In the early stage, she had relied on faking her identity and mostly played the mute, staying silent. Almost all the important clues had been compared and deduced by that Archaeologist using his skills.
By the late stage, Ming Yici had handled all the fighting, and she had slacked off once again.
When she counted it all up, she really hadn't done much at all.
So, she was essentially carried to victory. What was there to regret?
If she had worked herself to the bone only to narrowly miss an S-rank evaluation, that would have been a true cause for regret.
Furthermore, this A-rank evaluation served as a stern wake-up call.
Advancing through an instance too quickly or having teammates with exceptional abilities wasn't necessarily a good thing.
The mortal NPCs' understanding couldn't keep up with the players' pace. Emotional disconnects and information discrepancies often became the most hidden and lethal flaws.
Oversights in the subtle corners of the human heart were often harder to guard against and easier to overturn the entire situation than a direct assault from a powerful enemy.
If not for the settlement prompt this time, she might never have noticed this fatal loophole hidden within the mundane details of daily life.
With her thoughts settled, Bai Ci withdrew her focus and looked at the gift she had received this time.
She thought about taking it out to see what kind of little thing would have such a name.
First, she ruled out it being an actual eyeball.
Bai Ci had already figured out the system's habits; the names and appearances of gifts often had nothing to do with each other, likely to make them seem more formal and ceremonial.
For example, if a gift was named “Grow with Time,” it immediately brought to mind sonnets and romantic poetry.
But if a gift were simply called “A Letter,” it would be a bit too plain.
Even though, in essence, Grow with Time was indeed a letter.
With a name like Eye, the first thing Bai Ci thought of was a novel called “Take Her Eyes.” At the very end, Ming Yici had said that in the future, it wouldn't matter whether she saw it or he saw it.
Wasn't this his way of letting her see everything in his stead?
The gift named Eye turned out to be a small, exquisite cloth puppet.
It was palm-sized, similar to those paper figures, but the material was red cloth.
The craftsmanship was simple and minimalist, made from the most basic cloth pieces cut and sewn together without any patterns. Where the face should be, curved eyes and brows were cut out, fixed in an eternal smile.
Bai Ci carefully read the skill effects of Eye and gained a general understanding.
This thing was essentially a controllable, intelligent surveillance clone.
An item capable of stealthy scouting and long-distance observation was highly practical and suitable for the vast majority of exploration and reconnaissance scenarios.
The only drawback was that it would continuously consume Spirit during use.
Bai Ci then opened her personal attribute panel to check her status.
【[Player Information]
Name: Bai Ci / Lora
Identity: Bai Ci / Lora / Ming Ci / ??? ... (Item effect)
Level: 6
Current Experience: 90/100
Points: 411
Core Attributes: Physicality 10 (HP 100/100), Spirit 12 (Spirit 10/10), Agility 13
Allocatable Attribute Points: 0 (Obtained after leveling up)
Current Status: None
Current Class: The Husband-Jinxing Ghost Bride (Expand for details)
Next Instance Uniform Opening Time: 119 hours 52 minutes
Instance History: Folded (Expand for details)】
Fortunately, in addition to increasing her Agility, she had managed to add a few points to her Spirit over the past few instances. She hoped it would be enough to support the use of this item for a while.
As for the waiting time for the next instance, it was about the same as before.
It made sense; there was no way she would encounter two class-restricted instances in a row.
After confirming all the basic information, Bai Ci went to the bathroom area of her personal space to wash her hair and bathe, washing away all the fatigue remaining from the instance.
It was also meant to wash away her bad luck, as she was preparing to draw a card.
Wasn't washing one's hands before a draw a small ritual to seek peace of mind?
Returning refreshed, Bai Ci sat on the reclining chair and lightly tapped to open the final settlement item.
Having mentally prepared herself, the black registry slowly opened.
【[Recorded Rain's Message NPC]
Name: Ming Yici
Status: Body perished and Dao vanished
[Recorded Ability]
Ability: Spirit Channeling
Attribute: Special Skill
Effect: Allows peering into the hidden secrets of the deceased and tracing back past obsessions to obtain undisclosed information from when they were alive. The completeness of the information is affected by how long the person has been dead, the depth of their obsessions, and the secrecy of the information. Using this skill continuously consumes a large amount of Spirit. The deeper the obsession and the longer the time passed, the higher the consumption and the more fragmented the information.】
Upon seeing the skill, Bai Ci was momentarily stunned.
A god-tier exploration skill that consumed Spirit. It was good, but how should she put it? It was a bit too taxing on her Spirit.
A single draw had yielded gold—it was undoubtedly a top-tier exploration skill.
Looking across the entire Anomalous Infection instance system, the rarest skills were never combat or damage-dealing ones, but exploration abilities like this that could unlock hidden clues.
The core truth, perfect clearance conditions, and hidden rewards of many instances were all buried within the past obsessions of the deceased, unreachable by conventional investigation methods.
The value of 【Spirit Channeling】 was irreplaceable.
Yet, she couldn't bring herself to be entirely happy.
It was another Spirit-consuming skill.
The new item, Eye, required continuous Spirit, and the new skill, 【Spirit Channeling】, required a massive amount of Spirit. With both core abilities tied to her Spirit, it was a massive test for her already meager Spirit attribute.
If she wasn't careful, she would likely suffer from mental exhaustion and fall into a weakened state.
Soon, Bai Ci sighed softly and accepted the result.
Forget it. Hitting gold was already immense luck; she shouldn't be greedy and demand perfection.
If her Spirit wasn't enough, she could slowly accumulate attribute points later. Having a top-tier exploration skill in hand provided long-term benefits that far outweighed a temporary shortcoming.
After organizing all her instance rewards and gains, Bai Ci logged directly into the official Anomalous Infection forum.
She intended to search for guides on Spirit development and the compatibility of Spirit-consuming skills to avoid risks in future use.
It also gave time for the posts about her recent instance to gain more traction; with more replies, the threads would be more interesting to read.
With that in mind, Bai Ci logged into the forum and began searching for content related to Spirit.
Unsurprisingly, the posts with the most likes and comments were from the Explorers.
This faction was practically a guide-producing machine among players. Their various posts covered almost every aspect, ensuring that new players wouldn't be completely lost and forced to figure everything out on their own.
Bai Ci remembered seeing a comment on a thread saying that the player who originally founded the Explorers had a class related to writing guides. The more people his posts helped, the stronger he became.
Although that person had reportedly already cleared the game, the trend he started had persisted to this day, helping countless players.
For someone who brought such benefit to everyone, it was only right that he succeeded in his resurrection.
Rate on N.U.
