Chapter 183

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Chapter 183: The Savior of Civilization, White Fu, Reveals the True Essence Pillar [53k]

White Fu’s strength had increased rapidly, far surpassing ordinary S-class psychics. However, under normal circumstances, capturing an S-class psychic alive was still no easy feat.

There were three main reasons this time why they could easily capture Sean.

The first reason was that Sean was too careless and got hit by Big Black Fu right away. He then fell into the encirclement of the Psychic Legion.

The second reason was because the battlefield was on a mining ship. Due to the terrain constraints, many of Sean’s moves were unusable for fear of destroying the spaceship, which would throw him into outer space. Although S-class psychics can survive in a vacuum for a long time, he would have to resign himself to fate if he encountered spatial distortions or cannon fire, resulting in certain death.

The third reason was that White Fu’s advanced force field, once fully upgraded, was incredibly powerful. Even as an S-class psychic, Sean couldn’t instantly break free from the force field and could only watch helplessly as White Fu delivered a kick to him.

This was too damn unfair!

Sean seethed with anger.

He never imagined that not long ago, he was bragging to Trola about taking back those Ulysses people, but then he was beaten senseless and physically stomped on, which was a great disgrace.

Sean struggled desperately, trying to push White Fu away.

But he was never a power-based psychic. After being continuously beaten by the Psychic Legion and suffering from the debuff of the dark attribute psychic ability from White Fu, his strength stat plummeted even further.

Strength 153, evaluated as less than one toe of White Fu’s foot when she was wearing psychic constructs. At least, Sean struggled for a while without moving White Fu’s toe.

Seeing no way out, he switched tactics.

“This is a misunderstanding, really. I’m not part of the Tower of Secrets. You’re mistaken. I’m the founder of Sean Trading Company. Our company is very famous throughout the Initial Gateway Star Cluster, and we have trade relations with Titan Industries. You can check it yourself.”

Sean kept protesting, a flattering smile on his face.

White Fu remained unmoved. Under her gesture, two riflemen approached, raising their long spears and thrusting them down, spraying blood. Sean’s feet were forcibly severed.

“This is truly a misunderstanding!”

Sean screamed loudly.

White Fu’s gaze landed on Trola: “What do you think? If I find the prototype of the dissociative medication on this ship, it will be too late for you to admit it.”

Trola, lying on the ground, hesitated.

He saw the murderous intent in Sean’s eyes, which came from the Tower of Secrets. His body trembled uncontrollably. But after much deliberation, he thought that White Fu’s long legs were more intimidating than Sean’s gaze.

Sean couldn’t harm him even if he glared fiercely now, but White Fu could genuinely use her five to six centimeters thick heel to impale his head.

“In the cooling room, I secretly built a laboratory there!”

Trola sent the map of the mining ship to White Fu.

Receiving the map, White Fu had Big Black Fu pin Trola down, then carried him swiftly towards the secret laboratory.

A few minutes later, she found a red sphere in a glass case in the laboratory, along with several bodies of Ulysses people nearby.

“You captured the Ulysses people to cultivate the prototypes of the dissociative medication, right?” White Fu asked.

Trola nodded hastily: “The people from the Tower of Secrets said that the genes of the Ulysses people are special. A certain non-reproducible substance extracted from them promotes the growth of the prototype.”

“Why does the Tower of Secrets want to cultivate this prototype?”

“I don’t know, they didn’t tell me.”

“Alright, let’s change the question. Why did the Tower of Secrets entrust you and Singularity Company with cultivating the prototype instead of doing it themselves?”

“I’m not quite clear about the specifics, but I guessed based on what Sean said. There are two reasons. The most important one is that these prototypes seem to cause something bad when gathered together. The secondary reason might be that cultivating separately avoids being noticed, thus exposing the goal.”

As soon as Trola finished speaking, White Fu received a prompt for the task completion and subsequent trigger:

[Aggregation · Dispersion]

Task Description: According to Trola’s guess, gathering multiple prototypes of the dissociative medication seems to cause something bad. Whether to investigate this secret is up to you!

Objective: Collect at least five prototypes of the dissociative medication.

