127: Chapter 126 [Huang Chao] Mutation!! Dual SIM Dual Standby?! (6k)

Hearing Sun Po's question, Yang Xinyue was silent for a moment before saying, "It's not like that. If it were merely that, then so be it."

Sun Po asked doubtfully, "Merely that? Isn't this already the most serious thing? What could be more serious than death?"

Yang Xinyue sighed, "Humanity has only been able to counterattack the secret realms and even outside domains for about a hundred years or so, but even after the counterattack, the public has always been living in danger.

The number of civilians killed or injured by the invasion of secret realm monsters is far more than a million. If my parents had died this way, I could have let go of it after all these years."

Yang Xinyue's gaze grew increasingly sorrowful, and a hint of fear seemed to be hidden in her eyes: "I watched with my own eyes as my parents burst into a ball of blood mist, and then, they——"

Hearing this description, Sun Po felt a bit familiar with it.

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"Burst into a blood mist, why does this description feel like I've heard it somewhere before?"

He pondered in his mind for a moment, then suddenly blurted out, "They turned into monsters?"

Yang Xinyue looked at him in disbelief and asked, "How do you know?"

Sun Po replied, "A while ago, we reported on something called [Artificial Creation Cardification] on the news. Do you still remember?"

Yang Xinyue nodded: "I remember. That project was extremely popular at the time and attracted a lot of attention, but I heard it failed later. What does this have to do with the two?"

Sun Po continued: "When I first went to the Card Association, I happened to run into Professor Bai, who was in charge of this project. He is from National Defense University.

At that time, he was being blocked at the door by a child who was bitterly scolding and crying. I heard from the staff that those warriors equipped with artificial creation cardification also burst into blood mist after entering the secret realm, and then turned into monsters."

Yang Xinyue frowned and said: "But when my parents had their accident, there was no [Artificial Creation Cardification] project. I just got up in the middle of the night, woke up and saw my father and mother burst into blood mist, and then quickly condensed into two monsters. Those two monsters were very ordinary, one was a white-quality Tomb-Guarding Beast, and the other was a gray-quality Flame-Toothed Wildboar.

But to me, who was still an ordinary person at the time, these two monsters were completely invincible, and then I passed out."

Sun Po asked: "What about later? Who saved you?"

Yang Xinyue gave a soft chuckle and said: "Saved? No one saved me. My exclusive talent saved me. That night, I awakened my exclusive talent [Master of a Hundred Weapons]. Its effect is that I have a deeper natural understanding of the use of cold weapons, and I can transform my body into a hundred weapons. The higher my mastery of that weapon, the higher the strength of the weapon my body transforms into.

Then, when I woke up, my parents had already turned into a pile of crushed stones and minced meat on the ground."

Sun Po understood in his heart. No wonder Yang Xinyue never mentioned her parents. Her parents turned into monsters and she killed them with her own hands; such an experience was indeed enough to leave a lifelong shadow on a person.

Wanting to change the subject, he asked: "Sister Xinyue, you had just awakened your talent at that time and were still an ordinary person. Could this talent help you chop up two monsters, one white and one gray?"

Yang Xinyue said with a dimmed expression: "[Master of a Hundred Weapons] is considered an exclusive talent with very strong combat power. During the Gaokao, I mastered a wisp of spear intent, and after transforming into a long spear, I had about the combat power of a purple-quality [true name card]."

Sun Po was also startled in his heart.

Purple-quality [true name card]!! Doesn't that mean when Yang Xinyue transformed into a weapon back then, combined with [Yang Wulang], in the competition arena, it was directly equivalent to two purple [true name cards], and the opponent couldn't even target the Card Maker?

And this was also a combat power talent with extremely strong growth potential. The higher the mastery of the weapon, the higher the strength of the weapon transformed.

There were some exquisite martial arts in this world, and [Changyou] had learned quite a few before. If Yang Xinyue had [Wuzhiqi]'s comprehension ability, wouldn't she be invincible with this talent?

No wonder the person named Jin Taiji would steal this exclusive talent. In a certain sense, this exclusive talent was ridiculously strong.

Yang Xinyue continued: "These are just the emotional outbursts of a failed teacher. My spirit has scattered, and my spear intent has also scattered. The future belongs to you. I am already very satisfied to see you become so strong and outstanding, so I even more cannot become your shackle."

