I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

Would you like an apple?

"want."

Then Trist saw Lu Ban take a bite of the apple and eat it with great relish.

"..."

Trist begins searching for his revolver.

"You're awake? That's great, just in time for dinner."

At that moment, Xia pushed open the door and came in, holding a plate filled with a small mountain of food.

Are you getting food for me or for yourself?

Trist thought he might as well lie back down.

"The food here is quite good, just a bit bland, but that's good, patients should eat this kind of food."

As she spoke, Xia ate a large mouthful of rice, finishing more than half of the mountain of food on her plate.

"How long have I slept?"

"Drizzt asked."

"One day is a very fast recovery rate for the erosion caused by pollution."

Xia replied, and finished a chicken leg in three seconds.

"The mission is complete?"

He checked his system interface and confirmed that the mission was indeed completed and was ready to be settled at any time—a state in which Lu Ban and Xi Ya could return at any time.

"Congratulations! You are now a renowned detective in the ruined city. You single-handedly solved the Glass Flower case, while the godfather of the Catania family was murdered by his adopted son. You defeated the monster, but failed to capture the adopted son."

Lu Ban handed the newspaper to Trist.

"I don't want to do it again."

Trist felt that his body was indeed undergoing some changes, but he didn't know whether they were for the better or the worse.

"Since you're alright, we should leave now."

Xia licked the last crumbs off the plate and put it down.

"You can ask the nurse to get you food later, or you can go get it yourself."

"You can keep this."

Lu Ban placed something on the table of Trist's bedside table, then stood up.

The two companions then vanished as if they had never been there.

Trist picked up what Lu Ban had given him and examined it carefully in his palm.

It was a pendant with an unidentified flower design. The pendant was made of glass, and there seemed to be a bit of gray silt in the middle.

He stared at the pendant, unaware that someone was already standing outside the door.

The person knocked on the door.

"Please come in."

Trist looked over.

Chapter 420 Eyes

The hospital scenery was bleak and black and white, and Lu Ban felt that everything around him was distorting and shrinking.

He seemed to see figures in the corridor, and further away, the starving poor in the slums, the upper class still indulging in revelry, and in the center of the ruined city, in that tall tower, a woman in a form-fitting black cheongsam covered her face with a fan, revealing only her bright and beautiful eyes, and she seemed to be staring at Lu Ban.

The next moment, countless eyes appeared on Lu Ban's body.

From the fingertips to the arms, to the chest, countless eyes opened on the skin, their pupils varying, as if they came from different people or different creatures.

All eyes were devoid of emotion, staring blankly at Lu Ban.

Even Lu Ban's own eyes were fixed on himself.

A buzzing sound filled his brain, like being thrown into a giant bell and struck hundreds of times. Lu Ban felt a splitting headache. Those eyes started to dart around again, but soon, as the surrounding scenery began to converge on Lu Ban's room, those eyes closed one after another, and his skin was as good as new, as if nothing had happened.

But as Lu Ban's gaze shifted away, out of the corner of his eye, he saw another nameless eye slowly open in the corner of that skin, peering into everything.

Lu Ban couldn't be sure whether it was an illusion or reality.

In the blink of an eye, he was back in his room.

Those shadows, like eyes, flowed and formed the system's cold and indifferent words.

Congratulations on completing the task!

Settlement will now commence.

[Mission Exploration Progress: 80%]

[Task Completion Status: Amazing]

Beneath the most magnificent garments lie the ugliest filth, and in the dirtiest sewers bloom the most dazzling flowers. You have unraveled the mysteries surrounding the ruined capital, revealing the distortion and evil beneath its glamorous exterior. The dead are gone, but the living will continue to struggle. The nights in the ruined capital continue as always.

[Gained Silence Points: 63000]

[Reward Obtained: Item: Glass Flower]

Settlement complete

Art exists in many forms, but expression is the only eternal pursuit. Let's break with convention, take the unconventional path, and overturn established perceptions.

[Choose to complete career development tasks and receive career rewards]

Welcome back to the Silent Land!

"Eighty percent exploration progress...that's so low."

Lu Ban uttered a somewhat extravagant sigh.

While for many chosen ones, reaching 80% exploration progress in the [Alienation] difficulty level is already quite the limit, in Lu Ban's view, 80% exploration progress is equivalent to discovering nothing at all.

