"Failed!"
"My current spiritual power is too weak!"
Su Nan sighed with some helplessness.
Now, unless he waits for the game to refresh, the negative effects of using the Starlight Abyssal Body would persist. In other places, these negative effects wouldn't have a significant impact on him because he still had the powers of two other systems.
However, in the Divine Ruins, the powers of the Body System and the Command System had little effect, and the power of the soul became crucial.
"There's no other way. I can only exit the game now and wait for it to refresh."
He checked the time; it was already morning in reality.
He had been busy evading the pursuit of the White Water Demon King and had worked through the night.
Three o'clock in the afternoon.
Su Nan woke up from his sleep.
There was still a long time before the game refreshed. With nothing else to do, he habitually opened the forum and started reading.
Without guessing, he knew that the hottest topics on the forum today would undoubtedly be the breakthroughs of Lang Shisan and Zhang Yang.
As expected, when he opened the forum, the most replied-to posts were all about Lang Shisan and Zhang Yang.
Among them, discussions about Lang Shisan dominated.
"Which county does Lang Shisan, the great god, belong to? Why hasn't anyone seen him?"
"It's so strange! How is it possible that no one has ever seen Lang Shisan? The Nine Counties have changed so much now, even if Lang Shisan was secretly cultivated by some force within the Three Sects and Six Schools, he should have been discovered by now."
As Lang Shisan became the first to reach the Profound level, replacing Wang Nan, he once again became the center of attention for everyone.
People suddenly realized that no one had ever seen Lang Shisan from beginning to end!
"Do you think it's possible that Lang Shisan isn't a player from our Eastern Chenzhou?"
"Impossible! Since he appears on the rankings in our Eastern Chenzhou, he must be a player from our Eastern Chenzhou."
"In my opinion, someone must have seen Lang Shisan, but even if they did, they probably wouldn't recognize him. Maybe Lang Shisan is extremely skilled at disguising himself and is hiding among us ordinary players."
"The person above is right. Let's not pretend anymore. I am Lang Shisan..."
The more mysterious Lang Shisan was, the more players speculated about him.
Various wild speculations were flying around, and some even guessed that Lang Shisan was secretly cultivated by the game developers.
Su Nan silently browsed through the posts without paying much attention.
Scrolling down, discussions about Wang Nan, of course, were also quite numerous.
Everyone was guessing when Wang Nan would break through.
Aside from that, the most discussed topic was undoubtedly the third official game test.
Apart from these topics, the rest were discussions about Zhongtian County.
"All major guilds are gathering in Zhongtian County. This is undoubtedly a grand event. In the past, major guilds were scattered all over, each being the king of their own little territory, quietly developing without infringing on each other."
"Now, with everyone gathering in Zhongtian County, there may not be much happening at the beginning, but as time goes on and the development of major guilds, conflicts are bound to erupt. It will be a time for major guilds to compete."
"Based on the current strength demonstrated by major guilds, the first guild undoubtedly belongs to Qian Yu, the great god. Following that is Zhou Cheng's Ascendant Guild, and third is the official guild."
"These three forces make up the top tier. After them, there's Li Longfei's Warlord Guild and the second-tier guilds like Bai Mengmeng's Dream Guild."
"The person above is exaggerating. In my opinion, these guilds only have more members. In front of Lang Shisan, Zhang Yang, and Wang Nan, they are nothing. Without these three great gods, they don't deserve to be in the top three!"
The discussions about the rankings of major guilds were intense.
Su Nan watched with interest. He found that what had started as a discussion among ordinary players had escalated as more people joined in, with players from major guilds also participating. As a result, what had initially been a normal discussion gradually evolved into a heated exchange between players from different major guilds.
In the end, some players even proposed fights between members of different major guilds once they arrived in Zhongtian County to determine their rankings.
Su Nan watched for a while but didn't find anything else of interest.
He was about to exit the forum when a personal message popped up.
It was from Li Hao.
"Big brother, I have good news to tell you. I finally completed the previous mission, and there's even a follow-up to it. I unexpectedly received a three-star mainline mission."
Li Hao had obtained a teleportation stone and a message delivery mission in Purgatory Prison. He had been teleported to Silver Frost County. It had taken him more than ten days to complete the mission, which was somewhat slow.
"What mission?" Su Nan replied.
"It's a mission to find something. The first part of the mission requires me to find a jade pendant, and it's in a very dangerous place. I'm not sure if I can complete it."
