Let's not even talk about the fact that he couldn't pass the first step of the test. Even if he did, undergoing the Shrine Demon's soul baptism could reveal his true nature.
After all, while he could change his appearance, he couldn't change his soul. If the Shrine Demon were truly at the Royal level, it would definitely be able to detect his deception.
This could be discerned from his foresight.
In the foresight, the Shrine Demon ultimately killed him out of anger, most likely because it had discovered his true identity.
Furthermore, one's soul was the most crucial aspect of a person. How could he allow another being's soul to enter so casually?
Even if the Shrine Demon couldn't discover his true identity, Suzanne couldn't easily let its soul enter his own.
"There's no other way; I can only take it one step at a time and complete the first part of the mission first."
He had only a few foresight attempts left, which wouldn't be enough to continue foreseeing.
Fortunately, after passing the first test, there were still five or six hours until the soul baptism began. Calculating the time, it would be after tomorrow's game reset.
By then, his foresight attempts would be refreshed, allowing him to continue foreseeing.
If there really was no way, then he could only give up.
Not thinking any further, Suzanne's gaze returned to the panel.
With a wave of his hand, a piece of bone, clearly decayed on one end but still vibrant on the other, appeared in his hand.
Ancient monster bone!
It was one of the pieces he had obtained in Tianyun County.
Back then, he had obtained one piece each from two celestial forbidden node spaces in Tianyun County, one containing the physical lineage of a Hundred-Legged Monster and the other a secret-power lineage of a Purple-Eyed Monster.
Both pieces of bone contained rare blood of the Mystic level due to their unique environment, making them suitable for his use.
The corresponding monster manuals had also been purchased in the Heavenly Pavilion of the Zhongtian County Imperial City before he lost his way. Now, he could directly merge them.
"I have five more foresight chances; let's use one now."
Although his previous foresight assured him that this fusion wouldn't be problematic, it didn't provide specific details. To be on the safe side, he decided to use another foresight.
[Swallowing Star Monster Bloodline Complete Mastery: You have the qualifications to continue merging the bloodline.]
[You know that due to the rapid merging of bloodlines, your body hasn't fully integrated with them. In the short term, you won't be able to merge ordinary monster bloodlines again; only ancient monster bloodlines can be merged.]
[After preparing everything, you consume the ancient monster bloodline that you have long prepared, along with the corresponding monster manual, and begin merging the bloodline.]
[As soon as the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline enters your body, you immediately feel a stimulation in your Swallowing Star Monster bloodline, as if it wants to devour and merge the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline.]
[However, the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline is equally powerful and isn't immediately devoured by the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline. Instead, there is a temporary stalemate, making it difficult for the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline to merge into your body.]
[The two bloodlines are in a standoff within you, erupting with tremendous force that threatens to tear your body apart. You attempt to control both bloodlines using the monster manuals, but you find that neither monster manual responds to your control. Helplessly, you can only watch and wait.]
[One minute later, the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline hasn't expelled the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline.]
[Two minutes later, the two bloodlines are evenly matched.]
[Three minutes later, the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline still hasn't merged into your body.]
[The first foresight ends; do you wish to continue?]
"Continue."
In previous bloodline mergers, three minutes had usually been enough.
This time, due to both the Swallowing Star Monster and Purple-Eyed Monster bloodlines being ancient, three minutes passed, and there was still no sign of the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline merging.
Moreover, the power of Mystic-level bloodlines was formidable, and he couldn't control them with his monster manuals as he had with ordinary and Spirit-level bloodlines. This was the main reason why he was struggling to continue merging the bloodlines.
Now, success would depend on which bloodline could gain the upper hand.
[The two bloodlines clash within you, but thanks to your strong physique, your body doesn't get torn apart by the force they generate.]
[One minute later, the two bloodlines gradually exhaust their strength. Just at this moment, under the night sky, specks of starlight converge towards you, devoured by your Swallowing Star Monster bloodline within your body.]
[As the starlight is devoured, the power of your Swallowing Star Monster bloodline slowly recovers and gradually gains the upper hand.]
It was a situation similar to when he broke through the Mystic level before.
At the critical moment, the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline unleashed its unique ability, recovering with the help of the starlight.
However, this time, his opponent was not ordinary bloodlines but another ancient monster bloodline.
