Chapter 318: Annan On His Self-directed Act

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“It’s breathing like an LED breathing light…” Looking at the flickering brilliance on the street, Suuankou couldn’t help but mutter.

The city had long been in ruins.
There were no signs of its buildings.

All he could see were rubble strewn across the street.
Even the street itself barely had a distinguishable outline.

Suuankou narrowed his eyes slightly.

Thinking of this, he suddenly realized a problem.

The buildings here seemed to be destroyed too neatly.

The streets and gravel were scattered on the ground, giving off a hint that this place was once a city.

However, all the buildings were no exception, where they were destroyed neatly to the extent that it was impossible to distinguish the building type.

Although he didn’t know why the city had become what it was now, it was too unnatural.

If it was a meteorite rain, there should be houses surviving with higher structural integrity; if it was a massive earthquake, there should be relatively strong houses that survived through it.
If it were fire, tsunami, or other natural disasters… and even if the sky fell to the Earth, there should be some small houses that were less damaged.

But here, all buildings were brought to ruins to the same degree.

The destruction was just enough to destroy all traces of life in each house, but the visitors were still able to realize there were buildings in this place.

Seeing that Suuankou’s expression became serious, Dove also walked to Suuankou’s feet and let out a meow.
She posted on the forum, “It feels like it was man-made… right?”

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“Yes.” Suuankou nodded, “I watched your recordings and live streams for the past few days and supplemented myself with the knowledge of this world.
I thought such an apparent artificial trace seems to be hinting that it isn’t as simple as removing all traces of life.

“Combining the information obtained by Citalopram, I guess this may be a kind of ritual.”

“Ritual?” Dove asked suspiciously.

Suuankou nodded, “Brother Child should have entered into a nightmare.

“What I’m thinking is that if the elves make such a ritual area just to preserve the legacy and knowledge of the past, then there must be more than one ‘nightmare hard disk’.

“Strange enough, the Black Tower doesn’t seem to know about this.
Judging from the information shared by Longjing Tea and Salvatore, Black Tower is only utilizing this place as an Influence Pool for extracting influence.
It means that Black Tower doesn’t know the elves have nightmares that store the knowledge from the past.”

“…I agree.
That’s a valid deduction.” Dove nodded.

Other players who were lured into the stream by Dove’s prank also discussed about the matter in bullet texts:

“—I think there’s probably something sealed in this place?”

“—Is it possible that Boffis is a boss monster?”

“—I don’t think so.
Instead, I think Boffis might be a key.”

“—It’s also possible that Boffis has been hiding from the Black Tower’s wizards, so the wizards don’t know about her existence.”

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“—No, no, it’s also possible that Boffis is special.
Only the Pale Princess’s priestesses can see her…”

Seeing the discussion moved to this stage, Annan couldn’t help but post:

“—It has nothing to do with Boffis.
It’s expected that Black Tower can’t see her because the elves have Silver Rank’s soul.
Ordinary wizards can’t detect them at all.”

This was indeed the truth.

It was like Bronze Rank’s Transcended could see Citalopram, but ordinary people couldn’t.

Annan thought at first that Transcended should be able to see spirits.

However, Old Vasily quickly debunked his thoughts.

Before getting the Book of Truth, he could only see other souls when his soul rank was one rank higher than the target.
This had nothing to do with the Perception attribute but the soul rank alone.

Black Tower might not be completely unaware of it.

Because what Salvatore said to Annan at the beginning was that he could acquire “Basic Influence: Remains of the Soul of Silver” here.

The influence of the “Remains of Soul” series meant that this wizard had come into contact with the soul of Silver Rank and had been entangled or even possessed by it.

In other words, Black Tower should have long known that there were many elves here, all existing in the soul state.

Judging from the security level of this ruin and the fact that Salvatore could directly tell Annan about this relic, it was most likely because the Black Tower’s wizards were convinced that they could not enter this public nightmare.

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In this case, the Child could enter the nightmare probably because of his profession as [Forest Walker], something the elves had left behind.

The wizard tower itself was a cloud library.
Therefore, the knowledge that had existed since the third era must be preserved.

In this case, those sent to collect influences here were most likely on errands.

The Black Tower tutors would only come in person to collect the influence if it was a requirement for them to use their body as the vessel of the influence.

For example, the Pale Princess was the Deity of Ghosts and Spirits… And only Citalopram could have the privilege of perceiving Boffis.

Suuankou saw Annan’s bullet text and immediately shouted, “Hey, wait, everyone, stop for a while.
There’s a wise man in the bullet text.

“Ya, this guy.
He said that the elves have Silver Rank souls, but the Silver Rank Wizards can’t identify them.
I think what you said makes sense.
The others, please be quiet first.
Can you tell us more?”

What the fuck!?

What kind of eyes are these? How do you identify me directly from the bombardment of the bullet text?

Annan was bewildered.

But he thought about it for a moment and realized it was fine to share more.

It just so happened to be a good chance for him to influence the players’ actions.

“—Think about it.
The truth is simple.”

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“—Since Black Tower does not send a professional team to conduct testing in this place, it can only be because no wandering spirits survived in the normal model of ‘specimen storage’.”

“—Only when the Black Tower has never sent someone here to analyze will Boffis remain undetected.
Even if it is true that only the Pale Princess’s priestess can see the spiritual body, the Black Tower won’t struggle to hire a Half-dead Enchantress at all.
Also, Citalopram hasn’t yet acquired a new divine art.
Thus, the other priestess can definitely see Boffis when she already can.

“—Since Boffis is in such a rare situation, there must be something causing it to happen…

“—so I speculate that there should be something sealed here, or at least something that would cause Boffis to be in trouble.”

Annan finished a long paragraph of bullet texts in one go.

He then sent a side mission directly to Suuankou, Citalopram, and Dove.

[You’re granted a side mission: Search for specimen storage III-251-11]

[Mission requirement: Collect Frostwhisperian’s frozen blood (0/1), investigate what has happened here (0/1)]

[Hint: One player in the team is in an abnormal timeline.]

Suuankou’s eyes widened in disbelief, “Fuck, he is our wise man!”

Annan issued this mission to validate the speculation he had just made, thus revealing some unconventional information to the players.
For example, Wandering Child had entered the dungeon instance, but the players didn’t know it.

The other reason was that Annan wanted to hold the players’ group back because he would be there soon.