Chapter 117: The Transparent Black
Between platinum and diamond lies a high peak. Many scholars believe that once one breaks through platinum, life will undergo a qualitative change, and lifespan will be extended. As long as one doesn’t fight all the time, living for a century or two is not a problem.
From Ji Ma’s perspective, the latter part of this statement may not always hold true and is related to various factors like race. However, the first half, especially the description of “high peak,” is incredibly correct and objective.
Too many people have died crashing into this barrier; some died from taking drugs, some from old age, and others from their own frustrations—many geniuses cannot accept that they have had a smooth life only to be stuck in the cruel reality of platinum.
For the vast majority, without miraculous encounters or divine favors, there are only two possible outcomes: a lifetime at platinum or the struggle to level up, ultimately meeting a tragic end as extraordinary items, thus lowering the price of extraordinary items.
Even someone like Ji Ma, who had an advantage, felt a headache at the thought of this barrier, as if returning to the age of college entrance exams.
“Slowly but surely, at least I have a system that can help me explore the correct path for leveling up, unlike a certain genius who doesn’t cherish his diamond strength and opts to downgrade by attacking sneakily.”
“When I finally level up to diamond, I will be completely free, without worrying about being poked by a righteous person holding a holy sword. How can I fight back or even escape?”
After mentally preparing herself, Ji Ma felt much better.
She continued to think, conjured a pen and paper, and wrote the words “others.”
Assuming that the exploration path for leveling up is correct, causing psychological pain to others could lead to further upgrades. Then the question arises: is there a limitation on the object of “others”?
She had tried using death to torment the beastmen she encountered on the road, but the effectiveness was poor; to put it simply, the experience gained was dwindling.
Ji Ma crossed out “beastmen.”
“Perhaps death doesn’t work?”
But then she thought of how she had arranged for Akarnis to mingle among the greenskins a few days prior, contributing significantly to stopping the green tide, and countless greenskins were heartbroken for not being able to have a good fight.
The pain of the greenskins contributed greatly to Ji Ma’s leveling up; one could say that her happiness was built on their suffering.
Ji Ma opened her personal system and saw a line of wonderful text in the information bar, which she had read for the sixth time since the end of the green tide.
“DM: Congratulations, you have made great progress on the path of mastering the pain of the wailing banshee.”
But besides that, there was nothing new. No new skills, and her abilities hadn’t been enhanced. Ji Ma had initially thought that after accomplishing such a significant task, she would at least gain full mastery of the banshee’s extraordinary abilities.
Ji Ma wrote on the paper:
“Experience bar too long?”
“Or is experience too little?”
She also wrote down a hypothesis: “Maybe there’s not enough participation, or maybe this is a war, and death can provide too little.”
After thinking, she wrote another hypothesis: “Perhaps the greenskins are happy even unto death.”
The questions kept piling up, a chaotic mess.
Ji Ma gave her head a light tap and shifted her gaze to the words “others.”
“Since using various monsters as subjects yields poor results, how about changing to humans?”
A flash of inspiration struck her as she recalled the good deeds of many succubi in history, who had stirred chaos in courts, instigated heroes to kill their own parents, and seduced the ruling class to issue inhumane laws… Among them, even the most harmless of succubi had led their suitors to slaughter each other, resulting in devastating losses for the nation’s elite, almost leading to its destruction.
Without exception. Even a rare succubus who merely wanted to hide away from the world and enjoy love ultimately chose to abandon love and emerge to cause social chaos.
“They all share a common trait of being very powerful, likely reaching the platinum stage like me, yet stuck before this barrier.”
“And they all chose to bring disaster to society, even if they had already had children with heroes or had happy families…”
“Because this is a requirement for leveling up.”
After murmuring this to herself, Ji Ma wrote the word “evil” on the paper. The essence of “evil” is simply self-serving harm to others, which is why succubi are universally recognized as evil beings.
In front of the options of “slowly aging and losing beauty” and “remaining youthful and achieving immortality,” the naturally beautiful succubi would choose the latter, using the suffering of others to nourish their own beauty, no matter how reluctant those succubi might be.
Ji Ma felt no psychological burden, after all, she believed, why should I care about others’ lives?
In fact, after reaching this conclusion, Ji Ma immediately thought of numerous ways to wreak extreme havoc on society.
Aren’t I good at alchemy? Then why not produce large batches of poison to harm the common people, and afterward disguise myself as someone from the Holy Hall, tricking those people into drinking my antidote? Those antidotes can counteract the poison, costing only the price of giving birth to deformed children, which would cause the parents a lifetime of pain.
As this thought jumped into her mind, Ji Ma felt a pang in her chest, imagining George would stab her with a sword without hesitation, leaving her feeling cold inside.
Moreover, things could easily escalate and become impossible to hide.
Forget it, forget it, George would kill.
Ji Ma quickly dismissed various thoughts, such as cursing farmland to summon diseases and droughts, or using rumors, curses, and poisons to make faithful lovers turn against each other, leading to family breakdowns…
“In that case, I could only target one or two people, inflicting pain on them, and I’d have to keep enough distance from George,” Ji Ma muttered to herself. “When the emperor holds a celebration banquet, I’ll seek a pardon from him, so I can search for prey within the empire without worries, far away from George. No matter how clever he is, he won’t notice my wrongdoing.”
