Book 9: Chapter 64: Crown of Thorns

“The last item Qin Lun pulled from Mira’s cube was not equipment, but a Blood Crystal once used by the Fairy Tale Maidens. Staring at the egg-sized crimson crystal in his hand, Qin Lun felt curious and checked the item description of the Blood Crystal.”

“Hormone? Stimulant?” After reading the description, Qin Lun finally understood what this thing was for.

The Blood Crystal was related to the overlapping of space and time in the Divine Comedy World, but it was not a product from another timeline. It was still a substance from the Divine Comedy World itself. Besides the largest Space-Time Rift in the stratosphere, the overlapping of several timelines also caused some small and unstable wormholes to appear.

These wormholes often carried mysterious space-time radiation. Plants and animals near the wormholes, affected by this radiation, would have their biological essence condense into Blood Crystals after death. Other plants and animals would then be indirectly affected by the Blood Crystals and turn into evil spirits.

The Blood Crystal contained some radiation, but because it was condensed biological essence, it also had a strong stimulating effect on living organisms and had a wide range of uses. If swallowed directly, it acted like a stimulant hormone, granting the creature powerful energy in a short time and stimulating its latent potential.

Of course, once the Blood Crystal’s effect wore off, the creature would experience a period of weakness.

This fist-sized Blood Crystal could allow an Apostle to temporarily boost their physical attributes. The specific effects and side effects depended on the user’s base attributes. Novice Apostles who hadn’t undergone Class Change basically couldn’t use it. Their bodies were too weak to handle the side effects, and they might even die directly.

A Novice Apostle could probably increase their physical attributes by 80%-100%, lasting for one natural day. However, after the effect faded, they would have a week of weakness. A Second-Order Apostle and a High-Rank Apostle could roughly increase their physical attributes by 15%-50%, lasting about 3-12 hours, enough to meet the demands of a single battle. But after the effect faded, they would have a weakness period of one to three natural days, and the side effects were equally terrifying.

Qin Lun thought for a moment and then put away the Blood Crystal. Given his current physical strength, without using Demon Transformation, this thing could probably boost his attributes by over 40%. With Demon Transformation active, it would only be about 20%.

This item wasn’t very valuable to him. If he couldn’t resolve a fight head-on even after using Demon Transformation, it meant he was facing a High-Rank Apostle, and boosting his attributes by another 20% wouldn’t help. If he needed to escape, other methods would be more effective, like his stealth and traps; there was no need to boost his physical attributes.

Even when facing an evenly matched opponent, Qin Lun wouldn’t use such a brute-force method to boost his attributes. He preferred using his brain. Moreover, in his view, a weakness period of one or two natural days introduced too many variables and didn’t help him control the situation.

This item was most valuable for Apostles at the peak of the first order or the beginning of the second order. Their physical foundation was good, and a 50%-100% physical boost, if used well, could be a game-changing tool. It could serve as a last resort. Plus, a weakness period of three or four natural days wouldn’t leave them without any remaining task time to recover if things went wrong.

Thinking this, Qin Lun almost without hesitation decided to sell this Blood Crystal. He could ask the other Serial Killers if they wanted it. If not, he would just toss it into the Dimensional Trading Market.

After taking out the Blood Crystal, Mira’s cube finally disappeared. This Black Queen Fairy Tale Maiden had provided him with two pieces of equipment and one important item.

Calculating carefully, the Phantom Leathers, due to their special disguise and face-changing effects, should be more precious than ordinary Dark Gold Equipment, worth at least seventy to one hundred thousand Shattered Crystals.

The Grim Chain Gunblade, although its quality was only the lowest Bright Gold among Dark Gold, was equivalent to three weapons in one. It was also quite versatile, allowing for faster and more agile combat transitions compared to three separate weapons. He would either trade it for something more suitable for himself or sell it for over one hundred fifty thousand. Otherwise, Qin Lun absolutely would not part with it.

Adding the value of the Blood Crystal, the rewards provided by Mira totaled at least two hundred fifty thousand Shattered Crystals or more—almost triple that of the Second-Order Reincarnator Uka. Qin Lun couldn’t help but sigh at the generosity of powerful storyline characters.

He figured the cube from the White Giant Leo in Grant’s hands would be even more valuable, possibly even dropping a White Giant Bloodline Item. This also partly showed that Qin Lun’s choice during the night of the Battle of London—to give up hunting Reincarnators and instead chase after the HELLSING Manor to participate in the final battle—was the correct one.

A Second-Order Reincarnator’s cube only yielded seventy to eighty thousand in value. How many Novice Reincarnators would it take to match a single Black Queen Mira? Of course, hunting Reincarnators would give high Contribution Points, but comparatively, Qin Lun still preferred Relics and Shattered Crystals.

Thinking of Relics, Qin Lun finally turned his gaze to the last cube: the Crown of Thorns.

“Is it a donkey or a horse? This one will tell!” Holding the Crown of Thorns cube, Qin Lun’s heartbeat sped up slightly. He felt a rare, intense excitement.

“Haha, no wonder so many people like gambling. It really is a great psychological experience!” Qin Lun smiled self-mockingly and placed a hand on the cube.

“Apostle 70053, this cube comes with item setting options. Please make a selection before opening it!”

Staring at the prompt message that suddenly appeared in the Death Notice, Qin Lun was slightly stunned. After clearly seeing the setting options below, he fell into deep thought.

