Chapter 85: The Occult Master Is a Social Media Star, Part 24

A man immediately questioned her, “If this move is so powerful, why didn’t you use it sooner?”

“It takes time and a certain amount of evolution energy to activate. Otherwise, it’s useless,” Mu Yin replied, flicking him a glance.

“All right, everyone, get into the array and heal,” Yun Shuyang said.

“What’s going on in here? Why can’t I circulate my vital energy?”

“Neither can I.”

“Did you do something?”

“This is the Five-Element Spirit-Binding Array. In order to maximize the cleansing array’s effect, I made some modifications. Once the cleansing talisman is spent, this array will automatically dissolve, and the formation will recover. You can purge the curse from your bodies here.” Mu Yin was truly speechless at some of them. After tossing out those words, she turned and left.

Yun Shuyang did not bother with those people either. He followed Mu Yin straightaway, while also notifying others to come and clean up the battlefield. As they watched the two leave, the few who remained were still muttering among themselves. Someone even remembered the bead that had fallen earlier, but by then it was nowhere to be found.

“Take this.” Mu Yin took out a bead and handed it to Yun Shuyang.

“What is this?” Yun Shuyang asked as he accepted it.

“A cursed artifact. You may find it useful someday,” Mu Yin replied. It had been created with her ability, using the curse power within Han Shi’s body.

“Why not keep it yourself?” Yun Shuyang did not take his hand away.

“I have no use for it. Keep it. Perhaps you’ll need it one day.” Mu Yin shook her head. She could not take it away with her anyway, so what was the point of keeping it?

After that came the cleanup. Without Han Shi behind them, those fish-monsters were not too difficult to deal with. Yet the matter spread widely, and everyone came to know that those creatures had once been human. As a result, the internet erupted into endless arguments over whether these fish-monsters should be executed, with the inevitable chorus of contrarians and trolls delighting in their cold, cutting remarks.

Some said they had once been people too, merely harmed by others, and never meant for any of this to happen. Such talk made it impossible to know how best to handle the situation, especially since many of them still had family outside.

Because of this, the mystical sects were driven nearly mad. In the end, Mu Yin proposed a solution: let people choose. If they wanted to keep one, they could take it home themselves. But those monsters ate human flesh, so the families would have to provide that flesh too. Cut off a piece and feed it to them, or do whatever else they wished; it was up to them. Whoever agreed with that approach could take one back.

Accounts in this world were all bound to real identities, so even the trolls had no way to hide behind alternate profiles. In the end, no one dared to make a fuss anymore. The fish-monsters were all dealt with. What else could be done? They could not be saved at all. Only those who had never eaten human flesh could possibly be rescued.

Mu Yin stayed in this world for ten years before leaving. It was not that she took her own life; rather, her life had simply reached its end. It turned out that although her gene mutation had seemed very stable at first, perhaps because she had inherited the genes of the fish-monsters rather than a merfolk line, she needed to consume human flesh to maintain that stability. If she did not, signs of genetic collapse would appear after a few years.

The last several years were terribly hard on her, but she did not simply give up and end it all. Instead, she tried to learn as much as she could, after all, she had to consider future missions too. Fortunately, during the first two years, when her genes were still stable, she relied on her bloodline’s affinity for water and finally comprehended its true essence. By then, she too was able to shape water with her hands.

In the later years, she could no longer use vital energy, and the pain of genetic collapse accompanied her, but it was not so severe that she could not get out of bed. So she studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, and more. These things could all be useful in that world. She did not pay much attention to literature, however, since culture differed from world to world.

Yun Shuyang once confessed his feelings to her, but she turned him down. With her body in such a state, what was the point? Besides, his future was not confined to this world alone, and she could not drag him down with her.

Yet in those final years, he still stayed by her side, until at last Mu Yin closed her eyes and left that world. Looking at her mission rewards, she found them exceptionally generous this time. After cultivating for a while along the River of Time and Space, when the emotions in her memories had already faded and her ability had also reached the peak of the second level, she prepared to enter a new world once more.

Strangely enough, while she had been on the River of Time and Space, why had she never seen any other taskers? Surely it could not be that after that one incident, no one else continued taking missions. Mu Yin found that impossible. Or was there something she did not know?

What Mu Yin did not know was that the other taskers did not possess, as she did, the key to the Gate of Time and Space, allowing free passage between times and even access to the River of Time and Space. The others all received their missions within a place called the Main God Space, much like an endless survival game.

Although she could likewise receive missions issued by the Main God Space, she was not bound by its restrictions. She was, in effect, a free tasker. She only learned this later, after coming into contact with other taskers.

Mu Yin flew along the River of Time and Space for a long while before finally choosing a world that looked very large. In truth, all worlds were arranged along both sides of the river, appearing as doors of varying sizes. The larger the door, the higher the world’s rank and the greater its scope; the smaller the door, the smaller the world. The worlds she had chosen before were not very large.

By size, the doors could roughly be divided into ten levels, from one meter high, two meters high, three meters high, all the way up to ten meters high. The highest-ranked world she had entered before was the last one, a gate two meters tall. But this one was nearly four meters in size, meaning the world’s rank was at least level four.

There was also another way to distinguish the nature of a world. Some worlds were formed directly from a continent; these were usually either fantasy or high fantasy worlds, and their gates were single doors. Others appeared in the shape of a cosmos; worlds of technology, interstellar empires, antiquity, and other kinds belonged to this category, and their gates were double doors.

This was also information about the Gate of Time and Space that she had gained after leveling up through her time-and-space key. And this door was a single one. If nothing unexpected happened, the world beyond would be either fantasy or high fantasy. She had just come from a modern, world-of-fading-arts setting and had learned some cultivation methods whose traditions had nearly been severed; it was the perfect time to go to a proper fantasy world and study there.

Though she could not yet tell whether it was western fantasy or eastern fantasy, if it turned out to be western fantasy, learning magic and the like would also be fine. With that thought, Mu Yin took out the key and opened the door, stepping inside.

When she opened her eyes, she first checked her surroundings. Yes, good—complete darkness. There was the sound of breathing nearby, but no danger. So she immediately accepted the memories, and then she became depressed.

This time, she had become an unloved daughter in a rural family, and in ancient times at that. To be honest, reading farming stories had always felt quite satisfying, but actually living through it was not nearly as pleasant. Come to think of it, even after her rebirth she had been from a rural background, but back then girls no longer had to work in the fields. At most, they helped dig potatoes and sweet potatoes or carried rice stalks. Because she had been so young, she had not even needed to thresh grain.