The Creatures that We Are

However, Gao Shou didn’t want to follow the thought, and he couldn’t.

When he saw Gao Yang hesitantly open his eyes, he quickly stopped him. “Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to hear it.”

Gao Yang paused, then sighed in relief. Heh, now I know where my bad habit of running away from my problems came from.

“Your mother and I are having our twentieth anniversary in ten days, Son.” Gao Shou changed the subject.

Gao Yang remembered it. “Ah, it’s going to be November 11th soon.”

Gao Shou chuckled. “We picked the day back then for the good omen of one spouse for one life and being devoted to our love. But surprise, surprise. The day is now known as Singles' Day.”

Gao Yang laughed too. “Singles’ Day is out of fashion now too, Dad. Now it’s known as the Double Eleven shopping day.”

That got Gao Yang thinking. “What are you planning to give Mom as a gift?”

“Haha, your dad is doing something grand this year!” Gao Shou sounded confident. “But I’ll need some help from you and my daughter-in-law.”

“No rush. I’ll tell you about it later.” Gao Shou was cryptic on purpose. “Give me your afternoon next Tuesday.”

“Alright.” Gao Yang didn’t press.

…

Nine at night, Gao Yang returned to the Li City University. As soon as he reached the door to the dorm building, a gust of wind swept up to him, and he looked to the side to see his “third uncle” here to deliver him a letter.

Gao Yang took Waking Insects to the artificial lake on campus, taking the postcard from him. This time, it depicted a blue sky and blue ocean, the shore littered with white houses at different heights.

“Love Sea, the Aiqing Sea, is so beautiful! I love it here! ヾ(≧O≦)〃”

“But why is it named aiqing, romantic love, and not youqing, friendship?”

Gao Yang snorted. Well, can it be that it’s not the Aiqing Sea, but the Aegean Sea[1]?

“The Friendship Sea would’ve been more beautiful than the Romance Sea! Just like my friendship with you, Gao Yang!”

“I had the second best fish in the world here. The best fish I’ve ever had is the fish I had with you, the one Idiot Kai caught for me.”

“How are you doing, Gao Yang?”

“I really really really miss you. Do you miss me?”

Using the marble railing of the lake as a desk, Gao Yang drafted Fresh Snow a short response under the moonlight.

“Perhaps there is a Friendship Lake somewhere in the world. We’ll go there one day.”

“I’m doing alright here.”

“I miss you too. Once you’re back from your trip around the world, I’ll have Idiot Kai catch you another fish, one bigger and tastier than the one we had last time.”

“Looking forward to your next mail.”

Gao Yang finished writing on the postcard and handed it back to Waking Insects. Before Waking Insects could take it, Gao Yang quickly pulled back. “Wait. Don’t go just yet. I have a question for you.”

Waking Insects looked at him with a polite smile.

“What have you been doing, for real?”

“Going around the world.”

Gao Yang exposed him, “I have the Talent to tell lies.”

“No comment.”

Gao Yang sighed, changing the way he asked about it. “Is whatever you’re doing dangerous?”

Waking Insects thought for a good second before putting the polite smile back on. “Who within the Mist World isn’t in danger?”

Gao Yang didn’t have a counter for that.

“Keep Fresh Snow safe.”

Waking Insects nodded, saying flatly, “If anyone wants to hurt Fresh Snow, they’ll have to go through Master Spring, White Dew, and me.”

Gao Yang nodded, handing the postcard to Waking Insects.

Whoosh. Waking Insects disappeared in a gust of wind. Gao Yang stood where he was, staring blankly at the shimmering lake.

After a good while, he picked himself up. No time to waste. Time to work!

He unlocked his phone and sent a message to the group chat, Team Heavenbreaker♥♥♥: 3 in the morning, we’re having a meeting at the same place.

Gao Yang returned to his dorm room and shared a few words with his roommates. They asked about his three-day absence, and Gao Yang lied that he had felt ill and gone to the hospital before resting two days at home.

