After eating and drinking his fill, Stardust finally remembered that his Spiritual Universe seemed to be a bit off.
"Where did these butterflies come from?"
Peering inward at his Stardust, he saw that the once dazzling purple Stardust had dimmed considerably—the aftereffect of Dean Xiao forcibly drawing out his magic yesterday. Even so, it was still noticeably brighter than that of an ordinary person.
While he might not have the Natural Dual Elements standard for time-travelers, it was still pretty decent, especially since Fang Zhou was a guy with a cheat code, and still technically a boy at that.
Right beside the slightly dimmed Lightning Element Stardust, a group of dreamy butterflies were fluttering gracefully—neither more nor less, exactly seven of them.
Every six seconds, these seven dreamy butterflies would automatically link together, just like connecting astral tracks, and spontaneously release a surge of the Power of Purification.
"Did it really bring over the fish's passive ability too?" Fang Zhou chuckled in spite of himself.
Then again, these seven butterflies should represent his Power of Purification, but why did they look so much like a magic element?
Could this be the Mind Element? Could it be that he actually possessed Natural Dual Elements after all? It was just that this other magic element looked a little strange; rather than resembling the Mind Element, it felt more like the power of dreams. Whose Mind Element stars were shaped like individual butterflies, anyway?!
Looking back at the Lightning Element Stardust, Fang Zhou discovered something hidden within it.
It was a small drum, wrapped in crackling arcs of lightning!
"Come out and explain." He called upon the Ark Core.
[This is the Five-Thunder Shock Drum. Obtain it to command the might of lightning.]
"I remember this thing counts as a divine artifact, but why is there only one drum? Shouldn't there be five?" Fang Zhou continued to ask.
[You can currently only withstand a single thunder drum.]
"So where did the Five-Thunder Shock Drum come from? The hero template I loaded has nothing to do with it, right?" Fang Zhou had a bold guess in mind, but he still needed to confirm it.
[Detected that you have awakened the power of lightning, and the Five-Thunder Shock Drum has automatically recognized its master.]
"Tell me honestly, is this based on my very last match? I still remember that the jungler in that game was Sikong Zhen!" Fang Zhou said.
[Loading display. The initial hero templates available for you to choose from are as follows:]
A familiar array of hero portraits appeared before Fang Zhou's eyes. Sure enough, only five were glowing—the exact five heroes used by his team in his final match from his past life.
The hero he had chosen himself was the fish, which came with its own purification, making him immune to Ding Yumian's mental manipulation.
As for the four teammates, their chosen heroes were Old Master, Sikong Zhen, Jiang Ziya, and Hou Yi.
The hero templates loaded by the Ark Core were based on the heroes' backstories. Looking at it this way, these heroes were truly one more powerful than the last:
Old Master, the strongest in the world and the peak of martial arts! Sikong Zhen, the Lightning Overlord who commands the Five-Thunder Shock Drum! Jiang Ziya, the Grand Archmage of antiquity who wields the power to deify mortals! And Hou Yi, the demigod archer and peerless marksman of the mortal realm!
"The real Ark Core shouldn't have a hero-selection mechanic, right? Tell me what other features you have." Fang Zhou raised an eyebrow, clearly realizing something.
The Ark Core in the story lore had no such function; his version felt more like a half-baked system blended with gaming features.
[Redeem and fuse hero templates to acquire corresponding abilities; requires energy to unlock.]
[Redeem in-game equipment templates; requires energy to unlock and a relevant medium to bear them.]
[Open host panel; your physical body has been partially digitized.]
That's right, the Ark Core had only these three main functions, but every single one of them was immensely powerful.
Only, the first two still required energy to unlock. What kind of energy was needed? Magic energy, or spirit and soul remnants? Fang Zhou had no way of knowing for now, but he guessed the latter was far more likely.
Wouldn't that just turn this into grinding monsters to level up?! As for the final panel, it displayed his own personal status, but this panel seemed a bit too crude, didn't it?
Host: Fang Zhou
Race: Human (Male)
Age: 15
Level: Tier 1 (1%)
Experience: 0
Gold: 0
Equipment: None
Templates: Zhuang Zhou (Old Master, Sikong Zhen, Jiang Ziya, Hou Yi)
"..."
The corner of Fang Zhou's mouth twitched. Fine, this thing certainly wasn't a system, and he could accept a minimalist style, but that whole row of zeros was genuinely disheartening.
There were also health and mana bars displayed on the panel. His health was nearly full, while his mana was a bit depleted, presumably because his spirit had not yet fully recovered.
He just didn't know how the Ark Core calculated mana. A magician casting magic consumed not only magic energy but also spiritual power; having magic energy alone was useless, much like a car with a full tank of gas whose battery was dead—it wouldn't start and couldn't move an inch.
"So that means I can inherit multiple hero templates at the same time? The fish is the default pre-selection, while the other four are unavailable because my strength is too low to bear them... Wait, why do these four still require gold coins to redeem?" Fang Zhou expressed his confusion.
Ark Core: [These four heroes can be redeemed at half-price. Because you awakened the power of lightning, the Five-Thunder Shock Drum automatically recognized its master, reducing the redemption gold coins by half again. However, you will still need to unlock the might of the Five-Thunder Shock Drum yourself.]
So this was the beginner's welfare! Otherwise, even if he awakened the Lightning Element, there was no way he could have made the Five-Thunder Shock Drum automatically recognize him as its master.
Fang Zhou looked closer. Good grief, the explicit price was 13,888 gold coins, the half-price was 6,944 gold coins, and cutting it in half again made it 3,472 gold coins. A discount on top of a discount—he loved it.
So please tell me, where do gold coins come from? Could it be that he really had to go "farm wild monsters" to drop gold coins?!
"Huh? I can even purchase hero trial cards? But why are they so expensive? They cost the same as a direct redemption, and I still need to have already redeemed the hero to use them. What kind of nonsense is this?!" Fang Zhou was dumbfounded.
[Redeem a trial card to experience a hero's full strength.]
Fang Zhou: "!!!"
Sorry, I take back what I said earlier.
Time quietly slipped away. Both Fang Zhou and Ding Yumian preferred quiet over activity, and thus they were able to endure the solitude while staying in the villa.
Of course, the main reason was that they had each other's company.
The weather gradually turned warmer, and the chirping of cicadas could already be heard from the treetops outside. Fortunately, it was only May or June, so it wasn't too annoying yet.
For Fang Zhou, time passed very quickly. Two months had already elapsed since his awakening.
During these two months, he spent day and night in meditation and control, maintaining an efficiency so high it would scare the wits out of anyone.
Because an ordinary person practicing star control could manage at most an hour a day before suffering a mental breakdown from the strain.
Look at him instead: he practiced meditation strictly by the clock during the day, insisting on exactly sixty minutes—if he went over by even half a minute, he'd consider himself a mutant—and then slept soundly at night, practicing star control in his dreams without affecting his rest and recovery at all.
What is the power of dreams? — Fang Zhou stood with his hands on his hips.
While others practiced for one hour a day, he slept for eight hours at night, which meant he practiced for an extra eight hours. You thought I was sleeping, but actually I pull all-nighters every single night to grind all of you into the dust!