Chapter 11: A Bountiful Loot

Tang Mu experienced the all-familiar dizzying sensation of traversing through space. But due to his previous experiences, he quickly fought off the wave of vertigo and suddenly opened his eyes.

He pushed himself off the floor and realized he was back in the Celestial Gallery of the enigmatic Star God Pagoda.

Hovering around and above him were glowing starry crystals illuminating the diaphanous platform below his feet. And before his eyes was the mural painted on the tall arched slab rising from the middle of the seemingly incorporeal floor.

"I'm back... That was close." Tang Mu panted heavily.

Signs of dread and anxiety were still present on his face, and his heart was still in his throat. He couldn't readily escape the suffocating sensation the approaching enemy had imposed upon his entire being during his last few seconds in the painting world.

Moments later, Tang Mu finally regained some control of his mental faculties. He exhaled another heavy breath as he observed the mysterious mural painted on the stone slab before him.

There was no visible change in the wall painting. The savanna grassland was still the focus, and the towering mountain was in the background. Within the grasses and on the slopes, Tang Mu could see several 'seemingly normal' animals going about their own lives.

But after personally experiencing the world within the painting, he knew better than to call those animals ordinary.

The beasts depicted were not just the routine wildlife with habitats on Mother Earth but fierce monsters that had evolved into brutal fiends after countless years of exposure to high-dimensional psionic energy.

"Little Green!" He called out within his mind while trying to calm his racing heart. "I didn't see the details of the shadow that almost attacked me at the very end. What was it?"

The moment his voice sounded, the space beside him twisted and deformed. A tiny feminine humanoid being with a cute face, silky green hair, radiant skin, and wings as soft as petals appeared out of thin air.

The abnormally pretty entity floated there within the Celestial Gallery, with the lower hems of her gorgeous little rainbow princess gown concealing her legs and feet.

Her radiant green eyes were breathtaking. They formed a perfect match with the prominent green seams of her dress, allowing her to exude an angelic yet guileless aura.

"A fairy!" Tang Mu's eyes widened with surprise.

"Who are you calling a fairy?" The tiny being scoffed with her head inclined at an angle. "I'm Little Green, the all-intelligent system responsible for managing the Star God Pagoda. Do not compare me to those low-level species you call fairies."

"So, you are Little Green?" Tang Mu smiled, giving her a once-over. "You have style. You're also very elegant and pretty."

"Of course, I know," Little Green said proudly, her green eyes twinkling with a mysterious light. "Lord Father exhausted all methods at his disposal to fashion me as the most beautiful and elegant being in the multiverse. No need to get jealous."

"Oh!" Tang Mu's lips twitched at the corners after he heard such brazen narcissism. "Who's this Lord Father you're talking about?"

Little Green coughed as if wishing to clear her throat. "You're not qualified to know the answer to that question yet. Continue challenging staircase levels and more paintings of the Celestial Gallery, and you will eventually get an opportunity to resolve all your doubts."

Tang Mu nodded. "Little Green! Did you spot the terrifying shadow that almost attacked me at the very end?"

"Yes."

"What was it?"

"That was a shadow serpent. It is a creature that evolved from the king cobra species. It has power close to a peak rank-one psionic of your world. Had I not helped you, you might not have known how you died after encountering it."

"Its powers are that terrifying!" Tang Mu felt a lingering sense of fear welling up within him. "Why is the painting world at the first level this frightening? Even a true-blue official psionic would not dare challenge a peak rank one creature."

Tang Mu was a person who had read a lot about superpowered humans. He understood that peak rank one psionics were powerhouses close to unlocking their second chakra.

Such psionics had already evolved beyond human limits, and their connection with their esoteric bodies was firm and grounded by the semi-solid psionic essence in their first unlocked chakra.

Their superpowers, such as elemental attacks, were more lethal than bullets from average humans wielding guns. In fact, if a powerhouse at that level attacked Tang Mu, he wouldn't even have a one percent chance of escaping.

"You don't need to feel afraid," Little Green consoled. "With the resources from the painting dimensions, you'll soon reach such a level, especially if you diligently practice the Star God Celestial Diagram."

"That's true." Tang Mu let out a breath. He weighed his options before eventually voicing his request to Little Green, "About those two beast corpses... Could you help convert them into origin essences? I wish to use them for training and improving my powers."

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"That is easy," Little Green said. "Do you wish to use the origin essences right now?"

"Not now. I have experienced a lot in the past few hours. I wish to head back to the real world and rest first. Then, possibly tomorrow night, after properly addressing my fatigue, I can ingest the origin essence and resume training."

"That's a good plan. Let me help you handle the beast corpses before I send you back. But be reminded that I'll charge twenty percent of the total essence and evolutionary characteristics extracted as my processing fee."

"That's okay," Tang Mu readily agreed.

On hearing that, Little Green glanced at him and nodded. Without saying anything else, her green eyes twinkled, and she waved her little arm.

At that exact moment, the space before Tang Mu churned, and a rotating six-pointed star quickly appeared.

The star continued spinning, growing in momentum until it seemed to reach a threshold. Then, its whole structure exploded and exuded an intense luster that finally contracted to form a small wormhole with a radius the size of an adult human head.

Tang Mu watched, eyes widened and mouth agape, as the wormhole spat out various items. Among them were fourteen glowing red crystals and a 'seemingly incorporeal' dark rune with flickering silver radiance along its edges.

