Path of Light Chasing (Please Follow)

The Nun Dormitory occupied only a small building beside the church. There were four or five rooms scattered inside, and Li Wen headed straight for the innermost one. Pastor Mog had already told her that this was the only vacant room.

Li Wen pushed the door open. Though the space inside was small, it was fairly clean and tidy. Someone must have come by to clean it regularly.

Li Wen had no particular thoughts about that. After all, she was not really planning to live here.

World Tree: Origins placed restrictions on players logging out. Players had to be in a sufficiently safe location before they could log out, otherwise they would receive offline penalties. Not only would their experience gain be affected for a certain period, but they would also receive a debuff called "Overfatigue," which lasted for an hour.

The criteria for what counted as a "safe location" had always been strict, but an enclosed and private residence definitely qualified. Besides, this was a Holy Candlemas Church chapel. There was probably nowhere safer in all of Ake Town.

Li Wen used the key in the room to lock the door and drew the curtains before looking at the item in her hand.

It was a candle as white as jade, about three fingers thick and as long as an arm. It had a very distinctive texture when touched.

Whispering Candle

Consumable - Knowledge Carrier - Magic (Blue)

The saints received divine revelations from the light, and thus light became a special medium. Sects that worshipped Radiance used light grease seeping from cracks in stone to make candles, recording knowledge that could not be passed on to outsiders.

Ignite the candle to learn the contents it carries.

This candle was something Li Wen had fleeced from Pastor Mog. What it recorded should have been an unknown path from the Radiance Spectrum. According to him, he had seized it from another Candle Sun Church pastor, and his current identity as a pastor had come from replacing that man.

In the setting of World Tree: Origins, there were twelve gods known as the Pillars, who had created and sustained the world. Each of them represented one of the elements that formed the world—the so-called Twelve Spectrums.

Paths were supernatural routes developed based on those Spectrums.

As a major sect serving Radiance, the Holy Candlemas Church controlled three paths within the Radiance Spectrum: Sacrifice, Judgment, and Protection.

The item had come from Pastor Mog. According to him, what was recorded inside was neither the Path of Sacrifice nor the Path of Judgment. That meant it could only be the Path of Protection.

Li Wen was not particularly familiar with the classes of the Path of Protection, but there were only a few powerful ones. Of course, no matter what it was or how strong it was, it did not matter much to Li Wen. She had only asked Mog for a path to use as a temporary measure. Later, she would either replace it outright or keep it as a secondary class.

Li Wen found some matches in the room and used one to Ignite the candle. The bright yellow flame flickered, lighting up the slightly dim room.

At the same time, Li Wen seemed to hear faint whispers, like murmurs after a long dream. The sound was so weak that she had to focus completely just to catch fragments of it.

The Spellbook that served as her Game Panel appeared automatically. Meaningless words began to form across its pages, and the strange runes vanished into the paper as soon as they appeared, leaving only faint flickering light behind.

You are listening to secret whispers.

You have learned Radiance's secret. It says: Moths shall bathe in the light!

You have comprehended one of Radiance's paths—"Path of Light Chasing."

You have mastered the knowledge: Secret Whisper Interpretation Lv.1, Sacrificial Fire Ritual

Li Wen opened her eyes, surprise showing on her face.

The Whispering Candle supposedly obtained from a Candle Sun Church pastor did not record any of the three major paths controlled by the Candle Sun Church. Instead, it contained an entirely unfamiliar path.

That was truly unexpected.

Moreover, the Path of Light Chasing was an exceptionally complete path. Even if Li Wen simply followed it step by step, she could reach the seventh stage at most. Converted into game levels, that meant above level sixty.

One had to know that Siswell, the greatest mage in the Kingdom of Arthur and the leader of Dark Dawn, was only at that level.

A path of this caliber would be perfectly suitable even as a main path.

The only regret was that Li Wen's Path of Light Chasing recorded only one class, and it was purely supportive.

But that was not a problem for Li Wen at all. It could even be considered an advantage. What she needed was precisely a powerful support class for her secondary class. Otherwise, she would not have chosen a Radiance Spectrum path as a temporary measure.

And this class called "Supplicant" perfectly matched Li Wen's idea of a powerful support class.

Its class advancement requirements were also very simple. The knowledge-related content had already been completely imprinted in Li Wen's mind through the Whispering Candle. All she needed to do was slowly digest it. The rest was a very simple baptism ritual, which could be completed in any church serving Radiance.

"Very good. Then next, I'll... log out!"

In the real world, Li Wen took off her VR headset.

She checked the time. It had only just passed twelve.

Her phone kept flashing. A glance showed that they were all spam messages, except for one from her homeroom teacher asking why she had not come to school. There was no follow-up, though.

Li Wen was in no hurry. She first put an instant meal into the microwave, then recorded what she had gained in the game, along with her plans for the afternoon and beyond, in a notebook.

Once the meal was heated, Li Wen began eating while browsing the game forums.

The moment she opened the homepage, she saw the post she had made that morning. Its replies had already exceeded ten thousand, and it had even made the forum's trending list. But after carefully reading through it, Li Wen found that most of the responses were meaningless spam or people messing around.

Some people pretended to be transmigrators, some claimed to be WG Corp insiders, and some said they were C-language experts. They all riffed on the topic of "being transported into a game world," entertaining everyone else while leaving Li Wen feeling thoroughly depressed.

But being depressed was useless. She had long realized this would be the outcome, so she simply blocked the post out of sight.

Most discussions on the forum now concerned the early stages of the game. The most common posts were requests for help and strategy guides, followed by complaints about the game's difficulty. Players generally believed that the developers had probably never played a game in their lives, or they could never have made something with such absurd difficulty.

Li Wen did not know whether WG Corp's employees had played games, but the game definitely had not been made by them. That much was beyond doubt.

After browsing for a while, Li Wen found another player who had set an example by becoming a cautionary tale.

The player claimed in the post that he had merely slipped into someone else's home to take a few things, only to be caught by soldiers on the spot. Not only had he been killed once while fleeing, but he had also been placed on the town's wanted list. Now every soldier in town was looking for him.

Quite a few players in the post expressed sympathy or mocked him, while others shared similar experiences.

After some thought, Li Wen still reminded them: Do not commit crimes in countries aligned with the Order faction. Being killed or wanted is a minor matter. If you get caught and thrown in prison, you are finished—you can only delete your character and start over.