His roommates were all worried about him, and they told Gao Yang to take care of himself. Qiu Qiu and Lin Dajian, especially, reflected on themselves seriously and declared that they would stop dragging Gao Yang to drink with them or stay up overnight. Gao Yang was quite touched.

Past midnight, his roommates retired to bed one after another. Pretending to sleep, Gao Yang waited until his roommates were all in deep slumber before accessing his system with a thought.

[Access granted.]

[You have acquired 2239 Luck points.]

—Open Status Screen.

[Constitution: 431 Endurance: 438]

[Strength: 1128 Agility: 1872]

[Willpower: 1747 Charisma: 416]

[Luck: 813]

—I’ve used Willful Power once when fighting Xing Kong and another time when fighting Zhuang Mei, losing about 6% of my stats, meaning a total loss of about 350 points.

—During the fight with Zhuang Mei at Mount Kei, Teleportation and Replicate reached level 6, and Double reached level 5. All stats saw different amounts of gains.

Level 6 Teleportation: the distance he could travel didn’t increase, but the cooldown reduced to 0.5 seconds, and the number of times he could use the Talent in half an hour doubled.

Level 6 Replicate: he was still limited to replicating Talents with a serial number greater than 10, and the use duration was still 20 seconds; however, he could now replicate 3 Talents, and the Talents could be stored for 50 hours, a significantly longer time.

Level 5 Double: the double could be maintained for 70 seconds, and the double could use his Talents at 20% power, which was another significant improvement.

—Enter the Talent Pantheon.

Gao Yang started to slowly fall, and he found himself lying on something. He opened his eyes to see that the Pantheon had taken the form of the Rabbit Room of the Twelve Zodiac Signs’ base, the recreational quarters.

Interesting. He was sitting on a beanbag in the large living room done in the Northern European style. On the tea table before him were all sorts of drinks and snacks, as well as a console, a controller, and an assortment of game disks.

On the screen before him, the power ranking of awakeners was projected. It was the first version Gao Yang had seen in the past. Back then, he was still a nobody, not even ranked within the top 100.

He turned to find the system, taking the form of Li Weiwei.

She was dressed in a light green cardigan and a white pleated skirt—the clothes she had worn on their first date. Her long hair, tied into small braids, rested gently on her shoulders. She smiled at Gao Yang sweetly, her slight dimples greeting him.

Gao Yang jumped. Is this the projection of my rationality, emotions, and imaginations too? That can’t be. It’s been a long time since I thought of Li Weiwei.

Let’s not think too much of it. Maybe the system of Lucky just loves taking on different appearances like Liu Qingying loves putting on different costumes.

“Check the Talents.”

“Of course. Please look at the screen.” Li Weiwei lifted her hand.

The screen lit up, showing an orderly table of data, clearly listing the patterns of the twelve Rune Types and the number of unclaimed Talents under each type.

Gao Yang checked the Support-type Talents first. The number under the type was 3.

Huh, still 3?

Oh, right. Dick’s Tracking must have returned to the Talent Pantheon after his death.

Whatever. I’ve given up on spending all my points trying to get House.

Gao Yang had changed his mind for two main reasons:

First, Gao Yang started to feel like that the comprehension rate of the top twelve Talents might be lower than that of other Talents, which would cost him more Luck points. There was one piece of indirect evidence supporting that hypothesis—among the awakeners with the top twelve Talents, none had acquired a second Talent.

Second, after the fight with Zhuang Mei, Gao Yang realized that he had overestimated Talents that created realms.

In theory, after creating a realm, the awakener would become the master within the realm. It was true for House and Strange, and especially true for Overlord, which turned one into an omnipotent god within the realm.

However, the Talents came with many limitations.

First and foremost, it required good teamwork to buy enough time to activate the Talents.

Take Dragon’s Overlord as an example. While an incredibly large realm could be created, it had many weaknesses. For one, it was easy to destroy the realm from the outside. For another, the side effects of using the Talent was so great that regular people wouldn’t be able to bear it.

For those reasons, Gao Yang had adjusted his plan to get stronger.

1. The Aegean Sea is named aiqin in Mandarin, which is pronounced very similarly to aiqing, romantic love. ☜

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