Chapter 81: Gold？

Once the furnace door was shut, Lin Yan pressed the start button, watching through the observation window.

Flames surged up and swallowed the body. The murmurs from Grave Whisper abruptly rose into screams.

"I won’t die!"

Lin Yan chuckled.

"Good. That’s a relief."

He pulled a chair up to the observation window and took out his phone.

"I’ve got nothing else to do tonight. Let’s see how long you can burn."

A few places nearby were still open on the delivery app. After placing his order, Lin Yan started scrolling on his phone, treating the screams from the furnace as background noise.

...

A few hours later, Lin Yan was eating his third late-night meal when a notification sounded in his ears.

[Target eliminated.]

[Mission completed.]

[20,000 points awarded.]

[Current points: 110,000.]

Done?

He quickly swallowed his food and set the container aside.

"System, add a Trait Slot."

[100,000 points deducted.]

[Trait Slots increased: 5 → 6.]

[Current points: 10,000.]

[Agility I — White equipped.]

He’d failed to get it done all afternoon. Then he’d gone looking for dinner and somehow taken care of it.

He opened the kill log to find out exactly what this thing had been.

[Species: Human — Aberrant.]

[Status: Permanently eliminated.]

[Prolonged captivity, torment, and humiliation filled him with intense pain and hatred before his death. At the moment of death, he had only one thought: live, and kill those who had tormented him.]

[This dying desire drew the attention of an evil god in his world. Its blessings took shape according to the recipient’s strongest wish. He wished to live, and thus received "Fleshseed."]

[He subsequently evolved additional abilities: each human killed permanently increased his strength and constitution; he could induce fear illusions that showed targets what they feared most; and he could draw additional power from the fear of others.]

Lin Yan’s eyelid twitched as he read.

"That’s fucking terrifying. If you’d been allowed to keep growing..."

[This individual possessed an exceptionally high growth ceiling and was still in the early stages of development. Continued killing and fear could steadily increase his power, while "Fleshseed" allowed him to revive from fatal injuries.]

["Fleshseed" was originally linked to the evil god that bestowed the blessing. Each regeneration accumulated corruption through that connection. As the corruption deepened, it would cause irreversible mutations of the flesh and gradually erode his sanity.]

[The Convergence victory reward severed the connection between "Fleshseed" and the evil god, making it an independent ability. The corruption and side effects originating from that connection were eliminated.]

[Ability Quality: Pseudo-Gold → Gold.]

Lin Yan thought he’d misread it and checked the last line again.

Gold?

Another notification appeared.

[Trait Plunder triggered.]

[Trait obtained: Fleshseed.]

[Quality: Gold.]

"Holy shit!"

He hurriedly opened the details. He only had one Blue Trait and hadn’t even gotten his hands on a Purple yet. Now he’d landed a Gold?

[Fleshseed — Gold]

[As long as the soul remains intact and any viable bodily tissue belonging to the host survives, physical death does not constitute true death.]

[The brain, heart, other organs, and missing limbs can all regrow. If the main body is destroyed, the soul can attach itself to surviving viable bodily tissue and establish it as a regeneration core.]

[Only one regeneration core can exist at a time. The less tissue remains and the more severe the damage, the longer reconstruction takes.]

[The host truly dies if all viable bodily tissue is destroyed or the soul is destroyed. This ability cannot repair damage to the soul.]

After reading the last line, Lin Yan couldn’t help glancing back at the furnace.

He’d really gotten lucky. He hadn’t known any of this at the time; he’d snapped its neck simply to avoid getting blood all over himself. If he’d hacked it to pieces and missed a scrap during incineration, failing the mission would have been the least of his worries. If this thing had hidden somewhere and kept killing, who knew what kind of monster it would have become?

Now that Gold Trait belonged to him.

Lin Yan raised his left hand. Four fingers were missing, their stumps long since healed over. Earlier that day, he’d been fumbling around the keyboard with his thumb. Now even his head could grow back. What were a few fingers?

Lin Yan unequipped Grave Whisper and eagerly equipped his new Trait.

[Fleshseed — Gold equipped.]

He spread his left hand, watched the stumps for a while, then turned it over to check again. The skin remained smooth. All four fingers were still missing.

"System, where are my fingers?"

[The stumps have already healed. If you don’t cut them open again, what’s supposed to trigger regeneration?]

"Fuck."

...

One week later.

Lin Yan’s left hand flew across the keyboard as he flicked the mouse with his right. His character burst out of cover. The moment an opponent peeked out, he dropped them with a single shot, then swung his crosshair to the other side and took out the two following behind.

Over the past few days, he’d paid back every beating he’d taken before. With his current reflexes and coordination, the time it took an opponent to spot him and fire was enough for him to put them down and move on to the next.

Another match ended, and a message popped up in chat:

"Cheating?"

Lin Yan opened the chat box and typed one word.

"Bot."

Send.

He leaned back in his chair and clicked to queue again with a grin.

The page loaded for a few seconds before a notification appeared.

[Account suspended.]

[Reason: Suspected use of unauthorized software.]

Lin Yan sat up straight.

"What the fuck? I’m not cheating."

He opened the appeal page, saw that he had to write an explanation and submit evidence, and felt his good mood from an afternoon of winning take a hit.

Missing fingers got him stomped. Growing them back got him banned.

The black phone on his desk rang.

"Mr. Lin, your dragon-scale armor is ready. Are you available to receive it now?"

Lin Yan closed the suspension page.

"Yeah. Send it over."