IRM Chapter 137

Compared to Ji Chi’s calm composure, Dominic’s expression changed drastically when he heard the little flower spirit’s demands.

That expression was very familiar to Ji Chi—it was the frustration and indignation of discovering you still needed to collect several more days’ worth of materials when a quest was just one step away from completion.

Dominic looked at the little flower spirit with a cold stare. “Are you certain these are the rewards you want?”

The little flower spirit realized she had gone too far. She swallowed hard. “……Then I’ll just take the Aurora Scale and the Rainbow Fragment. I—I’m not trying to make things difficult for you all, I really want them very much……”

She spoke until even she felt guilty, constantly glancing up at Dominic.

Seeing that Dominic’s expression still hadn’t cleared, the little flower spirit wanted to roll on the ground and wail again. Just as she was collapsing on the leaf with a miserable expression, Ji Chi stopped her in time.

He looked down at the little flower spirit, his eyes flashing with an astonishingly bright light—like disdain, and also like confidence. “One of each is enough?”

The little flower spirit was shocked by his gaze, feeling it was some kind of threat, and stammered, “Yes……one of each is sufficient.”

“Ji Chi——” Linton looked at Ji Chi with some disapproval. As an engineer, he knew better than anyone how rare these materials were. By the time they returned from collecting the materials, the little flower spirit might have already packed up and fled far away.

Ji Chi waved his hand, pretending to rummage through his magic pouch while simultaneously pulling up his game inventory and leisurely scrolling through it.

“This is an Aurora Scale that dropped from the Phantom Dragon at Yura Summit.” Ji Chi took out a palm-sized transparent scale overflowing with flowing light and placed it on the little flower spirit’s head.

“This is the Soul Fire burning in the eyes of an Abyss Skeleton Mage.” Ji Chi extracted a flickering flame and hung it beneath a lily of the valley flower at her feet.

“This is a Rainbow Fragment from the back of a lizard in the Fren Desert mining area.” Ji Chi brought out a huge rainbow-colored ore and, with a thud, dropped it beside the lily of the valley, causing the delicate, fragile flower stem to tremble violently.

The little flower spirit stared at Ji Chi dumbfounded, her small arms holding the Aurora Scale trembling as they moved.

Ji Chi smiled at her. “I’ll give you all three items anyway—otherwise if you change your mind later, that wouldn’t be very good. So is this enough now? Do you need anything else?”

Even if it’s not enough, it has to be enough…… Someone who could obtain these materials could probably make her vanish without a trace with just one finger……

The little flower spirit completely wilted. She hesitated, but still stored all three materials in a flower bud.

After doing all this, she reluctantly looked back at this habitat she had worked so hard to find, and said weakly to them, “Follow me, don’t get lost……”

She flew ahead first. The finger-sized person had a solemn expression. She seemed able to see unusual light particle trails, following an invisible line as she wound through the forest in curves, then stopped in a dense grove.

“The light particles I can see disappear here. The Light Spirits aren’t far from here, but I really don’t have the ability to find them.” The little flower spirit’s tone was quite weak, but these were all truthful words. Being able to bring them here had already offended the Light Spirits.

Ji Chi and the others didn’t pursue the matter with her, because everyone had discovered something wrong.

This dense grove looked no different from the surrounding areas—at least the naked eye couldn’t see anything unusual. But it was too quiet, without a single breath of living creature activity.

Ji Chi raised his eyebrows and walked forward lightly, reaching his hand out to probe ahead.

Smack!

A tremendous repelling force bounced his hand back. The rebound damage was blocked by his armor; his fingertips were only slightly reddened.

“It’s a barrier.” Seeing this, Dominic frowned in thought. “I recognize it. This is the light and shadow barrier that Light Spirits are best at—it can conceal the scenery within the barrier.”

Dominic stepped forward and reached out to touch the barrier. “Please give me a little time. I can silently dissolve an entrance without them discovering it.”

At the same time, inside the barrier.

“What are you all so anxious about?” A Light Spirit wearing bow and arrow earrings sat on a chair woven from vines, tilting his head to look at the middle-aged man before him. In the depths of his golden eyes was not a trace of friendliness.

The middle-aged man before him wore very familiar white sacred robes and smiled slightly at the Light Spirit. “I’m just feeling sorry for your plight. Pure, powerful, and beautiful Light Spirits—how can you live in a place like this?”

As he spoke, he imperceptibly glanced around, and his heart couldn’t help but skip a beat again.

It was hard to imagine that deep in the dense forest, there would actually be such a place. There were no living creatures at all—scorched branches, withered shrubs, cracked soil, like an abandoned burn site.

The Light Spirit followed his gaze with a sidelong glance, pulled at the corner of his mouth, and lightly touched the small golden bow on his earlobe. “If the Church has time to worry about us, you’d better manage yourselves. Casually walking into someone else’s home is really quite rude——”

The Light Spirit’s words paused. He suddenly frowned, looking toward the direction of the barrier, muttering, “What’s going on today…… Which reckless people is it this time?”

The bishop who had come to the Forest of Spirits to negotiate with the Light Spirits had just been promoted from the position of priest. He had grown up in the slums, his magical achievements were shallow, but he had a mouth that was very good at persuading hearts.

According to the original Church system, he could at most be a monk in a small church in a village or town. But since the Church had suddenly weakened, people like him suddenly received unprecedented attention and praise.

As long as he could persuade others to join the Church, power and wealth would be within easy reach.

This was practically a ladder to advancement tailored just for him.

The bishop thought about many things, then placed his gaze back on the distracted Light Spirit before him.

