Heading to the Celestial Team

Chapter 35: Heading to the Celestial Team

The Mind Flayer, also known as an Illithid, was a highly unusual and powerful species. Its limbs were slender, its head enormous, and four long, resilient tentacles grew from its face. It looked as though someone had picked up an octopus and planted it on the head of an extremely thin human.

Strange, but powerful.

They rarely fought at close quarters and were poor at using weapons or armor. Their feeding tentacles might occasionally serve as a means of defense, but most of the time, they relied on another kind of power.

Psychic abilities. Telekinesis.

Any Mind Flayer could easily wield this innate power. They could freely read the thoughts of ordinary beings and manipulate the minds of the weak. With their immense psychic abilities, they could form barriers or lash out at their foes. And when necessary, they could concentrate and unleash the psychic power in their brains, creating a devastating mind blast.

They were practically an upgraded version of the Burrowing Devil Worm. After all, for a psionic species like the Mind Flayers, learning to cast magic was as easy as eating or drinking. Aside from being unable to burrow underground and trigger massive earthquakes as easily as Burrowing Devil Worms, they could do almost everything else better.

So...

"A thousand reward points for the corpse of an adult Mind Flayer."

Si Ming looked down at the humanoid octopus lying before him, his brow furrowing slightly before relaxing. As food, a single Burrowing Devil Worm could provide at least as much meat as two hundred Mind Flayers. Yet the price of one Mind Flayer was only a third lower than that of a Burrowing Devil Worm.

What a terrible deal. Had the Main God never considered that a Reincarnator might have unusual tastes and really enjoy eating fresh Mind Flayer? Or was it...

"The Mind Flayer's brain is extremely valuable?"

That was good news.

It meant that if he could animate a Mind Flayer's brain, he could reproduce most of its abilities. And now was the perfect time to try.

"Awaken."

Necrotic Aura equivalent to ten Skeleton Soldiers flowed into the corpse. The dead adult Mind Flayer began moving again and pushed itself upright. But just like the creatures he had first awakened, it could only swing its slender limbs clumsily, using muscles that were far from its strong suit.

Then, he injected Night Battle Qi.

A dim glow flared to life. Its cloudy eyes regained their spark. The Mind Flayer, which had been standing awkwardly on the ground, now moved lightly, its thin body floating faintly in the air.

The Mind Flayer's brain had been activated. A psychic link, much like the one with the Burrowing Devil Worm, appeared in Si Ming's perception. His awakened servant shared the immense perceptive power of its extraordinary brain with him. Unlike the Burrowing Devil Worm, whose abilities had a noticeable delay when put to use, the Mind Flayer's psychic perception was clearly much quicker and more responsive!

Si Ming focused his thoughts.

"Shield."

An invisible telekinetic barrier appeared beside Si Ming and his Mind Flayer servant. It was clearly a comprehensive and resilient defense. He stepped back, leaving the shield's protection, then rapidly fired various guns at it.

The .22 LR bullets were as useless as dust.

The reinforced 9mm rounds were like light grains of sand tossed by the wind.

The 12.7mm rifle rounds and 12-gauge explosive shells could barely make the shield ripple.

Only the more powerful Fusion Gun's Thermal Orbs could make the Mind Flayer's telekinetic shield tremble under sustained fire!

It trembled, but it didn't collapse.

Once the barrage ended, the telekinetic shield quickly stabilized again. Aside from a faint hunger that could be remedied by eating or absorbing energy, the Mind Flayer had barely expended anything.

Very powerful.

But...

"I can control more than one of these units."

A second Mind Flayer appeared beside Si Ming, followed by a third. By the time his thoughts began to feel crowded, there were already four Mind Flayers in front of him.

Now, even if he held down the Fusion Gun's trigger, he couldn't shake the telekinetic shield formed by all four Mind Flayers working together. At his gesture, they unleashed a combined mind blast. A massive, cone-shaped shock wave, visible to the naked eye, slammed forward!

Sand and stones flew everywhere, and the calm lake split open as a vast channel of water surged aside. The powerful shock wave kept pushing forward for several hundred meters before it began to break apart and dissipate.

It was devastating. And this wasn't even an attack designed to dig a crater.

On top of that, the Mind Flayers' telekinesis could lift him into the air, or support his Battle Qi-powered flight and save him some effort.

"...That's a considerable improvement."

But he still had plenty of room to grow.

He glanced at his attributes, which he had boosted with a BB-rank enhancement and the Blood Bodhi, and smiled faintly. He still had a great many reward points left. If he spent them all, he could raise every one of his attributes into the thousands!

