The Other Patients' Entries
The entries Zhou Meng had taken were [Dark Night Flash] and [Star-Splitting Art].
They were two blue entries. Though they were not that outrageous, they would be crucial to Lin Qiye later on.
The ability of the [Dark Night Flash] entry was simple: it allowed the user to teleport in darkness or shadows, with no limit on the number of uses.
The distance depended on the user's spiritual power. With enough spiritual power, it was essentially an extra-long-range flash with no cooldown.
The [Star-Splitting Art] entry sounded outrageous, but it was really just an extremely powerful slash.
If the Evernight Goddess used it, she could of course unleash enough power to cut a meteorite in half. But if Lin Qiye used it now, its power would probably be about the same as Zhao Kongcheng's all-out slash after using Ghost-God Guidance.
Zhou Meng remembered clearly that the Nightwatchers of Cangnan City had already taken notice of the powerful divine might Lin Qiye had unleashed when he killed the Ghost-Faced Man. Zhao Kongcheng had repeatedly tried to get Lin Qiye to join the Nightwatchers, but Lin Qiye refused, until Zhao Kongcheng sacrificed himself facing the Ghost-Faced King, who had entered the old city district to hunt, alone.
Zhao Kongcheng's sacrifice was what prompted Lin Qiye to join the Nightwatchers.
But Zhou Meng felt there was no need for Zhao Kongcheng to die there.
A noble man, a pure man, a moral man, a hero willing to give of himself for hundreds of millions of people and also for a young man's small family, should not die there.
Although Zhou Meng had accepted the established fact that he was a god, he felt he should not be the kind of deity who disregarded life.
Lin Qiye's current abilities, including Starry Night Dancer, which he would later draw from the Evernight Goddess, had two problems.
First, he had not made it there before Zhao Kongcheng used the Ghost-God Guidance on his badge, using his life to activate his Forbidden Ruin ability.
Second, he lacked a way to defeat the Ghost-Faced King in a single blow.
These two entries happened to make up for Lin Qiye's shortcomings in those respects.
There was no rush, though. The mental hospital was inside Lin Qiye's mind, and he could enter it at any time through his spiritual power, without having to use the main entrance as he had before.
As he watched the two blue-glowing entries enter his body, Lin Qiye suddenly felt that he really had grown much stronger.
With a slight thought, he vanished from where he stood and emerged from another patch of shadow.
How convenient!
Although he still had no intention of joining any organization, the more superpowers he had, the better! The stronger he was, the better he could protect the family he cherished!
As for Star-Splitting Art, he did not plan to test it now. It would be bad if he accidentally split the mental hospital apart.
"Thanks, Brother Meng!" Before leaving, Lin Qiye did not forget to thank Zhou Meng for lending him the entries.
From what I just saw, Brother Meng clearly stole those entries from Nyx and then lent them to me.
Doesn't that mean I can not only get rewards for treating these gods, but also borrow extra rewards from Brother Meng? That's great!
But after his initial delight, Lin Qiye decided he still needed to find a proper hospital and ask what illnesses Nyx and Zhou Meng actually had. That would make it easier for him to treat them.
After seeing Lin Qiye off, visibly changed from exhausted to somewhat excited, Zhou Meng left the Evernight Goddess's room as well and turned his gaze to the remaining wards.
Aside from Nyarlathotep, the impostor disguised as Yaland, there were five gods left. Zhou Meng planned to check on each of them.
He knew that, under the mental hospital's rules, they could not leave their wards until Lin Qiye broke through to a higher realm and opened the doors.
But Zhou Meng possessed the authority to steal. Since he could steal Nyx's door, he presumably could steal the others too. Even if he did, however, the doors would "grow" back on their own, and Lin Qiye still would not be able to use his trick to enter ahead of time.
For Zhou Meng, though, he did not want Lin Qiye to meet these gods early. It was enough for him to meet them early himself, because that would let him steal their respective entry abilities in advance.
He walked up to the door with a wand painted on it and had a thought.
The door in front of him suddenly vanished, then reappeared above Zhou Meng's head.
But he was prepared this time. He dodged lightly to the side, avoiding the door as it fell from the sky.
"Hah, I was ready for you!" Zhou Meng was about to walk in when the door suddenly stood up by itself and slammed down at him again!
"Ow! You're cheating!" Zhou Meng, caught off guard and flattened against the floor again, got up indignantly and gave the door a vicious kick before walking inside.
A young man in a dark blue robe, with the most ordinary face imaginable, was looking at Zhou Meng with eyes as deep as the Abyss.
"You're here—hmm? You're not him? Hmm, you're not, indeed. The timing doesn't match." Merlin looked at Zhou Meng as he entered, a little puzzled, then muttered thoughtfully to himself.
Zhou Meng did not respond, because he knew Merlin's mental illness stemmed from self-doubt brought on by his search for the truth of the world, which had ultimately led to schizophrenia.
So no matter what you said to him, he would eventually ask whether this world was real, then turn into a Patrick Star who wanted to go catch jellyfish with SpongeBob.
Although Zhou Meng could more or less guess that he was not a god native to this world, and that his knowledge of everything about the novel Slaying the Gods meant he had probably transmigrated from some higher dimension,
that did not stop Zhou Meng from believing everything in this world was real, because reality was not absolute to begin with, but relative.
He had not come in to discuss philosophy with Merlin, but to see what entries he could steal from him.
There were ability-related entries such as [Illusory Demon Divine Ruins], [Mastery of All Arts], [Prophecy], and [Astrology], as well as somewhat baffling entries such as [Thirst for Knowledge], [Obsessive], [Go Catch Jellyfish], and [Philosopher King].
"Go Catch Jellyfish" is an entry too? And it's an orange one! If Zhou Meng had been able to steal orange entries now, he would have loved to see what [Go Catch Jellyfish] actually did.
"Do you live next door? What should I call you? Could we talk about your views on this world?"
Seeing that Merlin was about to start a conversation with him, Zhou Meng hurried out of the ward. Immediately afterward, the door that had fallen to the floor closed again.
"Phew, that was close. I don't want him dragging me into a whole day of philosophy, only to watch him turn into Patrick Star. That would really drain my sanity."
Next, Zhou Meng turned to the third room. Its occupant was Bragi, the Norse god of poetry.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Lin Qiye was in a consultation room, asking a middle-aged male doctor about something.
"Uh, Doctor, there's something else I'd like to ask. If an amnesiac psychiatric patient keeps insisting he isn't sick, what does that mean?"
"That must mean his condition has gotten worse!"
"Right? See, I thought so too! Then what should I do?"
"Increase the dosage! If you're using Western medicine, cholinesterase inhibitors will do. If it's a Chinese patent medicine, ginkgo leaves might be effective."
"Got it! Thank you, Doctor!"