The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 334

Chapter 335
Gold Tier Slot!
“Hey, Twin Mirror, are you doing this on purpose!”
“There were so many cool scenes of me this time, why did you only capture this one screenshot…”
Eivass couldn’t help but complain, “This settlement screen is too ridiculous…”
“It looks like I won a New Moon Ritual by coasting…”
But he didn’t have time to dwell on it, as the settlement results were already out:
[Special Victory “Secret Reflection” Completed]
[Mandatory Mission Unfinished]
[Find Companions: First find all companions (Unfinished)]
[Maintain Stealth: Until the very end, do not let anyone discover your true identity (Points: 500)]
[Grifter’s Useless Slaughter: Kill other companions (Points: 400)]
[Grifter’s False Disguise: Successfully hide your identity as a grifter from companions (Points: 500)]
[Successful Plan: Escape from Crescent Moon Manor through the secret tunnel (Points: 1000)]
[Instinct of Betrayal: Sabotage the jailbreak plan (Points: 1000)]
[Charming Aura: Successfully adopted by someone (Points: 1000)]
[Talent of Master Slaying: Slay your master (Points: 2000)]
[Number of Survivors is three, failed to trigger “Twin Victory” failure condition]
[Total Points 6400, Rank 1]
As usual, the Pillar God should have appeared and bestowed blessings.
However, Twin Mirror did not appear. Or rather, it appeared in another form—
The next moment, Eivass’s entire world seemed to transform into a mirror.
Suddenly, a scene appeared before his eyes.
The past dozen hours he had experienced, from a third-person perspective, with time rapidly rewinding, flashed before him, and the speed of the rewind was getting faster and faster—
Initially, Eivass could still clearly see the expression of the Shadow Demon when it spoke to him, but soon the remaining parts turned into a blur of afterimages. Even with intense concentration, only a few frames of the footage could be preserved by his consciousness.
Then, it began to slow down again. Like a train gradually braking and slowing down.
—Finally, the entire camera view froze to the moment before Eivass woke up.
He saw Number 14 sleeping peacefully on the bed, wearing a white nightgown. Her chest could be seen rising and falling rhythmically, accompanied by light and soothing breaths, her lips slightly parted.
The camera shot down from above, capturing the girl’s face, as if hovering over the girl and looking down at her sleeping posture.
But just then, the girl’s eyes suddenly opened, and she made eye contact with Eivass, who was outside the camera’s view.
She revealed a playful smile, extended her hands, as if asking for a hug… or like Eivass’s earlier action of extending his hands towards the bat in the spiderweb while lying in bed…
The only difference was that she actually hugged Eivass.
It was as if Eivass was truly there, admiring her sleeping face—Eivass truly felt himself being embraced by a pair of slender and soft arms. He also felt the girl gently kiss his forehead, and felt a soft and warm touch on his forehead.
Eivass was startled, and subconsciously reached out to push the girl away.
But when he reached out, he directly touched an invisible mirror. He couldn’t touch the girl at all, and the girl had never hugged him. It was as if everything Eivass had felt before was an illusion.
The next moment, the mirror shattered before him.
Three heavy humming sounds echoed in Eivass’s ears. In the dim, dark world, the shattered mirror condensed into three purple lights, shining and overflowing together—
[Metamorphosis (Purple): When you attempt to disguise yourself as someone else, you automatically gain the “Illusionary Veil” effect; all illusions you cast are harder to discern.]
[Mind Whisper (Purple): The priority of your charming, illusion, and command spells that contain verbal components is increased by 1.]
…
Eivass didn’t even have time to read the description of the slots.
His mind was completely shaken by what had just happened.
“Is this… Twin Mirror?”
It was then that Eivass suddenly realized that everything had merely been reflections in a mirror from the very beginning.
…But what about the real touch he had felt?
Yet when he tried to touch, it was completely a mirror…
Which side was real, and which side was fake?
As Eivass was lost in thought, a strange phenomenon suddenly appeared before him:
Among the three purple lights, the one that had not yet flipped over began to vibrate violently.
It let out a fierce humming sound, as if something was trying to break out of it—
The next moment, the purple light shattered.
Brighter golden radiance burst forth!
[Pillar God’s Grace—]
[Twin Mirror has promoted one of your slots.]
[Illusory Blood – Child of the Moon (Gold): You can now switch your race to Child of the Moon through a ritual. This is an undetectable disguise.]
“This is what you wanted.”
A low voice whispered into Eivass’s ear.
It was as ethereal as the wind, as gentle as water. Yet it felt like a hallucination, as if it had never existed.
