After returning to the sea, Xia Ai'er intended to continue researching the Gray Mist.
He had no choice; in the Fourth Epoch that was about to begin, the Five Pathways were destined to have no future. This path was impassable, so he had to find a way to switch to the Three Pathways of Weirdness as soon as possible.
This way, the probability of surviving the Epoch of the Gods would be higher.
The projection he left in the magic mirror began to chant the honorific name of the Fool:
"The Fool that doesn't belong to this era."
"The mysterious ruler above the Gray Mist."
"The King of Yellow and Black who controls good luck."
"I wish to behold your great Divine Kingdom. Please open the Door."
After several chants by Xia Ai'er, Sefirah Castle showed no reaction. It wasn't that there was no reaction; the backdoor he left was still there. He could make the Gray Mist respond to him through prayer and use the Gray Mist's power to create some talismans. By using his own luck-transferring runes, he could even clear some potential contamination.
Yes, Xia Ai'er hadn't realized before that he had been subtly contaminated when he awoke in that divine war ruin. No wonder it was so easy to summon Arrodes. But did the Chaos Sea's reach extend so far?
Amanises, didn't you contaminate it along the way?
Xia Ai'er felt a bit numb. He knew that as a Sequence Three Sea King, he couldn't ascend to the Gray Mist space, even if he had additionally consumed some low-level characteristics from the Error Pathway. But his separated spirituality should be able to, right? Arrodes's power stabilized the mirror projection, and his own spirituality served as the core. Didn't he successfully sneak in last time?
Why not this time?
Has this bug been fixed?
Then how to explain Sefirah Castle's continuous multiple projection failures?
Primordial God Almighty is dead, can the Chaos Sea still install new virus plugins following Sefirah Castle's bug fix progress? Who exactly is the Pillar of the Error Pathway?
"So annoying, it feels like being imprisoned."
Xia Ai'er could feel that the Sea King had already gone fishing, while his virtual persona still had to repeatedly try to log in. He had even tried the luck-transferring ritual belonging to Klein, chanting from "Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings" all the way to "The Fool that doesn't belong to this era," repeating like a broken record. Even Arrodes got tired of listening and directly switched to watching the "elf" fish in the sea, while he still had to continue trying various login passwords here.
What he didn't know was that while he was stuck here, the "message notifications" above the Gray Mist had already reached 99+. When Zhou Mingrui saw that constantly flashing, constantly flashing, constantly flashing "crimson star," which seemed to carry a strong resentment, his modern person's obsessive-compulsive disorder kicked in, and he couldn't help but click it.
After clicking, just as Zhou Mingrui felt a bit of regret, nothing happened. The only change was that the shining crimson star... stopped glowing.
Zhou Mingrui looked left and right, confirming that nothing had happened. For a moment, he didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. At this point, he noticed the nearby crimson stars that weren't flashing. He curiously extended a claw and clicked one. In his mind, if clicking a glowing one made it stop glowing, then clicking these non-glowing ones shouldn't have any reaction, right? Could it suddenly burst into flames?
As the saying goes, bad things come when good things don't. Zhou Mingrui merely touched it lightly, but the crimson star suddenly erupted with dazzling light, like some dreamlike flame igniting on his fingertip. He was startled, and his hand trembled, accidentally touching another crimson star, which also lit up.
"I can still salvage this!"
This sudden change startled Zhou Mingrui, but he remembered the experience with the first crimson star: if he pressed it again, the light of these crimson stars should dim. However, before he could grit his teeth and act, a string of elvish gibberish flooded his mind. Zhou Mingrui couldn't understand it, but his brain went blank from the impact of 99+ voices playing simultaneously.
These prayer sounds should have come one by one in Sequence, but it seemed like network lag, or perhaps a plugin loading for the first time, directly caused all the voices to surge in at once, creating a cacophony that assaulted his ears like demonic music, hard-controlling Mr. Fool, who was experiencing the Gray Mist space for the first time, until his consciousness gradually cleared when three blurry projections appeared above the Gray Mist.
Meanwhile, in the mirror world, Xia Ai'er, who had transformed the mirror world to project a vast blue ocean, held a fishing rod, staring at the 3D ocean where no fish would bite. His initial enthusiasm for trying had devolved into merely slacking off and doing the bare minimum.
"Open Sesame, Oolong out of the cave."
"Balala Power, Little Fairy Transform."
He idly swung his fishing rod, watching a certain Sea King pour a full bucket back into the sea. As his mind wandered, a crimson light flashed before his eyes. He snapped back to attention in surprise. What was the password he had just entered?
...
Above the Gray Mist.
"Sir, where is this?"
"What do you want to do?"
After Xia Ai'er regained his vision, he heard these two voices.
Something seemed a bit off?
He looked at the two speakers. Through the Gray Mist, he vaguely saw a petite blonde girl and a man with messy, dark blue hair like seaweed. This familiar sense of déjà vu made him look in the direction the two were staring with terror and vigilance. There, a mysterious existence was shrouded in Gray Mist.
Zhou Mingrui?
Klein?
Or... Celestial Worthy?
A dream?
What language are they speaking?
ruenese?
I haven't learned it.
Learn it on the spot?
Just need a language comprehension talisman. Does the Gray Mist space also have an automatic translation function?
Xia Ai'er instinctively crooked his finger, sensing that the plugin he left above the Gray Mist was still functioning normally. But from the feedback, it seemed this plugin hadn't been running for thousands of years, had it?
Good news: this plugin is still there. Influencing the Gray Mist through the plugin, automatic translation can be easily achieved.
Bad news: he seemed to have transmigrated again.
What's the use of him, a virtual persona, transmigrating!
The impact Xia Ai'er received was no less than that of Zhou Mingrui nearby. His slightly "trembling" fingers, his somewhat unfocused eyes, not knowing where to look, contrasted sharply with the equally bewildered but still rational Zhou Mingrui of the future. One seemed stunned into helplessness, while the other presented a mysterious image through comparison.
They're scared of me?
When Zhou Mingrui saw the tall, slender, black-haired woman looking stunned, he immediately decided—to increase the firepower!
He confirmed the undisguised panic of the three people opposite him, and his originally somewhat flustered heart immediately calmed down. He chuckled softly, his voice unhurried, as if politely responding to a visitor's greeting:
"An attempt."