The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 1212

Chapter 1210: Eivass’s Plan

As the garbled text before Eivass’s eyes gradually dispersed, the shimmering words finally stabilized:
[Mother of Amber (Golden): Amber once died in the dream of the past, and was born in the future.]
After flickering a few more times, “future” changed to “present,” and finally settled on “the near future.”
Eivass clearly felt a vibrant pulse from his right eye—like a beating blood vessel, the eyeball twitched violently. It felt like exhaustion from overuse.
He couldn’t help but cover his right eye.
The moment his right eye closed, the stagnant world resumed its operation.
In an instant, Adler turned to ashes and disappeared.
Along with the rain of fire falling from the sky, the burning houses, the giant crimson fireball in the sky like a second sun, and the vortex of flames surrounding it, all vanished in an instant.
As if a miracle had descended… the cloudless sky turned a clear azure blue once more.
At that moment, Eivass felt his right eye no longer hurt or pulsed abnormally.
He looked back at the colored stained-glass wall of the outer layer of the shrine, slowly moving his hand away from his right eye.
Eivass’s left eye remained its usual azure blue—the eye color of Eivass when he hadn’t activated his Path Resonance. His right eye, however, had become a pupilless, dim yellow. It was like a bright piece of amber under the sun, shining with a golden radiance.
—This was the true form of the Amber Egg.
Eivass’s heart felt a sense of enlightenment, and a time emerged in his mind… just as a person on the verge of death can sense their own demise, he now clearly sensed the time of the “end.”
Only fifteen days.
Half a month…
It was now June 24th.
This meant that before July 7th, Amber would hatch from Eivass’s pupil.
This gave Eivass some new ideas.
His visit to the Ancient Kingdom of Anxi this time, besides accepting the invitation from the Lord of Holy Spring City, had another reason… he needed to capture an earth-element Great Beast. This was his last Great Sin Beast—once Eivass obtained this Great Beast and completed its breakthrough with a Heavenly Envoy Fragment, he would obtain his own second-tier profession.
Although he already knew all that the Ring Heavenly Envoy had sacrificed, and the suffering he had endured, this did not mean Eivass was willing to lay down and accept death.
To drag down the Ring Heavenly Envoy with a second Ouroboros Ring ritual, Eivass had to obtain enough power—and the best path for ability advancement was the tier-three profession after the second job change.
He didn’t necessarily need to ascend to the Seventh Tier—it mainly depended on when Eivass could gather six Heavenly Envoy Fragments. His delay in ascending wasn’t entirely due to his level not being maxed out… Eivass could theoretically max out his level with free experience. The reason he hadn’t done so was that he wanted to be a bit more greedy.
—To obtain a tier-three profession at the Sixth Tier!
This was theoretically entirely feasible. The “Shakya Lion,” a classic balanced tier-three profession of the Path of Devotion, allowed for a job change at level 50, the Sixth Tier… In fact, most professions allowed for job changes starting from the Sixth Tier. It was just that the Great Beast Master profession was released later in the game, thus requiring a higher level—this was also a conspiracy to trick players into buying level-up vouchers.
Grinding directly to level 60 was too long. When the game’s level cap was 70, a level-up voucher could directly boost players to level 60, just enough to change to the Great Beast Master profession.
Now, what Eivass wanted to change into was no longer the Great Beast Master that the Ring Heavenly Envoy had provided in the original historical trajectory, but a new profession unique to Eivass, centered around Lucifer’s Wings.
Currently, Eivass had obtained the power of the Fallen Heavenly Envoy and the Blood Heavenly Envoy. The Flame Heavenly Envoy required by the Butterfly was also descending.
And because of Adler’s death…
Although Eivass was not on the side of the Red Hand, the conflict here unexpectedly fulfilled a condition—it would lead to the Silver Crown Dragon falling to the earth.
—Is there any Heavenly Envoy Fragment more powerful than a Crown Lord?
Moreover, the Crown Lord and King of the Wild Hunt Helchin were both knights who fought against giants, and Arthur had once slayed a dragon, while Eivass himself was a dragon; Helchin’s wife was a legitimate dragon, so their compatibility should be quite good.
This way, Eivass only lacked the light-element and earth-element Heavenly Envoy Fragments, and the earth-element Great Beast itself.
Although this strategy was greedy, it was also more stable.
It was already the end of June, and the Ring Heavenly Envoy would devour Eivass on August 8th.
Eivass only had two months left to prepare—considering that Ascension Rituals could only be held at mid-month or end-of-month, Eivass would have to complete two ascensions for two Paths in the next three Ascension Rituals, which was basically impossible. And the pressure would be too great; he could not afford a single mistake, yet he had to ascend two professions at once.
But could he ascend one of them first? That was also not possible… because Eivass was unsure if the Dwarf could handle the Flame Heavenly Envoy alone. If not, he would have to go and save them… thus, Eivass’s Path balance was crucial.
If he advanced the Transcendent Path prematurely, leading to an unbalanced Path, most of his mana would be sealed due to the imbalance. Therefore, he had to wait until the Flame Heavenly Envoy was defeated before holding the Ascension Ritual—what happened to those Heavenly Envoys afterward was of no consequence.
Based on this line of thought, Eivass’s strategy was… to try and obtain at least one tier-three profession with just one ascension.
If possible, he wanted to try the Absent Seat Ritual.
His previous joint ascension with Alistair had given Eivass a taste of success. He could occupy two slots by himself to perform the Absent Seat Ritual, thus ascending two Paths simultaneously with a single success. If that were not possible, he could use the last two Ascension Rituals to advance himself to the Sixth Tier with balanced Paths… This required Eivass to deal with the Flame Heavenly Envoy before July 15th.
Another requirement was that he needed to complete the first Ouroboros Ring Ritual before August 8th—though this was not difficult. With the Father of Snakes about to achieve the feat of surpassing Amber, the world would become increasingly restless and insane. As soon as someone successfully summoned a Heavenly Envoy, others would naturally follow suit…
Eivass only hoped they could resolve the Heavenly Envoys they summoned themselves, and not have him rushing around to save them one by one.
Excluding the three Heavenly Envoys who had already descended, along with the Silver Crown Dragon and the Abyss Heavenly Envoy, there were only Heavenly Envoys for the Paths of Beauty, Wisdom, Balance, and Adaptation left. The candidates for these had basically been determined—
And if successful descent had not occurred by August, then Eivass… would have to perform the Ouroboros Ring Ritual himself.
There would probably be another chapter around one or two o’clock!