Sun Po was puzzled, but what Yang Xinyue said next made Sun Po feel a bit heartbroken and moved: "I will resign from the position of the official combat squad leader tomorrow. Do you think this old lady can't tell that you are using your potential to pave the way for me today?

But I really don't like fighting. This old lady still feels that teaching or something suits me better. Being some combat squad leader these past few days has worn this old lady out to death."

How could Sun Po not know Yang Xinyue's thoughts? Someone who could awaken an exclusive combat talent as strong as [Master of a Hundred Weapons], someone from a commoner background who could already master spear intent during the Gaokao, how could she possibly hate fighting?

The other party only said this deliberately so that she wouldn't be coerced when making choices in the future.

Sun Po didn't try to persuade her either, knowing that it was useless to persuade Yang Xinyue given her temperament, so he simply replied with a faint word of agreement. However, his murderous intent towards Jin Taiji became even stronger in his heart. After the two returned home and had dinner, Sun Po chatted with Yang Xinyue again about his current card-making train of thought. Unexpectedly, the idea of mass-producing low-end cards and subsequently upgrading their quality relying on MOD completely coincided with Yang Xinyue's.

After laying down her burden, Yang Xinyue talked a lot more, and the two of them chatted for over two hours straight.

For example, Yang Xinyue said that ever since [Yang Wulang] loaded that set of [Broken Golden Body], he seemed like a different person. Although he still loved to drink, the whole person became mystical and rambling, and [Enlightened Monk Yang Wulang] used staff techniques less and less now, instead possessing quite a few secret arts that weren't even displayed in the skill panel.

Hearing this, Sun Po also clicked his tongue in wonder. In the few days since he came back, he had also noticed that [Yang Wulang] had changed a lot, but he didn't know why this was.

——

He could only plan to see if he could find some related information in the future.

The two also talked about [Sun Po]'s [Huang Chao — Yin God Form] and Lu Shan's affairs, and couldn't help sighing with emotion.

After sighing, they each returned to their rooms to rest. Both of them had been quite tired these past few days.

[Huang Chao — Yin God Form] was also fully fed and had been recalled by Sun Po first.

Right now, the entire Gaoping City had been sealed off into a large-scale self-service buffet site for [Huang Chao], and these [Huzhang] were simply fish in a barrel. Meeting [Huang Chao — Yin God Form], they completely encountered their natural enemy. They didn't dare to resist, and couldn't even stand up to escape, having no choice but to lie on the ground and let [Huang Chao] devour them.

Even if they spread again during the period when [Huang Chao — Yin God Form] was recalled by Sun Po, it would just be adding a bit more rations for [Huang Chao].

But what was a pity was that [Huang Chao] had told Sun Po that if a [Huzhang] transformed other people into new [Huzhang] in a short period of time, the [Courage Value] gained from devouring two [Huzhang] versus devouring one [Huzhang] that hadn't transformed others

was actually the same, which was just the difference between two 500g and one 1000g portions.

Otherwise, if Sun Po were a bit darker, he wouldn't even want this [Huzhang] incident to end, keeping [Huang Chao — Yin God Form] fed all the time.

As for why he recalled [Huang Chao] ahead of time, Sun Po mainly didn't want his own spiritual storage to be consumed to a relatively dangerous level.

Although the spiritual consumption of [Huang Chao] defaulted to a low-quality card of [Gray 7-Star], given Sun Po's further advanced spiritual storage after making the [Wrongfully Deceased Scholar], supporting [Huang Chao] to move around for three days and three nights wouldn't be a problem at all.

But today he had just harvested precious items like the [Power of Merit] in full view of the public. Although there was Yin Tianzheng's deterrence, what if someone still took the risk? He still wanted to leave more leeway for himself.

But when Sun Po was lying on the bed pinching and observing the card [Huang Chao], he suddenly discovered a magical thing.

The back of the card [Huang Chao — Yin God Form] actually had some extra information on it.

Generally, a card has a card face on the front, and to carefully read the card's skills and characteristics, one needs to connect spirituality into it to see it, just like a folder with icons.

But no matter what, the back of a card logically had neither images nor text information. For example, the back of [Wuzhiqi]'s card had archaic water wave patterns, the back of the [Double-Pupil Warrior]'s card had double-pupil eye patterns, and even the back of [Tianhe Budu] had water wave and weapon patterns.

