Summoning and the Gate of Babylon
Time flew, especially in the Mental Hospital with Li Yifei around.
Even Zhou Meng had to admit that the guy was genuinely talented. Serving tea and water, doing laundry and sweeping floors, making beds and folding blankets, tending flowers and plants, cheering up the old lady—no, cheering up Nyx—there was nothing he wasn't good at.
At first, Zhou Meng had been in the mood to mess with him, often stealing his thoughts or his cleaning tools. But Li Yifei never fought back when hit or talked back when scolded, and he carried on without complaint.
"Tch, this kid is no fun. Isn't he a little too well-behaved?" Sitting on his bed, Zhou Meng examined his current situation.
[Ward 0] [Patient: Zhou Meng] [Divinity: God of Theft] [Traits: Petty Theft, Parasitic Doppelgänger, Ghost-Face Spatial Shift] [Current mental illness index: 99%]
As Lin Qiye used the Traits, Zhou Meng's mental illness index had been steadily declining, though his treatment was noticeably slower than Nyx's.
Ever since Li Yifei became orderly 001, he had kept Nyx company watching television, playing board games, admiring flowers, and swinging on the swing. He had made the Evernight Goddess happier than words could say, and most importantly, he fed Nyx her medicine on schedule every day.
As a result, Nyx's treatment progress shot straight up.
Although Lin Qiye had also instructed Li Yifei to keep giving Zhou Meng his medicine, it seemed to have no other effect beyond allowing Zhou Meng, after his first dose, to connect with Lin Qiye's mind and observe the outside world.
But he kept taking it anyway. What if the dose just wasn't enough?
The number of Traits Zhou Meng could steal had increased by one, bringing his current maximum capacity to two purple Traits.
Although two purple Traits were equivalent to one orange Trait, he still seemed unable to steal an orange one, and he had no way to estimate how far the index had to fall before he could.
Judging by what had happened so far, the size of the drop in the index and the increase in the number of Traits he could steal were entirely random, with no pattern to follow. But it was only a matter of time.
Given the current situation, Zhou Meng had a feeling that he would definitely be able to steal an orange Trait once the index fell to 95%.
"Brother Meng, I'm leaving for the training camp tomorrow. How has your condition been lately?" Lin Qiye stood in the Mental Hospital's activity area, chatting with Zhou Meng as he watched Li Yifei push Nyx on the swing.
"Not bad. Although I haven't been watching you all the time lately, your spiritual power has grown quickly. You've reached the limit of the Cup Realm, and, as it happens, you can now accommodate two purple Traits." Zhou Meng nodded.
At the mention of Traits, Lin Qiye suddenly became wary.
"Brother Meng, what Traits are they this time?" he asked tentatively.
"Look how scared you are. Didn't you handle that snake demon incident pretty well last time? Didn't Chen Muye even praise you for being thoughtful, bold in both thought and action, and calm in a crisis? Wasn't that all thanks to the Heavenly Voice I gave you?" Zhou Meng smiled at Lin Qiye, who was edging away.
"You only listened to the captain praising me! Why don't you tell me what he said after that? Now, whenever I try to hum a tune, everyone avoids me like I'm the god of plagues! I already gave that Trait back to you! I really am a good singer!" Lin Qiye stamped his feet in anger.
"I, a dignified Nanda Snake Demon, was actually taken down by your rendition of Borrow Five Hundred Years from Heaven. What a disgrace to snake demons!" Li Yifei muttered to himself nearby, quite ruefully.
"All right, you're pretty demanding. How about this? I'll let you choose the Traits yourself this time, all right?" Zhou Meng waved a hand to show he understood.
"Choose them myself? How?" Lin Qiye's eyes lit up.
"Right now, you have two Blue Traits, Ghost-Face Spatial Shift and Bronze Head and Iron Arms, but your capacity has reached two purple Traits. So you can first choose how you want to arrange and combine them."
Hearing this, Lin Qiye thought for a moment. Although he had become fairly proficient at using Ghost-Face Spatial Shift and Bronze Head and Iron Arms, it seemed that only by continually using new Traits could he lower Zhou Meng's mental illness index. It would be best for him to switch Traits.
"I'll take two purple ones," he answered.
"Good. Now there are several categories to choose from: attack, defense, support, and summoning. Which two do you want?" Zhou Meng continued.
"I already have Starry Night Dancer, which counts as a support ability, and Mortal Divine Realm is also a support ability. Anything but support is fine, so let's go with attack and summoning!"
Lin Qiye made his decision. The reason for choosing attack went without saying; summoning was purely a personal interest.
These should be some decent Traits this time, right? He can't possibly give me another ridiculous Trait like Extraordinary Fertility or Heavenly Voice, can he?
"Okay, wait a moment."
Zhou Meng vanished from where he stood, then instantly reappeared in the same spot.
"Brother Meng, what kind of ability is that? Can I have it? That's so cool!" Lin Qiye's eyes shone with envy at the teleportation ability.
Unlike Dark Night Flash, it wasn't nighttime, and Zhou Meng hadn't appeared in a shadow. This was genuine teleportation!
"You can't learn mine, but the principle is simple. I just stole the distance between two points. Now, these are the two Traits I'm giving you!" Zhou Meng moved his fingers, and two streaks of blue light flew out of Lin Qiye's body, followed immediately by two streaks of purple light flying in.
Lin Qiye sensed the Traits inside him. One was called [Random Summoning], and the other was called [Gate of Babylon].
"Of these two Traits, Random Summoning lets you randomly summon a creature one realm higher than yourself. As the name suggests, the creature it summons is random, so I don't know what it will be either."
"As for the other one, the Gate of Babylon, it lets you summon a large number of weapons from the treasury to attack your opponent, depending on your spiritual power," Zhou Meng explained.
"However, there are some conditions for activating these two Traits. To activate the summoning technique, you need to use a stick to prepare a Summoning Array in advance. To activate the Gate of Babylon, you must laugh out loud when you use it. The louder you laugh, the stronger its power!"
After hearing Zhou Meng's explanation, Lin Qiye relaxed a little. These two purple Traits seemed much more reliable than the previous ones.
Still, he felt that something wasn't quite right.
Is there no way to target what this summoning technique calls up? No banner like in a game, or a pity system or anything? With no idea what you might get, who would dare pull on the banner? Isn't this pure gambling? And the activation condition means I have to prepare in advance. It's a bit of a chicken rib.
The other one sounds powerful, but I have to laugh out loud? What's the logic behind that? Forget it, it's just a little embarrassing. It's good enough for a fight!
Lin Qiye decided to summon something right then and there in front of Zhou Meng to test the summoning technique's capabilities.
Following Zhou Meng's instructions, Lin Qiye drew the Summoning Array, then took a straight branch and gently tapped the array.
A brilliant light suddenly erupted from the Summoning Array.
It worked!