Nightmare’s Call

Chapter 322: Scattered: Part 2

Lin Sheng stretched out his right hand, and a colorless halo shimmered on his fingertip. As he approached Melissa and touched his finger on her forehead, the colorless halo disappeared. And then everything was back to normal.

“I’ve given you a little primer. Just embrace it and practice on it well,” Lin Sheng whispered. Just now, the moment Lin Sheng’s fingertip met her forehead, Melissa trembled. She was frozen in place as if her consciousness was impaired. But her reaction did not bother Lin Sheng. He had just passed on a little holy power to her as a primer. He had even driven the holy power to circulate in the path of the Ashen Seal-Sanctuary in Melissa’s body. After that, Melissa would have to cultivate the holy power by following the Sanctuary way.

Before a cultivator of holy power exposed himself, he must get a cultivating Ashen Seal from the priest regularly. This was because the Ashen Seal had an expiry date. It was just the way the sanctum system worked and had nothing to do with Lin Sheng.

Lin Sheng let her be, sitting there without saying a word while waiting for the bus to reach its first destination.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the house of a student, and the bus ground to halt in front of a house. The student exchanged contact information with Lin Sheng before he hopped off the bus. And then the bus went to the next drop points, dropping off students at their respective homes. Soon, even Bella had disembarked. Yet, Melissa had still not come out of her daze.

As the bus stopped at the entrance of the Soul Fortress, Lin Sheng got up and out of his seat. Glancing at Melissa, he lowered his head and whispered a few words into her ear. He then dropped a folded note into Melissa’s pocket and alighted.

He had left the seed. It was up to Melissa now, but he would not tell Melissa that he had passed on the holy power to her. She was unlikely to cultivate any substantial holy light in such a short time. But she would experience the nourishment and strengthening her body without knowing that it was the holy light. Once she had tasted the goodness of the holy power, she would find the snail pace of progress of her old days intolerable. The great differences would drive her back to see Lin Sheng.

…

The next day in the Soul Fortress, Lin Sheng sat in the cafeteria alone, enjoying his simple breakfast. White bread with tomato cherry jam served with skimmed hot goat’s milk and four more butter-fried eggs—that was what he would eat in the morning when the professor and Milla were not around.

An invisible servant was attending to his every need. He ate the bread with jam spread while surfing the latest news on his smartphone. While he was at it, he found an online forum and joined the alumni group of Baine University. The alumni group composed of current and former students of Baine University. A few alumni had even become teaching assistants at the university. This alumni group had existed for a long time. Sometimes they would organize a get-together. But Lin Sheng was not interested. He joined the alumni group to get the latest news and information on dark energy in the university.

While browsing the website, a new notification popped up on the alumni group forum on their website.

It has started! Fighting has erupted around the silver mine!

Three coronated schools, two affiliated universities, a bunch of other people, and the underground cults clashed in a melee.

There were photos, albeit blurry, showing three green spots in the rolling forest terrain. Those were the clashes between different forces of interest. There were also tiny bloodstains on the ground outside the pine forest.

Then the replies came.

There are cults too? How dare they come when there are many university teams there. Aren’t they afraid of dying?

The thread starter replied: I don’t know. But from what I heard from the mission team, they said that a badass cult priest just killed a teaching assistant in a surprise attack. The TA’s death was tragic!

Oh, that was horrific!

Which university was the TA from? Please be specific!

The thread starter replied: I can’t reveal that. It’s confidential, and the situation is more than chaotic. Anyone who has the strength of less than that of a Three Winger, you’d better run as far as you can.

Where is the cult? Let me deal with them! A netizen with the nickname Pureblood Spear Knight wrote.

Pureblood has come!

It’s Pureblood! Now, let’s grab the popcorn!

With the coming of Pureblood, the end is near to the cults!

There was a whole paragraph of exaggerated praise mixed with emoticons commending Pureblood. Lin Sheng figured that this guy must possess some unique ability to deserve so many supporters. Lin Sheng’s account in the alumni group was new, so he did not have the privilege of posting. He could only read the comments.

When Lin Sheng continued to scan other posts from the online alumni group, he saw some interesting and useful information, such as the outbreak of ‘black current’ in the urban areas, and the activities of the cults. Many alumni were too afraid to reveal their identities. But still, Lin Sheng could get a handful of inside information from their forum replies.

Lin Sheng had finished the food in front of him, so the invisible servant served a dessert: watermelon. While nibbling the fruit, he stumbled upon another interesting post.

In the Northern suburbs, the special police force is seeking Darksider’s help in the investigation of a strange murder case.

Request-for-help posts were common. But many missions arising from these posts were not allowed on the university’s mission announcement board. The application to get approval and announcement on the message board was a painfully slow process. Perhaps because of the bureaucratic red tape. So young Darksiders nowadays preferred the more direct and simple approach.

A reward table was at the end of the post. But it came as an attachment, and readers had to click to download it to read it. As a newcomer, Lin Sheng was not eligible to accept any mission job from the request-for-help posts.

So he scrolled down further. If he could find some request-for-advice posts, he might earn some points to upgrade his account level. With this purpose in mind, Lin Sheng soon found a post that he thought he could help.

Seeking for opinion. I’d like to know what is the true strength and status of Margaret in the Soul Fortress.

A fella nicknamed Scarlet Fever, whose gender was unknown, posted the thread. The reward for responding to the request was 10 points. This sound like a good deal for Lin Sheng, because he only needed only five more points to upgrade his account from Level 0 to Level 1.

“No one knows better than me about Margaret’s strength, except Margaret herself, of course.” Lin Sheng smiled and clicked open the post. He had played against Margaret many times. Although those were only friendly matches, he could make out her real level of strength. Not to mention her status in the Soul Fortress. Notwithstanding a core disciple like him, Margaret’s status was the highest in the Soul Fortress.