Long Ao didn't take it to heart: "Among the people from North City, other than Guan Jinyue, there's no one of much use. If you and I join forces, suppressing her shouldn't be difficult."
"No, Long Ao, you should have also received a message from Ross." An Changqing showed his Green Bubble chat history. Ross from Zero Academy had approached him.
Since teaming up wasn't restricted by academies, it naturally meant the stronger the teammates, the better. Ross's idea was very simple: if the four strongest people teamed up, they would naturally form the strongest squad.
His idea was fine, but the premise was that they would actually agree to it.
An Changqing naturally rejected him. Long Ao looked at the chat history, only then belatedly opening his own Green Bubble app. Sure enough, he saw a message from Ross. It was just that his Green Bubble notifications were always at 99+, so he rarely paid attention to messages from unsaved contacts.
Compared to this, he paid more attention to the messages sent by the academy terminal.
"If Guan Jinyue agreed, just her and Ross alone would be hard enough to deal with. Not to mention, if he invites experts like Kamishiro Chizuru from Kamiya Academy, it will be very troublesome."
Long Ao snorted coldly, "Who cares? We can't control her anyway. We'll just crush them."
Chen Guan nodded silently. The live comments had spoiled that Guan Jinyue was related to Baal. Moreover, he felt that given the usual tropes, there was an eighty percent chance a demon descent would be triggered. The team battles and the secret realm competition were indeed great opportunities to stir up trouble.
After a brief further discussion, the four dispersed to make their own preparations.
Chen Guan returned to his room and opened his status panel, ready to go on a spending spree and purchase a new ability.
The first thing that caught his eye was his Popularity Points balance.
Popularity Points: 35743
His defeat in the battle against Ross didn't significantly affect the growth of his Popularity Points. His previous ambiguous interactions with his main body, the fierce clashes in the arena, the earth-shattering showdown in the finals, and the heated discussions brought about by the mystery of Guan Jinyue's identity had instead brought in a continuous stream of revenue.
His Popularity Points had reached an unprecedented peak.
"Over thirty-five thousand points... enough to redeem a new ability." Chen Guan's eyes swept over the dazzling array of options on the ability exchange list.
Previously, in order to quickly build up his combat strength, he had chosen the Illusionist ability, which perfectly matched his high Spirit attribute. The results had been remarkable.
However, the Illusionist leaned heavily towards crowd control. When facing opponents like Ross, who could directly see through the essence of matter, or Guan Jinyue, who dealt with spatial rules, its limitations began to show.
He needed a more direct, more destructive, and more unique ability to complement the Illusionist.
Mythological Ability: Echo (Blue / Incomplete)
Price: 35000 Popularity Points
Seeing that Chen Guan was about to buy it, the System panicked: "Host, please think twice! This is an incomplete version. If you have bad luck, this ability will get you killed."
This was a gambler's ability that had just refreshed in the store.
Chen Guan originally disliked this kind of luck-reliant gambler skill, but unfortunately, it was of the Mythological type.
That was the Mythological type, after all.
Just looking at An Changqing showed how terrifying the Mythological type could be. Which proper Mythological ability in the System didn't cost an astronomical figure?
Mythological abilities easily cost hundreds of thousands of Popularity Points each. He had been craving one for so long, and now that there was finally a cheap one available, the System just had to insist it was incomplete. Whether the ability was incomplete or not, wouldn't he know?
As for it getting him killed...
High risk, high reward.
Besides, an alt account couldn't die anyway. Are you threatening me with something I don't even have?
Chen Guan thought of his main body in the black iron coffin, and he thought of Baal and the Source Return Group—these terrifying things revealed by the live comments. A Mythological ability; he was definitely buying it!
"Fortune favors the bold, System." Chen Guan's eyes narrowed. "Redeem Mythological Ability: Echo (Blue / Incomplete)."
"Deducting 35000 Popularity Points. Remaining Popularity Points: 743."
Buzz...
Unlike the pure infusion of knowledge from when he previously redeemed skills and abilities, this time, Chen Guan felt as if his consciousness had been thrown into a vast, boundless river of time made up of countless shattered lights and chaotic whispers.
He saw the birth and death of stars, saw giant gods walking upon the earth, heard ancient sacrificial songs and sorrowful cries, felt the forging and betrayal of covenants, and touched the weaving and collapse of rules... Countless chaotic, complex, and incomprehensibly ancient fragments of information washed over his consciousness.
This was not learning, but rather listening to countless murmurs.
He didn't know how much time had passed. It felt like a fleeting moment, yet also like a thousand years. He witnessed countless trials and tribulations.
Chen Guan's consciousness returned. He had a splitting headache. The gray mist in his spiritual world churned violently. It seemed as though some indescribable things had been added, yet it also felt like nothing had changed.
He knew what he had obtained.
Mythological Ability: Echo (Blue / Incomplete)
Effect: Passively enhances sensitivity to ancient auras, mythological remnants, and rule fluctuations. When actively triggered, it consumes a large amount of spiritual power to attempt to listen to and draw upon echoes related to myths, history, and concepts in the surrounding environment or from past contact, granting a random effect.
The duration and intensity of the effect depend on the strength of the echo itself, the spiritual power consumed, and the degree of resonance. It has a long cooldown, and after use, there is a certain probability of attracting unknown attention or suffering from residual influences.
Currently Recorded Echoes: None
Sure enough, it was an ability that relied entirely on luck.
It had no fixed skill tree, its effects were random, and he had to acquire the echoes himself. If he ended up attracting something from a chaotic evil faction, he might just drop dead. It was a complete gambler's ability.
But Chen Guan wasn't disappointed. The passively enhanced perception was quite useful, and the active ability... although unstable, could absolutely create miracles at critical moments.
Acquiring echoes wouldn't be too hard either. An Changqing's ability and Baal itself should fall within the scope of echoes.
It was just that the former would likely be benign, while the latter would probably be lethal. However, if used well, it could probably serve as a suicide bomb. He would just need to adjust the range limits and place himself far away before using it.
He tried fine-tuning his spiritual power to sense the ability. In his spiritual world, at the edge of that cluster of gray mist, a few extremely dim specks of light faintly emerged. They were like imperceptible dust in a starry sky, representing echoes that could be recorded. However, they were all out of reach, and it was impossible to determine what they specifically were.
As expected, he couldn't draw upon any echoes right now. He had to capture the skills himself, like catching pets.
After trying a bit more, Chen Guan finally gave up and looked at his current status panel again.
Name: Chen Guan
Identity: First-year student at Huaqing Academy
Abilities: Life Type - Fortitude, Spirit Type - Illusionist, Mythological Type - Echo
Special Skills: Military Combat Techniques (Blue), Heavy Weapon Mastery (Green), Basic Scythe Techniques (Green), Breath Concealment Technique (Green), Stargazing Meditation Method (Blue)
Attributes:
Strength: 15.7
Stamina: 10.5
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 5
Spirit: 25.4
Popularity Points: 743
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
