In the House of Truth within the Mist Core Zone, the core area has felt a bit more lively since Ariel and Little Mist took up residence here.
“Y… y… you… I… l… love… you…”
On the wooden table in the living room, Little Mist held a feather pen dipped in ink with its tail.
While practicing writing common modern human words, it tried to pronounce them.
It had discovered that the current writing structure was basically an adaptation of ancient languages, with the core and pronunciation being largely similar—comparable to the difference between simplified and traditional characters—allowing Little Mist to learn at an incredible pace.
“Eh? You… you can actually talk? That’s amazing! No, wait, how can you talk?!”
Hearing Little Mist’s voice suddenly, Ariel, who was nearby making herself something to eat, let out a cry of surprise. It had only been a few days, and the little snake was already speaking quite well—not to mention, it was actually capable of speech!
As far as Ariel knew, a monster that could speak was no longer just a monster; it was a higher-level Demon!
It seems this little snake has an impressive background…
Ariel remembered that on the first day she taught it phonetics, it was already able to look up words in the dictionary on its own.
By the second day, it was trying to build phrases, and by the third day, it was using the dictionary to communicate with her through writing.
This made Ariel feel a bit insecure. She had always been called a genius at the Academy, but it took her over 6 months as a child to memorize 3,000 common characters.
Yet, this little snake had started from scratch and was already speaking fluently in less than a week.
Maybe it is the real genius here?
“Try it, say ‘My name is Little Mist’,” Ariel hurried over to Little Mist, looking very excited. She repeated it slowly, one word at a time:
“My——name——is——Little Mist”
“My name…… is…… Li…… ttle…… Mist!” Although the pronunciation was still a bit simple, the first step was the hardest, and Little Mist’s learning efficiency would only increase from here.
The only problem was that it didn’t really like its current name; after all, it was given by that hateful Truth. It wanted to pick a new name for itself, but it was afraid that if it made Truth unhappy, she would use it as a spinning top again.
“Sigh.” Little Mist let out a breath and put down the feather pen held by its tail.
“What’s wrong?” Ariel was confused. This was its first time speaking; shouldn’t it be happy? Or did it suddenly think of something sad?
“An… noyed…” Little Mist replied with some difficulty. Pronouncing modern language was still a bit challenging for it.
At first, learning modern writing felt fresh, but after realizing that modern scripts were just a clumsy imitation of the ancient language from 500 years ago, Little Mist lost interest—though it still had to finish learning.
Then there was the pressure from Truth. It was the only will of this mist, and it was its responsibility to make the mist thrive again, but now that bad woman had snatched away its authority and permissions, as well as its responsibilities…
Disgusting!
And it wouldn’t be so bad if she had just taken them, but why did she have to do such a good job at it?!
Yes, Little Mist was feeling inferior.
It had always thought that it was the will most suited to and knowledgeable about the mist. It had planned to spend 200 years after waking up to bring the mist’s power to a level comparable to other disasters.
First, it would spend 10 years making the mist the most attractive place for First Rank Adventurers, keeping the daily activity around 300 people.
Then, it would spend 6 years upgrading the mist to the Second Rank to attract Second Rank Adventurers, keeping the daily active count steady at 500, and then move on to the Third Rank…
From low-rank to intermediate, Little Mist’s plan was to take 40 to 50 years. That was very efficient, given that other disasters took nearly 70 years to reach the intermediate level!
However, Truth only needed less than a month.
From the second update announcement released yesterday to the reopening today, Little Mist had been watching everything with God’s Perspective.
At first, it looked down on Truth for using a dungeon filled with schemes to treat the adventurers.
A dungeon should just be about fighting monsters and getting items! If you scheme against adventurers like this every day, won’t the daily activity drop off quickly?
After waking up, Little Mist discovered that Truth had actually stabilized the daily active count at around 600 people. It wasn’t impressed, though; it scoffed. Humph, using cheap tricks to attract people is not a long-term solution. And what’s the point of making the rewards so hard to obtain?
It believed that once the novelty wore off for the adventurers, Truth’s ability to manage the mist would be exposed.
As a result, by the next morning when the servers opened, the number of adventurers in the mist reached 2,000 in less than an hour, and that number was continuing to skyrocket…
What made Little Mist even more uncomfortable was that, aside from the high number of adventurers, why was the efficiency of harvesting Mist Energy so high?!
Did she use cheats?
Even though the mist was only at the Second Rank, the energy it had collected was already the amount Little Mist had expected to have only when it brought the mist to the Fourth Rank.
The mist was now brimming with vitality. It could be said that Truth had completely crushed it in every aspect.
“Oh my? So the little snake has its own worries, too,” Ariel, who was observing Little Mist, suddenly became curious. She gently touched the little snake’s cold, smooth head with her index finger.
“It’s not good to bottle up painful things. Maybe you can try telling me about it; you might feel better. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
Little Mist opened the dictionary and wrote on a piece of paper with a pen:
“I can’t. I’m afraid to hurt you.”
