Ch. 79 - Manmade Flame Mountain

[Title: Manmade Flame Mountain]

Quality: Legendary

Effect:

Treasure of Flames: The Flame Mountain can produce treasures — Flame Molten Stones, with a very small chance to produce Flame Spirit Stones. (Currently owned: 1 Flame Molten Stone, 0 Flame Spirit Stones.)

Scorch: You can place any one of your subordinate creations into the Flame Mountain for flame tempering, producing a mutated variant of that creation. The new variant has a chance to gain the Samadhi True Fire attribute. (Consumes 1 Flame Molten Stone to forge.)

Suppression: Summon Flame Mountain to descend and suppress paranormal entities. (Consumes 2 Flame Spirit Stones to activate.)

Bai Wan was overjoyed when he saw the title’s description. Finally—a title worth having. 

Manmade Flame Mountain had the power to temper and refine subordinate creations. That meant he could upgrade his entire plant army—give them all Samadhi True Fire and turn each one into a little Red Boy.

And that final Suppression ability sounded even more terrifying. He could actually summon Flame Mountain itself to crush enemies.

Good grief… is this the Five Finger Mountain? Though the Five Finger Mountain didn’t come with Samadhi True Fire. If this fiery mountain came crashing down on a paranormal, very few would survive it. Not bad at all. Another method to completely wreck a dungeon.

The only drawback—summoning the Flame Mountain for suppression required two Flame Spirit Stones, which were clearly rare, since the title explicitly said they only dropped at very low probability. Still… he could always save them up. That would give him one hell of a trump card for survival.

This title was seriously vicious, worthy of its Legendary grade. And honestly, who else but Bai Wan could even obtain it? After all, who else could manage to create a Flame Mountain in the middle of a dungeon?

This was yet another absurdly overpowered title born from a bug.

Next, Bai Wan checked the Nuker of the Haunted Campus title.

[Nuker of the Haunted Campus]

Quality : Epic

Effect: When fighting school-type paranormal entities, automatically radiates an invisible aura of authority, drastically weakening their power while increasing your own.

“So… a suppression boost against school-type ghosts? Not bad,” Bai Wan said, already itching to try it out against a campus ghost.

Then came the next surprise.

[Ding! Congratulations, player “Family”, for unlocking the Special Skill Book!]

First-time unlock bonus: 1 Rare Special Skill Recipe.

The skill book records all special skills you can learn. To acquire a special skill, you must gather rare special materials and spend skill points to learn it.

Special skill?

Bai Wan opened the book curiously. The first page was entirely covered in question marks, except for one recipe visible—clearly the bonus the system had just given him.

When he saw the special skill, his eyes lit up.

[Special Skill: Writing One’s Life]

Level: 1

Effect: You can assign a background setting to any character, with a probability of influencing that character’s decisions. The simpler and more reasonable the setting, the higher the chance of success. You may forcibly increase the success rate, but doing so will lower the success chance of all other settings in the current dungeon.

Level 2: Upon upgrading to Level 2, you gain preliminary ability to create NPCs.

Bai Wan’s eyes sparkled—this was a gem. He could create NPCs and assign them entries? That was pretty damn strong.

For example, say there’s a terrifying “widow” ghost in a dungeon, driven mad by betrayal from a man. Couldn’t he just create an NPC husband for her? She’d be completely baffled.

Adding relationships to existing ghosts or characters, or conjuring an NPC from scratch—the possibilities were endless. If he created just the right NPCs… maybe he could even break a dungeon outright.

This was one special skill he absolutely had to get.

Then he checked the unlock requirements.

[Requirements: 1 Skill Point + Writer’s Notebook]

Skill points were easy to get. His gaze shifted to the other required item—Writer’s Notebook. It was marked in regal purple, clearly a rare material.

The note read: [Epic Quest Item — Found in the “Stay” dungeon. Only drops upon perfect clear of the “Stay Behind” dungeon.]

Writer’s Notebook… from “Stay Behind”?

Wait a minute—Stay Behind? Wasn’t that the special, unsolvable dungeon his captain had mentioned before?

Bai Wan froze. According to his captain, no one had ever successfully left that dungeon after entering. But no one had died either. It was…a very strange dungeon.

Supposedly, it was a special limited dungeon that had since been closed off entirely—no entry possible.

This was troublesome. If it were any other dungeon, he’d try for it no matter how difficult. But this one was rare and time-limited, only accessible during a specific window—and by now, it was said to be permanently offline.

So what now? I still really want the ability to create NPCs.

Frowning, Bai Wan picked up his phone and called Zhou Lu. 

When Zhou Lu answered, he was instantly on guard:

“…Orphan?”

Bai Wan: “…!” 

Oh? So we’re matching secret passcodes now?

“…Yeah, I’m an orphan.”

Only then did Zhou Lu relax.

“Ah, it’s Lil’ Wan. You cleared the dungeon, nice work. What’s up?”

Bai Wan explained about the “Stay Behind” dungeon.

Zhou Lu sighed regretfully. “That was a special limited dungeon. It was only open for three months before disappearing completely—offline forever. A lot of players said it held incredible rewards. Looks like you need materials from it? Figures it’d have good stuff. But no one can enter anymore.”

With the confirmation, Bai Wan couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.

Zhou Lu added, “You could try texting the Doctor. Maybe he’ll think of something.”

