Chapter 376: Chapter 374: Rose’s Speedrun
Hilia grinned mischievously at the ’Alina’ before her.
"Hello, Miss ’Alina’, would you say I’ve passed your test?"
At this moment, ’Alina’ was still a spectral form—she was the administrator the relic’s creator had made. Control her, and you’d control the entire relic.
Finishing the relic’s challenge probably came down to "conquering" ’Alina’, Hilia thought to herself.
But with divine revelation, Hilia didn’t need to go down that route.
’Alina’, still a bit slow to react, sensed the terrifying and overwhelming power within the drop of blood at Hilia’s fingertip—it was as if she’d suddenly gone sluggish.
She opened her mouth, but only managed some muddled sounds for a while, before finally getting a whole sentence out: "You... where... did... you... get... the... Origin... Blood..."
This was a drop of Alina’s own blood, brimming with incredible Dream Magic Power and Ice Magic Power. Under Rose’s guidance, by channeling the right type of magic power, this droplet could be made to dismantle dreams—especially devastating in this relic, which relied on Alina’s own abilities for its creation.
"Looks like Miss ’Alina’ doesn’t really have a complete personality... Well, I guess I’ll just have to take control of you."
The blood at Hilia’s fingertip quickly sank into ’Alina’s’ forehead.
This time, the flow of magic power changed: instead of dissolving the dream, it switched to controlling it.
Force ’Alina’ out, take control, and you’re as good as controlling the entire relic.
The blood burrowed into ’Alina’s’ forehead, leaving a vivid crimson mark. Her eyes grew vacant, and through that bloody mark, Hilia gradually sensed the entirety of the relic’s structure.
"So this relic really is segmented into one mirror world after another, all with dreams... But the things you get from inside it... are they actually real?"
Hilia glanced at the box she’d obtained.
Rose said, "They’re real, of course. Except for a few truly rare items, most are creations of extraordinary magic power. Any mage above Tier Six can create magical items—like a Tier Seven Mage, who can compress magic power to make low-tier magic crystals. What you got is a ’Flower of Dreams’ conjured from Dream Magic Power."
Hilia opened the box. Inside was a flower, as if the starry sky itself was reflected on its petals.
The flower was gorgeous, exuding a rich aura of magic power—it felt extraordinary.
"The Flower of Dreams isn’t good for much besides looking pretty and giving people good dreams. Still, the relic’s creator would never tell adventurers the flower was basically useless—so he disguised it to seem incredible, when it’s really just a decorative trinket... Though perhaps you could use the Flower of Dreams to learn some dream-related spells?"
"So it’s only good for dreaming?"
Hilia looked a bit disappointed.
She was about to toss it away dismissively when she paused, struck by a thought.
"Actually, maybe it’s not entirely useless."
She picked up the flower and pinned it to the front of her mage robe,
"If it can improve my sleep, maybe it’ll boost how much magic power I can absorb and attune to with the Sleep Meditation Skill..."
Rose felt Hilia was probably just saying that to comfort herself, but he didn’t care. He said, "Enough talk—open the passage to the base already. This relic’s pretty interesting; leave it to the mercenaries."
"You think so?"
Hilia just found it gross.
Can’t the mechanism monsters get lost already?
But then she remembered she’d never have to come back to this relic again, and felt much better about it all.
"Sure, it’s gross, and the rewards are a scam, but it’s not that hard—the only real challenge is the demons deep in the Land of the Far North and the limited time inside. The rest... whatever... Compared to the maliciousness of Jonathan, the guy who made this place is way worse. Actually, Jonathan feels almost friendly by comparison."
Controlling ’Alina’, Hilia opened the passage to the base and headed down to the lower level.
She didn’t withdraw her blood from controlling ’Alina’, because after seizing control of the relic, she realized it wasn’t just some glorified stronghold for the base. It was—
The core of the lower base’s magic array!
Only by controlling the relic could you access the controls for the lower base’s array.
By the time they passed through the relic to the lower base’s entrance, Rose had already controlled Hilia’s magic puppet, changed its appearance, wrapped it in a black robe and hood, making it look every bit the enigmatic mage.
This was the look he’d used when meeting Phil.
Hilia glanced at Rose; she noticed his mood was no longer as casual as above. As they neared the entrance, a chill came over him.
"Let’s go," Rose said.
Hilia nodded quickly, catching up to Rose’s brisk stride.
"No need to clear this base bit by bit. We just find the samples they extracted from Alina, and... destroy them."
"Got it."
Hilia nodded, hurrying after Rose like a shadow.
Rose made no attempt to hide his arrival. He even set off the array’s alarm on purpose—and when alarms blared, he locked down the entire base through the array, so no one could escape.
Soon, heretics were pouring in from all directions.
This lower base resembled an underground research facility. Its design was nothing like the other bases she’d been to—nothing like a typical heretic base at all.
The corridors and rooms here were a mess. Without the overhead map Rose was sharing with her, Hilia wouldn’t even know where she was.
But really, it didn’t matter where she was.
Because all those supposed Tier Three heretics charging at them—Hilia didn’t even have time to strike before Rose eliminated them.
The girl sensed the magic power radiating from these heretics, frowning slightly. "Why are there so many Tier Three Mages?"
Rose replied coolly, "They’re just mass-produced mages, force-fed divinely polluted Demonic Qi. The pollution means none of them have even a year to live. They may have power, but they don’t know how to use it—and Purification Skill is their ultimate weakness. Paper tigers, the lot of them."
These Tier Three Mages were nothing like those five heretic mages who’d successfully infiltrated the arena earlier. These ones would be exposed in public in a heartbeat, no different from demons spawned by high-concentration pollution.
Those earlier Tier Threes had probably cost the Sect a lot of resources to create, but even so, they were disposable tools.
This place had a factory’s worth of Tier Three Mages, but running into Rose was like marshmallows meeting water—they dissolved on contact.
"Besides those knock-off mages, there are three Tier Four Mages and a bunch of researcher-types. Oh, look, here come the three Tier Fours now."
Three crushing auras surged from afar.
Rose glanced back at Hilia, smiling: "With your current power, those Purification Skill-vulnerable Tier Fours aren’t even a challenge. Watch closely—high-ranking heretics are just bigger paper tigers."
A terrifying surge of Purification Skill radiated from the magic puppet Rose controlled!
Comments