Chapter 56: Chapter 56 – What on Earth, Exploiting Nature

“What…what on earth is this, it’s daylight robbery!”

Although Ren Suo was still on the couch, his body was tilted at a 60° angle towards the television screen. If it were 10 years ago, he would have been treated to a tight slap from his father—were you so eager to develop myopia from sitting so close to the television screen?

The words on the screen were actually relatively large, and Ren Suo could see them clearly even when he was lying down on the couch. The only reason he was staring so close to the screen was that he was intrigued…and excited!

An avatar from [Over My Dead Body] was being shown on the screen. It was a small and cute little girl who was dressed in white. A faint, blue glow radiated out from her as she walked along the stream, a lotus emerging with each step she took!

[Ren Ying]

[Age: 1]

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[Lifespan: 23]

[Attack 28, Defense 75, Scout 12, Movement 13, Recovery 5, Management 10]

[Inherited Ability – Abundant Fury of the Holy Force: In combat, Attack +35%, Defense +35%, and enemies within a 5 tile radius would be forced to attack oneself. This is a single target water-type attack.]

(Inheritance: The Holy Force (Ren Woxing), Fury of the Holy Force (Ren Nu), Abundant Fury of the Holy Force (Ren Ying).)

In theory, every Practitioner of the Ren family would only have one attack ability, and each Practitioner would bear children with similar abilities to themselves. If members of the family have the same abilities, the abilities they pass down to their descendants during the [Inherit] process would have evolved.

In the previous scenario, the head of the Ren family in one generation acquired the ability [The Holy Force]. After the Inheritance process, the subsequent head of the family acquired the evolved ability [Fury of the Holy Force]; the third head of the family then acquired the subsequently evolved ability [Abundant Fury of the Holy Force].

However, there were exceptions to that, such as when the Ren family Practitioner was weaker than the elf during the Spiritual Exchange. Ren Suo figured that there was a formula to compare the strength of the two characters involved with two variables: one was the “Total Attribute Score of Practitioner”, and the other was the “Number of Reiki Crystals Required for Exchange with Elf”. Comparing the two values would determine the inherited ability of the children.

In the case that the Practitioner was weaker than the Elf, the nature of the ability acquired by their children would be based on that of the Elf. Of course, that was not necessarily a bad thing. Even after acquiring the ability corresponding to the type of the Elf, the newborn character’s combat power would not be lower than that of the other Ren family members. In fact, that could mean diversifying the types of abilities possessed by the Ren family.

The only other case was that the Practitioner overpowered the Elf; there were no exceptions.

That meant that throughout the game, each character would only have at most one ability for combat.

However, Ren Ying had yet another inherited ability!

[Inherited Ability – The Rhapsody of the Goddess of the Luo River: Grants immunity to all water-type and fire-type damage. Water-type attacks deal 4 times the damage.]

What!

A!

Beast!

Upon seeing the details of the ability, Ren Suo’s eyes almost popped out!

Both of the abilities could be stacked and take effect at the same time!

She was an extraordinarily powerful warrior with both Axe-type and Shield-type forms, and was immune to all fire-type and water-type damage!

More importantly—

She was only one year old!

And she perfectly inherited all the attributes from the previous generation!

Interestingly, she was also not bound by the usual restrictions and at just one-year-old. She could train, go on expeditions, and even…take part in the spiritual exchange.

Although she only had a lifespan of 23 years, Ren Suo could still continue surviving in the game for another 23 years!

In the scene on the screen, the small girl Ren Ying was confused and asked, “I…Didn’t I die?”

Ren Luoyang said, “Master, you are still alive. You were rejuvenated and brought back to life by the goddess and you now reside within her.”

Ren Suo opened the [Spiritual Exchange] menu and found that the “Goddess: Mi Fei” option had indeed disappeared. He sighed to himself but he had already expected it—there were likely only one or two chances in each game for a character to be revived and even inherit a super ability.

In actual fact, had he not saved Cao Zhi’s life by coincidence, Ren Suo would never have found out about such an easter egg hidden in the game.

Mi Fei, the Goddess of the Luo River, was naturally not Lady Zhen whom Cao Zhi fell in love with in history. Instead, Mi Fei was the daughter of Fu Xi in ancient legends and mythologies, who fell in love with the scenic beauty of the riverbank of the Luo River. She descended from the heavens and then became the Goddess of the Luo River.