[Facing the rapidly recovering Swallowing Star Monster bloodline, the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline finally couldn't hold on any longer. At a critical moment, the ability of the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline also erupted, and invisibly, your body was enveloped in a purple light.]
[With the purple light covering you, the power of the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline within your body seems to be frozen, and the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline's monster manual operation gradually slows down, while the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline's monster manual operation accelerates.]
[Two minutes later, although the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline is recovering under the starlight, the recovered power doesn't strengthen it. Instead, the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline gradually gains the upper hand.]
[Three minutes later, the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline is no match for the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline, and the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline finally merges into your body.]
[Congratulations, you have successfully merged the bloodline.]
The successful merger of the bloodlines was within Suzanne's expectations.
However, what he didn't anticipate was the ability of the Purple-Eyed Monster bloodline, which prevented the Swallowing Star Monster bloodline's recovered power from being used.
"I wonder what kind of racial talent I can obtain from this bloodline fusion," Suzanne wondered.
His foresight was still ongoing and had not yet concluded.
However, when he looked at the final piece of information from the foresight, Suzanne's heart sank.
"It's a shame that due to the influence of bad luck, you were unable to obtain the racial talent from the bloodline."
"Bad luck!"
Suzanne's face turned grim. He hadn't expected that bad luck would also affect his ability to merge bloodlines.
Previously, with the strong
luck he had, every time he merged ancient monster bloodlines, he would gain racial talents. This made him momentarily overlook the fact that merging ancient monster bloodlines didn't always guarantee acquiring racial talents.
He felt fortunate.
His previous foresight told him that the fusion would likely succeed, but it didn't inform him that bad luck could prevent him from gaining racial talents.
If he hadn't had this foresight, he would have made a big mistake by directly merging the bloodlines.
After all, for ancient monster bloodlines, racial talents were the most important.
"Well, I'll have to wait another two days for the next fusion."
Sighing, Suzanne put away the ancient monster bone.
"Now, it's time to visit the palace."
With a thought, he changed his appearance again, this time assuming the identity of a commoner, and headed towards the Great Xuan Palace.
It was certain that the second stage of the "Path of the Sovereign" mainline mission involved the soul baptism.
Based on the current situation, he had no way to pass the soul baptism.
However, this wouldn't affect his actions today.
According to the sequence in his foresight, he would first wait for the appearance of the four guards, then take their marks, and finally, swiftly enter the palace to silently capture the Fourth Prince.
The Fourth Prince was a young man of similar age to Suzanne, at the peak of the Mortal level.
However, this guy was clearly a spoiled brat. When Suzanne found him in the sleeping quarters, he was happily playing with a group of maids.
"Who are you?"
Outside the palace, the Fourth Prince looked at Suzanne and the Grand Princess, shocked and furious. He never expected that someone could infiltrate the palace and silently snatch him away under the protection of the magic array.
"What kind of people are we? You don't need to know. If you want to live, there's only one way: I need your blood," Suzanne said.
"Blood? That's impossible!"
The Fourth Prince felt strange, not understanding why Suzanne needed his blood. But he had a strong feeling that something wasn't right.
"Not giving it? Then you can die now." A ball of fire appeared in Suzanne's hand, as if he was about to kill the Fourth Prince.
Of course, he was just trying to scare him.
As expected, seeing Suzanne about to attack, the Fourth Prince was frightened.
Ten minutes later.
Suzanne obtained the blood he needed. He used his shape-shifting ability to transform, taking on the appearance of the Fourth Prince, and with the help of the Deceptive Stone, he also reached the peak of the Mortal level.
"What kind of ability is this?" The Grand Princess was amazed.
She had witnessed many of Suzanne's strange abilities, but this was the first time she had seen him change his appearance in such a way.
"Did you use this method to transform into that wolf monster back then?" The Grand Princess recalled the previous incident and finally understood what had happened.
Suzanne smiled but didn't explain further.
"How can you turn into me!" The Fourth Prince was shocked and frightened, looking at Suzanne, who looked exactly like him. His heart was filled with dread.
Chapter 288: Disturbance in the Ocean
The Grand Princess glanced at the Fourth Prince and asked, "What should we do with him? Kill him?"
Suzanne's mind raced, and he asked, "How can one forcefully access someone else's memories?"
In his foresight, he had the Grand Princess forcibly accessing the memories of the Fourth Prince. However, when the Grand Princess accessed the memories, they would be in her mind, and Suzanne could only learn what he wanted to know through her, which was not as convenient as directly accessing the memories himself.
