Death… And Me

Chapter 3662: Extra Reward

The twins’ group was completely oblivious to the changes to the living chosen ones in the palace. Why would they know anything anyway? They have been stuck in the same region for seven years straight!

The twins spent a very long time in the Dark Region, and that allowed quite a few groups to pass ahead of them before they came out. There were obviously those who didn’t even find the Astral Tree, as you had to be at a certain distance to even see it. Those ones simply crossed the region normally.

Since Rifindio already had four marks, that meant only four more mark owners were out there, and none of them ended up coming to the Astral Tree in the years that followed. First of all, if you were a chosen and knew there were more like you, you would expect the other ones to also continue to make their way deeper into the Golden Palace. You would expect to find them easier further down the road.

Turns out Rean was also right about the Starlight Fruits. His group wasn’t the only one that knew how to pluck the fruits. During these seven years, another five groups with similar or the same knowledge appeared, and they simply went to different sides of the Astral Tree on their own accord. No one wanted to fight the others as there were way more Starlight Fruits than any of them could pluck during the palace’s opening.

Of course, of those who even attempted to go up the Astral Tree, most died in the process. If everyone succeeded, Rean believed there would be even more groups who knew about the plucking method of the Starlight Fruits.

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Nine years. That has been the amount of time the Golden Palace has been opened. According to the information they got, the Palace only stays open for ten years, so only one year was left. By now, the other groups had already stopped to pluck fruits and left. They still wanted to know about the Celestial Realm, different from the twins’ group.

Could the twins’ group simply rob them of their fruits? Obviously, they could. But since the other sides didn’t cause trouble to the twins’ group, they also didn’t cause trouble to them. Well, part of it was because they didn’t even know the twins’ group was there, thanks to Rean’s concealing formations.

The rewards this time were really impressive. Their group really got many of those fruits on their own. Rean, Roan, and Kentucky could acquire around four fruits per year. Celis, as someone four to five times faster, got around eighteen in the same time. And they stayed in this place for seven years, concentrated on plucking the fruits above all else.

So, in the end, the twins’ group got their hands on 215 Starlight Fruits. If they had done as they originally planned, they would have absorbed only one fruit every three months, four per year. Seven years would have been enough for them to use a miser twenty-eight fruits or so. Thus, looking at Celis, one could understand his satisfaction right now. He wasn’t cultivating, but he sure looked like he was doing something even better.

Neither Rean, Roan, Kentucky, Celis, nor even Rifindio had any intentions of leaving this place until the palace closed. Each fruit was as important as the last. But then, things changed at the start of the ninth year.

*Pin!*

[A year remains until the Golden Palace, also known as the Supreme Celestial Palace back in the Universe F956, completely closes.]

[The Celestial Realm, an important moment in the hosts’ cultivation path, still isn’t clear. Deeper into the Golden Palace, the necessary clues remain.]

[A new reward has been added to the Golden Palace Exploration Quest.]

[Explore the Golden Palace: 500 Celestial Points.]

[Find the answers for the Celestial Realm Breakthrough: 1000 Celestial Points.]

[Time: One Year.]

Rean and Roan looked at each other, quickly connecting to Sister Orb inside the Celestial Soul Dimensional Realm. ’You heard it, didn’t you, Sister Orb?’

[Yes,] Sister Orb answered. [It is no secret that the system makes quests based on the situation you two find yourselves in. It has happened many times, and it will happen even more. It probably made a change because you were stuck here, I believe. Still, adding a new reward is different.]

’That’s not what bothers me,’ Roan narrowed his eyes. ’The time of one year. It wasn’t there before. That’s also a new addition.’

’What is different?’ Rean wasn’t as concerned. ’It is simply because the Palace will close in a year, so the time is one year. What else could it be?’𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

[The exploration...] Sister Orb understood where Roan was coming from. [This time also affects the exploration reward of 500 Celestial Points.]

’Uh?’ Rean didn’t understand. ’Why would it affect?’

[Because if this time limit wasn’t part of the exploration part of the quest, it wouldn’t have been added. Instead, the system would have created a completely new quest just for the clues of the Celestial Realm reward. A new quest, where this time limit would have been added instead. Of course, I might be wrong. Perhaps we did do enough exploration to gain the 500 points at least.]

Roan made up his mind pretty fast. ’Forget it. We are moving out!’

’Eh?!’ Rean was taken aback. ’Isn’t it better to simply ignore it and focus on acquiring even more Starlight Fruits? So what if we lose these Celestial Points?’

Roan shook his head. ’The opposite. These points would give us a boost in cultivation speed that is much better than spending an extra year collecting fruits.’

Celis, who had been just listening thanks to Sister Orb, couldn’t ignore those words. ’Oh?! How so?! Please tell me more!’

Roan nodded slightly and shared with them one of the system upgrades.

[Universal Cultivation Enhancement Level 4: 50 Celestial Points]

’This one, did you forget?’ He continued. ’It increases our capability of absorbing and converting energies for our cultivation. Just one level might not have been worth it. However, looking at the price right now, a 1000 points would sure allow us to buy two or maybe three levels, wouldn’t it?’

At the moment, their cultivation enhancement is at level three, which increases their overall cultivation speed by 15%. Two extra levels would bring it to 25%, and if they manage to buy three levels, that amount would reach 30%, essentially doubling it! It indeed looked like a much better choice than spending the last year collecting the fruits.

Why? Because that also applied to the normal absorption of Starlight Energy from the stars. In a situation where they don’t have a source of Starlight Energy, there is no doubt this upgrade would make a huge difference!

Celis instantly got even more excited. His roots detached from the fruit he was working on, not giving it even a single extra glance. ”Then what are we waiting for? Let’s fucking go! We need to find these Celestial Realm Breakthrough Clues straight away!”