"Plus, now everyone is going to Zhongtian County, so I'm hesitating whether to give up on this mission and go to Zhongtian County," Li Hao expressed his concerns.
Su Nan replied, "The first part is three stars, the third part should be four stars, and four-star missions come with special rewards. If you're lucky, it might propel you to great heights and surpass most players. Since you've received it, make an effort to complete it."
"Propel me to great heights? That sounds fantastic! Since big brother says so, I'll definitely complete this mission," Li Hao was excited, believing Su Nan's words without doubt.
"By the way, big brother, Lang Shisan and Zhang Yang both broke through. How come you haven't?" Li Hao asked again.
Su Nan said, "It's nothing. I don't want to break through for the time being."
Not wanting to break through?
On the other end, when Li Hao saw Su Nan's reply, he was astonished.
If these words had come from someone else, he would have scoffed at them.
But coming from Su Nan, he believed them wholeheartedly.
Time passed.
In the blink of an eye, it was already eleven o'clock at night.
Tonight was destined to be another sleepless night.
Countless players were waiting for the game to refresh.
They wanted to know if the game would start its third public test with the appearance of Profound-level players.
Su Nan was also waiting.
"According to the death prediction earlier, I would be captured by the White Water Demon King a day later. But now I'm in the Divine Ruins, so the White Water Demon King can't possibly catch me, right?"
Finally, when the time reached midnight, the game refreshed, and Su Nan logged in.
To the disappointment of many players, there was no game announcement.
Obviously, Su Nan's two characters breaking through didn't trigger the start of the game's third public test.
"Why is there no announcement?"
"Got excited for
nothing. I thought there would be another public test!"
"It's normal. It's only been a little over ten days since the last test. Even if there is another test, it should come after the Human Crisis mission is completed."
In the regional chat, many players expressed their disappointment.
"Not meeting the conditions?" Su Nan was somewhat surprised.
However, he didn't mind it.
Now, whether or not the game underwent another public test had little impact on him. Lang Shisan's mission could already be completed with the current number of players.
What was restraining him wasn't the number of players but the presence of high-end players among them.
Of course, if a new test brought new abilities, he would hope for another public test.
Without immediately predicting a way to escape from the Earth God Temple, he first checked his daily tasks.
Su Nan's tasks appeared before him.
[Daily Task One: Hunt and kill a Common-grade Soul-Eating Demon]
Task Difficulty: One star
Task Reward: 5 Soul Power Points
[Daily Task Two: Escape from the Earth God Temple]
Task Difficulty: Three stars
Task Reward: 30 Soul Power Points
[Daily Task Three: Find Zhou Lingyin]
Task Difficulty: Four stars
Task Reward: 45 Soul Power Points
Chapter 211: The Mission to Break Free
The mission to break free from the Earth God Temple appeared.
For this task, Su Nan had no surprises.
Instead, it was the third task that caught his eye.
"Find Zhou Lingyin? Indeed, Zhou Lingyin is really in this Divine Ruins!"
Even though he had suspected it earlier, when this mission appeared, Su Nan's heart still relaxed.
If Zhou Lingyin wasn't here, then his trip would have been in vain, and it would be even more challenging to escape from the White Water Demon King.
The Wheel of Fate turned, and Su Nan checked Zhang Yang's mission.
Due to Zhang Yang's breakthrough to the Profound level, today's missions had collectively decreased in difficulty.
[Daily Task One: Hunt and kill a Common-grade Soul-Eating Demon]
Task Difficulty: One star
Task Reward: 15 Demon Power Points
[Daily Task Two: Explore any temple]
Task Difficulty: Three stars
Task Reward: 45 Demon Power Points
[Daily Task Three: Explore the Divine Ruins]
Task Difficulty: Four stars
Task Reward: 60 Demon Power Points
"Explore a temple?"
"Explore the Divine Ruins!"
Seeing these two tasks, Su Nan couldn't help but jump in his heart.
Both temples and ancient temples were dangerous places within the Divine Ruins, and now that he had just encountered the first ancient temple and was entangled, he couldn't even leave, let alone explore.
Now, he unexpectedly received tasks to explore a temple and the Divine Ruins, which seemed like a death sentence.
Moreover, the task to explore the Divine Ruins was even more ridiculous.
A four-star task!
This wasn't a four-star task at the Spirit level but at the Profound level.
It was certain that to complete this task, he would have to venture into the deepest part of the Divine Ruins.
"Well, it's probably impossible to complete these two tasks."
Su Nan shook his head.
He switched to Lang Shisan's mission once again to check.