Upon hearing this, the Fourth Prince turned pale, his eyes filled with despair.
The Grand Princess explained, "To forcibly access memories, you don't need any secret techniques; you just need a strong soul power. The stronger the soul of the target, the higher the soul power required."
"He is only at the peak of the Mortal level, and he is not a martial artist who specializes in soul power. With your soul power, it should be easy to access his memories."
"I see," Suzanne nodded.
Next, the Grand Princess taught him the technique of forcibly accessing memories.
As per the Grand Princess's instructions, deep within every person's soul, there was a mysterious core area. As long as one's soul power could break through the target's soul and enter that core area, they could see everything the target had experienced from birth until now.
Of course, there were some limitations to this. The stronger the target's soul, the less information could be seen when forcibly accessing memories.
Following the Grand Princess's method, Suzanne attempted to access the memories.
Sure enough, after forcibly breaking through the Fourth Prince's weak soul, everything he had experienced flashed before Suzanne's eyes like a revolving lantern.
The Fourth Prince's cultivation was not high, and his soul was far inferior to Suzanne's, so Suzanne saw a lot of information.
However, it was a pity that the Fourth Prince's cultivation was too low, and the useful information he possessed was almost nonexistent.
Suzanne didn't mind, as he only needed the Fourth Prince's memories to prevent his disguise from being exposed later.
After obtaining the memories, Suzanne entered the royal palace.
One hour later.
The Grand Ancestral Temple.
"Big brother, I heard that this trial is extremely dangerous, and there is a high probability of death here, is that true?" a young man, a few years younger than Suzanne, asked tremblingly.
Upon hearing this, the Crown Prince opened his mouth to speak, but at this moment, an old man scolded in a low voice, "Silence! Within the Grand Ancestral Temple, no one is allowed to speak recklessly."
The others immediately grew solemn and dared not say anything.
"From now on, you don't need to do anything. Just wait until sunrise tomorrow, and you will be considered to have passed the trial," the old man said in a deep voice.
After saying that, he extinguished the candles and left the Grand Ancestral Temple.
As the doors of the Grand Ancestral Temple closed, the temple plunged into darkness.
Suzanne didn't dare to delay any longer and immediately used his Celestial Teleportation to leave the temple.
"Perfect, I can take care of the mission now."
Looking at the mission on the panel, Suzanne's consciousness descended into his avatar, taking control of it to eliminate the warriors from the various major families who were pursuing his avatar.
Apart from King Nan's four-star mission, "Explore the Great Xuan Palace," the other two avatars had one-star and two-star missions.
The one-star mission corresponded to the Thirty-Two Families, while the two-star mission corresponded to the Ten Great Aristocratic Families, which required them to deploy Xuan-level experts.
With his avatar's mid-level Spiritual power, facing the attacks of many warriors, it was quite challenging. Several times, he came close to being seriously injured and almost captured by two Xuan-level experts. In the end, luck was on his side, allowing him to escape.
After completing the missions for all three avatars, he received 150 Demonic Power points!
"With 191 Demonic Power points now available, not bad. Based on the current situation, I should be able to complete another round of missions tomorrow, and maybe even the day after tomorrow."
Suzanne was quite satisfied, as obtaining 150 Demonic Power points was not easy even in the outside world.
Currently, the major families had not yet realized the seriousness of the situation. As long as they continued to hunt down his avatars, he could keep completing missions.
"According to the foresight from yesterday, my avatar will pass through the Black Magic Lake today. I'll have to change my direction to avoid it."
Although he didn't know why there was a presence in the Black Magic Lake targeting him, as long as he didn't pass through it, he should be able to avoid trouble.
He looked at the sky; it was currently the Hour of the Dog in the game, and it was already 8 o'clock in the morning in reality.
Without wasting any time, he took control of his avatar, transformed into a bird, and hid in the forest. Then, he logged out of the game.
After having a light breakfast, he set an alarm clock and went to sleep.
When he woke up from his nap, it was already 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and there were a few hours left until sunrise in the game.
With some free time on his hands, Suzanne picked up his phone out of habit and opened a forum.
To his surprise, as soon as he opened the forum, a post with numerous views, shares, and likes caught his eye.
"Breaking News: All satellites from various countries have detected a disturbance in the ocean, with a large number of sea monsters gathering in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean."
(End of this chapter)