Chapter 269: New Version Preview, Bai Fu’s Formidable Rival?
Dark Zone.
The Saint looked at Corona, whose hair was half gone, his whole body trembling with fury.
It had been a long time since he’d been this angry, but today he simply couldn’t hold it back.
Damn it, why could the Rebirth Empire find his hiding place again and again?
Check.
He had to get to the bottom of it!
The Saint’s first investigation targeted Corona and Rufas.
Then, he checked Kaide and the others as well, but to his disappointment, nothing abnormal was found.
Everyone was completely normal.
Even Sui Xi, who later rushed out of the Teleportation Channel with a heavily wounded body, turned out to be normal.
They bore no special marks, and nothing unusual was found in their communicators.
“All of them are fine… could the problem actually be me?”
The Saint began to question his own existence.
Forget it — for the sake of the great cause, he might as well check himself too!
The final result—
Everything was normal.
The Saint let out a sigh of relief, but the ease didn’t last long, soon replaced by the fury of having the True Spirit Pillar stolen.
Under those circumstances at the time, the chance of losing the True Spirit Pillar was actually quite high — after all, they couldn’t possibly carry it on them, because doing so would make it impossible to activate the ritual and create a Teleportation Channel to escape.
But if they didn’t carry it with them, given Sui Xi’s strength and the others’, once attacked, there was no way they could protect the True Spirit Pillar.
Still, reason was one thing — the Saint still furiously cursed Sui Xi for more than ten minutes.
Useless thing!
Trash!
If it weren’t for the fact that you can activate the True Spirit Pillar, I would have killed you right now!
Sui Xi stayed silent, without the slightest fluctuation in her emotions.
After finding an Apostle she could follow, her will was as hard as steel — a few insults were not enough to shake her.
After cursing for a while, the Saint, feeling it was pointless, began to think of ways to reclaim the True Spirit Pillar.
It was the Rebirth Empire that had attacked him, so the True Spirit Pillar was definitely in their hands.
As for dealing with the Rebirth Empire, the Apostle Holy City would be of no help in the next few years.
Since that was the case, his only choice was to turn his gaze to the Supernova Legion and Titan Industries.
“The Rebirth Empire wants to block the news — then I’ll deliberately leak the news to the Supernova Legion and Titan Industries!”
A sharp gleam flashed in the Saint’s eyes.
Back then, the Supernova Legion and Titan Industries had nearly forced him into a dead end — but times had changed, and when the benefits were great enough, he could forget all grudges.
……
On the way back to Ulysses, Bai Fu first opened the Psionic Legion planning book sent by the Empire.
After finishing her study, her Legion Bonus increased by 30%.
Next, she opened 【Frontier Knowledge: Divine Theory】.
This advanced knowledge was one of the Psionic stream’s most cutting-edge fields.
After countless predecessors’ research, the Psionic stream had so far produced a total of six cutting-edge knowledges.
Given the usual requirements of a Second Awakening Quest, Bai Fu estimated that to advance to Transcendent, she’d have to master at least three of them.
In short, one step at a time.
The upcoming main storyline quests would not be small-scale affairs — they would involve conflicts between Star Cluster-level, even Universe-level civilizations.
As long as she chose the right side, obtaining the relevant knowledge wouldn’t be difficult.
【You begin reading…】
Cutting-edge knowledge truly lived up to its name.
With her currently shallow foundation, Bai Fu still spent several full days completely digesting Divine Theory.
The difficulty of learning was high, and the gains were naturally extraordinary.
Even before her progress reached 100%, Bai Fu realized her understanding of Psionics had leapt forward.
Many problems that had once seemed obscure now made sense at a glance.
Many Prayer Cards she had previously thought perfect, she now instantly saw had room for improvement.
This change even affected Ying Fu beside her.
In Ying Fu’s eyes, a white flame invisible to the naked eye had ignited within Bai Fu’s body.
