Inside White Mist's headquarters on Heaven and Earth Star's planetary ring.
When Gu Nan reappeared, it was already nearly half a month after his disappearance.
He didn't actually stay in the Morningstar Plane for too long; he stayed there for a little over a month, but it was barely three days in Star Realm.
But after Gu Nan returned, he was forced to spend more time recuperating.
This time, Gu Nan truly felt the damage that reincarnation did to his soul. The damage on his soul gave him a splitting headache, and it was difficult to concentrate. Not even eating sweets could make it better.
"No wonder very few independent reincarnators exist anymore after reaching a certain level," Gu Nan couldn't help sighing slightly.
The essence of reincarnation was for one's soul to leave the body and possess the body of a native in a smaller plane. When the reincarnator's soul reaches a certain level of strength, reincarnation will inevitably damage the soul.
According to White Mist's data, the severity of this damage depends on two factors: the percentage of soul power one invests in the reincarnation and the duration of the reincarnator's stay in the smaller plane.
The higher the proportion of one's soul used for reincarnation and the longer the duration of stay inside the reincarnation plane, the more serious the damage.
"After my soul recovers, I still need at least a period of rest before I can reincarnate again."
"Perhaps I should try some smaller planes. Although the rewards will be smaller, I won't need to invest as much soul power."
"Since the mist mirror is here, there will be no shortage of missions."
Gu Nan adjusted his own mental state and also summarized the lessons learned from this mission, followed by checking the harvest.
With Lan Si continuously absorbing the Godstone, his Evil Value had already reached 445, which wasn't far from the 500 threshold. However, the problem of a lack of points remained.
Gu Nan currently had 1,400 points, but it would take 2,500 points to advance to Tier 4, which meant Gu Nan still needed to farm more dungeons.
Corrupting a Godhead could only give him Evil Value, but without points, he wouldn't be able to advance to Tier 4.
Gu Nan slowly walked out of the hall. There was no sunshine all year round on the planetary ring; there was only a gloomy night sky overhead.
An unfamiliar young girl was waiting outside the door, as if she'd always been waiting for him to appear. As soon as she saw him, she went forward and bowed. "Great Commander, the Second Commander asked you to please visit her as soon as you leave secluded cultivation."
Gu Nan looked at her face, confirmed that this shouldn't be one of Red Tail's doppelgangers, and nodded.
...
Gu Nan saw Red Tail in a quiet room looking the same as usual, although her expression was more dignified.
Originally, White Mist's affairs were jointly handled by the Sand King and Red Tail, but now that the Sand King had been replaced by Gu Nan, someone who didn't handle any of the organization's matters, daily affairs naturally fell on Red Tail's head.
And this was exactly what she wanted—some people in this world were obsessed with power, while others were obsessed with authority and status.
"My Lord, looks like your trip went smoothly," Red Tail chuckled when she saw Gu Nan appear.
Gu Nan had originally set aside an entire month for reincarnation, but he only used half of that time. Naturally, his trip seemed to have gone smoothly.
Gu Nan didn't want to explain too much and bluntly asked, "What's the situation here?"
"Five of the six great Dao Lords died, so Heavenly Mystery ended up seizing complete control of the experiments involving the children of destiny. Ye Chen, who's known as the King of the Northern Region, has led his forces to invade the southern region… I don't know what Heavenly Mystery wants to achieve."
Red Tail summarized concisely, then added, "But these are only minor matters. There's news from the Alliance."
She was naturally referring to the Bloodline Alliance. Red Tail said in an odd tone, "His Majesty, the King of the Deep Sea… seems to have returned already."
The King of the Deep Sea was the Tier 4 powerhouse who once used Qin Xuanji to attack Gu Nan from far away with the intention of snatching the Godstone.
Powerful existences at his level usually wouldn't stay in a certain place for too long. Most of them were wandering outside, doing their own things. The one who attacked Gu Nan earlier might've merely been a portion of the power he left behind in the Central Region.
And now, this powerhouse came back—the reason he chose now of all times to return was self-evident. Clearly, this one attached more importance to the Godhead than Gu Nan expected.
Gu Nan couldn't help frowning slightly. 'What does this world's Void Cutter existence need a Godhead for? It's not like he can use it…'
The gods' power system strongly excluded foreign powers. If you obtain a Godhead, then you can either use it to light a divine fire or corrupt it—it can't be used for any other purpose.
'Unless…'
Gu Nan thought of a possibility but didn't elaborate. He just looked at Red Tail.
"I thought you'd sell me out as soon as you received this information."
There had never been any mutual affection between Gu Nan and Red Tail. They were merely cooperating with each other—so if the risk of cooperation was too great, there would certainly be no need to continue cooperating.
But Red Tail just laughed, "This is the Sixth Region… It's not a backwater place like the Ninth Region. Even a Void Cutter existence can't casually reach his hands into the Sixth Region."
"Although those two are away from Heaven and Earth Star all year round, they've always disliked outsiders secretly reaching into their territory. Plus, the King of the Deep Sea's reputation is…"
She didn't say much, but she revealed a lot of information.
The Sixth Region was ruled by two Void Cutter figures. Of course, their true bodies wouldn't be on Heaven and Earth Star, so the Heavenly Mystery Dao Lord and the other Dao Lords could play with the continent to their hearts' content.
However, although the natives of Heaven and Earth Star could play with their own world, outsiders were forbidden from interfering.
Gu Nan nodded, still in thought. Although there was someone above him to keep the King of the Deep Sea in check, he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could just rest easy with that.
If the King of the Deep Sea really came here with his true body, then he could absolutely kill Gu Nan and still leave unscathed.
When those two Void Cutter rulers rush back, at most, they'd make the King of the Deep Sea pay some price as an apology. It was impossible for them to start a war with the King of the Deep Sea just because they lost some face.
Gu Nan's only advantage was that the King of the Deep Sea wouldn't be able to deal with him so conspicuously.
'Just wait a little longer…' Gu Nan thought, and a dark glint flashed through his eyes. 'As soon as I reach Tier 4, I'll slaughter a wave of monsters at the Blood Alliance first.'
Gu Nan secretly swore viciously. His mentality was probably similar to this: he was chased by the police for three blocks, so after he levelled up, he returned and even bombed the police station.
If he wanted to advance, at present, what he lacked the most were points, so he couldn't stop reincarnation for the time being.
In addition, he'd also need to start developing White Mist more. The advancement from Tier 4 to Tier 5 was also a process of accumulating Evil Value and points, which meant Gu Nan required a large number of world missions.
"How's the plan for the shell organization going?" Gu Nan asked another question.
"The current situation isn't bad, but it will be a bit grim in the future." Red Tail looked a little helpless. "The civil war between North and South has practically escalated into a full-blown war, so it's hard for the organization to develop steadily."
"The work of another child of destiny!" Gu Nan's eyes showed some interest.
One Lin Tian was already enough to create a mist mirror. As the first child of destiny to awaken, how many mirrors would Ye Chen, the King of the Northern Region, be able to create?
Just in time, his soul had recovered as well, although it would still take him some time to stabilize his soul before he could reincarnate again. Now was a nice time to collect the fish caught in the net—as for whether the Heavenly Mystery Dao Lord had some plan involving Ye Chen… What did that have to do with Gu Nan?
"Give me the report on the shell organization's situation."
"No problem." Red Tail chuckled and added, "My Lord, you've completed the world mission, so don't forget to collect the rewards!"