All players: I can choose my own dungeon rewards.

Following the guidance of the pastor of the Church of Our Lady, Wang Zhifan left the original town and headed for a small lake located to the east of the town.

This is a relatively remote place. Along the way, Wang Zhifan noticed that the frequency of residents appeared significantly reduced. When he passed through the woods and came to the small lake, all he could see was a small thatched house by the lake in the distance.

"no one?"

Sweeping his powerful perception over the thatched cottage by the lake in the distance, Wang Zhifan quickly determined that there was no one inside, which seemed to indicate that the timing of his arrival was very unfortunate.

So he expanded the range of his perception, scanning the lake, which was probably less than 0.5 square kilometers, and the woods beside the lake, trying to find some clues.

First, he made sure that there were no boats on the lake and no one was swimming in the lake. Then, there were only birds, squirrels and other small animals in the woods by the lake, and there were not many signs of human activity.

This is undoubtedly abnormal, because the small thatched house by the lake looks in good condition, and there are a few salted fish hanging at the door. Someone should have lived there recently. Unless this person is a homebody, some signs of life should appear around it.

"Even though he's not here, I can't come here in vain. Maybe there's information about the ancient gods in the house."

After thinking about it, Wang Zhifan decided to walk to the thatched cottage by the lake to check it out. He remembered that the pastor of the Church of Our Lady said that the old man living here was named Rod, a weirdo who liked to study ancient gods. It is hard not to have some associations with such a setting.

After a while, Wang Zhifan appeared in front of the door of the thatched cottage, walking on the soil and pebbles under his feet.

He carefully observed the single-family thatched house in front of him, ignoring the stench of the salted fish hanging on the eaves. Even if he didn't go in personally, his perception was like a high-precision radar, and he could see everything inside clearly.

"There are few furnitures in the thatched house, and the bed is made of hay. It is very simple. It seems that there is not even anything to make a fire or cook, let alone books. This is a bit strange... On the walls made of hay, mud, pebbles and wood, there are some strange characters written in blood. They are not regular local characters. I may need to choose the corresponding identity to read them... There are some fish bones in the corner of the house. No, some of them are not from fish..."

After a careful investigation, Wang Zhifan's judgment became clearer. He had noticed that there was something wrong with the priest in the Church of Our Lady before. Now he went to the place he pointed out for an on-site investigation, which further confirmed this.

"It's hard to tell whether the bloody words on the wall are ancient characters from this world. If they are, I can choose the identity of a history professor to unlock the ability to read this part of knowledge..."

Just when Wang Zhifan was hesitating whether to give it a try to confirm his identity, he suddenly turned around without warning and looked at the lake behind him.

At this moment, the lake is still the same lake, empty and rippling, with the lake water reflecting a little light under the setting sun in the afternoon, and it seems that there has been no change compared to not long ago.

But Wang Zhifan's perception was so strong that he stared at the calm lake surface, waiting silently until a swimming black shadow slowly appeared in the lake.

The black shadow looked like a human figure, but seemed to be different in some details. It swam very fast and in a few seconds it broke through the surface of the lake, revealing the head of an old man with sparse hair.

The man was seen using his hands to separate the water in the lake, and with his legs pushing back hard, he swam quickly to the shore in a breaststroke posture, and then walked onto the shore, revealing the image of a strong old man who was naked with only a cloth strip wrapped around his waist.

"Who are you? Why are you standing in front of my house?"

The strong, bald old man seemed to have a bad temper. His eyes as big as copper bells fiercely stared at Wang Zhifan who was watching him on the shore, as if he was ready to attack him if they disagreed, completely ignoring his own poor condition of being soaked and almost naked.

"Are you Rod?"

Faced with the old man with a bad attitude, Wang Zhifan not only did not answer the other party's question, but instead stepped forward and walked towards the old man who was glaring at him. At the same time, he raised the corners of his mouth to reveal a faint smile, and asked with a hint of oppression in his tone.

"I have nothing to do with you! Get out of here now!"

The old man felt the extraordinary aura emanating from the tall young man in front of him, but he was not afraid. He raised his hand and pointed at Wang Zhifan's nose, and issued a stern warning to expel him in a stern voice.