What if he does find out?
This unwelcomed hypothesis alarmed Ji Ma.
By merely having a glimmer of thought, she could foresee the consequences. This behavior would surely cross George’s bottom line. He would definitely sever ties with her, viewing it as the greatest shame of his life. He would swear to chase her down forever and seek to cleanse his shame through her death.
That’s truly terrifying.
“Or…,” Ji Ma struggled to utter two words, “forget it.”
Ji Ma sighed, tapping her fingers on the table: “George, oh George, how nice it would be if you fell.”
Feeling troubled, Ji Ma wrote a line on the paper: “I must find a method to upgrade that can cause pain to others without crossing George’s bottom line.”
She threw down her pen and reclined back in the chair, muttering to herself: “What’s the difference between this and a product manager seeking ‘transparent black’?”
Lying in her computer chair, Ji Ma couldn’t think of any good ideas, pushed off the ground with her feet, sending the computer chair rolling about:
“Any good methods? Any good methods?”
“Bang.”
As expected, the chair back crashed into the bookshelf, causing a book to fall off the shelf.
Ji Ma reached out to catch it and opened it to find her own little erotic story.
As a succubus, it’s perfectly normal to have a strong physiological demand; only real weapons can truly satisfy it, while using toys merely alleviates it.
To improve the efficiency of using toys, Ji Ma liked to ease her needs while fully engaging her brain, writing various inappropriate and unsuitable little erotic stories on paper. Some contained as few as sixty words, while others had as many as three thousand words; the longer she wrote, the more words she produced.
Ji Ma flipped through from the beginning to the end. The number of words in the little stories increased towards the end, before suddenly dropping at a certain moment.
She casually looked at her work, discovering that nearly half of it was in the first-person perspective of a “minotaur.” The story involved a minotaur going around to “test” the levels of pure love among beautiful girls of various races, but inevitably, they all succumbed to their desires and betrayed their partners. After lamenting the absence of true love in the world, the minotaur tirelessly continued to seek beautiful girls to test for pure love.
Ji Ma was engrossed, unconsciously crossing her legs and gently rubbing them, her tail perking up.
“This story is great. ‘I’ on their wedding night, along with the bride of the tortured one and his sister, discuss life’s meanings in the tortured one’s wedding room.”
Ji Ma looked at the chaotic jumble of text on the paper, “Meanwhile, the tortured one is helpless, paralyzed by his sister who has secretly administered a numbing drug, forced to lie on the floor while I discuss the meaning of life with his sister and his wife.”
Just as the most exciting part of the plot was about to unfold, the story abruptly stopped.
Ji Ma flipped to a blank page, “At this time, I must have been overwhelmed, hence I didn’t continue writing. This kind of writing that doesn’t require buildup, that doesn’t require thinking about transitions, but just capturing inspiration, is truly refreshing. If writing novels could be like this, that would be wonderful.”
Returning to the real world from the comfortable realm of novels, Ji Ma felt a wave of emptiness and a headache, pondering how to create this “transparent black.”
Suddenly, an idea flashed into her mind.
“As long as I turn the stories in this book into reality and make others the tortured ones, wouldn’t that work?”
The next second, she immediately negated that thought: “I don’t need to turn reality into reality; just make it a dream!”
“Just like what I did to that greedy Litice.”
“Even if George finds out, he wouldn’t do much to me; at most, he’d spank me. Hmph, as long as this method works, what does it matter if he pokes me with a holy sword? I know I was wrong, but I won’t change.”
With her thoughts opened up, Ji Ma’s wicked inspirations flowed endlessly.
“That’s great; the only downside is that I can only distort one person’s dream at a time, accumulating pain bit by bit. I don’t know how long it will take.”
Ji Ma picked up the book, the Chinese characters on it appearing like a swarm of electrified beings dancing in her hands.
Words, how magnificent an invention! A sentence shouted out can be heard by at most ten thousand people, but inscribed on bamboo slips, it can be seen by ten million and can last through the ages.
The corners of Ji Ma’s mouth curled up as she let out a burst of wicked laughter: “Hehehe.”
“Can’t I just write a novel? Set the protagonist as the tortured one; isn’t that just green hat literature? Although I’ve never written green hat literature, well… I’ve seen enough of it.”
As a seasoned bookworm who started reading online literature in middle school, Ji Ma was no stranger to warfare in the literary world.
Many online authors often chased depth, and once they got lost in being literary, they would strike the keyboard, turning their stories into pieces where the protagonist dons a green hat, naming it as deep literature.
It seems that the more stimulating the reader’s experience, the more grotesque the content they serve, the more they can differentiate their work from the numerous vulgar stories, aspiring to create profound literature.
Recalling various unpleasant memories, Ji Ma increasingly felt that this filth shouldn’t be tasted by just her; it should be shared with everyone.
At that time, she could write a refreshing story to gather popularity, and suddenly shift gears, much like how Jin Yong crafted a “Dragon Knight” character, to give the protagonist a green hat, certainly ensuring many people would feel heart-wrenched.
“Ha, the green emperor of the old world, I’m sure of it!”