Bai Wan nodded, hung up, and sent Dr. Fang a message asking if there was any way to enter a shut-down dungeon.

The Doctor seemed busy and didn’t reply right away.

Bai Wan shook his head helplessly, unsure if Dr. Fang had any good way to enter a dungeon that had already gone offline.

For now, he’d have to shelve this rare special skill, Writing One’s Life, and wait for the Doctor’s reply.

Those rewards just now were supposed to be Bai Wan’s entire haul this run. He was planning to flop onto his bed and take a break—only for the system to chime again.

[Based on your passive skill “Bug Abuser,” you may choose one bug skill to retain. Currently available bug skill to retain: White Hair Descends.]

A question mark practically floated above Bai Wan’s head.

Huh? What the hell??? White Hair Descends??? Wait—that White Hair Descends? Seriously? That’s ridiculous. 

Sure, he’d triggered that bug in the haunted campus, but he hadn’t gotten any notification that he’d acquired the ability. Was it because it didn’t originally belong to him, so there was no prompt?

Curious, Bai Wan opened the details for White Hair Descends.

[White Hair Descends]

Description: Exclusive skill of Su Yuening. Her white hair mutates to gain ghost-suppressing power. As her proficiency grows, she can branch into various abilities. Its potential is limitless.

Note: Since this bug belongs to another person, the player cannot use it themselves. However, it can be purchased for retention, creating a skill card to give the original owner.

Price: 500 Paranormal Coins.

Bai Wan blinked.

This is a thing? You could… transfer skills to someone else? And the price—500 Paranormal Coins. That’s pretty steep.

Which meant the skill’s potential must be high. Even his “Door Vanishing” ability wasn’t valued that high.

But Bai Wan was filthy rich now. A mere 500 coins was nothing.

Su Yuening had given him the Blood-Seal Tag before, and he’d never repaid her. Back in The Letter dungeon, he’d said he’d get her something good but never decided on what. This seemed perfect.

He spent the coins, and a skill card materialized in his hand. The card’s cover depicted the haunted campus bug—Su Yuening unleashing White Hair Descends.

“Not bad. The white-haired weirdo will definitely love this,” Bai Wan said with a satisfied smile, sending her a private WeChat message: 

[Hey? You’re out of the dungeon, right? I’ve got a gift for you.]

Her reply came quickly.

[Oh? For me? No need. We’re done here.]

[????]

[You really don’t want to reconsider? It’s a very good gift.]

[Thanks, Bai Wan. You’re a good person. So… could you let me off the hook? I’m just an ordinary girl who wants to live a healthy, peaceful life…]

Bai Wan felt a little guilty at her pitiful tone.

Ahem. Was it really that serious? So he took her into an unsolvable dungeon once, and almost destroyed another dungeon in the process… big deal.

Even if she didn’t want it, Bai Wan couldn’t use White Hair Descends himself anyway. So he pressed on:

[This is made especially for you. No one else can use it.]

After a long pause, she replied:

[Really? Made just for me?]

[Couldn’t be more true. Tailor-made for you.]

Another short silence.

[…Then… are you coming to work tomorrow? If you are, you can drop by.]

[Alright, alright, I’ll bring it to you tomorrow!]

Relieved that his best friend hadn’t abandoned him, Bai Wan smiled.

Good. Tomorrow I’d deliver White Hair Descends to the white-haired weirdo as a peace offering. She’s bound to like it.

…

Just then, Captain Zhou Lu messaged him.

[Lil’ Wan, swing by the branch tomorrow. I’ve got news on the Five-Ghost ingredients you asked for.]

Bai Wan replied immediately: [Got it, Captain. I’ll be there.]

Earlier, for the Five Ghosts Descend recipe, he’d asked Zhou Lu to help gather the ingredients. 

Sure enough, his captain was reliable—news came fast.  With the ingredients, he’d be able to borrow the Five Ghosts from the Warden, giving him another trump card.

He’d need every edge he could get for the Desolate Village dungeon as its difficulty was infamous, the graveyard of many prodigies—he had to go in fully armed. He must obtain the Craftsman profession and information on the Ghostsmith.

Then a thought struck him—the Warden of the Underworld. If he borrowed its Five Ghosts, would the Warden appear? 

That crazy Paranormal Doctor had been trying to capture the Warden in Hell’s Visitor…Maybe he could mention his recipe to the Doctor. If his dish could lure out the Warden, the Doctor wouldn’t have to risk Hell’s Visitor. Bai Wan wouldn’t mind helping. After all, the Doctor had helped him a lot—he’d even given him a Special Awakening Crystal.

Bai Wan wasn’t the kind of person without a conscience. Well… and there was the tiny matter of still needing the Doctor to fix his awakened skill. He couldn’t just keep dying from his own skill every time.

Still… the whole “capture the Warden” idea didn’t exactly sound practical. Hopefully that mad scientist was just joking… though somehow, Bai Wan doubted it.

In his mind, he pictured the crazed Doctor who had told him to blow up a dungeon for “research.” If it was him, he might actually be serious about trying to capture a Warden from the Underworld.

Phew…

Bai Wan shook his head. No point overthinking it.

First, he had to survive the Desolate Village. Get stronger.

His eyes fell on the Flame Mountain title.

Which plant… should I throw into the Flame Mountain for enhancement?

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