Chapter 176 - 133: Celestial Secret Sensing

Chapter 176: Chapter 133: Celestial Secret Sensing

’So *they’re* the ones who are truly after the King’s Game!’

"The Heaven-Reaching Empire has already issued a bounty for anyone who slays the Demon and clears the game."

"The Heaven-Reaching Empire will grant them the title of Viscount—a Hereditary Viscount, the kind that comes with territory in the Outer Ring."

"Who could possibly resist such a temptation?"

"No wonder everyone’s attitude has changed."

As Chen Qi’s "quasi-ally," the ever-informed Lin Biyun was the first to learn the truth.

On the other end of the communicator, she was recounting the various rumors she had heard in a state of utter shock.

It was no wonder she was so flustered; the news was simply too sensational.

That was the Heaven-Reaching Empire, once the number one great power of humanity.

Even in its current state of decline, it could still easily flatten the entire Inner Ring.

To the citizens of smaller nations, the middle-tier powers that served as their Sovereign Countries were already the mightiest existences they could ever come into contact with.

Great powers had always been the stuff of legend; no one expected one to actually appear.

The bounty offered by the Heaven-Reaching Empire, in particular, was simply too much.

Never mind mere players—even the major middle-tier powers would be tempted.

’It really is the Heaven-Reaching Empire!’

’A Hereditary Viscount... Truly worthy of the former number one great power. What a grand gesture.’

After listening to Lin Biyun’s account, Chen Qi was also in a state of stunned numbness.

Possessing the diary of Jomoya Chris, he understood what a Hereditary Viscount in the Outer Ring truly meant even better than Lin Biyun did.

In the Outer Ring, only great powers could freely ennoble hereditary nobles.

This was because hereditary nobles had to possess actual territory, which a great power could naturally provide with ease.

If it were a middle-tier power, they would have to haggle and deliberate over every detail.

Moreover, there was a minimum area standard for the fiefs of hereditary nobles.

For instance, a Hereditary Baron’s territory could absolutely not be less than 1 million square kilometers.

By the Viscount stage, the standard for territory size had already increased to 10 million square kilometers.

And that was just the minimum standard.

An area of that size was almost equivalent to ten Lanyu Kingdoms.

One could only imagine how ridiculously tempting that was.

As for hereditary nobles at the rank of Count and above, even great powers wouldn’t grant such titles casually.

The Chris family had been granted a Countship back then because they had rendered outstanding service in the conquest of the 073 Continent.

As for the Nulis Federation being backed by the Heaven-Reaching Empire, that didn’t surprise Chen Qi too much.

After all, he had already guessed as much from various clues.

This was just solid confirmation.

But he hadn’t expected the bounty from the Heaven-Reaching Empire to be so high. The entire game was sure to descend into chaos.

...

"Red Heart 7, congratulations in advance. You’ll definitely have a lot less trouble from now on."

"Those hundred or so apprentices from the Inner World who were sent here must be thinking about becoming players now, too."

"So they’ll definitely be different from the ones in the past. They’ll surely be on their best behavior and abide by all of the Lanyu Kingdom’s rules and regulations."

Lin Biyun’s congratulations were truly sincere, but to Chen Qi’s ears, they sounded like his heart was breaking.

’If those little lambs are well-behaved and don’t cause any trouble, wasn’t I getting my hopes up for nothing?’

Chen Qi had been counting on capturing them, torturing them, and extracting more knowledge!

’No, I absolutely can’t let them be too docile!’

Chen Qi secretly resolved that even if he had to lower his moral standards, he had to properly manipulate that flock of little lambs.

Lin Biyun, unaware of the complex emotions swirling in Chen Qi’s mind, continued on her own, telling him about the various changes at headquarters.

Something about how Everick had taken some men and killed Wen Jiuming, the Vice Chairman of the Demon Slaying Association, and was now acting all high and mighty.

Right now, out of the entire Order Keepers, the Second Squad was the most flamboyant.

As for Zhong Xingchen, she didn’t know what he was busy with; Lin Biyun hadn’t seen him much either.

But even more mysterious was the First Squad. The whole team was as elusive as a Divine Dragon, rarely appearing in the Royal Capital.

"The previous owner of that Compass you helped me pass a message about—that was Spade A, Fenix, right?"

The moment Lin Biyun mentioned the First Squad, Chen Qi immediately thought of the Spade A that Hammond had spoken of.

This was a good opportunity to confirm it with Lin Biyun.

