"Mm, I think you still haven't looked closely enough, Seele."
"Besides, even if I really can do it, it'll cost me a great deal of my Path power. So, Seele, how do you plan to repay me?"
At Jing Yan's words, Seele froze. She hadn't even considered that question before.
She began to look a little flustered.
As a member of the Underworld Fire, she had always held to the belief that she should right every injustice, help the people survive, and oppose the injustices perpetrated by the Upper District.
She hadn't thought about getting paid or anything like that.
But then she remembered that Jing Yan still wasn't a member of the Underworld Fire.
"Y-you want what? If it isn't anything too rare, we might be able to figure something out."
Seele thought for a moment, then added solemnly that, in her eyes, Jing Yan was a rare talent. And if he really could purify the Fragmentum, perhaps he could bring about a change.
Jing Yan would be a great hero by then.
In a sense, this was also a kind of flattery.
Jing Yan smiled at her words but made no comment.
He was thinking about other things.
Most of the people in Belobog still didn't know that the Fragmentum had been brought about by the Stellaron.
The word "Stellaron" was taboo throughout Belobog. Under the control of successive Supreme Guardians, it had never reached the lips of the people in either the Upper District or the Underworld.
Even Miss Bronya, who was now the heir apparent to the title of Supreme Guardian, had only heard the term recently.
Most people still believed that a blizzard was just a blizzard, and that the Fragmentum was something else entirely. They didn't think the two were connected.
They could hardly imagine that Cocolia, seeing that Geomarrow Ore was running low and that it could no longer hold back the Frost Wave, would choose to release the Stellaron's restraints and let the Fragmentum consume all of Belobog.
The result would be devastation.
Everything would be beyond saving.
"What do I want? Don't be nervous. I need some curios and Relics. And if you find any creatures like Warp Trotters, you can let me go see them," Jing Yan said casually.
"Curios, Relics, and Warp Trotters?" Seele let out a sigh of relief, though her face had turned a little red.
She breathed out.
She'd thought Jing Yan was going to ask her to give up something of herself.
But it seemed that wasn't the case?
Seele felt a little conflicted.
She'd just been agonizing over it, after all.
She never acted like this under normal circumstances.
And yet Jing Yan hadn't taken the opportunity to make any demands?
Still, practicality wasn't a bad thing.
"Sure," Seele immediately agreed.
Purifying the Fragmentum.
Jing Yan thought it over and fell into deep thought.
He might not have that ability.
Rather than purifying the Fragmentum, he would be replacing and erasing the nearby power of Destruction.
Even so, some Fragmentum rifts wouldn't close.
They might remain in the form of Stagnant Shadows. It was just that the power within them would have been replaced by Jing Yan's power of Eros, so they wouldn't be as single-mindedly bent on destruction or killing outsiders as before.
In a sense, they would become more manageable. From that perspective, he could be said to have solved some of the problems caused by the Fragmentum.
But that would still only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. The true source of the problem was the Stellaron. Only by removing it could the people here truly escape the crisis.
A less effective solution would be to seal the Stellaron here.
But even that might not be a safe way to handle it.
After all, if the Stellaron could be sealed, another group could also unseal it.
Just like what had happened aboard the Herta Space Station.
Kafka and Silver Wolf of the Stellaron Hunters had unsealed the Stellaron aboard the Herta Space Station and placed it inside an Artificial Body. That was how Stelle came to be.
If the Stellaron Hunters could do something like that, was it really impossible for other organizations to do the same?
Clearly, that would make no sense.
Jing Yan agreed to Seele's request.
Her favorability toward him increased again.
[Seele's favorability increased by 1%, rising from 66% to 70%]
At the same time, the favorability of the others increased as well.
[Stelle's favorability increased by 3%, rising from 63% to 66%]
[March 7th's favorability increased by 3%, rising from 66% to 71%]
Not bad.
[The host has now triggered favorability above 70% with a total of one hundred people, unlocking the special achievement "Emerging Edge" and receiving the reward "Robe of Beauty."]
Jing Yan froze when he saw the curio.
Although this time's reward was another curio, it was different from the Galactic Lottery he'd obtained by signing in before.
The Galactic Lottery was a one-time use item.
It had a chance of yielding a good reward, but also a chance of yielding a bad one. Fortunately, the result had been good at the time.
Jing Yan had successfully increased his compatibility with divine power and gained the ability Verbal Domination.
Afterward, the curio Galactic Lottery disappeared.
This time, though, it was different.
As its name suggested, the Robe of Beauty came from an Aeon.
Or rather, it was an item imbued with an Aeon's power.
The Aeon was called Idrila, the Beauty, but she had since disappeared.
Her origins were equally mysterious.
Of course, the robe that had now appeared in Jing Yan's hands possessed a special power of its own.
After all, it was a curio imbued with an Aeon's power.
Most people in this world didn't assign curio levels, but Jing Yan saw things differently.
[Robe of Beauty]
[Description: The greater a person's charm, the more power they can wield.]
Jing Yan discovered that the robe didn't have a fixed form. Instead, it could merge with other clothes.
So he immediately merged the Robe of Beauty with his own clothes.
Jing Yan felt that his power had increased by a considerable amount.
And it seemed that the power of Beauty didn't conflict with his power of Eros.
In this universe, some Aeons were at odds with one another, such as the Hunt and the Abundance, while others had seemingly similar philosophies yet coexisted peacefully.
For example, the Preservation and the Abundance. The specific reason was unknown.
But now, having obtained the Robe of Beauty and felt the power it contained, Jing Yan had a thought: perhaps two Aeons with similar Paths didn't fight because their powers weren't mutually exclusive—in fact, they might even complement each other.
With the power of Beauty bolstering him, Jing Yan felt that his "charm" seemed to have increased.
But then he realized that, with his power of Eros, he might have been able to achieve something similar anyway.
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