Reward: 30 million experience points, Blessing of Life *1

Note: After completing this task, the next stage will unlock based on your actions.

Accept / Reject

White Fu decisively chose to accept.

This was a main quest. She could choose not to do it, but she couldn’t afford to miss it!

Next, White Fu opened another main quest posted by Wei Ke on the quest panel. After understanding the reasons behind the pirate group capturing the Ulysses people, the progress of this main quest jumped by 4 percentage points, from 12.1% to 16.1%.

“Although the next phase of Wei Ke’s quest hasn’t been triggered yet, based on the known intelligence, it can be inferred that after rescuing enough Ulysses people, the next phase will involve dealing with the Tower of Secrets.”

To eliminate the Tower of Secrets was the only way to truly resolve the threat to the Ulysses people.

Mentioning the Tower of Secrets reminded White Fu of a news article she had read about a hundred years ago.

The Star Network’s mining team discovered Ulysses within the Dark Domain. Subsequently, the Star Network invested heavily in Ulysses. However, things didn’t last long as the Star Network suffered attacks from both the Tower of Secrets and the Flood Disaster. They had to withdraw their forces and abandon their investment in Ulysses, turning it into a haven for criminals ever since.

When White Fu first saw this news, she didn’t give it much thought. Many dark domain civilizations similar to the Ulysses civilization were encountered in the vast star ocean. But now, looking back, she suddenly realized that “the Star Network suffered attacks from the Tower of Secrets and the Flood Disaster” had significant implications.

Could this also be part of the Tower of Secrets’ plan?

The discovery of the Ulysses people greatly helped the Tower of Secrets’ plan to cultivate prototypes, but they were worried that directly attacking Ulysses would expose their plans prematurely. So they deliberately caused chaos, allowing slave traders to capture Ulysses people, and then they would take over from the slave traders.

The more White Fu thought about it, the more plausible this scenario seemed.

“If this is true… spending decades to go through such a roundabout process to cultivate the dissociative medication prototypes, the Tower of Secrets must have grand ambitions.”

White Fu sighed.

She realized that she had underestimated the difficulty of completing this main quest and its impact on the star ocean plotline.

Being a savior of a civilization wasn’t so easy.

Given the current situation, the reward for Wei Ke’s main quest wouldn’t be inferior to the recently triggered hidden quests or the tasks hidden on Eron and Su Xi.

Whether for the sake of quest rewards or personal safety, White Fu couldn’t allow the Tower of Secrets’ plan to succeed.

She and the Tower of Secrets were now in a state of mutual annihilation. If the Tower of Secrets succeeded, they would definitely come after her.

“I need to find a way to expose the Tower of Secrets’ plan.”

Though she didn’t know the real face of the Tower of Secrets’ plan or why they were executing it, she could fabricate one.

Isn’t it just making up stories?

This was something White Fu excelled at. Ever since her first meeting with Jiujiao, she had been either fabricating stories or heading towards doing so. Her story didn’t need to be true; it only needed to grab attention and attract the interest of major factions in the Initial Gateway Star Cluster.

Under the scrutiny of these factions, the Tower of Secrets’ plan would inevitably be affected, giving her enough room to maneuver. If she could ascend to Catastrophe before the Tower of Secrets’ plan succeeded, she could remain calm and collected, regardless of how elaborate their schemes were.

This was the confidence of a Catastrophe!

With this in mind, White Fu stored the prototype in her personal space. Through the small White Fu left with Sean, she discovered that Eron and Su Xi had already arrived on the spaceship.

“Are you part of the Tower of Secrets?”

Eron, having learned this information from the player, looked extremely displeased.

The Tower of Secrets, the largest terror organization in the Initial Gateway Star Cluster, how did they get involved with this pirate group, which included the Fragment Star?

Eron was inclined to believe the latter.

He remembered the arrogant words Fragment Star left when he first appeared in the Chaotic Star Path:

“I’m back, Shi Ji Crystal Company… Next, I’ll make you experience what true fear is!”

Where did Fragment Star get the audacity to say such things?