"Haha, I didn’t expect you to know already!"

"That’s right. The Compass’s former owner was Fenix the Jackal."

"Although he’s not the strongest in the First Squad, he’s insidious and cunning. It’s best not to provoke him."

On the other end of the line, Lin Biyun gave an awkward laugh. After all, she hadn’t sided with Chen Qi in that matter back then.

Chen Qi didn’t pay much mind to Lin Biyun’s reaction. For him, it was enough to have confirmed his target.

...

’The First Squad... they couldn’t be busy searching for the Divine Talisman, could they?’

The thought popped into Chen Qi’s mind unbidden—it was his talent stirring restlessly again.

After his Spirit Awakening, Chen Qi had begun to instinctively suppress this talent of his.

Having witnessed the terror of Spirituality, Chen Qi was worried that his talent might inadvertently connect him with some terrifying existence.

This was not an impossibility.

There was a detailed record of Chen Qi’s intuitive talent in the Inner World General Knowledge.

Chen Qi’s talent was called [Celestial Secret Sensing].

It was a unique talent related to Consciousness, which was generally strengthened and developed after learning [Divination Text].

Initially, this talent manifested as powerful intuition, allowing one to arrive at answers about certain things without thinking.

Its principle was that the Consciousness directly locked onto the correct answer.

When humans want to make a judgment about something, they must collect a vast amount of information through their senses.

The vast majority of this information is useless, and some is even erroneous or misleading.

The brain needs to perform complex calculations, eliminating incorrect information one by one, to arrive at the right answer.

But an occasional flash of Spiritual Light in the Consciousness can bypass the brain’s calculations and directly lock onto the most correct piece of information.

This is why intuition arrives at an answer before the brain can think it through.

At this stage, the information locked onto by the Consciousness comes from what human senses have gathered, so it doesn’t pose a major problem.

But upon reaching the Transcendent stage, humans gain another means of gathering external information: Spirituality.

And this special power, Spirituality, is so miraculous that it can even come into contact with information that humans are not meant to touch.

Normally, with the brain’s analysis and filtering, information gathered by Spirituality wouldn’t directly affect a person’s Consciousness.

But Chen Qi’s talent happened to allow his Consciousness to directly extract information from his Spirituality, bypassing the brain’s filtering and analysis process.

Most of the time, this seemed like a good thing, as it allowed him to be prescient.

But nothing is perfect. What if it went wrong? What if he came into contact with information he shouldn’t have?

At that point, his Consciousness would suffer from information pollution, and Chen Qi might as well go "Cultivate Immortality" in a mental hospital.

However, blindly suppressing this talent was not a solution.

The best way was to learn the art of [Divination], a legacy whose prerequisite was possessing the [Celestial Secret Sensing] talent.

Unfortunately, Chen Qi didn’t even have a legacy for the new methods, let alone an ancient one like this.

Therefore, after realizing the terrifying nature of the King’s Game and the high probability of some kind of horrifying information radiating from "them" into the surrounding space, Chen Qi could only choose to suppress his talent.

He didn’t want to go stark raving mad before he’d even used up his three wishes.

If you don’t court death, you won’t die. Chen Qi could be very cautious at times.

...

The conversation with Lin Biyun lasted for three hours. The two of them went through various scenarios for the upcoming changes in the game.

Their final conclusion was quite pessimistic.

First, a spot as a player would become even more sought-after.

One could imagine how many apprentices would come swarming in after the bounty spread through the Inner World.

Whether they were greedy or were forced into it.

The Lanyu Kingdom was bound to become a paradise for apprentices.

But the number of Cards is fixed. Without the deaths of veteran players, how would these newcomers get the chance to join the game?

Chen Qi didn’t believe for a second that the High-level Players in the game weren’t colluding with the outside world.

To get their own faction’s newcomers a spot in the game, they would definitely kill other players.

Second, with the bounty for clearing the game being shouted from the rooftops all over the world, there was no way the Demon, Gutaf, wouldn’t know about it.

For his own safety, he would definitely start eliminating current players who posed a threat or had potential.

So, regardless of the motive or which party was pushing things, the coming reshuffle would be incredibly brutal.

And what would be even more brutal and tragic would absolutely be Judgment Day.

When that day comes, it’s not out of the question that rivers of blood will flow and corpses will litter the ground.

It wasn’t impossible for the entire player base to be annihilated; in fact, it was a high-probability event.

Chen Qi didn’t need his talent to know that his time was running out. This might be his last round of the game.