"Something's not right, why is it so low?"

Lu Ban thought for a moment. He and his friends had already discovered the murderer who killed Dr. House and figured out the origin of the mud monster. Why was their exploration progress so low?

He broadened his thinking and considered what else he hadn't done.

"Although we know that the sludge's true form is Liz's sister, named Aiou, we have never had any contact with her. Even her name was picked up by Old Cui, who resonates with the sludge. Perhaps the mission is for us to explore the case through reasonable means and ultimately deduce the existence of Aiou?"

"Although the apartment manager at Happy Home doesn't know about the twins, you can find out information about the previous manager from him, and thus obtain Ai-Ou's name?"

"The connection between these people could only be known through Old Cui's dream. Under normal circumstances, it would be very difficult to find Flora, Tucker, and Liz. Stone brought the information on the Sharp Knife Gang that day, which means they have a record. Perhaps we need to push the case further and wait for two more people to die before closing it?"

"And that woman... Hmm? Come to think of it, the bartender who broke his leg saw a similar woman near the slums. She had almost no connection to the case, but she appeared when I came back. Is there any reason for that?"

"Old Cui's dream girl, that singer, doesn't seem to be anything special. She shouldn't be involved in the mission, at least not this one."

"Ultimately, the key to solving the case is why Old Cui's dream occurred. It's like cheating; without this dream, we might have been going around in circles for days. This is the fundamental reason for the low level of investigation."

"So this is what it means that even cheating can't get you a perfect score?"

After thinking it over, Lu Ban realized that there were indeed many aspects of this mission that he hadn't figured out, so this assessment wasn't entirely unjustified.

Having earned the points, Lu Ban didn't rush to look at the next career development tasks. After all, according to his thinking, the next ones would just be some movie box office or award requirements, which were pretty much the same.

He has two pressing matters to attend to.

First, while Old Cui was unconscious, Lu Ban looted the "Crane's Cry and Ascension" from the Catania family. This was the essence of his "Last Will and Testament." Now that all three materials were gathered and he had some points, Lu Ban could choose to refine it to the next stage.

With the essence of the [Last Words], the extraordinary power of this thing is becoming more and more obvious, and Lu Ban is quite looking forward to seeing what special abilities it will have next.

Secondly, his accumulated Silent Points have exceeded 500,000, which means his shop can be upgraded and enter the next stage.

Lu Ban decided to first refine his own "last words".

He looked at his materials.

The [Lucky Amulet] from the island of He, the [Pale Heart of the Winter Wolf] from the Kingdom of Night, and the [Legend of the Crane's Ascension] from the ruined capital.

Lu Ban casually flipped through the last book, which recorded the story of how Daoist Heming ascended to immortality. It contained many dream-like ramblings and strange tales, as well as fabricated elements. After reading it, an ordinary person would probably feel dizzy and have their brain punched by something.

After placing the three items on the table, Lu Ban opened the [Last Words] panel and selected [Essence].

【Essence】

[Sublimation and Qualitative Change]

[Sacrificing resources for a miracle]

[Recommended to try]

[Required Silence Points: 200000]

[Required Material: Lucky Charm]

[Required material: The Legend of the Crane's Ascension]

[Required Material: The Pale Heart of the Winter Wolf]

Two hundred thousand Silent Points are enough to buy two and a half Small-Scale Disaster Generators. Fortunately, the effect of [Last Words] has no side effects on Lu Ban, and it has been quite useful in previous missions.

Compared to some unreliable and expensive props, this silver revolver is already a fairly excellent weapon.

It's trustworthy.

Surely we can't just fail to refine the essence and reset the enhancement to zero, right?

Looking at his +2 Prestige [Last Words], confirming his choice, Lu Ban clicked on the Essence.

Chapter 421 The Third Essence

The moment the "OK" button was clicked, the three materials immediately changed.

His pale, cold heart suddenly began to pound, resonating with Lu Ban's heartbeat. The icy chill spread to his arm, freezing his entire body.

The old, thread-bound book suddenly moved on its own without any wind, opening to several pages. The words on it seemed to come alive, jumping out of the pages and lining up to leap onto Lu Ban's body.

The words seeped into Lu Ban's frozen body, burrowed into his skin, flowed into his veins, and were etched into his bone marrow, bringing excruciating pain.