Chapter 148
Chapter 148
“My name is Yin Manqing. I was born in the Central Region and later dispatched to Northern Safe Zone 044 as director of the Anomaly Hunter Bureau branch.”
“I was also a registered four-star Anomaly Hunter.”
Yin Manqing’s voice was weak but pleasant.
Qin Lan nodded slightly. “So you’re a mature beauty.”
Yin Manqing’s voice paused for three seconds.
Embarrassment and irritation faintly colored her mental fluctuation. “Are you… listening seriously at all?”
“Besides, I’m only a mental entity now. How did you reach the conclusion that I’m a mature beauty?”
Qin Lan answered casually,
“Simple. This combat uniform is a women’s model with a fitted design. The chest and hips were custom-altered to be larger than normal…”
“Calling you a mature beauty isn’t precise enough. More like a curvy mature beauty… slightly plump, perhaps.”
As he spoke, Qin Lan scanned the combat uniform with sharp eyes. “Hmm… One hundred seventy-three to one hundred seventy-five centimeters tall, slender calves, and your waist-to-hip ratio seems–”
“Enough!”
Yin Manqing interrupted resentfully. “I’ve already told you who I am!”
“What about you? Who are you?”
Qin Lan snorted. “Me?”
“My name is Qin Lan. I’m your savior.”
That declaration silenced Yin Manqing completely.
“I know you must have faced certain death back then, so you attached a remaining fragment of your soul to this uniform in advance…”
Qin Lan rubbed his chin. “But this method is unusual. You seem to have become one with the uniform rather than simply attaching yourself to it… At least, I couldn’t accomplish that.”
“And this probably wasn’t the Talent you publicly revealed. Otherwise, the people who ambushed you would never have overlooked a possibility that allowed you to survive.”
Now Yin Manqing was shocked.
“How do you know I was–”
Before she could finish, Qin Lan interrupted impatiently. “Because you said earlier that the Abyss didn’t do it.”
“An ordinary anomaly shouldn’t be able to reduce a peak four-star Anomaly Hunter to such a miserable state.”
“As for an unsolvable instance? At your level, I don’t believe you would recklessly enter one without several cursed artifacts capable of resurrection.”
Qin Lan sneered.
“After considering everything, only one possibility remains.”
“My guess may not be accurate, though. Why don’t you tell me what truly happened?”
Faced with Qin Lan’s precise and incisive questioning, Yin Manqing fell silent.
After a long while, she slowly spoke.
“Knowing these things will bring you no benefit.”
“Are you certain you want to hear them?”
Qin Lan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? You think I scare easily?”
“Few things in this world frighten me… Professor Xu’s beach photo collection is an exception.”
Yin Manqing seemed to spend some time contemplating what “Xu Minghu’s photo collection” might be.
She remained silent for half a minute before finally continuing.
“The United Government caused my death.”
Qin Lan’s heart shook.
So it truly was the United Government.
Qin Lan had vaguely suspected it before. Only two powers could mysteriously kill someone known as “the Anomaly Hunter closest to five stars” and force her to cling to life in such a miserable fashion.
“Why?” Qin Lan’s expression grew grave. He knew he had touched an extraordinary secret.
Just as Yin Manqing said, knowing these things would only invite disaster.
But Yin Manqing didn’t answer directly. Instead, she suddenly asked,
“How many tiers does a Curse Core have?”
The abrupt question caught Qin Lan by surprise.
“How many? Doesn’t everyone know? One, two, three, four, five.”
Yin Manqing rejected his answer.
Her voice was cold and calm.
“Wrong.”
“Tiers one through four aren’t truly separate levels. Those four stages are merely different names for the same realm.”
“From tier one through tier four, the process consists only of accumulating one’s Curse Core.”
“Haven’t you ever found that strange?”
Yin Manqing’s words startled Qin Lan and set him thinking.
He hadn’t noticed before, but now that she mentioned it, the system truly did seem strange.
The only difference between the four tiers was the amount of energy stored within the Curse Core.
No matter how many tiers separated two people, if the opponent supplied ten points of energy to a skill, one still needed ten points to cancel its effect.
If tiers one through four were actually one realm… then everything made sense.
Yin Manqing continued.
“After breaking through the so-called tier four, the Curse Core’s maximum capacity doubles. Growth then becomes increasingly slow, requiring years of accumulation to advance one small step at a time…”
“Only then does one encounter the first true bottleneck–a high wall that has stopped countless people and kept the ordinary from the gateway to a new world.”
Yin Manqing narrated calmly, but these new concepts shook Qin Lan’s heart and overturned his understanding.
“Beyond tier four lies the [Stairway to Godhood].”
“Only after condensing the first step and truly taking that stride does one become fundamentally different from everyone before.”
“All beneath Ascension are mortal. Those above Ascension view all living beings as grass beneath their feet.”
“The moment someone sets foot on the first step, their very nature undergoes a world-shattering transformation. So-called curse energy can no longer be quantified with data.”
“Such people need only a thought to command an almost limitless quantity of curses.”
Yin Manqing quietly revealed a secret capable of raising monstrous waves throughout the outside world.
Qin Lan’s mouth went dry.
“Everyone below Ascension is mortal? Isn’t that a little arrogant…?”
“Not at all. If anything, it’s conservative.” Sorrow suffused Yin Manqing’s tone.
“That is why they sever the path of those who come after them and prevent others from reaching a higher realm. Once someone achieves Ascension, they can no longer be controlled.”
“They become an equal.”
“What those people need are countless ‘tools’ trapped at tier four, not ‘opponents’ standing at the same height.”
Yin Manqing’s voice began to tremble.
“I believed my Talent extraordinary and thought I was about to touch that unreachable domain… I never imagined it was a death sentence.”
A chill suddenly raced up Qin Lan’s back.
“Wait, wait…”
Qin Lan’s voice turned dry with uncertainty.
“Are you saying several people have been preventing those who reach the limit of tier four from advancing any further?”
“Were there other geniuses who traveled far within tier four, and they also…”
Qin Lan didn’t dare finish.
He felt as though he had touched the horrifying truth.
Details he had previously found strange now connected into a single picture.
“Have you ever met a genuine five-star Anomaly Hunter?” Yin Manqing asked coldly.
“Uh…” Qin Lan’s scalp tingled.
When an existence from the Abyss launched its war, opening countless rifts and sending anomaly after anomaly into Safe Zone 088 and the surrounding Safe Zones, Lu Xingshan had requested aid from Anomaly Hunter Bureau headquarters.
Yet only two four-star Anomaly Hunters had arrived.
Headquarters had replied that “all five-star Anomaly Hunters are temporarily unable to provide support.”
But… did so-called five-star Anomaly Hunters truly exist?