Generally speaking, if Wang Zhifan didn't want to force his way through a quarrel with the local host, he should have found a way to ease the atmosphere. However, he didn't seem to care at all about the old man in front of him who was about to go crazy. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and looked down at the other party with a disdainful expression, as if he was determined to have a conflict with the other party.

As expected, faced with Wang Zhifan's undisguised provocation, the naked old man, who was wet all over with only a cloth strip wrapped around his waist, became completely furious.

"what!!!"

He suddenly let out a strange cry, and burst out with a speed and strength that was completely beyond his age. In the blink of an eye, he rushed in front of Wang Zhifan and stretched out his hand to grab Wang Zhifan's neck.

However, facing the old man's sudden attack, Wang Zhifan neither dodged nor raised his hands to defend. He simply stood there and released his extremely skilled ice source power, instantly freezing the naked old man who rushed in front of him to the ground, with his body fixed and unable to move.

"Is this all you are capable of? Stop hiding it! Otherwise, this is the day you will die!"

After controlling the old man, Wang Zhifan continued to shout loudly and raised his hand to release more ice source power, causing the old man's skin to be quickly covered with a layer of white frost, and the white frost became visibly thicker and harder.

Perhaps feeling the threat of death, the originally frozen old man suddenly roared, struggling to break free from the shackles of ice, and his body began to undergo visible changes at a rapid speed.

First, blue-black patches appeared on his skin all over his body, and in the blink of an eye, they hardened into scale-like shapes. Then his head deformed and became pointed, the corners of his mouth extended to both sides, and his cheeks showed gill-like structures, making him look like a fish head. Finally, his hands and feet increased in length, and webbed structures appeared between his fingers, making him look like some kind of fishman.

The change in his physical form gave the old man extremely powerful strength. He suddenly jumped high and leaped towards Wang Zhifan's head, launching a desperate attack.

However, in the next second, Wang Zhifan stepped on him and he was knocked to the ground. His body sank into the mud, and his round fish eyes, which had turned red due to the strong squeezing pressure, were suddenly filled with disbelief.

It turned out that Wang Zhifan suddenly appeared behind him and pressed him to the ground with one foot, showing crushing power. He couldn't believe that he, who was physically strong, could be easily and completely suppressed by a human being. This broke the worldview he had formed for a long time.

"Is that all? I have never seen such a weak monster..." Wang Zhifan said sarcastically while standing on the fishman's back. Then he asked:

"Answer me, are you Rhodes or not?"

"Ji Li Gu La La Ji..."

The fishman, who was suppressed to the point of being unable to move at all, immediately made a sound that was incomprehensible to humans. It was unclear whether he was answering or making meaningless noise.

"You lost the ability to speak human language after your appearance changed? Then I'll get the answer directly from your head!"

At this point, Wang Zhifan had no more scruples. He instantly activated the insight ability of the Thinker Necklace and forcefully invaded the brain of this strange creature.

As a player with a mental attribute of more than 500 points, there are very few people who can resist Wang Zhifan's invasion of thoughts. The guy under his feet is naturally not one of them, so the secret in this creature's mind was soon fully revealed to Wang Zhifan.

"Rod... was once a human... He discovered a mysterious altar on an island in his early years... After long-term research, he was confirmed to be a member of the great being Dagon... He was transformed into a low-level follower of Dagon through a sacrificial ceremony... He is currently lurking in secret, waiting for the order of his superior follower..."

"This Dagon must be an ancient god according to his research memory... But now I know that the name of this ancient god is Dagon, why is there still no notification of the completion of the dungeon? Could it be that the name Dagon is not his real name? This is a bit of a scam..."

For a moment, Wang Zhifan felt mixed emotions, including some happy things and some things that made him unhappy.

He was happy that he had discovered an ancient god, and he also learned a lot of information about this ancient god, such as where his altar was, what related rituals there were, what beings were related to him, and what the characteristics of his followers were.

However, the problem was that knowing all this was of little use to him. What he really needed was the real name of this ancient god, but all the information pointed to the fact that this ancient god was called Dagon. He knew the copy of the answer but had no reaction, which meant that the information was not complete and true, and the real way to pass the level was still confusing.