A century ago, Fragment Star was just an ordinary B-class psychic. A century later…

To be honest, after using the psychic hypnotism method but failing to gather any useful information, Eron had once doubted whether the Fragment Star they found was indeed the real Fragment Star.

Certainly, the genetic and physical tests showed no signs of artificial editing on his genes, body, or appearance. He was naturally born with a Fragment Star face. Certainly, this Fragment Star appeared right after the return of Fragment Star, and certainly, this Fragment Star was just as mediocre, being merely an ordinary B-class psychic. But he wasn’t the real Fragment Star; there was still a possibility that he was simply from the same race and looked very similar to the real Fragment Star.

However, Eron no longer thought this way, because the Tower of Secrets had suddenly emerged.

Why didn’t the psychic hypnotism method work?

Because the Tower of Secrets used special means!

Why was Fragment Star so bold?

Because he relied on the Tower of Secrets, who supported him!

Why couldn’t the True Essence Pillar be found on this mining ship or on Fragment Star?

Because Fragment Star had handed the True Essence Pillar over to the Tower of Secrets!

Eron felt like the clouds had cleared, and all his questions were answered.

If White Fu knew what Eron was thinking, she would shout “Awesome!” This imagination was almost comparable to Jiujiao’s.

But this couldn’t be blamed on Eron’s excessive imagination. It was the Tower of Secrets’ fault for doing so many evil deeds. Often, when something big happened somewhere, people would habitually exclaim:

[“Damn it, it must be the Tower of Secrets!”]

Then, after some time, people would realize that most of the time, it really was the Tower of Secrets. Over time, whenever something happened, people would subconsciously give the Tower of Secrets a role in their own mental narratives.

When White Fu returned to where Sean was held down, she found Eron and Su Xi in a heated confrontation with Sean.

Sean vehemently denied being from the Tower of Secrets, but Eron ignored him.

“It’s not that simple to deceive us. Let’s see if the Tower of Secrets can completely block my psychic hypnotism!”

Eron turned to look at Su Xi.

Su Xi stepped forward and squatted in front of Sean, then took out a blue six-sided crystal from her chest.

The six-sided crystal floated in mid-air, emitting a powerful psychic energy that made people feel as if they were falling into an ethereal realm, their minds and bodies relaxing involuntarily.

“What is this?”

White Fu was startled and quickly cast an Espionage on the six-sided crystal. The interface revealed that it was a special equipment that fused psychic and spiritual abilities, possessing strong hypnotic capabilities.

“You…”

Sean instinctively sensed something amiss, but after being enveloped by the light emanating from the crystal, he couldn’t escape anymore.

Su Xi softly sang a melodious song in an unknown language. As the song entered Sean’s ears, he felt his body becoming lighter and lighter until he finally relaxed, his eyes turning pure white, completely immersed in Su Xi’s singing.

“Ask away.”

Su Xi stood up, put the six-sided crystal back into the gap in her chest, and casually walked to a corner.

Eron immediately asked the questions he wanted to know:

One, whether Fragment Star had really joined the Tower of Secrets.

Two, whether the Tower of Secrets was collecting the True Essence Pillar.

For the first question, Sean answered that he didn’t know. People joined the Tower of Secrets every day, and he was just a patrol officer, unable to access such information. Perhaps Fragment Star had joined the Tower of Secrets, perhaps not. His task was merely to supervise Trola’s pirate group.

The answer to the second question was somewhat unexpected. Initially, Sean said he didn’t know what the True Essence Pillar was. After Eron described its appearance and characteristics in detail, Sean immediately said he had seen something similar in the Tower of Secrets.

This statement excited Eron.

The Tower of Secrets had the True Essence Pillar?

Haha, this proved that his previous guess was entirely correct!

A hundred years had passed since the last appearance of the True Essence Pillar. Now, they had found it again. If they could obtain the True Essence Pillar from the Tower of Secrets, they could attempt to communicate with the Apostle in the highest Void Realm. If they received a response…

Eron didn’t dare to continue thinking about it, fearing he would end up disappointed.

This time, it was fortunate that Fragment Star was too overconfident. Believing he could act recklessly with the support of the Tower of Secrets, he intentionally exposed his whereabouts to Shi Ji Crystal Company. Otherwise, how would Eron have known that Fragment Star had returned?