Truth had explicitly told Little Mist not to tell anyone about the mist or the authority, or else it knew exactly what her methods were.
Plus, since Ariel’s soul was held hostage by Truth, forcing her to stay here, Little Mist was afraid that if Ariel knew about the mist, someone would use her as a spinning top.
Ariel was the top, and Little Mist was the whip used to spin it.
“Hurt me… so the reason you’re annoyed couldn’t be…” Ariel pointed cautiously at the mist outside the window:
“Her, right?”
Little Mist nodded, even though neither of them mentioned “her” name.
Ariel then shut her mouth and turned away, silently rejoicing. Great, my secret research on the Seeker Demon finally has some progress!
Now she could confirm that Little Mist was a victim just like her. This meant she could find an opportunity to form an “Anti-Demon Alliance” with it. Very good, very good. Just wait, Seeker Demon, I will definitely find your weakness!
*
“The last one… a Slime!”
Half an hour later, in the free exploration area of the southern mist, Alice, with the help of Eldon and Anderson, finally finished off a Tree Demon and two Slimes. She had successfully reactivated her Life Insurance, and a special item had dropped:
[Obtained special item: Mist Party Card]
“Ah? It actually dropped?! Look, Miss Zhendi, I got a party card!” Alice took out a black and gold card and said excitedly. Anderson and Eldon also looked curiously at the so-called party card.
“I didn’t expect us to be this lucky. We only fought a few monsters and it dropped.”
“That’s great. Then let’s decide on a captain to use it quickly,” Truth said. If she hadn’t secretly tweaked the drop rate, these three would have had to grind for at least an hour to get one.
“Captain?” Alice and Eldon asked simultaneously in confusion, looking at Anderson.
Among the four, Anderson had the highest level and was the best fit for captain; they couldn’t exactly let the Priest be the captain, could they?
Truth also looked at Anderson, signaling for him to hurry up. The latter had no choice but to resign himself to his fate and take the party card.
“Alright, I’ll be the captain. But how do you use this card?”
“Crush it,” Truth said.
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s written on the card.”
“Oh…” Anderson finally noticed the instructions on the back of the card. He applied a little pressure and crushed the party card into powder. The next second, a party interface appeared before him.
“Hmm? Why do I have to register and fill in a name?”
A moment later, under Anderson’s slightly clumsy operation, a registration interface and party invitation popped up in front of the other three.
[Please enter your name or title. Note: Once confirmed, your name or title will be visible to other adventurers.]
“Uh… how do I type this…”
“Do I just click on it?” Alice and Eldon frowned as they studied it. After registering their names, they received the party invitation.
[You have received a party invitation from “Anderson”. Please choose whether to accept.]…
[Invitation accepted. Successfully joined the party “Anderson’s Party”]
The next second, a bunch of U1 appeared above the heads of his three teammates in Alice’s view:
[Anderson (LV. 25) HP: â– â– â– , MP: ]
[Eldon (LV. 18) HP: â– , MP: ]
[Zhu shi nian lai guo dao (LV. 24) HP: â– , MP: ]
“Zhu shi nian… what?” Alice looked at the six characters above Truth’s head, completely bewildered. Truth looked at the real names of her three teammates and frowned.
“Why are you using your real names?”
Who uses their real name when picking a character name in a game? If you have to use a name, you use your roommate’s!
“Why can’t we use our real names?” Eldon expressed his confusion, but Anderson immediately realized the problem.
“Oh right… crap, I messed up! Why did I use my real name?! Miss Zhendi, is there any way to change the name above my head? It’s urgent!”
“The update announcement says that the dungeon BOSS has a chance to drop a Name Change Card. If you want to change it, you have to clear the dungeon first.”
“Ah! I know what Miss Zhendi’s name means now! You have to read it backward! Reading it backward is… what?!” Alice finally understood Truth’s name.
Wait, why is Miss Zhendi’s HP and MP so low?
After about 10 minutes of resting, Anderson’s party finally headed toward the dungeon area in the southwest. However, just as they arrived at the entrance, several lines that seemed to have no end appeared before them.
“Get in line at the back! No cutting in line!” someone warned Truth’s group of four.
“So many people?” Truth was also a bit shocked. She had already copied and pasted the number of dungeons twice; how was it still not enough?!
The dungeon was certainly interesting, but it had a fatal flaw: it could only accommodate four adventurers at a time. Coupled with the fact that the mist’s reputation in Deya City was growing ever louder after the update, it led to long queues in the dungeon area.
It seems I’ll have to create a large-scale multiplayer dungeon later, otherwise the dungeon can’t handle this many adventurers…
“What should we do, Miss Zhendi? There are too many people here,” Anderson asked.
“Don’t panic, follow me.” Truth bypassed the long line and walked straight to the entrance of the Abandoned Cellar. She went up to the captain of the party next in line to enter the dungeon and got straight to the point:
“I’ll give you five Gold Coins each. Let my party go ahead of you.”
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