Episode 86

Meanwhile, the Mad Hatter and Pinocchio stood side by side in the midst of the darkness. The Mad Hatter held up his hat carefully and six different colored lights glowed from within.

“Is it working?” Pinocchio looked a little anxious as he focused his gaze on the glow in the hat with a yearning look in his eyes.

“Wait a while more, just a while more!” The Mad Hatter licked his lips nervously. He hadn’t felt so nervous ever since he became a god. And now, the anxiety he felt was so overwhelming, he started trembling.

The Mad Hatter shook his hat slightly and his breathing quickened. The hat itself turned into a beam of light that enveloped the other six lights.

All seven colors merged into one bright orb and trembled in the air in front of the two of them, as if it might explode anytime. The trembling became more and more violent and the darkness they were in seemed like it was about to fall apart.

“Are you ready?” the Mad Hatter asked Pinocchio.

Pinocchio shook his head vigorously. “You’re going to leave just like that?”

“What else?” the Mad Hatter asked in return.

“What about the World of Fairytales? Prince Charming and the Tree of Life are still fighting and we’re going to just leave? We’re the only two gods left from the World of Fairytales, so we should be protecting it!”

“Shut up, you stupid blockhead! Don’t you get it? The World of Fairytales doesn’t exist anymore! Look at those dark stories! That disgusting world! Everything is different now! What we need is…revenge!” The Mad Hatter’s previously elegant and gentlemanly demeanor was now distorted with rage.

Dark flames of fire illuminated his body when he got angry. He grabbed hold of Pinocchio’s neck and they glared at each other like a pair of ferocious dogs.

Pinocchio sighed and pulled the Mad Hatter’s hand away. He walked towards the portal doors and saw that the portal doors were already crumbling to pieces, which meant that the World of Fairytales was also crumbling to pieces, including the story he should have been part of.

“Alright then! We’ll go with what you said. But…who should we look for to take revenge?” Pinocchio changed his mind after watching the World of Fairytales slowly fall apart.

“I don’t know, but we’ll eventually find out. Let’s just leave the world that has trapped us all this time first!” said the Mad Hatter gently. He caressed the trembling orb of light, then smashed it with a mighty punch and a brilliant beam of light shot out from within.

The light was so brilliant that everything it hit was destroyed, including the darkness they were in right now. A smile spread across the Mad Hatter’s face. This was what he wanted. He had wanted to put all these treasures together for this very moment.

“It’s…it’s opening up!” the Mad Hatter yelled with a smile.

The darkness they were in was now engulfed in light.

“I don’t know where it leads to, but it’s better than being stuck here!” Pinocchio shrugged.

They leaped together into the light.

After they leaped into the light, the light continued to destroy everything around it. Any part of the World of Fairytales that had not crumbled earlier was sucked into the light and destroyed.

Several moments later, the light slowly dimmed and the entire place was dark again.

Level B Challenge “Fairytales of Horror” completed: 1000 points

Number of Surviving Team Members: 5, 400 points

Degree of Challenge Participation: A, 700 points

Completed optional mission of destroying seven treasures: 2000 points

Points Received: 4100

Total Points: 7050

Su Jin gave the point calculation a quick glance. The field he cared about the most was the fact that all five of his team members had survived, which meant that Kano Mai and Yang Mo had indeed made it back alive. This made him breathe a big sigh of relief.

But to his surprise, the reward for the supposedly fake mission turned out to be the same the reward that the Handbook was actually giving, except that the mission of collecting seven treasures had become a mission to destroy seven treasures.

“So, those seven treasures have been destroyed?” Su Jin was quite puzzled, but since the Challenge had been completed, what happened to those treasures had nothing to do with him.

“Do you need to appraise any of your items?” Blackie’s voice piped up as it reminded Su Jin that he had taken some items back from the Challenge.

“Are you talking about these?” Su Jin flipped open his Handbook. Triton’s Cloak, that gold armor and 15 leaves from the Tree of Life were inside.

“That’s right! It will cost you 3000 points to appraise the cloak, 1000 points for the armor and just 200 points for the leaves,” Blackie quickly listed the cost of appraising the items.

Su Jin’s eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. He was getting them appraised, not buying them! The price of appraising the cloak was enough to buy a high level Spirit Power weapon.

“Just a reminder, the price for appraising the item is in proportion to the value of the item. If you do not appraise the item, you will not be able to use them at all,” Blackie reminded Su Jin, as if Blackie knew what Su Jin was thinking about.

Su Jin thought through this for a while. He had hoped to exchange his points this time for the High Level Body Strengthening Elixir, but if the cost of appraisal was proportionate to the value of the item, then it meant that Triton’s Cloak might be even more powerful than the High Level Body Strengthening Elixir, since the elixir only needed 6000 points to purchase.

“Alright then! Please appraise the cloak for me!” said Su Jin through gritted teeth. The fact that the cloak was able to protect its owner automatically from most attacks was already quite incredible in itself. If it possessed other skills after the appraisal process, then it would definitely be a lot more useful to him than the elixir.