This Spirit was the leader of the Light Spirits. He was very vigilant. Even though the bishop had tried every means of persuasion until his mouth was dry, the Spirit maintained an unmoved appearance.

The bishop was helpless. He could only sigh, take out a scripture from his bosom, and place it before the Light Spirit. He lowered his eyes and said, “Since you have no intention of accepting our proposal, I won’t disturb you further. However, I have one small request at the end——”

“Please let your people recite this one prayer. This is the beloved deity’s favorite verse. Anyone who can silently recite it can seek free assistance from the Church.”

The bishop showed an expression of compassion for all beings. “Please don’t refuse this small gesture of goodwill.”

The Light Spirit was truly annoyed by his pestering. He glanced at the thin scripture, felt it posed no threat, and impatiently nodded, indicating his agreement.

“May the God of Light bless you.” The bishop sincerely prayed for him, bent over and stood up. Where no one could see, the corners of his mouth were expanding bizarrely——

This had been his goal from the start…… The benefits he had promised earlier, the conditions he had proposed, were all paving the way for this final step. As long as one Light Spirit began to recite that verse, everything would be worth it.

“Then we won’t disturb you further.” The bishop gently bid him farewell. Using the motion of standing up, he stole a glance at the sky overhead. He didn’t know if it was his imagination, but he always felt the sunlight overhead was getting more scorching, and the surrounding light elements were so concentrated they made him uncomfortable.

After the Church people disappeared from view, the Light Spirit propped his chin with one hand and rhythmically tapped on the withered vine with the other.

He lowered his eyes, picked up the scripture and flipped through it. Seeing those obscure and awkward words, he couldn’t help but laugh mockingly and tried to smooth out his tongue to read aloud softly. “To my holy and merciful God of Light…… I alone offer to You——”

“Boom——” A bright fireball swept past his fingertips and smashed onto the page. The exquisite scripture instantly burned to ashes, scattering through his fingers onto the Light Spirit’s lap.

The Light Spirit silently brushed off the ashes, then raised his eyes to look ahead, meeting the gaze of a group of uninvited guests.

“What? Have you also come to—save us?” The Light Spirit amusingly pinched his chin, coming up with an opening line for them.

The fireball attack that had just come had drawn the hostility of quite a few Light Spirits. They emerged from behind the bare, withered trees one by one, looking at them with unfriendly expressions.

Ji Chi withdrew his hand with an unpleasant expression, pressed his lips together and explained, “Don’t read those things. The Church has no good intentions with any of its actions.”

Actually, after Ji Chi stopped him, the Light Spirit only then discovered that there was a barely perceptible slight warmth in his chest. Without any concern, he pulled open half of his collar on the spot and looked down to observe his fair, smooth chest.

At his heart, an unformed mark was flickering on and off. Since he had stopped reciting, it slowly dimmed, and the skin on his chest returned to its natural bright white color.

The Light Spirit calmly pulled his collar back into place, looked at them again, and raised the corner of his mouth. “Then I was indeed rude. Thank you for the reminder, but……”

His eyes swept over Dominic in a circle. “How does the great Twin Spirit King have time to come here?”

The Light Spirit’s tone was very calm, unlike someone who had long harbored resentment toward the Mother Tree.

Dominic didn’t understand what the Light Spirit was thinking. He turned to look at Ji Chi—actually, he also wasn’t clear on what Ji Chi had come here to do.

It might be related to his actions under the tree at that time. That was all Dominic could guess.

Not hearing Dominic’s answer, the Light Spirit looked at Ji Chi again. This time, his gaze lingered on Ji Chi for an exceptionally long time. Suddenly, his expression froze. He abruptly stood up, his eyes trembling, containing expectation, joy, and everything related to hope.

“……God?” He seemed to be in an easily shattered dream, murmuring. But he quickly came back to his senses, his expression becoming very complex. “No, who are you? You only have half of His aura.”

Ji Chi felt this Light Spirit was quite rational, so he tentatively asked him, “The events of that year—how much do you know?”

Hearing this, the Light Spirit instantly returned to his impervious appearance. He crossed his hands in front of his chest—it was a guarded posture. “Which year? What do you want to ask?”

Ji Chi sighed and walked before him, saying softly, “Then you should be clear that He never wanted to abandon you all, right?”

He leaned close to the Light Spirit’s ear. “I made a deal with Him. Can you guess what it was?”

The Light Spirit’s eyes widened. He looked sharply at Ji Chi, anger gradually rising in his eyes. He asked through gritted teeth, “What did you do to Him?!”

Ji Chi curved his eyes and smiled. It seemed the relationship between these Elemental Spirits and the Mother Tree wasn’t as bad as the legends said. Looking at the Light Spirit’s current state, leaving the Mother Tree should have been something done out of necessity.

Ji Chi gave him a reassuring smile. “Sorry, I went too far with my test. However, the deal is real—half a divine authority in exchange for eternal freedom. I think it’s quite worthwhile, don’t you agree?”

“Who exactly are you……” the Light Spirit asked again. But this time, he tried to calm himself down. He faintly detected a certain extremely subtle aura, and his voice became slightly trembling.

“To be honest, I also don’t know how I should introduce myself to you.” Ji Chi turned his face. His Yuan Yuan now had five circular faces—it just needed the power of one more divine authority to form a complete sphere.

“However, I’m not a god who saves the world.” Ji Chi fiddled with the multicolored Yuan Yuan. “I’m just a person who rebels against fate…… I was before, I am now, and I will be in the future.”

The Light Spirit was silent for a long time. He took deep breaths, his trembling body gradually calming. He raised his eyes to look at him. “Then please follow me. I’ll take you to…… appease the power of the Light Spirits.”