Eron calmed himself and immediately asked the third question: why the Tower of Secrets was collecting the True Essence Pillar.

Sean replied, “I don’t know. All I know is that the Tower of Secrets places great importance on the True Essence Pillar you mentioned. It is guarded by several S-class psychics, and reaching there requires passing through five doors consecutively. It is also equipped with the most advanced security devices and special treasures.”

Eron furrowed his brows deeply.

He tried asking Sean several more questions, but often Sean was clueless.

It was unclear whether the strict hierarchy within the Tower of Secrets controlled information so tightly or if they had subjected Sean to special treatment similar to Fragment Star.

“Take him back and interrogate him slowly,” Eron and Su Xi exchanged glances, finally focusing their attention on White Fu.

Since Sean was defeated by White Fu, they naturally had to consult her opinion before taking him away.

“This person has a close relationship with the person we commissioned you to investigate. We wish to take him with us. Rest assured, we will give you additional compensation. I heard you are collecting psychic advancement knowledge. While the knowledge I have isn’t particularly high-level, it is very rare. It should be quite valuable for you.”

Eron sent White Fu a piece of advancement knowledge.

Such good fortune?

Originally, White Fu intended to kill Sean outright. Since Eron offered a price, it wouldn’t hurt to hand Sean over to them.

“Take him if you wish.”

“Thanks to you, we successfully found our target this time. Hope we can collaborate again in the future.”

Eron smiled at White Fu, then placed his hand on Sean’s shoulder, ready to use a skill to lock Sean’s powers. Suddenly, something strange happened.

After blinking his eyes forcefully, Sean suddenly widened his eyes, his pupils changing from white to deep red-black, causing a chill to run down everyone’s spine.

“Something’s wrong!”

Eron’s expression changed abruptly. He hurriedly retreated.

As he withdrew, Sean lunged forward, grabbing at where he had previously stood with his hands. Two black beams shot from Sean’s eyes, instantly piercing through the spaceship and disappearing into the endless outer space.

Eron stared intently at the two massive craters in front of him.

Luckily, Sean had been severely injured earlier, slowing his movements significantly. Otherwise, he would have been unable to avoid this ambush.

“Die!”

A massive force burst from Eron’s body, completely enveloping Sean. Sean felt as if he was carrying a mountain on his back, instinctively lowering his body.

“You’re not Sean. Who are you from the Tower of Secrets?”

Eron demanded sternly.

The suppressed Sean laughed: “Guess?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Sean’s pupils lost their color, and his health bar dropped to zero.

White Fu, Eron, and Su Xi: “!”

Dead?

Just as Sean fell, Eron’s communicator rang.

“Holy Son, we detected unusual spatial fluctuations. Someone is coming toward us!”

“It’s the Tower of Secrets, they’re here so quickly!”

Looking at Sean’s corpse on the ground, Eron was infuriated.

Sean’s death temporarily cut off their leads, but at this moment, it was useless to be angry.

“Let’s go, leave this place first!”

As for the True Essence Pillar, they would deal with the Tower of Secrets later.

The group hurriedly left the mining ship and boarded the ship they had arrived on.

Hum, wanting to escape?

In the Tower of Secrets headquarters, the butler, whose eyes gleamed with concealed excitement, had intruded into Sean’s consciousness. He wasn’t sure what exactly happened on the mining ship, but his ability allowed him to see the scenes Sean saw before dying. Even these scenes were enough to provide him with substantial gains.

Just now, Eron told White Fu that they had successfully found their target thanks to her. Given that the target Eron was looking for was Fragment Star, this meant that Fragment Star had fallen into the hands of the Blessed Sect. The True Essence Pillar might also be in their possession.

“True Essence Pillar!”

The butler’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

The True Essence Pillar played a significant role in the Tower of Secrets’ plan. Previously, because the True Essence Pillar had been taken away by Fragment Star, the master of the Tower of Secrets had specially created a fake pillar. Now that the real pillar had reappeared, what was the point of the fake one?

“Stop them, don’t let them escape!”

…

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