The small wormhole soon closed after completing its task. But what was surprising was that the ejected items didn't drop to the floor of the diaphanous platform of the Celestial Gallery. Instead, they hovered there beside Tang Mu, seemingly as if they were being held in place by invisible hands.

"Your luck is good!" Little Green said with a smile. "Plenty of loot still remains even after I took away my twenty percent."

"First and foremost, you have earned yourself fourteen crystals of red-tier origin essence, which you can swallow directly, one at a time. The essence will allow you to refine your body, including your genes, while pushing your powers close to the threshold of unlocking one of your chakras. You can try practicing the Star God Celestial Diagram after you ingest the crystals for better results."

"The second part of the loot is a source rune with traces of darkness and spatial attributes from the mutated cobra." Little Green pointed at the seemingly incorporeal rune hovering beside the glowing fourteen crystals.

"It is by far your greatest harvest from this adventure. It will grant you a high chance of awakening similar powers if you absorb it when unlocking your first chakra. That implies you might gain a rare ability of the darkness or spatial domain if you're lucky after breaking through to the level of a rank one psionic."

"This..." Tang Mu was at a loss for words. He wasn't disappointed. He was instead pleasantly surprised after hearing the use of the rune.

From what he understood, awakened superpowers in the darkness domain were rare and highly sought after within the Earth Federation. That was because darkness attribute psionics, like those with stealth or darkness manipulation abilities, could become the most lethal killers if the conditions were right.

As for spatial powers, Tang Mu had not been sure whether they existed until he learned about the use of the source rune before him. He had always regarded spatial manipulation as 'just a myth' that only existed in fiction.

Considering the rarity of such powers, he was sure that he would be set for life, even if he only awakened an average ability from any of the two domains.

Tang Mu let out a heavy breath to calm himself down. He glanced at Little Green and asked, "Are you sure I can increase my chances of awakening a darkness or spatial ability if I absorb this rune while unlocking my first chakra?"

"Are you doubting me?" Little Green seemed annoyed.

"Of course not. I'm just confused. Isn't the awakening of psionic powers dependent on genetics and randomness? Is it really possible to guide the direction of the awakening process to obtain a desirable ability?"

Little Green sighed and turned her gaze towards the distance with an air of an expert. "Let me educate you, young man. You can guide the awakening process to increase your chances of obtaining a superpowered ability in a given domain. However, you must fulfill two conditions to achieve success."

"Firstly, you must acquire a condensed version of the desired ability in the form of a source rune like the one before you. Secondly, you must train with an apex-level and all-encompassing meditation technique like the Star God Celestial Diagram. By combining the two conditions, you can guide the direction while unlocking a chakra, thereby increasing your chances of obtaining an ability of a desired attribute."

"But then again, the apex-level meditation techniques and the source runes are extremely rare, even when considering a scale at the multiverse level. So, the hope of guiding the awakening process has always remained an unattainable dream, even in some top-level civilizations of the multiverse."

"That also reminds me of something important," Little Green continued in a solemn tone. "You should avoid disclosing information regarding the Star God Celestial Diagram and anything associated with the source runes to another soul, including your close friends and family."

"In fact, you must not mention anything about that Star God Pagoda while outside this dimension. Otherwise, if the news were to leak, your entire race would soon face the threat of being wiped off the face of this universe. Understood?"

"I understand!" Tang Mu said. He wasn't a fool who liked courting death. He had already resolved to hide the secret of the star orb deep within his heart.

"Little Green! I still have some doubts and fears. You mentioned that the star orb often resides somewhere within my body. But what perplexes me is what happens to it when I enter this dimension contained within it."

"Isn't there a risk of its very existence exposing the secret of the Star God Pagoda in case someone chances upon it when I am in here?"

"You don't have to worry about that," Little Green assured, her tone filled with pride. "The star orb is usually hidden within the deepest layers of the void while you're inside it."

"Even celestial beings would find it hard to extend their perception into such mysterious void layers unless they command powers related to the void or space attribute."

"Additionally, the orb possesses some of the best concealment arrays in the multiverse. These add a second layer of protection, and not even true emperors can find it unless they actively search for it in a targeted small space."

"This is incredible... The star orb is that powerful!" Tang Mu couldn't mask his astonishment. "Could it be an artifact made by a certain Star God, a true-blue divine being?"

"You don't need to know this," Little Green said with a dismissive wave of her tiny hand. "Pick up your loot, and I'll send you out of the star orb."

Tang Mu nodded, and without wasting time, he stretched out his hand, ready to collect the fourteen glowing red crystals, the mysterious rune, and the meat.

But right then, he seemed to think about something, and his hands halted mid-motion. "Little Green!" He called out. "I fear that these items might bring me trouble if I keep them on me. Can I store them here? I will retrieve them when I need them."

"That's okay," Little Green said. "As an apprentice of the Star God Pagoda, you can store your loot in the orb's storage space. When you need the items, call my name, and I'll transfer them to you immediately."

"Great." Tang Mu let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks a lot, Little Green."

"No need to thank me," Little Green said. "Let me send you out. After exiting, don't forget to practice the Star God Celestial Diagram every night."

With that said, she waved her tiny arm again. Following that, a silver starry light wrapped around Tang Mu's thin and tall physique, and it disappeared from the first platform of the Star God Pagoda's Celestial Gallery.