Chapter 559: Abyss Walker!

“Sigh. It’s lonely at the top.”

Zheng Xiu sighed, setting down the Sheepskin Scroll. He grabbed the blank “Character Card” hovering above the Game Table and focused his thoughts on sculpting a new character.

The faces of his three Incarnations—Zheng Xiu, Zheng Er, and Zheng Baimei—were all modeled after his own, so creating them hadn’t taken much time. This time, however, Zheng Xiu decided to create a completely different persona—an alias that wouldn’t be recognizable as him at a glance, making it easier to do things in secret.

It sounded great in theory, but when he actually tried it, Zheng Xiu discovered just how difficult character creation was. After trying to sculpt a face from his imagination for a while, he opened his eyes and laughed in spite of himself at the crooked, distorted face that looked neither Human nor ghost.

‘Just how much focus does this face-sculpting thing need? Can’t they just give me some templates to choose from?’

After a while, Zheng Xiu realized the reason he ended up with a monstrosity was that he didn’t have a clear idea himself. He didn’t know what kind of character to create, or rather, what kind of appearance would best suit the “Wandering” Deceitful Object.

Without realizing it, Zheng Xiu had spent the entire afternoon on this. He had someone hastily deliver dinner, which he scarfed down before continuing his seclusion.

During this time, a few people came and knocked on his door.

Zheng Xiu ignored them.

Zheng Xiu continued his seclusion, focusing on his character creation.

As night fell, the cat snuck in through the window and found a comfortable position, curling up in Zheng Xiu’s lap.

Wisps of gray mist seeped out from behind Zheng Xiu. The cat’s eyes lit up, and it opened its mouth to eat them. Licking its delicate pink tongue, it seemed unsatisfied and continued to wait for more.

「In the Heart Prison.」

Frustrated, Zheng Xiu crushed a well-defined figurine back into a lump of clay and started over.

He had tried over a dozen times in total, but there was always something that left him dissatisfied.

He was still stuck on the face-sculpting step.

An Incarnation’s Attributes could be improved, but once the face was created, it couldn’t be changed—a step that was torture for a perfectionist.

He’d tried more than ten times, and every single one had a trace of his own features, which went against his original intention.

Zheng Xiu sat on the Bone Chair, furiously rubbing the knot between his eyebrows. As he rubbed, the long-neglected “Rulebook” appeared on a corner of the Game Table at some point.

‘I didn’t summon the Rulebook.’

Confused, Zheng Xiu subconsciously picked up the heavy Rulebook and flipped through a few pages.

“Huh?”

As Zheng Xiu flipped through the pages, his eyes widened and his expression froze.

The book used to be filled with a strange language, something like “woof woof woof”—dog-speak. In the past, he couldn’t understand any of it. But now, as he opened it and focused his gaze, the characters on the page twisted, and he found he could faintly understand their meaning.

‘Fuck? Could this be the effect of “Foreign Language”?’

‘So mastering Foreign Language also covers reading?’

‘I can understand more of the Rules now?’

Zheng Xiu flipped rapidly through the pages. Sure enough, he soon found the annotations for “Surprise Cage.”

A few more pages in, Zheng Xiu saw a sentence:

[Your next Mystic, why must it be Human?]

Huh? That makes a lot of sense!

The moment Zheng Xiu read it, it was like a sudden enlightenment. He felt as if he had discovered a crucial point.

The Rulebook contained the “Inner Rulebook” within it. Zheng Xiu took out the “Inner Rulebook” to see if his “Foreign Language” skill would let him read more of it.

Zheng Xiu’s achievements to this day were undoubtedly thanks to his own imprisonment and hard work. However, he knew his real cheat was the “Inner Rules” hidden beneath the “Table Rules.” A mysterious existence had hidden the unspoken rules here.

The last time, the “Inner Rulebook” had spat out [Heaven and Earth Sword Intent].

“Ah…”

Sure enough, two new lines of text had appeared in the Inner Rulebook.

For a moment, Zheng Xiu wanted to grab the cat and give it a rough petting as a reward. So learning [Foreign Language] was this useful!

‘It can be translated!’

The two lines of text each had their own color.

The green [Large Cauldron], and the black [Dark Cooking Skill].

By the way, the previous [Heaven and Earth Sword Intent] had been gold.

The different colored “Inner Rules” gave Zheng Xiu the feeling of a blind lottery draw.

He pressed his finger on each of the two lines. SWISH. The lines transformed into a green and a black orb of light, respectively, and floated out.

The black orb of light shot into the space between Zheng Xiu’s eyebrows with the speed of a thunderclap.

[Through your unremitting efforts and countless failed attempts, you have grasped the true meaning of life and learned the Talent: Dark Cooking Skill!]

The green orb’s light gradually faded in the void. Its shape changed, and it finally turned into a card that fell limply in front of Zheng Xiu with a soft FLAP.

The card had no text on it, but its surface depicted a cauldron. The background was pitch black, and the cauldron was filled with a suspicious green liquid that bubbled, GLUG GLUG.

“A Talent and… a card?”

Zheng Xiu had assumed both the green and black orbs were “Traits” that could be used on his Incarnations.

This unexpected development stunned Zheng Xiu for a moment, but he quickly checked to see what this new Talent, [Dark Cooking Skill], was.

[Dark Cooking Skill (Peak of Perfection)]: A special skill derived from “Soul Cooking Skill”. All actions related to “cooking” in your life are destined to end in failure. The God of Cookery has slammed the door on you in despair. However, because of this, your cooking is always full of surprises and uncertainty. You will have a relatively high probability of cooking up strange things.

‘What the hell is this supposed to be a “Talent”?’

Zheng Xiu was dumbfounded.

‘This isn’t a negative status effect, it’s a Talent?’

‘No, this seems more like a curse, doesn’t it?’

For a moment, Zheng Xiu felt a complex mix of emotions as he stared at the strange “Talent”. Talents were different from Traits. Traits could only be used on Incarnations and could be equipped or unequipped, applied or removed. Talents, however, were bound to the Main Body, destined to be with him for life.