Chapter 219

Chapter 214 – Conditions

‘The ability of the dream interpreter is too unclear to judge its value directly from the name…

‘The diviner is also good. I wonder what improvement becoming a proper diviner would bring to my own divination skills? However, just the fact that the ‘Lamp’ can automatically recharge is enough to attract people.

‘There’s also this Scholar at the end… How should I say it? It’s a bit hard to imagine what kind of combat ‘Enlightenment’ alone could be used for…

‘Dorothy considered these options in her heart. Among these branches, she had a certain interest in the puppet master, thunder mage, and diviner, but she found it difficult to make an immediate decision.

The key reason why Dorothy found it hard to decide was that the stele only recorded the names and advancement requirements of five branches, without detailing what specific abilities one would gain after advancing. This made Dorothy feel like her advancement was akin to a lottery, where winning or losing was uncertain.

“Huh… Now is not the time to choose a profession. Let’s leave here first and find a safe place,” Dorothy murmured to herself, then left the stele after recording all its contents, starting to search for a way out around her.

After learning about the existence of general language, Dorothy only needed to find the seemingly random scratches on the walls. After focusing on them for two seconds, she could see them transform into hidden writings. Thus, relying on finding traces of general language, Dorothy soon indeed found a way out.

It was another scratch carved on the wall. After Dorothy gazed at it for a while, she saw those scratches quickly change into the Prith writing she recognized, conveying a message she could understand.

“The Ascender’s Corridor: Those who successfully ascend to Black Earth Tier shall proceed from here to Clear Stream Riverbank to receive their ennoblement.”

Seeing the characters on the wall, Dorothy stood there stunned for a moment before unable to resist complaining.

“d*mn… This thing requires the Black Earth Tier to activate?”

Seeing the words on the wall, Dorothy felt a heavy sinking feeling. Clearly, this room was specially set up by the Star Number Repair Association for members to advance. The entrance could only be accessed by apprentices of the “Enlightenment” branch, while the other exit required one to successfully advance to the Black Tier.

Looking at the wall, it seemed like a ritual of the Repair Association. Successful ascenders would use this exclusive passage to go to Clear Stream Riverbank to receive some kind of ennoblement, whereas those who failed to advance could only return the same way.

But now, Dorothy had no option to return; the path back was sealed off by poison gas and rubble.

In other words, if Dorothy couldn’t complete her advancement on the spot, she might be trapped and d*e in this secret room.

‘What bad luck…’

Covering her forehead, Dorothy sighed helplessly. There was no choice now; to get out of here, Dorothy could only start checking the content of the stele in her mind, seeing if she had a chance to advance right there, and whether her current state met any of the advancement conditions of the branches.

And upon checking, Dorothy’s heart sank.

Dorothy discovered that her current spiritual accumulation already met many of the advancement conditions of various branches, and she could even pray as a guide for herself. But the key point was that advancing to the Black Tier required more than just spirituality. The ceremony also had additional requirements.

In fact, the advancement ceremonies were not overly complicated. For example, the ceremony to advance to a diviner required six high-quality crystal balls to assist in viewing the sea of consciousness. The ceremony to advance to a thunder mage needed to be performed during a thunderstorm and required a specific ‘Enlightenment’ extraordinary item with empty spirit to channel a natural lightning strike…

In short, these advancement ceremonies either had additional item requirements or environmental requirements. For instance, the ceremony for the thunder mage, which required being outdoors under specific weather conditions, was impossible to perform in this secret room.

Dorothy carefully examined these branches’ advancement ceremonies and found that her current situation barely met none of those requirements. Just as Dorothy was feeling hopeless, she turned her attention to the last branch and suddenly brightened up.

This branch was the “Scholar.”

Originally, Dorothy thought this was a purely ‘Enlightenment’ branch without needing auxiliary spirituality. However, after carefully examining the advancement ceremony for the Scholar, she felt a slight surprise.

The advancement ceremony for the Scholar did not require any additional environment or items. To become a Scholar, an apprentice must study one book each on other types of spirituality. Then, the main spirituality ‘Enlightenment’ must accumulate 20 points. Apart from the main spirituality, other various types of spirituality, including the opposing ‘Silence’, need to accumulate one-quarter of the main spirituality, which is 5 points.

In other words, to advance to a Scholar, one needs to have read all the secret transmissions on every type of spirituality and accumulated 20 points of ‘Enlightenment’ and 5 points of each of the other five types of spirituality, including the opposing ‘Silence’.

“Scholar… It seems to be a branch purely dedicated to studying ‘Enlightenment’. I didn’t expect it would require using all types of spirituality. One needs to know all kinds of spiritual knowledge to be called learned?

“In any case, Scholar is the easiest branch for me to advance now. I just need to study different secret transmissions and accumulate different types of spirituality. Let me check my current spiritual state…”

Speaking, Dorothy began checking the spirituality she had accumulated so far:

9 cups, 10 stones, 6 shadows, 4 lamps, 3 silences, 16 enlightenments.

When she first arrived in Tivyan, Dorothy had 11 points of ‘cups,’ but she used some recently due to overloading the zombie puppet ring, leaving her with 9 cups. Originally, Dorothy had 3 points of ‘shadows’ and 15 points of ‘enlightenments.’ However, after reading the message about poison recognition on the altar in the second layer, she converted 3 points of ‘shadows’ and 1 point of ‘enlightenments.’

Given her current situation, Dorothy’s ‘lamps’ and ‘silences’ were not yet at 5 points, and her ‘enlightenments’ were not yet at 20 points, making her unqualified. However, she shouldn’t forget that the advancement methods recorded on the stele were essentially secret transmissions, and they mentioned poison recognition. Dorothy could extract more spirituality based on the stele’s content.

The result of the extraction was that this stele, which recorded all the advancement methods to the Black Earth Tier, was worth 6 points of ‘enlightenments’! Additionally, apart from ‘silence,’ each of the other ‘cups,’ ‘stones,’ ‘shadows,’ and ‘lamps’ contributed 2 points.

After this extraction, Dorothy’s ‘enlightenments’ overflowed by 2 points, wasted away, and the final situation was as follows:

11 cups, 12 stones, 8 shadows, 6 lamps, 3 silences, 20 enlightenments.

Suddenly, Dorothy almost completely met all the advancement requirements except for ‘silence.’

‘Silence? Hiss… This is a bit difficult… In the secret transmissions I’ve encountered before, the ones involving ‘silence’ were the fewest… There wasn’t a single one themed around ‘silence.’ Not only is the spirituality insufficient, but the requirements for secret transmissions are also inadequate.’

Dorothy thought with some distress. Advancing to a scholar required not only spirituality but also having read at least one secret transmission for each of the six types of spirituality. However, Dorothy had never read a secret transmission themed around ‘silence.’

“Hiss… Given this situation, I can only seek external assistance…” Deep in thought, Dorothy murmured to herself.

…

My recent schedule has been chaotic, and I haven’t adjusted it properly.