Luo Lin hummed as he skillfully found the vessels needed to brew the potion. Then he took an iron box from the cabinet. Inside were the supplementary ingredients required for the Actor potion. Aside from pure water, they were mostly ordinary spiritual materials, such as black sunflower powder and dragon-tooth grass powder.
Unhurriedly, Luo Lin added the supplementary ingredients to the beaker one by one. Next, he took out Medici's blood gemstone. The moment he placed it into the beaker, the liquid inside seemed to undergo some sort of chemical reaction, and flames abruptly rose within it.
Luo Lin watched the changes in the beaker without the slightest panic. With a flip of his hand, the fragment of Naya's power—the main ingredient of the Actor potion—appeared in his palm.
Luo Lin tossed the characteristic in, and the flames swiftly vanished. At that instant, the liquid's surface condensed into crystalline, translucent ice.
Yet beneath the ice, that trace of crimson flame had not been completely extinguished. Instead, it burned within the liquid, like the preserved flowers Luo Lin had seen before. A blood-red flame, as lovely as a rose, burned amid the ice crystals, looking both gorgeous and dreamlike.
"Honestly, these potions are getting prettier and prettier, but they're also looking less and less like something you can drink. Won't chugging this burn my throat?" Luo Lin stared at the flame-version preserved flower with a strange expression. After some thought, he lifted the beaker and, with a gulp, drank down the Actor potion.
The first sensation was cold, followed by heat. Luo Lin felt as though he were being tossed back and forth between ice and fire. Then all changes in temperature vanished, and his consciousness seemed to fall into a bottomless abyss. Everything around him was nothing but darkness and chaos.
It was madness enough to make an ordinary person lose themselves. Yet within that unfathomable darkness, Luo Lin suddenly saw a wisp of red flame. The instant he saw it, his somewhat scattered thoughts immediately cleared.
He skillfully began to rein in his thoughts, breaking free from the darkness and chaos before opening his eyes.
"I see. So the supplementary ingredients really do reduce the chances of losing control..." Luo Lin stroked his chin, looking thoughtful.
It had not been obvious when he drank the Sequence 9 Troublemaker potion, but upon reaching the Sequence 8 Actor potion, Luo Lin immediately understood the significance of the supplementary ingredients connected to High Sequences in the potion formula.
They were like the sole black spot on a sheet of white paper. Because they differed from Naya's power, they formed a distortion and madness entirely unlike Naya's own. Yet that madness happened to become an anchor to guide a person, keeping them from being devoured by the darkness and chaos contained within Naya herself.
Simply put, it was using poison against poison, chaos against chaos, and madness against madness.
"Yet the two kinds of madness also happen to cancel each other out to some extent, achieving a balance instead. At this rate, when I advance to a High Sequence, won't I directly pit the Primordial Will against Naya's madness?"
Luo Lin came to a conclusion internally and made the strange quip before happily beginning to sense the new abilities he had gained.
The Actor potion first further strengthened his spirituality. Then came the core ability granted by the Actor potion: Thousand Faces.
This ability was somewhat similar to that of a Faceless, though not as powerful. It allowed Luo Lin to make minor alterations to his facial features, with an adjustment range of roughly ten percent. It was not much, but for Luo Lin, who was already an expert at makeup, a ten-percent adjustment combined with cosmetics gave him complete confidence that he could turn himself into an entirely different person.
Furthermore, while Thousand Faces had limited effects on one's facial features, it allowed him to freely change his hair and eye color, sparing Luo Lin the trouble of being unable to find colored contact lenses in this era.
Besides that, the Actor potion also granted Luo Lin the ability to create illusions. Although the illusion's coverage was not large, it looked absolutely real.
Meanwhile, Emotion Manipulation, the Troublemaker's core ability, had also been strengthened. It had gone from only being able to control an individual's emotions for a short time to directly manipulating the emotions of a group. Its current limit was around ten people, and that number would likely increase as the potion was digested.
"Finally, my powers of observation, mental strength, and learning ability have all been further enhanced. I can capture other people's vague thoughts like a Mind Reader, and my speed and strength are also considerably greater than before. I'm probably no weaker than those Sequence 8s who specialize in direct combat."
"And the ability Medici's gemstone gave me is flame manipulation. Because of Medici's particular nature, I can even control multiple flames at once with relative ease. This undoubtedly makes up for the Actor's weakness of lacking offensive power." Luo Lin gave his final summary. Even he could not help clicking his tongue.
"Damn, the Actor Sequence is absurdly powerful. I feel that even without borrowing anyone else's power, I wouldn't be afraid of facing a Sequence 7 head-on. If I were prepared, I could even take on a Sequence 6. But its digestion difficulty isn't low either. It's basically equivalent to digesting four or five ordinary Sequence 8 potions."
"However..." Luo Lin sensed the digestion progress of his Actor potion, and his expression suddenly turned subtle. "It seems like I've already digested about one-fifth of it. Why? Could it be because I've been putting on personas and fooling people lately?"
From the name of the "Actor" Sequence alone, it was apparent that its core was likely to play a certain role and perform. This undoubtedly matched Luo Lin's actions over this period perfectly.
As a professional Troublemaker, Luo Lin had always put great effort into playing each of his persona roles. He strictly acted according to their established characterizations before outsiders, and had used those personas to "deceive" a group of big shots, including Pallez and Azzik. Thinking about it that way, it was not strange for the potion to have digested somewhat ahead of time.
"So the acting direction for an Actor is to play a role like an actor would... Uh, that sounds awfully nested." Luo Lin could not help mocking it.
"But it probably isn't that simple. Actors have to take the stage and perform, so to completely digest the Actor potion, I probably need to put on a persona and carry out some sort of performance. And those performances had better have an audience." Luo Lin rubbed his chin as he thought, gaining a few ideas for his upcoming acting.
He thought of Zylingus, then of Ince Zangwill, and came up with several plans for performing as an Actor afterward.
"But digesting the Actor potion isn't urgent. Let me first take a look at the next Sequence. Hmm, Sequence 7, Mask Weaver. The supplementary materials required are items related to High Sequences of the Abyss or Xeno Pathway?" Luo Lin raised an eyebrow. Thinking of the Rose School of Thought in the original work, as well as Sharon, Maric, and the others, a contemplative look appeared in his eyes.
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