When [Huang Chao] was initially loaded, Sun Po remembered that its back was a pattern of stars plus a ferocious ghost head, but at this moment that pattern was gone, replaced by a new piece of card information, on which two large characters were impressively written: [Zhong Kui — Heavenly Star Form]

!!

"Ah?"

Sun Po was truly baffled. He tried to ask his strategist: "[Wuzhiqi]?? Do you know what's going on in this situation?"

[Wuzhiqi]'s voice came over: "Ever since you, Master, and [Huang Chao — Yin God Form] received this [Power of Merit], I've been studying this thing all day today, but I completely can't figure it out, and the Voice of Destiny seems to have vanished as well."

Sun Po was puzzled in his heart. The two words 'merit' meant function and blessed virtue in Chinese culture. They were originally Buddhist terms, transliterated as...

Many scriptures had different explanations for them.

Some said: "Merit is also called blessed virtue. Blessings refer to welfare, which can nourish and benefit practitioners of good, hence it is named blessedness."

"Function refers to capability; goodness has the function of nourishing and benefiting, hence it is named merit."

Some said: "Merit is bestowing effort which is called merit, and attributing it to oneself is called virtue; it is also said forgetting the effort and leaving behind the virtue is therefore called merit."

Some said: "Ending evil is called merit, and fulfilling goodness is called virtue; furthermore, virtue means attainment, what is gained by cultivating merit, hence it is named merit."

Also, because the profundity and breadth of merit were compared to an ocean, it was called the "Sea of Merit"; its preciousness like a treasure was called the "Treasure of Merit"; there were also various names such as "Storehouse of Merit", "Gathering of Merit", "Adornment of Merit", and "Forest of Merit".

This was a profound and mysterious concept in Chinese culture. Coming to this card world, it was hard to say whether this [Power of Merit] was the same thing as the [Merit] Sun Po was familiar with, but its profundity seemed to only increase rather than decrease. Sun Po had just felt in the afternoon that he seemed to have grasped its usage, but he didn't expect that when he looked at his card in the evening, he would be instantly slapped in the face.

He tried flipping through the system message records from the afternoon, and sure enough, he found related messages in them: "[Huang Chao — Yin God Form] has been invaded by an unknown force!!"

"[Huang Chao — Yin God Form] is undergoing an unknown mutation!!"

"[Huang Chao — Yin God Form] mutation complete, card information has changed! Please check!!"

However, at that time, Sun Po's mind was completely filled with the four words "system mutation", and he didn't notice the system message regarding [Huang Chao — Nether-God Form] at all.

Looking at it now, the mutation might have happened long ago; it was just that he hadn't noticed it at the time.

And now, the card face of [Huang Chao — Nether-God Form] has changed once again, and the original image on the card face has altered.

The front of the card at this moment was still that general in golden armor and a red robe with civil and military sleeves. He rode a fierce tiger between his legs, with a square forehead, red hair, a face like golden paper, and even his teeth were sharp canines rather than square ones.

"Why does this expression feel even more ferocious?"

If the previous image of the card was ugly, then the image of [Huang Chao] at this moment primarily manifested a murderous aura.

That was a unique momentum combining the fierceness of a ghost-eating nether-god and the murderous aura of a descending killing star. It even made Sun Po, the owner of the card, find it hard to notice the ugly image of [Huang Chao] while looking at this card, feeling only that he saw a murderous ghost king backed by a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

The back of the card featured a new image. Its face was identical to the preceding [Huang Chao — Nether-God Form], but its body was dressed in mysterious armor and a white robe with civil and military sleeves. Its overall aura was extremely similar to the [Huang Chao — Nether-God Form] on the front, and the card name column strikingly read: [Zhong Kui — Heavenly Star Form]!!

When Sun Po saw this, he was also completely dumbfounded. What did this mean?

You, [Huang Chao], use my nether-god power, so I, [Zhong Kui], shall take your heavenly star position?

Where did [Zhong Kui] come from? Has this world become this chaotic already?

But he soon let it go.

Forget it; a card had a piece of card information on both its front and back sides, and this world had long since gone crazy.

However, after careful sensing, Sun Po still discovered a trace of difference: the golden-armored and red-robed [Huang Chao — Nether-God Form] on the front looked more murderous and slightly less ferocious.