“It seems that the so-called Ancient God’s True Name is not the same as what people call the Ancient God. If you want to know the Ancient God’s True Name, you may only have the opportunity to know it by contacting beings closely related to the Ancient God, such as His high-ranking followers. Or even the only way to get it directly from the Ancient God…”

While activating the power of ice to transform Dagon's follower Rod under his feet into fine ice fragments and transfer them into the lake, Wang Zhifan raised his foot and left the place.

He left because this place no longer had any secrets for him. Rhodes' memory explained everything, including the words on the wall of the thatched hut he had discovered before. Those were actually Rhodes' eulogies to the ancient god Dagon.

The reason why he killed Rhodes was even simpler. This guy was no longer a human being. After he became a follower of Dagon, he turned into a man-eating monster. Moreover, he was the kind who held grudges. If he was not killed, there would only be endless trouble.

With thoughts in mind, Wang Zhifan immediately went to the town library guided by the pastor of the Church of Our Lady, ready to do some research in it.

He knew that the pastor had some problems and had no good intentions towards him, but he had gained some intelligence from him, so he decided to let the man live a little longer, and maybe even visit him again.

So, for the rest of the time, including the end of the afternoon and the entire night, Wang Zhifan immersed himself in the city library, trying hard to collect information about the ancient gods.

He had stayed there for so long, so naturally he had gained a lot in the library. He learned a lot about the professional research on the ancient gods of this world, and many unfamiliar names of ancient gods had therefore entered his field of vision.

However, the biggest problem still exists, that is, the names of the ancient gods that appear in these books are not the real names of the ancient gods. Even if he has read all the relevant books, he has not triggered the notification of completing the copy.

It is worth mentioning that in a research book on ancient gods that he found, the concept of true name was mentioned and some explanations were made.

According to the author of this book, all the names about the ancient gods were actually given by humans themselves and are not the real names of the ancient gods.

Because humans cannot understand the ancient god’s true name, cannot pronounce it correctly, and cannot remember it.

Moreover, the true name of the ancient god is very likely to contain powerful power. Once humans come into direct contact with it, it will be a disaster, so it is safer to replace it with an artificial name.

The above statements are only the personal cognition of a certain ancient god researcher and have not been unanimously recognized by all researchers, but Wang Zhifan deeply agrees with them. After all, he already knows the names of many ancient gods but cannot pass the level, which is enough to explain the problem.

"So the strategy of this instance is to force the player to contact the Ancient God? Otherwise, they won't be able to learn the Ancient God's true name? However, by the time the player finds out, they will be dead...

What Huang Neng said was indeed true. With this difficulty, it is best for most players to give up on completing the game in order to survive longer... But I still want to give it a try to see how powerful these ancient gods are...

No, being too aggressive can easily cause a setback, so you have to be more cautious... Try to pick the most gentle ancient god to contact..."

After clarifying the real difficulty of the copy, Wang Zhifan came up with many related plans in his mind and began to consider them carefully.

He currently knew of a few possible rituals to contact the ancient gods. For example, in Rhodes' memory, there was a ritual in which Dagon was granted power through sacrifice. But unless it was absolutely necessary, he would not want to contact ancient gods like Dagon. In various records, the other party was evil, cruel, and moody, and the risk of rash contact was too great.

After pondering for a while, he decided to meet up with Huang Neng first to see if he had any gains, and at the same time discuss with him how to find the most gentle and reliable ancient god to contact.

Relying on the mark agreed upon in advance, Wang Zhifan met Huang Neng in an empty alley that day.

Huang Neng told him that they had made great progress in tracking the cultists. Through investigation, he had determined that the cultists believed in a mysterious being called Melkion, who was most likely an ancient god. But unfortunately, he did not find out His real name, and even after severely interrogating several cultists, he gained nothing.

Wang Zhifan then told Huang Neng the research knowledge about the ancient god's true name that he had read in the library, and used it to support his own investigation, and pointed out the true way to pass the level to Huang Neng.

However, when Huang Neng heard that he had to personally contact the ancient god, he almost gave up and lay down again. It was not until Wang Zhifan clearly stated that he would do it himself that Huang Neng dared to continue to cooperate. (End of this chapter)