After briefly planning the schedule for the next few days, Mu Qinglan sent Shen Yao away.
The assassination crisis was over.
So naturally, Shen Yao had no reason to stay.
Mu Qinglan didn't try to keep her. It was too early to have her stay overnight. There would be time for that later; there would be plenty of opportunities for them to share a bed.
After all, it would only be a few months.
She felt that if her current progress in conquest were personified, it would be like a little person with a chisel, huffing and puffing away at an iceberg, occasionally pouring a bucket of magma into it, afraid that the iceberg wasn't thawing slowly enough.
To be honest, when it came to playing with emotions, how could a pure ice beauty possibly match a bad woman from the twenty-first century?
It was like using a Death Star to swat a mosquito, a dimensional reduction attack.
Simply overkill.
And she remembered there was another future villain boss in the Six Bureaus. Though not a world boss, its strength was not weak. If she could get in touch with it...
Perhaps she could score a double kill.
Double kill!
'Sigh, to please the players, in this crappy game, every pretty girl is single and has never dated before. Is this appropriate?'
Mu Qinglan lamented:
"Appropriate! It's... so appropriate!"
After all, Miss Bad Woman never hoped to encounter an equal opponent. Clenching her fists, glaring with eyes blazing, and saying things like "I acknowledge your purity" wasn't her style. Only ruthlessly destroying fish was her eternal love.
So after wading through the initial crisis, this bad creature was like a wolf that had entered a sheep pen, doing whatever she pleased.
Perhaps in the late game, there would be some remarkable challenges due to the butterfly effect and super bosses.
But now?
Developing fiercely and snowballing was the only thing she needed to do.
Thinking of this, she suddenly remembered the second profession she had originally planned to awaken tonight.
'I've got the blood essence with shadow affinity, there was some on that assassin. I also remember the [Mechanist] awakening ritual, and I have the contract object. What else do I need? Seems like nothing else.'
'I had originally planned to wait until after passing the Human Gate to choose a destiny trait that could strengthen my soul power before awakening my second profession, but with my [Crystal Wit] trait, awakening in advance shouldn't be a problem.'
It can also boost my test score.
'I remember the game's setting was, the better the evaluation, the more likely it is to get good traits.'
—Then I have to go for it.
○
As the hour of zi was ending, Mu Qinglan sat in her wheelchair, the room empty.
Even the two shadow servants had been sent away.
After all, this was an "illegal" path, and it would be hard to explain where she learned it from.
Great Xia was established by martial arts and ruled the world with martial arts, but there were twelve transcendent paths and countless strange arts. It was extremely difficult for crude warriors to deal with those transcendent beings with diverse techniques.
Thus, there was the "Martial Prohibition."
In Great Xia, only five professions designated by the court were orthodox. Transcendent beings who were found practicing other professions would all be thrown into the imperial prison, awaiting the Six Bureaus' disposition.
These five professions were warriors, physicians, magicians, diviners, and strange art practitioners.
There were also specially appointed officials in Great Xia's ministries.
Others, such as the mechanist that Mu Qinglan planned to practice, were high-risk professions strictly prohibited by the court.
Because their methods were bizarre and difficult to manage.
But Mu Qinglan was a bit stubborn. In her previous life when surfing the internet, she always adhered to the principle of persistent access without wavering. In this life, it was the same. The court's prohibition couldn't stop her determination to awaken this profession. Mainly because the mechanist profession had a kind of beauty in its strength.
She had already nailed the beauty aspect, so her transcendent profession definitely had to nail the strength aspect too.
Now she had no choice but to learn it.
Thinking this, Mu Qinglan placed [Great Shadow]'s cocoon on her lap.
It was a bit cold.
"Op."
She gathered her thoughts and spoke softly, looking at the pure black butterfly cocoon.
"Binding thread."
A roll of spider silk wrapped around the butterfly cocoon.
"Mechanist heart."
She cut open her fingertip, and a drop of blood slowly fell.
At the moment the blood droplet fell, Mu Qinglan looked up through the window, directly gazing at the bright moon hanging high at the hour of zi and softly chanted:
"All three present, mechanist for me."
As she spoke, she pressed her finger hard against the butterfly cocoon, trying to make her blood seep deeper.
As time passed, the wheelchair-bound girl's face grew increasingly pale.
Until a certain moment.
The butterfly cocoon on the girl's lap shook a couple of times, and the cocoon threads peeled away layer by layer. The shadows in the room also trembled slightly, as if thousands of beasts were frantically roaring, trying to rush out from inside.
The earth was trembling, the wind was howling.
It was as if countless banshees were screeching simultaneously in the room!
But Mu Qinglan remained unmoved, only staring intently at the increasingly smaller butterfly cocoon.
Even though she could barely keep her eyes open, she didn't give up.
Then—
At the moment when she vaguely established a connection with a mysterious existence in her mind, the white-haired girl unhesitatingly spoke, her slender jade hand holding the porcelain bottle containing blood essence completely entering the butterfly cocoon:
"Mechanist for you!"
As the words fell.
The sharp wind in the room suddenly stopped.
It was as if one moment she was battling nature on a turbulent sea, and the next moment she was enjoying a hot spring massage.
Dense shadows welled up in the girl's eyes.
The room suddenly darkened, and the interior could no longer be seen from the outside.
All was silent, except for a gentle breeze.
○
Early the next morning, Mu Qinglan woke up somewhat groggily.
A cold wind instantly cleared her mind.
'What happened last night in the end?'
Mu Qinglan instinctively recalled last night's situation, but her memory only lasted until she finished reciting the ritual chant. Beyond that was chaos, and she couldn't remember anything.
The white-haired girl frowned. This couldn't be an accident.
Although all her actions last night followed the procedure, which was the most perfect awakening process that only appeared in the late game, Great Shadow was, after all, Great Shadow—a world boss with unlimited potential in the game. She truly wasn't sure if the contract would be successful.
Failure wouldn't be surprising.
But if successful, she would gain tremendously!
As her consciousness gradually cleared, the system panel also appeared in her vision:
[Name: Mu Qinglan]
[Level: Ninth rank (Magician), Ninth rank (Mechanist)]
[Destiny Traits: Fate Puppeteer (Gold): You have crossed the cycle of life and death once
Crystal Wit (Gold): You possess immense soul power and are more intelligent than ordinary people; as a price, your physical body is extremely fragile
Shadow Affinity (Blue): Your affinity with shadows far exceeds normal people]
It seemed no different from before.
No, wait.
Her Shadow Affinity trait had evolved? She remembered clearly that it was a white trait before.
So she had succeeded in the contract?
The moment she realized this, Mu Qinglan felt a faint calling from a place imperceptible to ordinary people—
From within the shadows.
In her vision, countless blood-red pupils slowly opened in the shadows of the room, silently watching her.
Mu Qinglan calmly returned the gaze, but felt somewhat uneasy inside.
This was a bit scary.
Fighting this boss in the game was through a screen, and the game company's artists couldn't fully convey that sense of pressure. She hadn't felt it before, but now seeing this thing in first person, Mu Qinglan felt her sanity value was rapidly dropping.
They silently stared at each other.
Then, this super boss, which could drive ordinary people insane after revealing its true form, transmitted a thought to her.
The thought was simple, the voice soft and fine.
"Mama."