The Crown of Thorns cube contained only one item: Lancelot’s Crown of Thorns. This time, the Shattered Starry Sky was very generous. It didn’t reduce Qin Lun’s rewards, and even bypassed the cube’s draw probability, giving him only the maximum prize.

The setting options for this Crown of Thorns were very particular. The first item setting: the Star Void would fuse very few Shattered Laws into the Crown of Thorns, allowing it to be used by Apostles while retaining its original essence. The second item setting: the Star Void would fuse many Shattered Laws into the Crown of Thorns, essentially turning it into a Star Void replica of the original item.

These two item settings contradicted each other, so of course, only one could be chosen. At first glance, it seemed there was no need to think much about it; the first option was obvious. But Qin Lun, sensitive to something off, immediately searched carefully within the Death Notice.

After a while, Qin Lun finally figured out the hidden tricks in these two settings.

The biggest difference between the two item settings was the applicability of the chosen item. The Crown of Thorns was a Christian Relic, a treasure embodying the essence of the entire Western civilization in the Divine Comedy World. It was also stained with a trace of holy blood, carrying a wisp of divinity.

If he chose the first item setting, the Crown of Thorns would retain all these characteristics, basically reaching the level of a Quasi-Divine Artifact. In any human world where apocalyptic religions existed, an Apostle wearing the Crown of Thorns would possess a certain degree of immortality. Using the world’s faith power as a life source, as long as the enemy didn’t separate the Apostle from the relic, the Apostle wouldn’t die.

Even if their physical body was completely destroyed, they would be reborn with a spirit body at some holy site, and their physical attributes would increase to 150% of their original, with an upper limit of 300%. In other words, the Apostle would grow stronger with each death, up to three times their original attributes. As long as the Apostle protected the Crown of Thorns within them, this was almost an invincible cycle!

As for the second option, the Shattered Starry Sky would extract the holy blood divinity from the Crown of Thorns, fuse it with Shattered Laws, and create a Legendary Rank “Pseudo Divine Core.” In any Quest World where religious beliefs existed, the Crown of Thorns would be equivalent to a Legendary Second-Order equipment.

Falling from Quasi-Divine Artifact rank, this Crown of Thorns, having only one Pseudo Artifact Spirit, could no longer influence the world’s faith power, and thus lost its immortality attribute. The biggest function of this Legendary Second-Order Crown of Thorns was to act as a substitute for death.

The so-called substitute death ability allowed an Apostle to use the Crown of Thorns to form a Thorn Clone under their control. If the main body died, the Apostle could temporarily place their Apostle Soul Mark within the Thorn Clone, achieving a one-time death substitution.

Additionally, even without using it for substitution, the clone was quite useful. It possessed 70% of the main body’s law attributes and could use all the main body’s skills, equipment, and items (provided it met the usage conditions for those skills and items).

This skill had an extremely long cooldown, almost consuming all the energy of the Crown of Thorns. Unless they returned to the Shattered Starry Sky and spent a great cost to repair it, relying solely on the Crown’s self-recovery would take thousands of years.

In Qin Lun’s view, this death substitution skill was completely useless. The reason was simple: Apostles constantly lived on the edge of life and death. They wouldn’t ignore the clone’s utility for minor dangers and keep the Thorn Clone far away from themselves.

If they kept it nearby, then the death substitution effect was practically meaningless. If an enemy could kill your main body, couldn’t they also kill a clone with only 70% of your abilities?

Of course, besides the Thorn Clone, Qin Lun could also wear the Crown of Thorns continuously, using it like Lancelot did, transforming into a disgusting tentacle monster. That form seemed to have decent offensive and defensive capabilities in close combat.

“I thought that with my Wood Element Affinity, getting this Crown of Thorns would be most suitable. I didn’t expect it to end up like this again?” Qin Lun looked at the item description, feeling a headache. For the first time, he felt a bit resentful about his luck.

He absolutely would not choose the first item setting option. It was a joke. A Quasi-Divine Artifact was a Quasi-Divine Artifact, but the key was whether he could actually use it. Seeing that its applicability was limited to human worlds with apocalyptic religions, Qin Lun knew this was a trap.

Think about the Quest Worlds Qin Lun had experienced so far: besides the two times he entered the Divine Comedy World and the Phantom Demon World, the other Quest Worlds, although they had humans, had completely different historical backgrounds. Even if they had religions, they weren’t Earth’s apocalyptic religions.

Most importantly, human worlds like the Divine Comedy World were basically Low Magic Worlds. With Qin Lun’s current strength, he was already top-tier in such worlds, let alone after future advancements. He had no need for an immortal Quasi-Divine Artifact.

Having a rocket launcher was nice, but if it could only be used to kill ants—you could just step on them—did you need a rocket launcher to blast them?

As for the second item setting, Qin Lun believed the death substitution ability was basically useless, but the clone was passable. Also, wearing the Crown of Thorns provided acceptable enhancements to offensive and defensive capabilities in close combat.

The item was good, but it fell short of his expectations. He had placed too many hopes on the Crown of Thorns before, so it was inevitable that he felt a bit disappointed now.

“Whoosh!” Qin Lun let out a long breath, gathered his thoughts, and chose the second item setting.

However, the moment he confirmed the second item setting, another prompt message actually appeared in the Death Notice. After reading the content of the message carefully, a trace of pleasant surprise appeared on Qin Lun’s face. This was truly like finding a village after the dimming of willows and flowers!