[Welcome to Spirit Blossom, lost Summoner.]
The ethereal voice startled Li Ke awake. He sat up, only to find himself lying beneath a blue sky.
A blue sky—something Zaun's children would never see in their entire lives. The kids who grew up deep in the Zaun Rift could look up and see nothing but enormous metal pipes and all kinds of clanking machinery. And the sky they caught a glimpse of when they snuck into the Upper City wasn't Zaun's sky.
Li Ke looked around, his expression bewildered.
The ground was pure white, and the sky was a brilliant blue. In front of him, a huge screen stood in the distance, its edges decorated with strange beasts in an ink-wash style. Li Ke couldn't tell what kind of animal they were. He looked elsewhere on the screen, only to see endless white fog, as if it were hiding something.
"What..."
Li Ke rubbed his eyes and pinched the back of his hand. When he felt the pain, he stood up, and a thought surfaced.
"Golden Finger?"
Li Ke, whose adaptability was off the charts, beamed.
He'd transmigrated to a hellhole like Runeterra. It'd be downright unreasonable not to get some kind of Golden Finger!
But Spirit Blossom?
Wasn't Spirit Blossom just a skin universe?
No, wait. To be precise, Spirit Blossom wasn't actually a skin universe. It was more like a subsidiary world of Runeterra. If Runeterra was a material plane, then Spirit Blossom was a Spirit Plane.
Wasn't Yone's story a perfect example?
Once he'd calmed down, Li Ke stood and walked over to the screen, reaching out to touch it.
"Pop—"
His hand went right through the screen, as if he'd popped a bubble. The screen vanished, revealing a huge canvas in front of him. White fog obscured it, but he could still make out a bunch of big black question marks.
At the same time, something appeared in Li Ke's mind.
[Name: Li Ke] [Race: Selectable—(Human Soul/Spirit Monster/Undead Demon)] [Soul Strength: 2 (Scattered Soul)] [World Exploration: 0] [Current Items: None]
Li Ke reached out and touched Human Soul.
Even now, he still had no idea what his Golden Finger actually did. What was the point of arriving in the world of Spirit Blossom? Could it help him grow stronger?
But the question was, could he grow stronger in the Material Realm?
If he only got stronger in the Spirit Realm, how was that any different from playing a game?
Sure, playing games was fun. In a place like the twin cities, games were a great way to kill time. But was now really the time for that?
[Race confirmed as Human Soul.] [As the map exploration rate is 0, your first Advent will take you to a random location.] [Advent?] [Yes/No] [Remaining Advents (3/3)]
Li Ke nervously tapped the button. The next moment, the hand resting on the canvas was seized by a powerful force. As a whirlwind spun around him, the white ground, blue sky, and the entire little world were sucked into the canvas along with him.
The light and shadows faded. His feet touched solid ground, and Li Ke's pupils shrank as he looked at the world before him.
He couldn't see the sky, blocked by towering purple trees overhead. Nor could he see ahead; weeds grew waist-high, making it hard to tell where the path led.
But the purple all around him told Li Ke one thing: he seemed to have ended up somewhere dangerous.
In the world of Spirit Blossom, living beings were divided into two factions: the tranquil Kanmei and the chaotic Akana. And now, he'd clearly landed in Akana territory.
Purple was Akana's signature color. The Akana champions, led by Thresh, were all depicted in dark purple.
The ethereal voice sounded again in his mind:
[Summoner, based on your Soul Strength, this Advent will last half an hour.] [Map discovered—Purple Prison Mountain] [Map Exploration: 0.01%] [Accumulating exploration rewards] [Good luck, Summoner Li Ke.]
"Exploration?"
"Rewards?"
Those two words eased some of Li Ke's anxiety. Under Runeterra's mysterious supernatural powers, there was no reason he wouldn't be able to bring those rewards back to the Material Realm. Whether he ended up as a pile of bones in the Sump depended on whether this Golden Finger could deliver!
With that thought, Li Ke began exploring.
But in a place where he couldn't find his bearings, the weeds grew waist-high, and the trees stretched like an endless sea, it was hard to make any headway. Like a headless fly, Li Ke pressed on.
As he watched the Advent timer count down, he realized he'd been walking for thirteen minutes. Yet the scenery around him hadn't changed at all, and his exploration rate hadn't increased either. He gradually grew irritated.
Just then, a gust of wind carrying a pungent smell suddenly blew past.
Li Ke instinctively turned around and blinked. He saw someone standing there with his back to him, wearing the same shabby Zaunite clothes as he was. The only difference was that the figure had no head.
Huh. Wait, was that... him?
Li Ke blinked again, the thought occurring to him instinctively.
The next second, darkness swallowed his vision, and he lost consciousness.
[Purple Prison Mountain life-form detected. Related Illustration Book entry unlocked.] [Purple Prison Mountain Exploration +3] [Purple Prison Mountain registered as Advent Point No. 1] [Accumulated rewards distributed. Reward received—Soul Value 0.3!]
"Shit!"
With a loud curse, Li Ke woke up and found himself back in the Spirit Blossom space. The sky was blue, the ground white, and the huge canvas stood before him, now displaying the relevant data from his latest Advent.
Li Ke stood up, walked to the canvas, and examined it. Then he tapped [Purple Prison Mountain Illustration Book].
The canvas shifted, and a grid of nine squares appeared. In the third column of the first row, a purple beast resembling a hedgehog appeared, vivid and lifelike, with a disproportionately large head.
[Akana Beast] [Race: Spirit] [Soul Strength: 15 (Scattered Soul)] [Threat Level: Low] [Description: Lost souls cannot find their way home and remain lost in Purple Prisoner Forest for a long time. Without a guide, they gradually forget themselves, becoming mindless wandering spirits of Purple Prison Mountain and turning into mountain spirits.]
"So this thing killed me?"
Li Ke stared at the purple creature, which looked like a hedgehog, and felt his scalp prickle.
An Akana Beast. So he really had ended up in Akana territory.
Then Li Ke noticed the green [Activate] text below the Illustration Book entry.
He pressed it.
[Unlocked Purple Prison Mountain Illustration Book Entry 3. Strength +3]
Li Ke blinked. Strength?
His status panel only showed Soul Strength. So what was this Strength?
He closed the Illustration Book and looked at his personal stats again, only to find that his Soul Strength had gone up to 2.5.
The exploration reward had only added 0.3 to his soul stat. Could the extra 0.2 be the reward for activating the Illustration Book?
Did Soul Strength equal combat power?!
Li Ke clenched his fist, but didn't feel any obvious change in his body.
After thinking it over, Li Ke reached out and tapped the canvas again.
The white fog on the canvas shifted, and one of the black question marks disappeared. A mountain appeared in its place. Li Ke took one look and grimaced.
[Purple Prison Mountain]
Purple trees obscured the sky on the canvas, and ghostly purple clouds encircled the mountain.
What made Li Ke grimace was the shadow looming behind the mountain. It immediately reminded him of someone.
Behind Purple Prison Mountain stood a black silhouette with a pair of curved horns. The figure was tall, and he couldn't make out its face or clothes. But he could vaguely see that it held an object shaped like a lantern.
Ah.
Who else could it be?
Before you continue