Free Web NovelChapter 48: Chapter 48: Evolution: Spiritual Armor
"I’m Junko, a sixteen-year-old first-year high school student, as pretty as a flower."
In the white room, four players, along with a dog and a bird, were gathered together, watching the ending cutscene on a large screen.
Because the four of them had slaughtered nearly three hundred Pseudo-men, such a magnificent feat earned them the rank of "Distinguished Merit" and the right to enter the white room to see the final cutscene.
The Abyss Coins and experience from the "Distinguished Merit" rank were doubled, but that wasn’t the four players’ greatest reward.
Their greatest reward was the Pseudo-human Extract!
They thought the game wouldn’t give them the extract from the final battle, since they had already left the instance by then.
But to their surprise, the game was generous for once. Forty additional bottles of the extract were delivered, allowing each of them to end up with fifteen bottles.
The extracts even came in a variety of flavors, so the four players each opened a bottle, toasted in the white room, and watched the cutscene together.
The cutscene began with Junko waking up in the morning.
The girl lazed in bed for fifteen minutes before finally getting up at her parents’ urging and slowly eating breakfast.
The stitch marks on her body were still there, but the lines had faded. It probably wouldn’t be long before she looked just like any other girl.
At the dining table, besides Junko and her family, there was an uninvited guest.
A scientist in a white lab coat sipped some coffee and said to Junko, "Your family’s coffee is terrible."
"Then don’t drink it!"
"It really is terrible."
"Get out!"
She punched the doctor, but he only furrowed his brow, not starting to bleed profusely on the spot.
After the souls within her body vanished, Junko’s body seemed to have returned to normal, no longer possessing the boundless strength she had before.
That special Constitution seemed to exist to help her hunt the Pseudo-men. Once the Pseudo-men were gone, so was her special Constitution.
Resigned, Junko picked up a piece of bread. As she ate, she suddenly said, "I had a dream."
"Oh? ...So did I."
Though they didn’t say it outright, they both had a feeling they’d had the same dream.
In the dream, they saw that the four souls hadn’t appeared inside Junko’s body. Instead, each vengeful spirit had occupied its own separate body.
Because they couldn’t merge into a single body, they weren’t very powerful. It took everything they had just to defeat a single Pseudo-man.
After that, the doctor was brutally killed and Junko died in battle. The players had no choice but to leave, and in the end, all that was left was a world overrun by Pseudo-men.
When Junko startled awake, she found the dream had been so realistic that she almost thought it was reality.
Fortunately, reality wasn’t like that.
But as time went on, her memories of the experience began to blur. She was already starting to forget the names of the comrades she had fought alongside.
’But if there’s a next time, they’ll probably show up again, won’t they? And we’ll fight humanity’s enemies together.’
Just then, a gentle breeze blew past, carrying cherry blossom petals in through the window to scatter across the table.
Looking at the cherry blossoms, Junko seemed to sense something and waved toward the window.
From the perspective of Duan Fei and the others, it was as if Junko was looking at them in the white room, waving goodbye.
"Goodbye, my friends."
"Goodbye."
Stretching his shoulders, Darts Guest picked up his puppy and stowed his share of the Pseudo-human Extract. "This instance was actually pretty fun," he said to the others. "I was in despair when we were all stuck together at the beginning. I never expected that to be the key to our success."
"Me too," Bystander A said with a smile. "You’re all experts. If you want to join a guild in the future, just look me up. I can’t promise much, but I can definitely arrange for officer positions for all of you."
Cuihua’s face flushed bright red. Finally, she just said, "Goodbye."
Duan Fei added them as friends, then checked the time and saw it was perfect.
Just as he was about to leave the white room with his extract, Bystander A suddenly stopped him. "Duan Someone," he asked in a low voice, "if I’m wrong, don’t mind me asking, but are you *that* Duan Someone?"
The question seemed to come out of nowhere, but Duan Fei knew what he meant.
After all, he always used the same ID. And in the gaming world, the title "Duan Someone, the guy who can always trigger bugs" carried a bit of weight.
So, Duan Fei nodded. "That’s me."
"I knew it. Are you interested in joining a guild? My guild is making Abyss our main focus. I can tell you really like this game, so why not join us and we can grow together?"
Bystander A had always coveted players with a bug-attracting constitution like Duan Fei.
Especially in a new game like Abyss with limitless potential—even version 0.07 had tons of places to explore. Having someone with a bug-attracting constitution on your side was like riding a rocket, leaving everyone else in the dust.
But Duan Fei shook his head. "Sorry, I’m not interested at the moment."
"No problem. It was fate that we met. Your Medical Skill has already reached Great Success, and I happen to have a related Skill Scripture. Consider it a gift."
Looking at the sincere Bystander A, Duan Fei marveled at what a smooth operator he was. ’No wonder the guy’s a vice-leader,’ he thought.
Leaving aside the value of the Skill Scripture, just his people skills alone put him leagues ahead of most others.
Taking the Skill Scripture, Duan Fei thanked him again, then walked out of the white room to the final rewards screen.
"Main Quest: Complete the Doctor’s Commission. Status: Complete."
"Instance Evaluation: Distinguished Merit. Abyss Coin reward increased by 100%. You have received 1,000 Abyss Coins."
No level-up notification popped up this time. It seemed his leveling speed was starting to slow down; not even the double rewards from a "Distinguished Merit" rank were enough to gain a whole Level from a single instance anymore.
Duan Fei wasn’t too concerned, though. He genuinely enjoyed Abyss. ’If leveling slows down, so be it.’
Besides the standard rewards, he had already downed one of his fifteen bottles of Pseudo-human Extract. He could feel his body burning every second, as if it wouldn’t be long before he grew a new brain... no, new muscles.
He had already learned the Active Skill Scripture, *Rough Healing Technique*, that Bystander A gave him.
Although it was only a green-rarity Skill, it was an instant cast. By consuming some stamina, it could instantly heal a target for 5 to 10 points, and the amount of healing would increase as the Skill leveled up.
On top of all that, he had also received a treasure chest.
The appearance of this treasure chest was a little baffling. It didn’t seem like a reward for his "Distinguished Merit" rank, but Duan Fei couldn’t figure out where it came from.
When he opened the chest, he saw a Skill Scripture inside.
*Spiritual Armor: Lower*.
Duan Fei was dumbfounded when he saw the book’s title.
He had a strange feeling that someone was watching him. Otherwise, why would he be gifted something so perfectly suited to him?
Before he could even process it, the Skill Scripture was automatically learned, and his Spiritual Armor underwent a drastic transformation.
