555 Searching for Hope: Part 1
Early in the morning. At the Holy Sanctum’s gate, one of the Khadulas that was tasked with sweeping the grounds was cleaning the entire area around the sanctum’s gate.
This was the place where most people go in and out of the Holy Sanctum, and it was a place Khadula insisted on cleaning it with her own hands.
*Clack.*
Something suddenly fell off from the broom, it seemed to be caught by the broom brush, and she did not notice it the first time around.
“What is that?” Khadula bent over to pick up the thing.
It was round, and a slightly flat green ball, about the size of the marbles, played by children. Within was some sort of white jelly-like substance.
Khadula was about to toss it into the bin, but as she took a few steps with the tiny green marble in her hand, she suddenly felt heat on her hand.
She looked down, and the bead was heating up.
“This thing…” She raised her eyebrows slightly and decided to clean it up before giving it to her main body.
“Might be something really interesting.”
That was because she suddenly remembered that this was the place where the Night Lord had killed the Wise King of the Astral Mere.
A moment later.
The green round bead was now in Joshua’s hands.
He had changed into his casual clothes and was ready to head off to the Holyspirit Palace.
After dealing with everything, he had to quickly absorb the God’s Speed divinity he had in his hand and stabilize his inner powers.
But Khadula suddenly ran in and handed him a strangle little object.
He looked down at the green bead and noticed the white bit within the bead was slowly writhing and flowing about.
“Something left by the Wise King? Why does it look like a Soul Relic?”
Not too long ago, the Holy Sanctum personnel had obtained information about the Soul Relic’s appearance and shape from Han Yu and Neese, and this thing looked exactly like one.
“Perhaps it might be a Soul Relic?”
He tried to squeeze it gently.
And he totally did not expect the bead to be that fragile.
*Baaammmm!!!*
Suddenly, the entire green bead exploded, as the bit of white suddenly flew out before fading away before Lin Sheng.
Soon, time seemed to have gone backward.
All of the shattered debris reformed into a small green bead not long after.
“What is this? A Sacred Vessel of Destiny?” Lin Sheng looked at the strange little object in his hand with surprise.
This possible Soul Relic had now totally become a hazy light orb glowing in green light.
Gradually, traces of unknown information flowed from the light orb into his mind.
“A communicator? A communicator that could be used in the Blacktide?” Lin Sheng’s expression was fairly relaxed at first, but the moment he understood what the information was about, his expression gradually turned serious.
*Hisss!!!*
Soon, the light orb had become smaller before fusing into his palm and disappearing altogether.
Following that, a semi-transparent chatbox suddenly appeared at the bottom corner of Lin Sheng’s peripheral vision.
“Please enter a nickname.
“Welcome to The Spectral Light.”
Nothing else.
Lin Sheng who had thought something amazing would happen continued to wait for a bit before that chatbox popped up before him.
“This thing could actually penetrate my defenses and directly fuse into my spiritual consciousness. This is some high-level stuff…” Lin Sheng was surprised.
One needed to know that he was something of a divine being that was a level stronger than the extraordinary beings, an apex being above the Magisters.
Even so, he had simply just fused with the item just like that.
That could only mean that the level of that thing should be higher than him.
“A nickname… then I’ll go with ‘Holy Light Shines Upon You'”. Lin Sheng thought, and just as the words appeared in his mind, they were automatically filled into the dialogue box, and it was even using the common Xylond script of this world.
With Sherminton’s style font…
“How kind of them…” Lin Sheng went into alert as he quickly added a whole lot of protective and isolation wards into his consciousness.
After filling in the nickname column, the dialog box disappeared.
Then a large hazy frame slowly emerged.
“Positioning Mode is damaged.
“Storage Mode is damaged.
“Welcome to… Ghersaan Spectral Light.”
After a series of subtle synthesized sounds, there was nothing.
Lin Sheng stared blankly into the large frame before him, it was not blank.
A deluge of information was flowing about like raging water within this chatbox-like frame.
“I don’t like your tone.” – Red Whale. “You can come over and give it a try. Perhaps you can kill me.” -Swordweb. “Heh, if not for the fact I cannot get a lock on your position, with your attitude I would definitely destroy your world!” – Red Whale. “If you dare to appear before me, I guarantee that you would regret even existing in this time and space.” – Swordweb. “You two could do well to talk less… do you need to be at each others’ throat that much? Won’t it be better if we are all friends instead? *smiley face* – Processed Jewel. “Shut up, Jewel!” – Red Whale.
“Heh heh” – Processed Jewel.
“Be careful Jewel might come over to swallow you alive. She might have some indigestion problem, but swallowing a couple of landmasses is no problem.” – Walking Wind. “Come then. I don’t mind two against one.” – Red Whale. “Jewel does seem to have a lock on your position. Red Whale you might want to behave.” – Walking Wind.
Lin Sheng stared blankly once again at the semi-translucent chatbox interface in his vision.
This was indeed a communicator, and a rather advanced chat room-style communicator.
But it seemed like everyone in here sounded so… almighty.
The verbal sparring within the chatbox was so heated that it took a while for it to fully calm down.
Soon, someone noticed Lin Sheng’s entry into the chatroom.
There was a participant count on the top right corner of the chatroom.
Lin Sheng glanced about, the number of participants was thirteen.
“That is to say, including me, there are thirteen people altogether.”
Just as he was hesitating, someone in the chatroom had finally mentioned him.
“Seems like we have a new member. Welcome to the Spectral Light. Let me see, You’re called Holy Light Shines Upon You?” – Giving Hope.
A new nickname that had not appeared previously, a person called Giving Hope suddenly popped out to greet Lin Sheng.
Lin Sheng froze for a moment.
“Ugh… Hello everyone. I’m a newbie here, and I don’t understand what’s going on here. Please take care of me.”
He thought for a bit as he typed in a sentence using his consciousness into the chatbox at the bottom, and clicked “Enter”.
“No worries. This communicator is broken anyway, and none of us knows each other. Fate had brought us together into this crossing of paths.”
Giving Hope sent out a smiley face. It was the smiling face of a cute pink animal.
“I’m an absolute newbie, and I have totally no idea what’s going on. Please forgive me if I misspoke or something.” Lin Sheng quickly typed a message and sent it over.
This thing gave him the same vibe of those open chatrooms with his internet friends.
“Hahaha, everyone here gets along very well. Don’t mind it. And those two big bosses arguing earlier, don’t mind it at all. They are just jousting verbally.” – Giving Hope.
“Then, can I ask a question?” Lin Sheng sent out a message.
“Newbie Questions? Sure, sure. Just ask away.” Another person, called the Purple Time popped up to respond.