"Hello?"
"Is the God of Death there?"
"God of Light, or whatever god, can anyone hear me?"
...
[Spirituality of Virtue: Obtained permission to communicate with the Seat of Guidance]
Unlike [Wrath], Spirituality wasn't grayed out on Lin Jun's status panel.
He guessed that after obtaining these Great Sins and Virtues, they still had to pass an activation check.
However, Spirituality was related to faith. Lin Jun himself didn't believe in any deities, so he didn't know why it could also be activated.
That young girl from the Hand of Passage could use [Spirituality] for a Divine Descent, so theoretically, Lin Jun should at least be able to use it to chat with gods.
Unfortunately, after making a fuss for a long time, he didn't receive any response.
It feels... so useless.
Are the effects of Virtues all this underwhelming?
That [Sacrifice] on Vera didn't look very powerful either.
To be honest, if there was a way, Lin Jun wanted to throw away [Spirituality] and [Wrath].
The origins of these two things were a bit questionable, as if they were forcibly delivered into his hands.
It gave Lin Jun the feeling that he was a dish, and once these seasonings were gathered, the mastermind behind the scenes could start eating.
Lin Jun wouldn't treat the God of Death as a backer just because She summoned him and didn't show hostility last time.
Mystifying riddlers are never trustworthy!
Additionally, the name "Seat of Guidance" somewhat made Lin Jun associate it with "Ark."
Are the deities all in the Ark?
Or is the entire world the Ark?
The Divine Tree had said that the true Ark Project had already failed.
And Lin Jun had also found information like [Ark Project Progress: 245%] among the garbage data in the Abyss.
Failure was understandable, but he didn't know what progress exceeding 100% meant.
Lin Jun actually wanted to find the Divine Tree and ask clearly.
However, that old geezer's determination to slack off and let things rot was very firm; if it said it wouldn't disclose, it wouldn't disclose.
According to its words: "I'm too lazy to struggle, but I shouldn't cause trouble for the guys who are still trying hard. Don't waste your effort coming to ask me."
"The guys who are still trying hard" probably referred to the God of Death, possibly also including the God of Light and the like.
However, the meaning of the Divine Tree's words seemed to be that if Lin Jun knew too much, it would cause trouble for the deities.
So... they really are trying to screw me over, right?
But although the Divine Tree was an annoying riddle tree, it obviously wasn't stupid. If that side was truly trying to screw him over, as someone who claimed to be neutral, it shouldn't have even said this sentence.
Damn it, you've pushed the task of saving the world onto my head, couldn't you properly plan it out as clear tasks for me to do?
These riddlers better hope I don't find a chance to climb over their heads...
Although sometimes he also wanted to blow up together with these riddlers and have everyone perish together.
But Lin Jun ultimately still cherished his life. The world still had to be saved; what was more important than his own little life?
This bit of minor emotion could only be endured for now.
Additionally, when Lin Jun first obtained [Wrath], the three lines of constantly changing data that appeared on the panel—after a long period of comparison—had allowed Lin Jun to roughly guess some of their meanings.
The three lines of data originally were:
[153345]
[546433875]
[9453412779]
And now they had become:
[297451]
[543562903]
[9456139645]
The sum of the three sets of numbers had always been 9,999,999,999.
When Lin Jun decomposed a corpse with a soul, the second line of numbers would decrease, and the first line would increase.
Due to Lin Jun's efforts over the past year, the number in the first line had increased quite a bit.
And setting aside Lin Jun's influence, although the first and second lines sometimes increased and sometimes decreased, overall, they were gradually decreasing.
Only the largest data in the final line only increased and never decreased.
Assuming these numbers represented souls, then the first line should represent the souls licked clean by him, while the second line was those ordinary souls.
What about the third line?
Another destination for souls?
It was all guesswork, but in this world, souls were obviously very important.
If he could figure out the laws of soul circulation behind the world, he might be able to solve the puzzle.
Speaking of which, the Demon King had also mentioned saving the world and said there was only one savior, obviously also knowing something.
I'll beat that Slime to its knees later and ask before finishing it off.
Simultaneously, Lin Jun had another thought.
The sacrifices of the Hand of Passage shouldn't be solely for communicating with the God of Death.
Because they also held small sacrifice rituals normally; this was entirely their daily task.
The God of Death painstakingly collecting souls might be to save these souls, but it was also possible that souls themselves were a type of resource.
Although Lin Jun wasn't clear yet on how to use this resource called souls, starting to hoard them in advance shouldn't be wrong.
Converting the subordinates of the Mushroom Fortress and the believers of the Church of Mushroom into the Mushroom Tribe was, to some extent, also binding their souls to his own hands. Although this kind of binding wasn't considered particularly stable, it was still an effective method.
And the souls of those dead enemies... maybe I can take out a portion to feed to the Yellow Codex?
However, the Yellow Codex wasn't that reliable either. He had to consider the possibility of it taking its thick pages and defecting to the Demon King's hands, although currently, this possibility didn't seem very high.
If only there were other methods to store souls.
Why does it feel like my style is leaning toward a Necromancer?
While Lin Jun was making plans for the future here, the blackened Sword Saint finally rolled back from the underground network.
The pitch-black Puchi took advantage of the night and swished into the entrance of the Puchi Dungeon. The guards guarding the gate didn't notice any anomaly at all.
The reason he didn't let the Sword Saint Puchi return via teleportation was mainly because he wasn't proficient yet. He was afraid an accident might happen with the little item given by the God of Death, resulting in him being split in half or something.
As soon as he returned, the Sword Saint threw the black stone to a cannon-fodder Puchi beside him.
As it detached, the black mist on his mushroom body attached to the cannon-fodder Puchi.
The Sword Saint didn't like this feeling of concealment. The black mist not only blocked the outside world's detection of the user, but the user's own perception skills would also be shielded.
In the Sword Saint's view, it was indeed useful in specific situations, but carrying it around normally would instead tie his hands and feet.
However, Lin Jun didn't have this problem. Anyway, information was shared; he just needed to hand over the detection work to other Puchis.
"Oh right, what do you think of the God of Death?" Lin Jun suddenly asked.
One of the reasons the Sword Saint agreed to assist Lin Jun was to save the world. Regarding the conversation with the God of Death, Lin Jun had told the Sword Saint everything except the part related to himself.
"What do I think? Her tentacles are very hard. I actually couldn't chop through them using those two skill weapons. Do you have any better weapons here?"
"You know what I'm talking about. Maybe what the Hand of Passage did was truly helping the God of Death save the world. Does your past count as mistakenly killing good people?"
"Good people?" The Sword Saint Puchi snorted in the mycelial network without a single bit of wavering. "The Hand of Passage existed long before I was born. If what they did could save the world, why would it be our turn to worry about it?"
"As for souls? If what can be saved are only souls and not the life itself containing memories, then in my view, it doesn't count as saving."
The pitch-black cannon-fodder Puchi beside him nodded its mushroom cap, considered to have understood "saving" in the Sword Saint's eyes.
Soul, memory, life, huh...
It makes some sense. If one loses the memories that define the self, can the one who lives on still be considered oneself?
Lin Jun couldn't help but think of Vera. His [Sacrifice] was sacrificing memories.
He didn't know what kind of development it would be after a complete sacrifice...
...
Turning around, Lin Jun handed the black stone over to the werewolf Cullen for safekeeping.
(End of Chapter)
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