Chapter 572: Harvesting Luck
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 572: Harvesting Luck
"Quite interesting. This should be a Domain prototype, shouldn't it? Have these Players already developed [Transcendent Knowledge] to such an extent?"
"It truly is breathtaking. That said, this should be beyond the students' ability to handle, right? Should we..."
"Wait a moment. We've signed a Witch Contract; we can't just interfere as we please."
At this moment, high above Magic City, numerous figures were hidden within the folds of space, silently observing everything unfolding below.
It wouldn't be long before the Transcendent Mentors from other Transcendent Academies followed suit. Or rather... faced with such a power, no one could remain seated.
Thus, Magic City soon welcomed its guests.
"Look at that—the first to arrive are the birdmen. Those pairs of wings on their backs certainly aren't just for show~"
As these words drifted from the mouth of an unknown Witch, a Transcendent Angel from the Holy Angel Academy descended. Facing such a grand formation of Transcendent Witches who were clearly just there for the entertainment, he felt a surge of trepidation.
Even the arrival of his companions provided little sense of security; he even subconsciously tucked in his wings.
As time passed and the Transcendent Elves and Transcendent Wizards from the Three Top Academies arrived, they finally gained a bit of confidence. And with confidence, naturally, came the urge to question the other side.
"Is this the arrangement you Witches promised? Things have exceeded our expectations. Do you intend to let all these geniuses meet their end here?"
"Watch your tone, plucked bird. We Witches never made any guarantees regarding that. And 'geniuses'? Are these so-called geniuses you speak of merely the parasites you've cultivated to feast upon Luck?"
"You!"
The Holy Angel's side was left speechless, unable to find a retort, while the Transcendents from several other academies nearby chuckled inwardly.
However, they couldn't laugh out loud, as the insult included them as well. It was just that the unlucky Holy Angel had happened to fly straight into the Witches' line of fire.
"Then what do you suggest we do!"
"Deal with it. We will abide by the Witch Contract we signed. You can try whatever means you have, but you cannot violently destroy this Script Node."
"Does that mean your Witch Academy doesn't plan to intervene?"
"We're in no hurry. If you can't stand seeing us so relaxed... we could sign another Witch Contract as a temporary supplementary clause to the previous one. I just fear you won't be willing~"
The Witches stated their true purpose for this trip in the most nonchalant tone possible.
* * *
"You must be Tan Han, right? You're the first Child of Destiny we've discovered. Honestly, your existence is practically a gift from this world to us!"
"You... are a Player?"
After recognizing the current situation, Tan Han quickly adapted.
Just moments ago, she had been separated from Shopkeeper Xia Li. They had been attacked by a group of bizarre-looking monsters, and though she had dodged them, she had fallen into a trap and ended up here.
"Of course! As a Child of Destiny, you must be the darling of this world's heavenly will, right? You're even a Transcendent... so I imagine you've never tasted the bitterness of defeat. Well, today! I'm going to let you see how it feels!"
The Player laughed to himself, giving Tan Han no chance to speak further. He stood high above, the creator permissions for this Dungeon space floating before his eyes.
Through these permissions, a Player could manufacture trouble for anyone locked as a "Dungeon Challenger."
It could be traps, scares, simulated opponents, or even simple direct attacks.
With just a few simple adjustments, he created several troublesome entities for Tan Han, causing her immense difficulty.
Facing unknown enemies without overwhelming strength usually meant suffering a disadvantage the moment contact was made. Within just a few exchanges, Tan Han was already wounded. As a price, she entered a Transformation Magic state to slaughter all the monsters.
"Splendid, splendid! Then how about this one!"
If I were present at this moment, I would have certainly realized that the monster the Player had just created was an ultimate form—one that had been continuously optimized under my constant suppression, specifically born to counter spellcasters!
While being crushed by me, the Players had been forced to rack their brains for ways to deal with me. But when they used these monsters—which still couldn't handle that figure—against others... the effect was surprisingly good!
Without any intelligence on her opponent, Tan Han suffered a triple-crushing defeat in terms of strength, experience, and tactics!
The monster she faced seemed as if it were born to counter casters, leaving her not a single opening to act.
"Well? How does defeat taste?"
