This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 1174: Above the Ladder and at the Ladder’s End
Rita formally welcomed the dragon race in her capacity as Adjudicator.
Whether it was Holy Cup or Snow Pile, both could feel intense pressure from her. Yet even though her status and strength had undergone earthshaking changes, her attitude had barely changed.
Before leaving, she sought out Emperor Umbrella. and Feng Qie and fought them. In front of nearly half the dragon race, she defeated the strongest Emperor Umbrella. and Feng Qie two against one.
After Rita left, Holy Cup asked Nivalis, "Did she encounter an enemy she cannot defeat?" She is already this strong, so why does she still look so burdened?
Nivalis did not really understand either. "She is indeed very strong, but she did not lose."
B80, who stayed behind to discuss the details between Dragon Island and BS, said, "It is because of QM Rita’s demon talent."
"What is wrong with that?"
"The problem is huge. QM Mistblade and QM Maple Syrup can use their abilities so many times. How could QM Rita’s only be usable a few times?"
This was the matter Rita found hardest to let go of.
Based on Nivalis’s additional information, she learned that QM Rita had modified settings three times in total.
First, a new setting. SS Deceitful Bloom betrayed SS Rita.
Second, a rewritten setting. When SS Deceitful Bloom is within Quiet Mountain Midsummer, she cannot use any skills.
Third, a new setting. Players who die in Midsummer today cannot revive.
Among these three settings, two were directly related to Deceitful Bloom.
The most terrifying was the second one. QM Rita was actually able to seal Deceitful Bloom’s ability to use skills.
Even if it lasted only two minutes, for players at their level, two minutes was more than enough to decide life or death.
Being unable to use skills meant Deceitful Bloom could not resist any of QM Rita’s control abilities. At that moment, she stood there like a fool.
Whether it was One Person Party or Ancient Curse, Rita could not achieve something like that. Even using No Logic to twist a being’s cognition so they believed they had no skills would likely fail.
Battle had already sunk into instinct. Cognition could be distorted, but combat instinct could not be erased.
Yet QM Rita could render a god helpless. Even if that god was temporarily suppressed, she was still far from weak.
More importantly, the three settings did not carry the same weight.
So Rita could not help but assume that QM Rita’s ability was something like a progress bar or energy pool. The amount consumed depended on how much information was modified or added, and on how strong the target of the modification was, rather than a crude limit like only being usable a certain number of times per day.
And perhaps it was precisely because she modified Deceitful Bloom’s settings that such a huge amount of energy was consumed. This point was uncertain, but one thing was clear. If QM Rita could directly seal Deceitful Bloom, then she could also seal Rita herself.
What if that setting were used on her?
Starsea players had many means. From the battlefield chat, Rita had already found the name of QM Rita’s demon talent. Extra.
A terrifying ability. As long as the user wished, she could assume something to be true, add a new setting, or fill in blanks in the story according to her own understanding.
What worried Rita even more was that QM Rita had not yet lit up her demon name. Once she obtained a demon name, that would be the true moment her demon talent was fully unleashed.
And what about herself? What exactly was her divine talent?
The voice of BS suddenly sounded. "There are 591 worlds requesting that BS accept part of their populations. The leaders of these worlds are asking what price they need to pay."
The sound of waves rose, and the wheel behind her turned gently. Now, wherever she went, she no longer needed to hide Wrathful Moon or Cat’s Ideal.
Rita appeared on Cat’s Ideal and walked to the railing, looking at the star paths and star rivers above the time river. She tapped the railing lightly with her fingers and said, as if speaking to herself, "That depends on whether Uncharted Star Sea is willing to pay this cost for these worlds and beings."
She remembered her promise to take in wandering beings from World Sigh, but choices of the beings themselves and the conditions for non wandering beings to enter BS were still complicated matters.
Negotiate world by world? She did not have that much time, and those worlds did not have that much time either.
The second pendulum strike could come at any moment. The second bell toll could ring across Starsea at any moment. Even if she put aside everything else to deal with this, how many negotiations could she complete each day?
Besides, could those worlds offer something that truly tempted her?
She was still at tier fifteen, but Uncharted Star Sea players could no longer help her improve. Perhaps there was some world that could help her find her divine talent, but searching also took time.
So she chose to negotiate directly with Uncharted Star Sea. To speak directly with the existence that set the rules.
If Uncharted Star Sea truly valued her writing World Sigh, if it truly loved these SS beings, if she was important enough that Uncharted Star Sea had sent Deceitful Bloom to help her, then it would find a way to solve her current troubles.
She had never felt this clearly before. She was walking step by step up the ladder.
She had never felt this clearly before. Only now had she truly stepped onto the ladder and gained a certain qualification.
At the end of the ladder stood Deceitful Bloom, Foolishness, the Captain.
They stood in the shadows, only their outlines visible, because all SS light fell upon the ladder itself.
She received no response. Rita did not rush. She returned to the captain’s cabin and began writing World Sigh. She had rested long enough. She needed to repay the price of using A Long Sigh. For the next eighteen hours, she would be recording World Sigh.
When she sat down in the study, the vice captains who had been chasing each other around the deck and mast all ran in. They lined up on the desk, squatting neatly and staring with wide cat eyes at the notebook in front of her.
Y128, once again summoned by Rita using Adjudicator authority, ran to the end of the line and sat down.
Rita, adjusting her quill, swept them with her gaze. A hint of a smile flickered in her eyes. She tapped the teapot on the desk with the feather.
The little cats immediately got busy. Rita flipped to the Nuclear Flash section, planning to add more to the Fruitling stories.
As the pen touched the page, her mind once again recalled Quiet Mountain’s cold and realistic answer.
She suddenly asked, "Why have NightFury Fruitlings and Guava Fruitlings never awakened again in Nuclear Flash?"
She asked this of the cheese colored cat with a pacifier in its mouth, one of the vice captains she had recently brought back from Nuclear Flash.
These vice captains who loved traveling certainly knew many things. Beings who truly loved travel and adventure would never be satisfied with merely viewing different worlds. They would want to understand and know the beings of those worlds.
Being able to travel through worlds without dying already proved how extraordinary they were.
More importantly, as companion beings of divine relics, their birth likely dated back at least to the previous era. They might have already witnessed countless world destructions and failures of Uncharted Star Sea.
The cheese cat tilted its head, the pacifier not affecting its speech at all. "Do you want to ask whether some rule restricted the awakening of NightFury Fruitlings and Guava Fruitlings?"
Rita nodded, confirming its question. She did suspect Uncharted Star Sea had intervened. She just did not know whether the cheese cat knew information at this level, or whether it would pretend to be foolish.
But it did not. It answered frankly. "Starsea did it. Because the Fruitlings once proved something. Letting them live forever in the anticipation of when another Fruitling of their kind will awaken is the happiest state. That way, they wake up each day from disappointment, not from nightmares."
Rita, who had once again recalled the cruelty of the Invasion Sequence when her memories returned, found herself unable to decide whether Uncharted Star Sea was merciful or cruel.
Just like after glimpsing a corner of Quiet Mountain, she could not use either of those words to describe Quiet Mountain either.
