Chapter 12: New BE (Bad) Ending

  "Ding!"

  In the middle of the night.

  Li Guanqi was originally cultivating, diligently absorbing the residual spiritual power from the curse insects within his body, but he was interrupted by the sudden notification sound.

  "The first esper to unlock an ending has appeared!"

  Li Guanqi stared bnkly at the lines of text boxes appearing before him.

  — BE (Bad) Ending: Turns Out You Were the Gold Finger —

  [Ending Evaluation: Originally, Wei Mo was meant to be your Gold Finger old grandpa, who would impart the sorcery system to you, serving as the starting point for your pursuit of other supernatural powers. But you? You didn't want his sorcery, instead brazenly cultivating Daoist arts without the slightest restraint. In the end, he discovered it, directly killed you, performed soul-searching, and then took your Daoist arts to continue his journey. Turns out you were Wei Mo's Gold Finger old grandpa.]

  [Ending Penalty: Permanently lose Spirit Root.]

  [Ending Reward: One purple talent.]

  [Sorcerer's Friend (Purple): For some unknown reason, all sorcerers feel particurly favorable towards you upon seeing you.]

  "Impressive."

  Li Guanqi couldn't help but sigh.

  Huh?

  Wait, Ending Penalty?!

  His expression changed slightly.

  So, dying in the supernatural world wasn't truly dying, merely a "game over," but it wasn't without consequences.

  Ending penalties.

  This guy who possessed Daoist arts had his Spirit Root stripped away...

  Speaking of which, Daoist arts?

  Li Guanqi quickly opened the Supernatural Leaderboard.

  [Supernatural Leaderboard]

  Wang (Peak of All Beings!) (Level Rating: 2.9) (Plot Rating in this Supernatural World: C+)Dao Fa Zi Ran (Second to One!) (Level Rating: 2.0) (Plot Rating in this Supernatural World: D-)Willow Leaf Follows Wind (Third Pce Schor!) (Level Rating: 1.9) (Plot Rating in this Supernatural World: D)... (...)"He's gone."

  Li Guanqi's expression was complex.

  The Supernatural Leaderboard ranking only considered Level Rating; the Plot Rating was just dispyed alongside it.

  His Level Rating was merely 2.9, yet he was back in first pce.

  In other words, the brother whose name was "Everything Left By Ancestors Is Real" had already kicked the bucket.

  That person's Level Rating had reached 3.8 since yesterday and should have had a great future, but sadly, he died by courting death. Presumably, the brother who unlocked the first ending was him.

  Li Guanqi wasn't the only one thinking this.

  The bullet comments were currently flooded with messages like "Rest in peace, Cultivation Bro."

  Exchanging a Spirit Root for "Sorcerer's Friend (Purple)," was it a loss or a gain?

  Li Guanqi felt it was really hard to say.

  After all, the specific effect of this talent was still unknown.

  "Plot Rating C+?"

  Only then did Li Guanqi notice his plot rating had changed, significantly surpassing the "D" ranks of the two below him.

  Plot Rating...

  He guessed it was determined based on the degree of exploration within the supernatural world.

  And because he had entered the library, learned many curse techniques, and read about many sorcerer experiences, his plot rating had increased.

  "Cultivation Bro, rest in peace."

  Li Guanqi closed the leaderboard, offered a moment of silence for the Cultivation Bro, and then immersed himself in cultivation again.

  ...

  ...

  The next day, afternoon.

  Li Guanqi once again snuck into the library. He found a wild rge spider, preparing to try capturing an insect and refining it into a curse insect.

  "Don't move!"

  With Li Guanqi's command, the rge white-patterned spider on the ground, which had eight legs and was the size of a Hami melon including its legs, became still.

  Spiders are actually arachnids.

  But strictly speaking, the definitions of "insect" and "arachnid" were determined by scientists back in reality.

  His Tongyou talent, though described as commanding insects, actually worked on spiders and scorpions too; they would obey his commands.

  "Prick."

  Li Guanqi pressed his right index and middle fingers together, emitting a dark green spiritual light, and made a light cut across his left palm. A bloodstain appeared.

  A drop of blood seeped out, dripping onto the white-patterned spider's head.

  Simultaneously, Li Guanqi's right hand, glowing with green spiritual light, rapidly sketched in the air – this was another alternative way of "forming seals."

  He quickly drew a green rune in the void with spiritual power, then pressed his finger down, driving the green rune fiercely into the white-patterned spider.

  Blood Binding Spirit Art!

  "Bind Spirit!"

  "Buzz—"

  As Li Guanqi drove the spirit-binding rune into the white-patterned spider, a light blue cluster of light emerged from its body, emitting a hazy glow. It had no fixed shape and flickered erratically.

  The soul of a mere ordinary spider wouldn't have a fixed form.

  Soon, a green rune imprint appeared on the surface of the spider's soul – Li Guanqi's exclusive spirit-binding rune.

  Being marked with this rune imprint meant the soul of this white-patterned spider now belonged to Li Guanqi, completely under his control.

  But what use was it!

  Li Guanqi casually dispelled the spirit-binding technique, releasing the white-patterned spider, which immediately scurried off to hide in a corner of the library.

  Because he cked the materials to cultivate curse insects.

  The rge spider captured using the Blood Binding Spirit Art now was called a curse insect, but it was essentially no different from before, just an ordinary spider.

  It merely allowed ordinary insects to obey his commands... but if that was all it could do, he could achieve that directly with his Tongyou talent. Why go through the extra trouble?

  "Curse insects are a dead end."

  Li Guanqi thought to himself.

  The only way to kill the old dwarf was to focus on sorcery itself.

  With this thought, Li Guanqi once again turned his gaze towards the other bookshelves in the library, picked up a book, and began reading.

  In the following days, he was like a sponge, madly absorbing all kinds of sorcery knowledge from the library, enriching his own learning, committing the methods of casting numerous curse techniques to memory.

  Learning sorcery wasn't necessarily for using it.

  It was for countering it.

  Sooner or ter, he and the old dwarf would have a battle. If, at that time, he was clueless about the effects of the techniques the old dwarf used, how could he possibly fight?

  The more he learned about sorcery, the more Li Guanqi understood a principle.

  Battles between sorcerers of the same level weren't actually decided by the total amount of spiritual power, but by knowledge.

  For example, the technique he was currently reading, called "Blood Release Shield Art," involved releasing one's own blood to condense an incredibly sturdy shield.

  If attacked head-on, a sorcerer of the same level would have to bombard it with all their spiritual power for quite some time.

  But if one understood the structure of the technique, they could dismantle this blood shield with just a single drop of blood.

  "Good grief. I spent over ten years training in the basketball gym, just coasting through schoolwork. I didn't expect I'd have to study diligently after transmigrating."

  Li Guanqi found it rather amusing.

  ...

  ...

  Time flew by like a white steed fshing past a crack in the door.

  In the blink of an eye, more than twenty days had passed.

  Li Guanqi had marked the corner of his coarse cloth robe, making a ssh for each day passed. There were now twenty-seven sshes.

  It was the twenty-seventh day since he had transmigrated into this supernatural world.

  Tomorrow would be the twenty-eighth day, the time when the crucial Otherworldly-Blooded Warrior would arrive.