Cipher walked in through the door.
Lyra opened her eyes.
"Why are you back here?" she asked.
He waved her off dismissively. "Don’t worry, I’ll be quiet. You can do your thing."
He moved next to her and lay down on the floor.
"What are you doing?" she asked in confusion.
"Sleeping," he said matter-of-factly.
"Sleeping?" she repeated.
"Yeah. I regenerate more mana while sleeping, and thus more qi. Me sleeping is actually really beneficial for both of us," he explained.
She stared at him blankly for a moment, then nodded.
"I see," she said.
And with that, he closed his eyes and instantly drifted to sleep.
Well, not really. But at his current level, he could easily force himself to sleep.
Lyra observed him for a moment before returning to her cultivation.
...
Inside Cipher’s spiritual sea, he was observing his owned cards.
He was still asleep, but that only applied to the consciousness inside his body. As for the others, they were just as active as ever.
Though the load on perceiving the spiritual sea had increased quite a bit with the loss of one consciousness. It was still manageable, so he didn’t complain.
He looked at the cheat interface. Now he could manage his skills even while taking advantage of mana regeneration to accumulate thousands of demonic qi an hour.
And before anyone asks - yes, he had tried putting the other consciousnesses in the spiritual sea to sleep. But the regeneration rates hadn’t changed. It seemed the bonus only applied when the sleeping consciousness was the one in the body.
For skills, he needed a better attack skill.
And for that, he was going to use the Commit card he had gained.
He used one of the two remaining Fork cards to duplicate Resurrection (SSS).
Seeing the number of Fork cards reduce made his heart ache, even though he wasn’t in a body. He really needed these cards.
He sighed and moved to the new duplicate skill. It was nothing special - just the same description as the original.
He then summoned the Commit card and held it in his arms.
He closed his eyes in prayer, hoping that the gacha gods would look his way just this once.
And with that, he applied the card.
[Name: Commit Card]
[Type: Code Card]
[Description: Destroys target skill completely and generates a new random skill of the same rank.]
[Note: All editions are lost in the process.]
[Congratulations! You have awakened a skill]
[Skill: Instant Death (SSS-Rank)]
...
Just the name alone shocked him.
Had the gacha gods really heard his prayer?
He quickly summoned the system. These types of skills always had some sort of catch. He needed to check if it really was as straightforward as he thought.
[Skill: Instant Death (SSS-Rank)]
[Type: Active]
[Cost: Varies]
[Description: Mark a target within line of sight. Upon activation, there is a 10% chance to instantly kill the target, provided the user possesses higher total mana than the target. Consumes mana equal to the target’s total mana capacity upon activation.]
[Note: Whether or not the instant death triggers, the mana cost is consumed per activation. The skill will not activate if insufficient mana is available.]
It was a really overpowered ability.
The way he understood it, as long as he could pay an amount equal to a target’s total mana, he could instantly kill them.
As for the 10% chance...
He activated a Seed card, instantly making it a 100% chance.
As for the mana problem - at the moment, his maximum mana was 2,050. But this was just on the surface. In reality, it was practically unlimited with how much qi he was generating, which could be used in place of mana at a 1:1 ratio.
He was getting excited.
Did this mean he could instantly kill the so-called Evil God?
The Evil God was in the Transcendent Realm. If he was following correctly, that should be the realm right after Soul Formation (SSS). The amount of mana someone at that level had was about 50,000.
Currently, he was generating 7,000 qi an hour. In half a day, as long as nothing happened, he should be able to instantly kill the Evil God.
But before he could get overly excited, he remembered something.
How could he have forgotten?
No matter how powerful a skill claimed to be, its power only applied within its rank. Since Soul Formation was SSS-Rank, then the Transcendent Realm above it was obviously out of bounds for what the skill could do.
He sighed. His hopes had all disappeared right after forming.
Still, not all was lost.
That meant he could at least take out the other SSS-Rank experts accompanying the Evil God and clear a path for the others.
Well, nine now, since Lyra had killed the Crimson Demon.
As SSS-Ranks, their mana should cap at just about 25,000 each. Multiply that by nine and you get roughly 230,000 qi.
To gain that amount of qi, he would need to sleep for 24 hours... twice.
"On second thought, maybe this idea isn’t as feasible as I thought," he reasoned.
There was no telling when the war would begin. In fact, it had probably already started in remote locations close to the Evil God’s army. There was no way he had the time to sleep for two days straight.
And even if he did, there was no telling if he could beat the Evil God with the remaining mana he’d have after that.
He sighed. This might be a dead end.
Another thing he realized - this skill was quite costly.
A peak S-Rank would have about 6,500 mana. If he was to use this skill to take care of them, he would need to spend that amount of mana every time he killed one.
Imagine he had to kill ten of them. That was almost half a day’s worth of mana.
Not to mention that he needed to have mana to feed Lyra, as her own reserves might not be enough to face the Evil God on the front lines.