Chapter 212: 第212章 我能掌握的，只有自己
Chapter 212 – I Can Only Master Myself
[Sir Mage!]
When the mage cleansed the Forest Ear Demon of the arena, he had lost one eye as well as his spine, and all ten of his fingers were broken. Caroline and the commanders of the other Extraordinaire forces immediately rushed over to the mage, whose body was already almost burnt to ashes.
Lumpena, Elaine, Red Hood, Nimue, and the other mages retreated quickly as they usually did, and told the mage that they would be waiting at the next checkpoint. They did not communicate with any other people, and that also gave Ren Suo the space to talk to the humans who came from Earth.
Chen Zhishou walked over and bowed to thank the mage. He said: [Sir Mage, thank you for treating us and protecting us throughout the battle.]
Caroline also said: [Your commanding capabilities are not any worse than the mage I know.]
Sitting on the ground, the mage laughed and replied: [This is what I ought to do.]
In the thirty-minute ‘tug-of-war’ which ended moments ago, the Holy Light bullets from the mage almost never ceased. Although Elaine was also a mage with the Sacred Hand and possessed recovery offerings, she only used her Healing Light—which had a large area-of-effect—to help other mages. It was not easy for the others to position themselves within the range of her Healing Light.
As such, throughout the battle, only the mage, who was controlled by Ren Suo, healed the Extraordinaire forces.
In order to minimize the number of injuries and fatalities, Ren Suo had also reloaded the savegame multiple times. Throughout the process, he also got to know the moves of the boss extremely well, so most of his commands were effective in repeatedly preventing the Extraordinaire forces from being harmed.
Chen Zhishou suddenly shouted: [Salute!]
The commanders from the other nations also gave their commands, and all of the Extraordinaire troops saluted the completely disfigured mage who was sitting on the ground. Even though all of their faces had been processed with beauty filters, the look of respect and admiration on their faces still showed through.
The commands and actions of the mage in battle had won all of their respect.
Caroline asked: [Are you going to die too?]
[Going to die? No, my offerings will be inherited by other mages, and my body will become fertilizer that will continue to nourish the World Tree. As much as I believe that being a mage is not such an honorable profession, but… all of my successors will carry on my legacy and continue to fight to protect the World Tree.]
[Fighting is not like treating someone to a meal. I have long prepared to sacrifice myself even before coming to the battle, and I am proud of my sacrifices. It is precisely because of my numerous sacrifices in this battle that I received the honor of cleansing the Evil Demon here. Even when I return to the World Tree, the day will come when I will be reborn… The World Tree will not fail us.]
The words of the mage revealed numerous pieces of information. The look on Caroline and the others’ faces changed slightly, but they still remembered their purpose and asked, one after another:
[Sir Mage, in that case, do you have plans to descend on Earth and recruit more mages to protect the world?]
The mage replied: [Recruit more mages? The reason why the World Tree is guarding the secret of mages is because spreading the secret will only bring such undesirable consequences—the world becomes polluted, and humans fall and turn into demons. Eventually, the rotten Forbidden Fruits will fall…]
Chen Zhishou and the other commanders figured that it was highly unlikely for them to coax a dying mage to hand over the secret of mages. They took a different approach and asked: [Would the World Tree be able to help us pick out those who have the talent to become a mage?]
The mage replied: [The World Tree will not do that either. Becoming a mage is not necessarily representative of a glorious future, but is actually a sad path full of thorns. Unless a mage would not be able to control his own powers after he awakens and would harm people recklessly, the World Tree will most definitely not actively contact anyone who has yet to awaken.]
Chen Zhishou sighed. He had already expected such a result—the World Tree had nothing they wanted from them, and neither did they desire material gains like money, so any action that the World Tree took would only be for the sole purpose of protecting the world as their ‘great responsibility’.
As long as the mages were not willing to do so, there was no way for them to force the mages to divulge their secret. Ultimately, the mages were a group of people who did not care about breaking their own fingers, extracting their own spine, or burning their own skin—the mages could only be their friends, not enemies.