Gods and Goddesses were definitely not a definite occurrence in every game. In other words, Ren Suo might only have found out about their existence when he had completed the game at least once but wanted to achieve a higher score with an “Extraordinary” rating.

Ren Suo had not known about the powers of the Gods and Goddesses either. He had only been experimenting in the current game save as he had thought that he was not able to complete the objectives successfully. It was only then that he found out that the Spiritual Exchange with “Goddess: Mi Fei” was open to all genders, which meant that both males and females could perform Spiritual Exchange with her.

Naturally, Ren Suo chose Ren Ying to have Spiritual Exchange with Mi Fei after equipping Ren Ying with the [Unlimited Energy] ability.

Mi Fei said, “…This is interesting.”

The cost of the Spiritual Exchange was the loss of the member used for such exchange with Mi Fei. As such, during the process of Spiritual Exchange with Mi Fei, Ren Ying naturally “disappeared”.

Nonetheless, she returned!

[Unlimited Energy] had not resulted in any effect during the Spiritual Exchange—there was still only one Ren Ying.

However, at just one year old, the head of the family Ren Ying had perfectly inherited the attributes of the previous generation and acquired two inherited abilities. She had fully matched up with the Goddess Mi Fei’s attributes!

Ren Suo took a deep breath and felt that he was not far from fulfilling the mission objectives and completing the game!

It was now the year 223 and the Fire Demon stronghold in Yiling no longer posed any dangers. However, subsequently, there were still the Six Expeditions from Mount Qi launched by Zhuge Liang, the Two Floods of Jingzhou, and the Conquest of Shu by Wei in the year 263, as well as the numerous incidents and big bosses (Ren Suo suspected that Zhuge Liang could even turn into a Ghost Demon) that Ren Suo had to defeat.

But nonetheless, it was without a doubt that with the “new” Ren Ying, the Ren family was getting closer to surviving until the year 266! That was the second year after Emperor Wu of Jin took over the throne.

If the year 265 was the final year during which both the Wei and Jin forces remained at war, then the year 266 would undoubtedly be the start of the unified Jin Dynasty. It seemed that the final checkpoint of the first objective in [Over My Dead Body] was the founding of the Jin Dynasty.

Although Ren Suo’s hand had almost fully healed and he needed to return to work the next day, he was confident that he would be able to accomplish the objective of the game that day!

I’m going to get my first blood! Ren Suo thought as he headed downstairs for dinner. He ordered a bowl of piping hot Yee-fu noodles with beef briskets in fried bean sauce, as per usual. Ren Suo checked his mobile phone as he ate and saw a video clip shared in the WeChat group, “We Are the Future of Xuan Nation”.

The video was titled: “Exploit nature to be Awakened! Extraordinaire teaches you how to acquire Awakened Abilities!”

“This video is probably real, right?”

“Watch it fast, it’ll probably be deleted very soon.”

“Didn’t you send this video into the group to close the group down? /grimace”

“No way, no one here is being monitored right? /funny”

Xiao Qiao said, “I hereby declare solemnly that I have not participated in any discussion in this group, and do not understand the topics discussed within. I have also not interacted with any of the members of this group in person. I will comply with and cooperate in any investigations conducted by the relevant departments without hesitation.”

Thereafter, a long chain of the same messages ensued: “I hereby declare solemnly that I have not participated in any discussion in this group, and do not understand the topics discussed within. I have also not interacted with any of the members of this group in person. I will comply with and cooperate in any investigations conducted by the relevant departments without hesitation.”

“I hereby declare solemnly that…”

Exploit nature? Awakening? Slightly curious, Ren Suo clicked on the video. He did not have any Extraordinary powers and he thought that the video must be worth watching as a reference since the members of the group had said that the video was real.

In the video, there was a balcony of a tall building, and in the background were numerous buildings of varying heights, as well as a busy main road. A seemingly tough man with a sharp face was standing on the balcony, facing the camera. He spoke with a clear and defining tone of the Xuan Nation language. He started, “Hello everyone, I am Li Le.”

“Before I begin my explanation, regardless whether you believe me, we have to first assume that Extraordinary powers are real and that Extraordinaires truly exist. The world we live in today…is no longer as simple and naive as what the nine years of compulsory education that everyone has been through have taught you,” he said.

“Also, I hope that you have already watched [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters]. Otherwise, you would not be able to understand many of the concepts I would be talking about!”

At this point, Ren Suo choked and the noodles he had just sucked into his mouth flew out in a whoosh.

What has this got to do with [A Strong Warrior Ascends 10,000 Meters]?!