“This is—!”
Eivass’s eyes widened.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with this slot—on the contrary, he was very familiar with it.
But this wasn’t a slot that could be obtained from a Transcendent Path profession.
Or rather, all three of these slots should have come from The Path of Beauty.
It was outrageous.
“This really is a sponsored broadcast from Twin Mirror…”
Regarding the “Metamorphosis” slot, the latter effect is actually more useful than the former. Its effect is to allow illusions to roll twice and take the higher result when resisting, meaning it provides an advantage in opposing saves. The former effect seems more like an add-on in the game… but in reality, the former effect is more useful.
The specific effect is like that of Kaito Kid—one can quickly change their appearance as long as they disengage from combat and aren’t observed by others.
This is indeed a useful ability, yet Eivass has no illusion abilities at all.
“Mind Whisper” is even simpler and more direct—it increases the priority of all charming spells from Path of Love, illusion spells from The Path of Beauty, and command spells from Path of Authority that contain verbal components by one. It can be said that the shorter the slot description, the more valuable it is.
But the problem remains the same.
If this were an Extraordinary from The Path of Beauty, they would be very worried about which of these two to choose. And if it were an Extraordinary who multiclassed into all three paths, their combat power would immediately leap to a new level after obtaining this slot.
However, Eivass wouldn’t have to worry.
—Because he doesn’t cast illusions!
He doesn’t cast illusions, doesn’t charm, and currently has no interest in multiclassing into Law Master—in other words, Eivass can’t even benefit from one of these three effects.
He simply couldn’t choose them.
And he couldn’t choose these two purple slots.
Because this time, a gold slot appeared—
—You have a frame, and you don’t want it? You have gold, and you don’t want to pick it?
Normally, a level two to three Ascension wouldn’t produce a gold slot; it would at least require a level three to four specialization dungeon.
Although a two-to-three Ascension has a theoretical possibility, it is only theoretical. A New Moon Ritual has a higher chance of obtaining high-rated skills than a Full Moon Ritual, but at most, you can get a purple slot with a lower score.
For example, Lily.
Lily is on the Path of Adaptation, so her missions are definitely related to adaptation, assassination, and identity concealment. But due to time constraints, her missions were not all completed, so her points couldn’t be too high.
But even so, she would likely obtain two purple slots or more. Possibly even three purple slots.
This is the drop rate of a New Moon Ritual.
Although the probability of dropping appears to be only twice that of a Full Moon Ritual, if you can clear it, it’s more than twice. This is because a New Moon Ritual has almost no puzzle or exploration elements, which makes the missions relatively easier to complete. And it’s easy to complete many missions during the clearing process.
However, to get a gold slot, a special situation is required.
It’s like in a gacha game, where there’s a “draw an SR, but a golden animation turns it into an SSR”—triggering this golden animation probability is the only way to obtain a gold slot.
—That is, “Pillar God’s Grace.”
Under normal circumstances, Ascension Rituals with too low a level wouldn’t even have Pillar Gods observing. But this is not absolute.
If a Pillar God approves of an Ascender, as long as they successfully clear the dungeon, even if their points aren’t the highest, the Pillar God will instantly upgrade one of their slots.
Blue becomes purple, purple becomes gold. This power is provided by the Pillar God themselves, which is also a form of blessing—like the mark bestowed upon Eivass by the Silver Crown Dragon.
A slot obtained through “Pillar God’s Grace” must belong to the path of the Pillar God who promoted the slot.
For example, the slot Eivass obtained belongs to The Path of Beauty as a special slot.
This “undetectable disguise” is a real illusion.
Its effect is very simple.
It’s equivalent to gaining the racial characteristics, racial abilities, and innate spells of the corresponding race. This disguise cannot be dispelled, cannot be seen through, and cannot even be detected by Law Spells.
It can only be broken when it suffers damage exceeding half of its maximum HP, or when struck by a blunt object.
This includes the Child of the Moon’s ability to transform into a bat, as well as the “Charm” innate ability.
In addition, the Child of the Moon has a trait that Eivass currently needs the most.
That is, the Child of the Moon’s Mana Pool is forcibly set to Wind, Earth, and Dark—and the amount of this Mana Pool is the sum of Eivass’s existing Mana Pool.
In other words, if Eivass switches to Child of the Moon form, it’s equivalent to adding up all his existing Mana Pools and dividing them equally into three parts—he will then obtain Mana Pools corresponding to Earth and Wind attributes!
Woke up late, only at 11:30—
Don’t panic, there will still be three updates today, just a bit late!
(End of Chapter)