【Divine Fire Sprout (0.01%)】
When her reading progress reached 100%, Bai Fu quickly opened the game prompt and saw a new status added to her Template.
This status granted her several bonuses:
Surpassing the Peak;
Divine Metamorphosis;
Nurturing Divine Envoy;
Ethereal Power Surge.
【Surpassing the Peak】 allowed Bai Fu’s Prayer Cards to break the original +10 level cap.
As her Divine Fire Sprout progress increased, the maximum could rise to +15 — of course, for now she could only break the limit once.
But even this one step brought a 20% Stats bonus.
A 20% strength increase for a single Prayer Card was already staggering — when those Prayer Cards formed into a Legion and gained the extra Legion Bonus, the actual boost number might well more than double.
【Divine Metamorphosis】 was also a buff, but it enhanced Bai Fu’s own attributes rather than her Prayer Cards.
Each metamorphosis would bring extra bonuses, but at this stage…
“Well, whatever — I haven’t even started metamorphosing yet, so where would the bonus come from?”
Bai Fu looked at the progress bar that was still at zero and spread her hands.
The method to build progress was simple and brutal — pour XP into it, pour hard.
Fill it once and you’d trigger a Metamorphosis Quest.
Complete the quest, and you’d advance the Divine Fire Sprout’s progress and unlock a new metamorphosis bar.
Bai Fu guessed that this 【Metamorphosis Quest】 was the root cause of why most Transcendents struggled to advance — and that the Crystal Orb of Insight could tell a Transcendent how to break through this barrier to unlock a new metamorphosis.
“No wonder these NPCs fight tooth and nail over it — if I couldn’t do quests like a Player, I’d be fighting for it too.”
The effect of 【Nurturing Divine Envoy】 was powerful.
With it, Bai Fu could designate a Psionic lifeform with at least 90 Favorability toward her as her 【Divine Envoy】.
In the process, she could grant them special Psionic God bonuses.
The bonus was enormous — right now, it could let Ying Fu, not yet at Calamity-class, possess power far surpassing that of an ordinary weak Calamity.
But because Bai Fu’s Divine Fire Sprout progress was only 0.01%, at this stage she could only designate one Divine Envoy.
She’d need to raise her Divine Fire Sprout progress to increase both the slots and the bonus effects.
The good news was the slot could be changed, though there was a cooldown.
“This trait pairs perfectly with 【Bestow True Name】… I wonder if, once my strength is higher, I can take my batch of ‘Apostles’ and just kick all those real Apostles in the Ethereal Realm straight out.”
Bai Fu stroked her chin.
The divine seat turns in rotation — this year it’s my family’s turn!
【Ethereal Power Surge】 was a skill, and a big one — positioned like Dark Burn, but with a completely different effect.
Dark Burn was a single-target skill, while Ethereal Power Surge was an area skill.
It had a long activation time and high cost, so it could only be used once in a short period.
But once cast, it would briefly connect to the Ethereal Realm, drawing in a massive torrent of Psionic energy to sweep across a vast area ahead.
The instant burst of Ethereal Power Surge wasn’t as strong as Dark Burn, but if it hit for full duration, the damage would be far more terrifying.
“Nice — it can even be used to cover my escape at critical moments.”
Bai Fu was in an excellent mood.
She now understood why the Transcendent rank was split into Transcendent I and II.
She figured other stream professions had similar Divine Fire Sprout metamorphosis phases — and the bonus gap between a Transcendent who had just ignited the Divine Fire and one with high ignition progress was definitely massive.
Bai Fu poured XP to max out Ethereal Power Surge’s level.
Then, she used all remaining XP to level herself up, pushing her main class’s total level from 151 to 166 in one go.
The cost was that she was completely drained.
“Damn, not a single drop left!”
This wave of XP had been saved by crushing the Glorious Forces and squeezing five million Players.
Right now, the highest Player level was only 55, but she had already squeezed XP from them up to the S-rank tier of level 75+.
Getting such a feast again would be difficult.