Meanwhile, the dark-armored and white-robed [Zhong Kui — Heavenly Star Form] on the back displayed utter fierceness, with a somewhat weaker murderous aura.

[Wuzhiqi]'s voice came over: "Master, this power is too terrifying. It can even override fate. This afternoon, I watched with my own eyes as this new fate was forcibly squeezed into this card. I completely fail to understand what kind of power that is."

Sun Po felt a chill in his heart. Although [Huang Chao]—or rather, [Zhong Kui]—did seem to have grown stronger, according to [Wuzhiqi], this power had forcibly crammed [Zhong Kui]'s fate into this card. Did this mean that [Zhong Kui]'s fate perhaps shouldn't have belonged to him in the first place, or shouldn't have been here? Yet, this [Power of Merit] used its authority overriding [fate] to forcibly pull [Zhong Kui]'s fate to this place. Could the fact that this [Power of Merit] could affect his own [mod loading system] prove that the authority of the [Power of Merit] was likewise higher than the [mod loading system]?

Then, would there come a day when he would be affected by some wisp of [Power of Merit], and have his own [mod loading system] pulled away directly?

What on earth was that colorful jelly in the self-made mod section of the [mod loading system] that bore an aura extremely similar to the [Power of Merit]?

The more Sun Po thought about it, the more alarmed he felt, but daydreaming and scaring himself like this was no solution. He could only try his best to become stronger to cope with this treacherous and fog-shrouded world.

Moreover, it seemed that [Huang Chao], or rather [Zhong Kui], had gotten stronger after all. Sun Po sank his spiritual awareness into the card face and began reading the card information, looking first at the newly appeared reverse side:

Name: [Zhong Kui — Heavenly Star Form]

Mod: [Seven Killings Enter Fate. Huang Chao], [Tiger Monarch's Tiger's Courage] (Fierce Tiger Form)

Type: [Human Card / Heavenly Star Descent] [deity card / Underworld Nether-God]

Quality: [Golden 1-Star]

Description:

[Zhong Kui is a nether-god in the underworld, possessing extremely strong suppression over all ghosts in the world, and even wields the power of the seven killings star. Now, after receiving the help of a fierce tiger with the divine power of the [Tiger Monarch], he has unlocked the Heavenly Star Form, greatly increasing his divine power.]

???

Sun Po had a small head filled with big question marks?

This card information was truly identical to [Huang Chao]?

It was just that one was after he loaded a mod, wielding the other party's [nether-god] power, while the other was forcibly crammed into this card by the [Power of Merit]. Moreover, this nearly identical card description felt as if another [mod loading system] had created a new product and then shoved it right into his face.

With the same mod column, [Seven Killings Enter Fate. Huang Chao] gave Sun Po the feeling that the front and back sides acted as mods for each other.

Sun Po didn't understand and felt like his brain was about to burn out. This was also the first time Sun Po felt that his and [Wuzhiqi]'s IQs were on the same level; neither the human nor the monkey could figure it out.

As for other skills and traits, they didn't seem to have much difference, except that the original name [Huang Chao] was replaced with [Zhong Kui].

Moreover, its traits gained an extra one:

[Nether-God / Heavenly Star]: When using this card, both [Zhong Kui] and [Huang Chao] will be summoned simultaneously—one in the Dream Realm and the other in reality.

Before both of them possess divine positions, they cannot appear in reality at the same time.

When [Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui] launches an attack with [nether-god power] against a target in reality, the other one in the Dream Realm will launch an additional mirrored attack with [Seven Killings Star Power] against the target.

When [Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui] launches an attack with [Seven Killings Star Power] against a target in reality, the other one in the Dream Realm will launch an additional mirrored attack with [nether-god power] against the target.

[Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui] reside in two realms; both must die at the same time before reverting to card status, otherwise they will remain in an undying state.

[Huang Chao] and [Zhong Kui] can freely switch identities, attributes, forms, etc., with each other between the Dream Realm and reality.

After finishing reading, Sun Po turned it over to investigate, and sure enough, the [Huang Chao] on the front also gained the same trait.

Sun Po was silent for a long time. It was the first time he was left speechless by the creepy traits displayed by his own card.

That's right, it was truly sinister.

This was the most appropriate description Sun Po could think of.

