Chapter 38: Gift and Kiss

When Luge returned to his San Tong Tou Da Wo Shi once more, for a moment he actually had a feeling of a world apart.

Tired? In pain? Sleepy?

He decided to go find the Half-Man immediately; what he wanted was precisely this kind of wretched, unexaggerated, natural effect of not acting. Originally, he hadn't closed his eyes to rest all the way back, relying entirely on Spiritual Boiling to hold on, and he had planned to come back and sleep well first. Now it seemed completely unnecessary. A person must keep their word. Since the Half-Man had said to come see him once he learned the Magic Skin Technique, and he had already delayed this long, he shouldn't drag it out any further.

He lowered his head to look at the robe and Old Boot on his body, thought for a bit, and put them all into his Storage Bag one by one. He picked up a spare Dan Ya Chang Gun from the cave, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and swayed as he groped his way toward the remembered direction.

Walking a stretch in this familiar yet strange Passage, he thought of that Crybaby Chong Ren, and simply picked up the Cultivation Bag and shook it before his eyes.

"You have to work hard! Come out quick, I still don't know what you look like. If I wait for you a while longer and you still don't come out, I'm going to go find another Companion Magic Pet..."

He spoke as if coaxing a child while strolling with a sway; returning to the familiar place, his whole person relaxed considerably.

The Cultivation Bag also responded by trembling twice; unknown if it understood a few sentences.

He went fast and slow along the way, taking almost half again as much time as usual, before he saw that Large Rock again.

Arriving at the place, he said nothing, directly Empowered the Spell Model, and used the Magic Skin Technique.

The Half-Man's hazy figure emerged, still maintaining the sitting posture from last time.

Still those unblinking eyes, the head missing a small half, and the face still the same old expressionless look.

Everything was still that harmonious.

"Looks like you're already a genuine Wizard Apprentice, battered little Kobold..."

The voice was still transmitted through a peculiar application of Spiritual Power; who knows when he'd hear the Half-Man move his Mouth to speak words.

Luge put on a miserable appearance; in reality, he merely stood there relaxed, and that was already a wretched, miserable sight.

"I encountered a Wizard Apprentice; with a wave of his hand he could throw out a whole bunch of Fireballs. Fortunately I had the Magic Skin Technique Spell Material you gave me, otherwise I would definitely have been roasted cooked by him." He smoothed his own tattered hair.

"There's already a Wizard Apprentice nearby?" the Half-Man said.

Luge thought of the female elf he'd seen before, and nodded affirmatively.

As they spoke, a Potion also floated over, stopping before Luge.

He stared at the Potion, blinked, took it with both hands, and gripped it in his hand. This Potion was also dark green; looking at it, there didn't seem to be any difference from the one Ba'angte had given him. It looked like it was most likely a mainstream, relatively common recovery-type Potion. He had originally thought the Half-Man would give something more high-grade.

A thought moved in his heart.

"That was an injured Apprentice. I ultimately defeated him with a Short Spear. This is his Storage Bag. Can you help me erase his Mark/Imprint?"

He put away the Potion, took out a blood-stained Storage Bag, and tried making the request.

Luge still remembered that when he got the Storage Bag he currently used, the Half-Man had said he had erased the Mark/Imprint on the Storage Bag.

Luge held the Storage Bag with both hands.

The Half-Man didn't respond verbally; a wave of invisible fluctuation appeared in Luge's hand, making the Storage Bag cupped in his palm jump slightly, then return to calm.

As if merely doing something utterly Ordinary, yet simultaneously shattering some of Luge's guesses.

He had for an instant wondered if the Half-Man might also be a Wizard Apprentice, not as high-end as he'd previously imagined, and might be here for that Niteli Wu Xue Da Ren's Commission just like Ba'angte and the others.

"An interesting little thing, just like you." the Half-Man said.

A thing slightly smaller than a thumb appeared before Luge. It had regular lines, a square shape, and all sorts of strange Patterns and numbers.

"This is that interesting little Liji. Simply put, it's a miraculous item."

The Half-Man's words only earned Luge a face full of bewilderment.

He wanted to reach out and take it, but for the first time didn't succeed. That little thing seemed fixed in mid-air.

As he looked, he suddenly felt this thing looked somewhat Familiar. This seemed to be a strangely shaped Dice.

"When you grab it with your hand, you can no longer let go casually. It can be put into a Storage Bag — that's a layer of weak spatial isolation. Also don't lightly take it out to fiddle with, lest you drop it by accident," the Half-Man explained. "It's called the Demon Dice. It's a miraculous item condensed by six playful little Demons under extremely special circumstances. Six very special little Demons endowed this Dice with special power. A so-called miraculous item is a strange, extremely high-rank, non-replicable thing."

"Meaning, as long as you throw it, it's effective even against Official Wizards, even Grand Wizards — provided you're lucky enough, and have a chance to act against a Grand Wizard."

As the Half-Man's words paused, Luge finally got a moment to blink his somewhat dry eyes.

He wasn't dizzy from the miraculous gift. The first thought was that this thing was absolutely very expensive — the precious kind of expensive. The kind he couldn't afford. And the Half-Man had absolutely no reason to give this kind of thing to him for nothing.

So he didn't speak, like a good baby, waiting for the Half-Man's inevitable follow-up.

The follow-up hadn't arrived yet, but the Dice swayed and floated into his hand. Recalling the words just heard, he hurriedly gripped it tight.

The instant he gripped it, the Dice's usage appeared in his mind.

The Dice's material felt like metal yet also like Bone. It's said to have miraculous and powerful abilities, but in Luge's view it was somewhat small-fry, yet quite carried the mischievous air of those six playful little Demons. First, successively kiss the Dice's six faces, and you can become the Dice's owner. But being this owner isn't only good things.

When the Dice is thrown, that is the moment the Dice's owner awaits a turn of Fate.

The first four pips' faces will, according to the Dice owner's will, cause the target he wishes to bestow to suffer corresponding pip-count temporary blindness, panic, dancing, wild laughter. This is what Luge thought of as small-fry when he first saw it, but looking closely it's also very terrifying. It has its own judgment — for instance, it can even cause a person with poor Willpower to fall into permanent blindness, make a person with psychological Shadows fear until they can hardly move, even frighten them to death, make a lazy person dance to exhaustion near death, make a grief-stricken person laugh until they suffocate.

Everything seemingly has rules, yet speaks no reason.

And the other two faces made Luge's hand tremble.

Rolling a five or a six — these two faces both belong to the Dice owner, meaning the chance is high. Once rolled, one has the fortune to Invite a Demon who happens to be gazing afar for an impromptu Transaction. And the Dice's choices are all Demons who like amusement. Stupid ones full of Mang Li — that sort would never be chosen by the Dice.

A Transaction conducted in this form cannot be Refused. Theoretically it's equal value on both sides, but people who transact with Demons never have a good Outcome. Amusement-loving Demons often think outside the box — they might demand your left eye, or have you offer what you consider most precious, and such.

The truly interesting part is, all this is recorded on the Dice.

Even on the not-large Dice, the final Outcome of every successive owner is recorded. Truly mischievous.

"If I don't use it, nothing happens, right?" Luge raised his head, swallowing a mouthful of saliva.

(Chapter End)