“Alright! Appraisal complete, 3000 points deducted.” Blackie was super efficient. A beam of light scanned the Handbook and the appraisal process was completed.

“Earth Level Spirit Power item, Gift from the Gods. It is a powerful item that has the blessings of the gods, so once charged with Spirit Power, you will have the power of the gods temporarily.”

“Skill 1: Protection of the Gods. Activated with 200 points of non-negative Spirit Power. Any elemental attacks will have no effect for 10 minutes, cool down period is 24 hours.”

“Skill 2: Walking on Air. Consumes 10 points of non-negative Spirit Power for each minute used. Gives owner the ability to walk on air.”

“Passive skill: Protect owner. The Gift from the Gods has basic sentience and will protect the owner from all ordinary physical attacks.”

Su Jin stared in shock at the cloak that was now called the Gift from the Gods. This cloak’s passive skill was already very formidable, but its two main skills were even more incredible.

“Calm down! Calm down! This is a very good item to have, but it requires way too much Spirit Power. The Protection of the Gods not only consumes a lot of Spirit Power, the cool down time is extremely long too. It will not make sense to use this skill unless absolutely necessary.”

Su Jin shook his head. Skill 1 sounded insanely awesome, but it required too much Spirit Power and he didn’t even have enough Spirit Power to use it once. Since it needed non-negative Spirit Power, he was pretty sure Demon Lord Spirit Power wasn’t going to work. In short, Skill 1 was out of the picture for him.

But Skill 2 caught Su Jin’s eye. Walking on air was basically as good as flying. It would cost him 10 points of Spirit Power per minute, so he could deal with that but not for long.

As for the cloak’s passive skill, Su Jin had already experienced it and it was a really good skill to have. Having this Gift from the Gods was definitely an advantage in a Challenge that didn’t involve the supernatural.

“The cost of appraisal is indeed proportionate to the value of the item.” Su Jin was very pleased with the Gift from the Gods. He looked towards the gold armor. It cost quite a bit to appraise this thing too.

“I’ll appraise this one too!” Su Jin was the type who loved opening loot boxes in the first place and this appraisal process was quite similar to opening a loot box, so he simply couldn’t resist the temptation.

“Appraisal complete, 1000 points deducted.” Once Su Jin gave the go ahead, Blackie appraised the item in an instant.

“Level A Spirit Power item. Gold Armor. Defense is not its strongest suit, but it comes with abilities that other Spirit Power items do not have.”

“Skill: Air of an Overlord. Requires 100 points of Spirit Power. It carries a high probability and no differentiation of targets, shocks and makes surrounding targets giddy for one second. For ordinary targets, it carries a high probability of adding on the effect of admiration.”

“What’s this? A group control function?” Su Jin nearly burst out laughing. To put it simply, this was a skill that could be used on a group. He wasn’t sure what was this about having no differentiation of targets, and what on earth was this effect of admiration all about? The skill name alone sounded hilarious to him.¹

The last item he was left with were the leaves from the Tree of Life. Appraising this item was cheap compared to the rest, but it was definitely not a Spirit Power item, so 200 points suddenly seemed quite expensive.

“I’ll just appraise the leaves too.” It was the last item, so Su Jin decided to just go ahead with appraising it too.

“Appraisal complete, 200 points deducted.”

Su Jin looked into his Handbook again and his eyes finally lit up. “The Leaves from the Tree of Life come from the magical giant tree from the World of Fairytales. Contains a huge amount of the Essence of Life. The Essence of Life can be obtained by juicing the leaves. Consuming the Essence of Life can restore one’s physical energy quickly and can restore one’s Spirit Power slowly. The Leaves can be eaten without being juiced, but overconsumption will cause the person to turn into wood.”

If one described the Handbook Challenges as a video game, then these Leaves were a healing potion of sorts. Its ability to restore Spirit Power was what caught Su Jin’s attention.

In general, Su Jin was rather pleased with these three items. The Gift from the Gods and the Gold Armor were very powerful items but they were not very useful to him at the moment. The Gift from the Gods required too much Spirit Power and Su Jin didn’t have enough to use its skills. The Gold Armor’s ability to control masses was more hilarious than anything else, but since there was no differentiation in targets, Su Jin had to be careful if he used it. The Leaves of the Tree of Life were a good healing potion, but the fact that overconsumption would turn one into a tree meant that Su Jin had to be careful with using that as well.

The other information he had gained from this appraisal was that the Gift from the Gods was considered an Earth Level item. He did know about the fact that Spirit Power items were split into different levels. His Demon Lord’s Boning Knife and Demon Lord’s Longbow were Level B and Level A respectively.

The Handbook Challenges were also split into four levels, from A to D. But this new level classification bothered Su Jin. If there was an Earth Level, did that mean a Heaven Level existed too? And was there anything higher than Heaven Level? Were these levels applicable only to equipment, or were there Challenges with these levels as well, just that he hadn’t experienced them yet?

In any case, the description of the Gift from the Gods as an Earth Level item made Su Jin think about many other things, and he felt that he could actually confirm some of them.