Obviously, due to the absence of players in his current location, Lang Shisan's missions today unusually lacked any player-killing tasks.
[Daily Task One: Explore any ancient temple]
Task Difficulty: Three stars
Task Reward: 45 Demon Power Points
[Daily Task Two: Explore any two ancient temples]
Task Difficulty: Three stars
Task Reward: 45 Demon Power Points
[Daily Task Three: Escape from the Divine Ruins]
Task Difficulty: Three stars
Task Reward: 45 Demon Power Points
"Zhang Yang's task has exploration of the temple, Lang Shisan's task has exploration of the ancient temple, and even two at once!"
"This isn't about letting me do tasks; it's clearly pushing me towards a dead end!"
Su Nan sighed, but he had no way out.
After checking the tasks for all three characters, he once again looked at the predictions.
The number of predictions had refreshed and returned to 63.
With so many predictions, as long as he didn't use Death Prediction, it was definitely enough.
"Start predicting!"
This time, he intended to use his racial talent during the prediction.
...
[Upon seeing the Earth God Temple, you immediately activated your racial talent, "Starlight Abyssal Body," and then poured the surging energy of your vitality and essence onto your divine soul.]
[Your divine soul's power surged several times, surpassing the peak Profound-level monsters skilled in controlling divine souls, reaching a level comparable to early King-level monsters.]
[You didn't dare to hesitate for a second and immediately rushed towards the distant Earth God Temple, trying to leave the range of the temple.]
[One minute later, you crossed the Earth God Temple and arrived several kilometers away from it without being drawn by the temple's power.]
"Did I succeed?" Su Nan wasn't thrilled.
If it weren't for the previous use of Transcendent Teleportation, he would have believed he had succeeded.
But with the previous two predictions, he couldn't believe things would be that simple.
[As you moved away from the Earth God Temple, the effects of your racial talent, "Starlight Abyssal Body," disappeared, but you continued to control your incarnation to forge ahead.]
[Two minutes later, through your incarnation, you suddenly saw a broken ancient temple about a hundred meters ahead. The appearance of that ancient temple was exactly the same as the Earth God Temple you encountered earlier!]
[You wanted to bypass the Earth God Temple, but it seemed that due to the weakening of your divine soul's power, the influence of the Earth God Temple on you expanded. The moment your incarnation saw the Earth God Temple, your main body involuntarily moved towards the temple.]
[Three minutes later, you entered the Earth God Temple and paid your respects to the Earth God statue.]
[You died.]
[Your divine soul was devoured by an unknown presence, turning you into a walking corpse.]
Dead again!
Su Nan's heart sank, but this prediction still had some gains.
"The enhancement of divine soul power is effective; it can indeed break free from the Earth God Temple's influence."
"But the enhancement of divine soul power brought by the racial talent is not long-lasting. Once the effect disappears, I will still be entangled by the ancient temple, and it will even intensify!"
Su Nan tried to calm himself down and think of a solution.
Right now, he had no interest in exploring the secrets of the Earth God Temple. All he wanted was to find a way to escape from it.
Undoubtedly, the enhancement of divine soul power was a significant help against the ancient temple's influence.
But the problem was, how could he make his divine soul power stay strong for an extended period?
"The best method now should be to enhance my divine soul power."
"What are some quick ways to boost divine soul power?"
Su Nan pondered.
Suddenly, he thought of the reward he had received for completing the first stage of the "Secrets of the Divine Path" quest.
The Divine Path Artifact Refinement Method!
The Divine Path Artifact Refinement Method was not only used to refine divine path artifacts but also to enhance divine soul power.
And it was a fast-growing method.
As long as he could defeat a Divine Spirit Demon within the artifact, he would gain some of the Divine Spirit Demon's divine soul power.
With the incense burner in his hand, Su Nan's eyes lit up.
The Divine Spirit Demon within the incense burner was a King-level existence. If he could defeat it once, the amount of divine soul power he would obtain would be substantial!
However, this method also had a problem.
With his current level of divine soul power, even with the use of the Starlight Abyssal Body and pouring all his vitality and essence energy into his divine soul, he had already surpassed the Profound level and was on par with early King-level demons.
But even so, it would still be challenging for him to deal with a King-level demon.
After all, his abilities were not long-lasting.
"I can't handle it alone, but that doesn't mean two people can't handle it together. If I can get the Grand Princess to help, there might be a chance of success!"
Su Nan thought of the Grand Princess and his eyes lit up.
(End of this chapter)