"A thousand points in all six attributes... damn, that's absurd." Even the usually refined Si Ming couldn't help swearing. Still, he had no intention of rejecting a plan that would make him stronger. When those enormous, cold reward points had all turned into warm attribute boosts, he turned his gaze to the awakened, activated Byakhee.

He could no longer feel the effects of its mental contamination. But he could sense a strange power emanating from its body and affecting the area around it.

It looked like a bizarre giant bird, with batlike wings and a many-lobed maw and a terrifying chest that looked like something between a demon and a spider. Horns, tentacles, and scales covered its body. But unlike the overwhelming stench that clung to it in the original stories, this undead Byakhee no longer gave off a smell so foul it seemed almost visible.

Si Ming lightly landed on the Byakhee's back. He knew that this Mythos creature, which had cost him two thousand reward points, didn't have many special powers. It had only one talent, one function: serving as a means of transportation, able to travel between different regions, countries, and even planets.

Dimensional teleportation.

Long-distance dimensional teleportation.

His thoughts shifted, and the ability activated. In the next instant, the Byakhee and Si Ming, riding on its back, vanished without a trace, then appeared in a wilderness a hundred kilometers away, in a temporary space he had opened within his personal space!

His head... felt a little dizzy.

He felt nothing during the teleportation, but once it was over, his body was clearly uncomfortable. Even Si Ming, with all six attributes raised to a thousand, needed several seconds to recover. The Byakhee beneath him, however, seemed perfectly fine.

"Maybe I need to take some precautions."

Si Ming knew that, according to the rules of the Cthulhu Mythos, ordinary people had to drink a special potion called Golden Honey Mead before riding a Byakhee on an interstellar journey. Its only effect was to temporarily suspend the rider's body and soul, reducing the harm caused by space travel. Obviously, as a Reincarnator who needed to be ready for battle at all times, there was no way Si Ming would drink a potion that would most likely get him killed. That meant he would have to find another way if he wanted to ride a Byakhee into high-speed combat.

"Maybe if I get dizzy enough times, I'll get used to it?"

Good idea. Worth a try.

And it seemed that was exactly what happened.

After teleporting ten times in succession, until even the Byakhee needed a short rest, the few seconds of stiffness had finally been reduced to less than one. If he grew stronger, or figured out an effective riding technique, he could eliminate this weakness entirely.

Excellent.

That also took care of his short legs. Now, Si Ming had everything covered, from offense and defense to survival, endurance, explosive power, and mobility.

Was there anything else he needed to shore up?

Si Ming thought he might want to give some more thought to crowd control. But the most convenient and suitable option, the plague school, crossed his mind and was quickly rejected.

There was no need.

Something so uncontrollable, something that could so easily lead him to do awful things, called for caution.

Si Ming knew that in the original cycle of reincarnation, something called "fortune" existed. Doing good had always been more promising than doing evil. That was why he had decided to leave rather than stay and form a farming team after realizing he couldn't stand his Japanese teammates from 2007. Of course, his own disdain for the whole farming-team approach was the main reason.

Beyond that, spreading plagues, slaughtering indiscriminately, or even destroying the world were all things he should avoid if possible, and minimize if unavoidable.

So...

Si Ming turned his head and outfitted his four Mind Flayer guards with camouflage cloaks. Combined with the simple illusions their psychic abilities could create, they at least looked much more respectable now.

He practiced for a while longer.

He grew more familiar with his abilities. He vaguely remembered that the leader of the Central Continent Team in the first generation had unlocked the third stage of the Gene Lock during his team-leader qualification test. He had also been able to sense every member of the teams in the cycle of reincarnation who wasn't on the Demon Team. Four people had already reached that level. Unfortunately, without that kind of sense, Si Ming had no idea how far this world of reincarnation—possibly from the first generation—had progressed.

It probably wasn't in the late stages. At least the early middle stages.

Second stage plus BB-rank enhancement should be enough to protect myself.

The time had come.

He waved his hand and sent all his summons back into the summoning space. Eve had already prepared herself and was waiting for him. He reached out and handed her a scroll.

"Do you remember what I told you before?" Si Ming asked.

"Mm." Eve hugged the scroll and nodded. "If I suddenly appear somewhere outside your personal space, I shouldn't worry about anything. I should run straight to the room marked with your personal insignia. If I can't reach it right away, I should use this scroll immediately. And if I can't even use the scroll, I should open my mind, trust you completely, and cooperate to activate the power you left inside me."

She remembered clearly, so Si Ming gave a slight nod.

Those were all precautions, and if possible, Si Ming didn't want to use them.

Now...

He took a deep breath.

"Main God, I agree to become a Reincarnator on the Celestial Team."