sea trading group.
Lord of Emerald Capital: Hello.
…
“…?”
Lin Ye blinked, then closed the system interface.
“…Did I misread that? Yeah, I must have misread it.”
The exploration chest was a shiny golden metal box. Lin Ye opened it, and inside there was only a single colorful card.
[Spirit Box]
[You can use the Spirit Box to fully descend a Consciousness onto a random Plane. (3/3)]
[Note: The descent host body is affected by the title. Please use your title carefully.]
“…Why does this card feel like a work card? And the kind that won’t let you use your true body?”
Lin Ye was a bit speechless as he put away the card. If he had known that using the deity title would actually land him exploration missions related to deities, he definitely would have switched to a different title.
He had thought he was going to be a deity, but who knew he would have to deal with the problems deities caused?
After putting away the card, Lin Ye began tending to the plants and animals in the Shelter while also preparing breakfast for himself.
When he left that plane, Lin Ye had wanted to bring some of the ingredients from there with him, but unfortunately, his true body wasn’t there, so he couldn’t open the loot space.
However, while dealing with those cultists earlier, Lin Ye had casually used his mental network to cover the knowledge storage area of the cult headquarters and copied all the stored knowledge.
This included the method for creating that mental barrier.
Before, he had been afraid of being sensed by the deity corpse, so he hadn’t dared to check the specific creation method. Now it didn’t matter. While cooking, he glanced over it.
‘It actually requires a complete human Consciousness as material? And it has to be voluntary? As expected from cult-developed technology… No, those researchers weren’t cultists…’
Lin Ye quickly learned the creation method. If it had been before, even if he had learned this method, he wouldn’t have been able to create a mental barrier. But now he had the mental defense system, so he could invite his enemies to voluntarily become his mental barrier.