Previously, Sun Po felt that the [Hating Earth Without Rings] trait of the [Double-Pupil Warrior] was enough to secure his position as the MT in his card deck.

After all, stacking health by killing monsters looked like a completely cheap trait no matter how one looked at it.

But compared to this one right before him, that was truly a very normal trait.

First of all, these two operated such that however you made a move in reality, the other side would mirror and duplicate your action in the Dream Realm using another kind of power.

Simply put, it was dual casting blessed by a different dimension, and it was an attack of two different energies.

Moreover, both [Huang Chao] and [Zhong Kui] shared a trait: "[Star of Killing Destiny]"

When facing [Human] cards, Huang Chao would exert a certain suppression effect on their abilities, and had an extremely small chance of causing the opposing Card Maker to suffer equivalent damage when attacking the opponent's card."

That is to say, when [Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui] attacked enemy cards in reality, every attack underwent two judgments, which directly increased the probability of the opposing Card Maker suffering equivalent damage by half.

If they were to be loaded with some high-attack-speed burst skill in the future—tsk, tsk, tsk—the scene would be too beautiful, and Sun Po didn't dare to imagine it anymore.

Secondly, there was: "[Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui] reside in two realms; both must die at the same time before reverting to card status, otherwise they will remain in an undying state."

You must know that both [Huang Chao] and [Zhong Kui] had the [Tigers Courage] trait. Furthermore, after consuming enough ghosts, this [Tigers Courage] trait could consume [courage value] to activate a state called [Indestructible Tiger's Courage].

[Indestructible Tiger's Courage] was a perverted buff capable of massive damage reduction, making it already very difficult to kill [Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui]. On top of doubling this trait, it also threw the other one into a different dimension, and furthermore required both to be killed simultaneously; otherwise, they wouldn't die.

Moreover, these two were still separate entities, and their attributes, divine positions, and the like were not interchangeable. In other words, the two of them were truly solid, independent characters, yet they shared this single card, producing an effect even more absurd than using two cards.

Heh, go ahead and play; who could ever outplay the two of you?

Clearly they could just fight directly, yet it was cloaked under the guise of a trait—it was truly sinister to the extreme. Sun Po completely failed to understand or make sense of this contraption.

Such a situation was not merely his knowledge blind spot; even [Wuzhiqi], with its flawed six-eared constitution, couldn't figure it out.

Perhaps the world was so vast, and all kinds of bizarre cards had appeared; perhaps it was just that he was currently confined to a tiny S Province, and his understanding of cards was far too superficial?

A craving for knowledge surged in his heart once again. The truth was that the publicly issued national cultivation technique—《Spirit Nourishing Technique》—had already occupied most of the high school curriculum's length, while the remaining space was filled with historical figures of Card Makers, the significance of card making, and the ethics Card Makers ought to abide by.

Back then, those minor families from No. 2 High School could go home for private tutoring, but commoners like Sun Po really could only rely on self-enlightenment.

Even though [Yang Xinyue] was considered the teacher who could teach the most practical knowledge in the grade at that time, Sun Po still felt that his current knowledge reserve could completely no longer keep up with the rate of his strength's progress.

However, places like the [Gaoping City] Municipal Library clearly wouldn't do either; he could only wait until he went to university or went to [Li Tang Wanbang University] in the future before talking about it.

The days that followed were peaceful and monotonous. Every day, Sun Po released [Huang Chao] or [Zhong Kui] to eat [Huzhang]. He also observed the differences between the two: [Huang Chao] had a greater murderous nature, while [Zhong Kui] had a fuller fierce nature.

The manifestation was that [Huang Chao] ate faster, but [Zhong Kui]'s range of coercion over the [Huzhang] was wider.

As Sun Po was observing the feeding speed of [Zhong Kui — Nether-God Form] and watching the changes in the [courage value] on the card panel, he calculated whether [Zhong Kui] chewing so "slowly and carefully" would cause the [courage value] consumed by the "Nether-God Form" to exceed what was ingested.

Through his observations over the past few days, he discovered that every point of [courage value] could support one day of the [Nether-God Form], and one point of [courage value] required about 1,000 [Huzhang] to obtain. Only [Huang Chao]'s style of ravenous gorging could barely break even. Just as he was fretting over this, his phone suddenly rang.