She wanted to eat more, but there simply weren’t enough things for Players to funnel XP into her.
Selling advanced knowledge or skill books wasn’t like selling albums — no Player would buy extra copies just to support her.
“Tragic — in the short term I’ll have to trickle-feed.
If I want to be full on XP every day like before, I’ll either have to target Players not yet in the Silent Court, or wait for new high-reward quests to appear.”
Bai Fu sighed and opened her Attribute Panel.
【HP】: 697912/697912
【Psionic Value】: 1039503/1039503
【Qi】: 29020/29020
【Stats】: Strength 1370, Agility 1512, Constitution 2954, Intelligence 1298, Spirit 1928, Inspiration 6953
These numbers—just adorable to look at!
Bai Fu’s mood instantly improved again.
……
After returning to Ulysses, she distributed the advanced knowledge and resources she had obtained to Anya and the others, while the Repair Kit for the Virtual Heart and the Prototype Code for a Super AI were given to Xia Shi.
Once that was done, she spent most of her energy building the Mobile Palace and crafting the Divine Staff of Worship.
The rest of her energy went into controlling Hei Fu, having Hei Fu take Players around various nearby Galaxy Clusters.
Doing quests, negotiating partnerships, striking at evil forces—building up her own reputation while handing out Fu-benefits to Players.
During this time, Yulia finally completed her fusion evolution.
As Bai Fu had expected, after fusing the new fragments, Yulia jumped straight to Calamity-class, unlocking a huge array of mental-type psionic skills as well as illusion-type skills.
Battle power aside, Bai Fu was most interested in Yulia’s cat-like skill 【True Spirit Avatar】 and her psionic recovery talent 【Psionic Fountain】.
The Calamity-class True Spirit Avatar was a massive upgrade.
Just linking granted Bai Fu +100 to all attributes, and merging gave her an extra +250 Inspiration.
As for psionic recovery rate, Psionic Fountain boosted Yulia’s regeneration by a full 2000%!
“This means that when I merge with Yulia in the future, I won’t have to hold back for fear of draining her dry all at once.”
Bai Fu’s brows arched in delight.
Time flowed quietly.
After several days, the Mobile Palace and the basic version of the Divine Staff of Worship were completed.
The Mobile Palace’s performance was far better than the Silent Night, but the basic Divine Staff of Worship’s bonuses were far inferior to the Zenith Sovereign.
Still, the Divine Staff of Worship could be upgraded continuously until it became a supreme treasure of the universe—worthy of the phrase “Don’t underestimate the youth.”
Another ten or so days passed.
Version 2.2’s update was about to arrive, and the official site and community released a preview of the new version.
Logically, Version 2.2 should have followed on from Version 2.1, continuing the advancement of the 【Taim Civil War】 and the other Star Sector’s 【Dawn of the Revolutionary Army】—the two major main storylines.
Because of that, before the preview dropped, reactions toward Version 2.2 weren’t particularly intense.
But after actually watching the preview, all Players were surprised to find that this new version, called 【The Old and the New】, had quite a few unexpected developments in its story.
“New developments?”
While in seclusion grinding levels on the Path of the Apostle, Bai Fu curiously opened the official game site and began watching the new version preview from the start.
The first half of the preview held no surprises, just a normal breakdown of the factions and characters involved in the two major storylines—she even appeared in a few shots.
But from the middle onward, the situation completely changed.
In the Edge Worlds, the Three Universal Civilizations, the Ten Saints Council, the Myriad Souls Society, and the Arcane Library appeared in rapid succession.
Then came an NPC that, while unfamiliar to many Players, was by no means a stranger.
“Isn’t that Sui Xi?”
In the rest of the video, Sui Xi alone occupied a third of the runtime, and her appearance changed multiple times.
From the initial regular-clothes Sui Xi, to the Holy Robes Sui Xi wearing the robes of the Holy Blessing Cult, and finally to the Protagonist Sui Xi—wielding a staff, blessed by the Ten Saints Council, looking like a god descended to the mortal world—each form made Players stare in awe.