Moreover, the mages had the ability to teleport through space. They were able to move anywhere they wished, and it was impossible for them to make them stay. The only thing that remained, however, was a dying mage…
Caroline said: [If there is anything we can help you with, feel free to let us know.]
The mage replied: [It is not to help me, but to help yourselves. We have already cleared four arenas, but there are three more. If the evil demons of any of the remaining arenas fuse completely with Earth, all of the monsters within the arena would rush out.]
[The World Tree will never allow this to happen, and it will do so without hesitation even if the last living mage dies. However, humans now are no longer like before. You possess sufficient weapons to fight alongside us, and you have the ability to protect yourselves.]
[I look forward to the choice you will make.]
Finishing his sentence, the mage turned into light and vanished without a trace.
——————
[Level 2 Researcher Suo, you have received the results of the data query you initiated.]
[Keywords: Dou, Wild God, Ancient Yellow River.]
[Through comprehensive search based on existing records and data, it is concluded that: the target exists.]
It took almost 12 hours before Ren Suo managed to clear the fourth checkpoint. Even Ren Suo had to breathe a sigh of relief and divert his energy to Practice and work. The boss of the arena had activated the Jade Pendant of the Goddess of River Luo once again.
Moreover, he still owed the Countermeasure Division two thesis reports that month.
Ren Suo looked at the words on his computer and was slightly surprised. He muttered, “So, it really exists…”
After clearing the game “Endless Intrusion”, Ren Suo had suspicions about Irina’s background, so he submitted the information that was revealed in the game “Passing Hats” as search terms in the intranet’s search function: “Dou, Wild God of the Ancient Yellow River”.
It was said that the search function would search through the information in the large database of Xuan Nation, as long as the search query was not related to secret information. The database stored almost all the text data of Xuan Nation—the emergence of text scanning capabilities in the 21st century made the preservation of information in ancient texts extremely simple.
Ren Suo once came across a scam advertisement on the Internet which said, “Looking for Data Entry Personnel, $50 per thousand words”. He deliberately found his way into the chat group and sent a link to check out a text scanner machine, as well as a link to a camera-enabled, intelligent text recognition application—though he was kicked out of the chat group the next second.
However, the search function on the intranet was described as having an ‘intelligent recognition’ function. Even if the search keywords were replaced by ‘homonyms’, or were ‘phrased in a different way’, they would still be recognized. It seemed just like an enhanced paper checking tool.
However, because of its ‘intelligent search’ function, the search required researcher points, and one search could take several days. After all, there were many researchers and organizations who were using the search function at the same time.
Ren Suo actually did not have much hope that the search would return any results, so he was surprised when information about Dou was found. Furthermore, Dou was an ancient god who could be traced back to before the Common Era. Although it was not considered popular, there had been written records of it through time.
“That means that all of the background information revealed by the Mini Worlds game console is true… but why does it feel so strange…” Ren Suo thought.
Ren Suo had never heard of Dou before, and yet he found it in one search query.
He had never heard of the Ren family of Practitioners before either, and yet the academic circle was able to find traces of the Ren family in unofficial historical records of notable figures during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Antiques related to the three deities in Holy Priest: Survival Battle were also recently unearthed, proving that they once had believers on Earth.
Before Ren Suo played the games, there was absolutely no news about the relevant figures; but after Ren Suo played the games, they started appearing one by one, as if to prove their existence.
“Exactly what kind of role do I play…? Am I a hero who is fighting evil? However, if I do not play the games, would evil still emerge?”
A hint of suspicion of himself emerged in Ren Suo’s heart, but at that moment, his mobile phone rang.
It was the alarm to remind him to go for dinner.
Ren Suo was slightly perplexed, but he quickly relaxed.
In any case, he had saved many people and brought hope to many—to Yuffie, Karen, the group of mountaineers, the civilians who lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the junior high school boy who was bullied, Dong Chengling…
Ultimately, his experiences in the game were not meaningless. There was no way for Ren Suo to fully master the game console since he was merely a fortunate, ordinary mortal being. However, he could master himself.
It was sufficient to believe that he was doing the right thing.
“Alright, let me clear this Evil Fruit arena too!”