"The taste of... defeat? Heh... is that all?" Tan Han spat.
If it were before, she might have still clung to an obsession with victory. But after being "given a lesson," failure had become daily bread.
Seeing her attitude, the Player's expression turned ugly.
Because the methods that used to work on those Children of Destiny weren't harvesting even a sliver of Luck right now?!
Clearly... the Children of Destiny they had encountered before were the darlings of their worlds, god-like existences within their own realms.
They basically walked the path of invincibility. To the Players, these Children of Destiny were truly... enviable!
But the Players used power from outside the world to break those worlds' protective shells, letting those Children of Destiny experience the meaning of cruelty.
They often only needed to make these Children of Destiny experience an unacceptable failure, or make them realize the truth, to deal a massive blow to their worldview, perhaps even causing them to lose all will to live.
Through this, they could directly harvest a large amount of Luck—the so-called Game Qualifications.
But now... there was absolutely no reaction?
The Player manipulated his permissions to violently hurl Tan Han a great distance. Her body tumbled several times before slamming into a rising pixel block.
This was a closed space; she had nowhere to hide.
Yet she was also frantically thinking of a plan to escape, even if this seemed like a dead end.
She continuously used every means at her disposal, including... the power of that Great Knowledge Seed.
Ley Line Identification Art... that was the first method she thought of.
She was actually fascinated by this nearly unreasonable and terrifying technique.
But after using the Identification Art, the information was delayed in appearing, which was why she had been overwhelmed.
Finally, the prompt from the Ley Line Identification Art made her blood run cold.
In this space, the penetration of Ley Line information was so low that the ability could barely find any information presented by the Ley Lines!
However, "barely" didn't mean "nothing." Ley Line energy could exist even in places like the Void where nothing else did; how could a Dungeon completely banish it?
Thus, after the Ley Line information acquired data on these monsters, it suddenly matched something.
Then, information flooded in. Tan Han didn't even need to look; the data appeared directly within her Great Knowledge Seed, integrating with her memory as if it were cognitive instinct.
"It's working again... what's going on..." Tan Han muttered.
The information continued to manifest, even identifying the monsters' details, weaknesses, and countermeasures one by one.
This was naturally the Great Knowledge Seed applying for data synchronization from the Tree of Great Knowledge after its own knowledge reserves proved insufficient.
After all, the owner of the Tree of Great Knowledge—me—was intimately familiar with these things. These were all the failed products those Players had painstakingly devised to target me.
With the support of this intelligence, Tan Han adjusted her state and gradually began to reverse the tide of the battle.
"Tsk... damn it, I'm not here to be your sparring partner. Die!"
Seeing the pixel monsters beginning to struggle against her, the Player gritted his teeth and roared.
But he didn't dare to actually kill her. The Game Qualifications he had harvested from this Child of Destiny were still in the single digits. If he turned in such a result... he might have to retire on the spot.
He might even be judged by those Game Architects back home! Judged for violating the Game Qualification Act—wasting a resource like Game Qualifications was absolutely disgraceful!
So no matter how angry he was, no matter how much he tortured her, his bottom line was... he couldn't kill her!
But not killing her... didn't mean he couldn't torment her.
He had many other ways. To deal with a girl, there were too many ways to break her!
Disfigurement... mutilation... insult... abuse...
These were things they had personally learned when studying how to harvest the Game Qualifications of Children of Destiny. Basically, when a Child of Destiny's Luck was squeezed to the limit, they would be put through these processes. It was a crushing of spirit and flesh, an insult and abuse of their personhood, destroying everything they held dear!
This was the Players' method. Every Game Qualification held by those Players was stained with the blood and tears of a Child of Destiny. Every instance of a Player's reckless behavior and laughter originated from the suffering and wails of a Child of Destiny.
These Vanguard Pioneers were executioners in every sense of the word. They had even grown accustomed to it. To keep their own minds sane enough to face their lives, even though they knew the truth, they would lie to themselves and say it was just a game. Yes, just a game...
Because of this, their mental states were extremely unstable. They would record the hardships they suffered in this world and use them as anchors, venting their brutality upon the Children of Destiny under these "rational excuses."