Good grief, now this was exotic flavor!
Instantly, a flood of Players went wild in the bullet comments.
【My wife】
【It’s the brand-new Warden!】
【Is this Sui Xi’s version? With so much screen time, even if she’s not the protagonist, she’s definitely an important character】
【If I remember right, the Ten Saints Council is a villain faction, right? A protagonist in a villain faction?】
【Who says villain factions can’t have protagonists? Even villains have their saviors! From today, I’m a Sui Xi oshi!】
Bai Fu, long accustomed to Players losing their minds, remained calm—these bullet comments were far too ordinary.
But soon she found a post in the community that was anything but ordinary.
It was posted by one of her haters.
【Wind Rises Among the Stars】
Bai Fu had seen 【Wind Rises Among the Stars】 leading hate against her more than once—on the community, on video sites, and in the comment sections of official videos.
Although repeatedly slapped in the face by Digging Princess and the game’s plot, they somehow remained unshaken, continuing to stir hate day in and day out.
Because of that tenacity, they’d become a minor celebrity, with a decent following.
This time, 【Wind Rises Among the Stars】 posted an analysis in which the first half claimed Sui Xi would become incredibly powerful and that clinging to her thigh would mean a comfortable life.
The second half used Sui Xi to step on Bai Fu, declaring that Bai Fu’s ultimate rival had arrived.
Sui Xi had a powerful background; Bai Fu didn’t have the Ten Saints Council—this was a win!
Sui Xi had more screen time in the 2.2 preview; Bai Fu had less—this was a second win!
Sui Xi was an alien, rare and mysterious; Bai Fu was an ordinary human, nothing special—this was a third win!
Sui Xi was shorter than Bai Fu, a “loli with huge X”; Bai Fu was taller and broad-shouldered—this was a fourth win!
Sui Xi had four wins, Bai Fu had four losses—this was a fifth win!
Sui Xi had five wins…
“?”
Bai Fu stared at the screen, full of question marks.
Leaving aside background and screen time, “ordinary human”? Since when was someone like her an ordinary human?
And… “loli with huge X”? Sure, Sui Xi was big, but what did that have to do with looking young? If anything, she herself looked younger and fresher, as if she could be squeezed for juice.
Even though 【Wind Rises Among the Stars】’ comparisons were basically nonsense, they still drew a large amount of Player agreement.
Mainly because Bai Fu had a lot of fans, but also a lot of haters.
The haters had never had a place to band together or gain benefits from joining a special faction like the Silent Court.
But with Sui Xi’s appearance and 【Wind Rises Among the Stars】 hyping her up, they suddenly realized that Sui Xi’s side might be the perfect place to gather.
So they flooded into 【Wind Rises Among the Stars】’ post, building the thread higher and fantasizing about Sui Xi becoming more and more powerful in future versions—eventually becoming the ultimate boss of a major version—while they, as her followers, would be more glorious than Silent Court Players.
“……”
Bai Fu scratched her head.
Nice dream, but Sui Xi is my “follower” right now…
Well, not that it’s a problem—in fact, Bai Fu thought it was a great idea.
She wasn’t the type to indulge in mean-spirited fun, but the thought of those Players’ faces when they learned about Sui Xi’s relationship with her made her want to laugh.
And the benefits of letting these Players flock to Sui Xi didn’t stop there.
First, gathering all the haters in one place made it easier to tell if they were plotting against her.
Second, she could squeeze them indirectly through Sui Xi—maybe not for XP, but for money, which was still better than nothing.
Third, when the plot reversed, quite a few of the less committed haters would probably follow Sui Xi in defecting to her side.
Black stones, white stones—if I can squeeze you, you’re a good stone!
The Go master Bai Fu closed the official site and continued grinding levels.
A few days later, when she judged the timing was right, she set off for the Empire with Anya, Yulia, and the others.