Once these Vanguard Pioneers chose this life, once they chose all of this, there was no turning back.
Just as this Player was preparing to start these processes early, the entire Dungeon space suddenly underwent a bizarre change!
The originally sealed Dungeon space became unstable. Heaving pixel blocks divided the orderly space into irregular zones, and many areas became riddled with holes due to the shifting blocks!
"This! What on earth is happening!"
Faced with such an anomaly, the Player frantically manipulated his Dungeon permissions. He didn't remember controlling the permissions like this, nor did he want to destroy this place!
He quickly opened his communications to ask for the situation. Clearly, this was no longer something they could handle.
"Hey... what's the situation? Why did the Dungeon suddenly go out of control?"
"I don't know! You're asking too much! I'll give a unified answer now: I am searching for the cause!"
The voice of the Commander Player came through his communication module, but the other man was clearly frantic and had no time to reply individually.
From the tone of the response, it was clear that it wasn't just the Dungeon space he controlled that was having problems—the entire Dungeon system was failing!
Tan Han also noticed the anomaly.
"A chance!"
Tan Han looked toward the "pitch-black passage" she had fallen through earlier. The Dungeon was now riddled with holes, providing her the perfect opportunity to escape!
She didn't care if those passages were dead ends; she knew that staying here was a guaranteed death sentence!
At the moment of her departure, Tan Han gathered a terrifying spell in her hand. Before leaping into the passage to who-knows-where, she violently fired the spell at the Player.
As she was swallowed by the deep Dungeon space, she only had time to hear the terrifying sound of the spell's explosion. Before she could even express the joy of revenge, she tumbled into another space.
"Hiss... fell again... where... is this?" Tan Han looked around, her gaze slightly dazed. Her gamble had paid off; she had survived. But many new unknowns awaited her here.
Meanwhile, the Player still in the original Dungeon space had been heavily wounded by Tan Han's hasty strike.
The terrifying explosion of fire elements had swept over his entire body, occurring right when his permissions were failing. He was blown away by the blast!
The intense heat scorched his skin; only his combat armor had saved his life.
"That goddamn btch! I'll make sure you die a miserable death! I'm going to fck you up... AHHHH!"
The Player pounded the ground in impotent rage, his mouth full of curses. But he still had to obediently turn off his pain perception. If he didn't, he would truly go insane!
The continuous pain from the burns would have literally killed him.
As the Player struggled to crawl back up, the Commander's voice came through the communication module again.
"The cause has been found. The Dungeon we descended into has been interfered with by an unknown force. Our permissions have been struck and restricted... the situation is very bad. There's a high probability we won't be able to recover..."
"Preliminary judgment: it's likely the interference and balancing of this world's will. We've been restricted!"
"But don't worry... we will still receive full support from the Terminal of Myriad Worlds. However, for what comes next, you'll have to rely on yourselves..."
The Commander's voice even sounded a bit lacking in confidence.
Because the trouble they faced in reality was even worse than what he was reporting!
Their Dungeon was being powerfully restricted by that force, and their permissions were being severely eroded. They rarely encountered this, but it wasn't without precedent. He quickly reached a conclusion... this was the final counterattack of the world's will!
He hadn't expected them to touch this world's bottom line so quickly...
But he was also thinking of a solution. If all else failed, he would have to ask the Game Architects to recalibrate the Terminal of Myriad Worlds.
* * *
Outside the Dungeon.
"There, now the difficulty is back to normal mode. The rest depends on their own efforts. I have things to attend to, so I'll be heading back."
As that figure vanished, the crowd of Transcendent Mentors finally breathed a sigh of relief. This included not only the Transcendents led by the Three Top Academies but even the Transcendent Witches from the Witch Academy itself.
Because the one who had just acted was one of the Deans of the Witch Academy!
This wasn't Dean Mei Lind, who had messed up her own Great Weakening Spell, nor was it the violent, fun-seeking Dean Bev Alanna.
In the Witch Academy, those nameless Witches were the ones who truly made other Transcendent Academies tremble with fear...
Because they were so powerful that they disdained stirring up trouble in this Main World. Even the title of "Dean" was merely a nominal position for them.
No one expected this matter to actually disturb her.