All-out Tower Defense: My Card-Drawing Talent is a Bit Strange

Chapter 141 The Mist

"This fire is very unusual. Normal flames cannot ignite the body of the divine tree; only heavenly thunder can. But there have been no thunderstorms in this area for the past few dozen days."

""

The goddess's tone suddenly turned cold, and Yang Fei's interest was piqued again. It seemed there was going to be a good show.

"What do you mean?" The old man's trembling voice slowly rang out, his tone filled with disbelief, or perhaps a kind of submissive hesitation? Yang Fei had heard this tone before; it was the first time Villanelle had spoken to him like this—cautious, hesitant, helpless, afraid of angering him.

"You should understand what I mean. I don't want to be too absolute, but someone has told me that you've abused your power for personal gain in the distribution of the Life Fruit. Do you understand?"

The goddess's cold voice came again, but the old man remained silent. Yang Fei was curious about the power structure of this faction. The goddess seemed to be of much higher status than the old man who could distribute life fruits.

If it were a theocratic state, where the Papacy's power extends throughout the mortal world and can decide the ascension and dethronement of emperors, then the goddess's attitude would be understandable. But if that were the structure, wouldn't the Papacy be directly in charge of distributing the Fate Fruit? Wouldn't that strengthen their control over the mortal world?

This is not a technologically advanced world like Azure Star where no great power exists; the concept of divine right of kings originates from the so-called "gods."

In reality, it's all about the interests of the Vatican. Ordinary people can't verify the authenticity of these "divine wills" because only those within the Vatican can communicate with them.

But this world is a supernatural world, similar to a tower defense game, where great power belongs to oneself. Mortals also have a "path of the abyss" similar to the cultivation path of cultivators, through which they can become stronger. If the Holy See wants to continue to control the mortal world, it must master a higher level of power or control the development of mortal power.

This kind of destiny fruit might be a way to control the upward movement of power. Directly controlling the destiny fruit means controlling the release of extra talents. Combined with one's own power, although one cannot absolutely control the world, it is certain that one will occupy an important voice in the world.

Judging from the conversation between the two, it seems that the distribution of the Life Fruit is not subject to the intervention of the Holy See, but rather left to the mortals to distribute freely. This is not quite right, and it does not seem to be in the interests of the Holy See.

"You can leave now. I need to recover for a while and continue casting healing and regeneration spells on the divine tree. I hope you'll have taken care of everything by the time I leave, otherwise your clan will lose the right to guard the divine tree because of you, you fool."

The goddess's voice rang out again, but the old man remained silent. Yang Fei listened quietly, wanting to see how things would develop. After a while, the goddess's voice came again, but its content sent a chill down Yang Fei's spine.

"Hehe, you fools, the inherent evil in your bones has really harmed you. No matter how selfless a person is, they all have the selfish desire to gain benefits for their descendants. And if these descendants grow up, they often become the next rulers. Hehe, how ridiculous."

""

The goddess's tone was no longer as cold as before, but instead revealed a mocking tone: "Life Fruit? Heh, if there really was such a good thing, how could we give it to you dogs? It's just a thing that uses life to stimulate potential. Combined with our clan's obedience technique to cultivate, you dogs, after taking it, you will definitely grow into the way we hope, hahahahaha."

"I just didn't expect that one disobedient dog would discover this and leak the news before we skinned them alive, causing those dogs to form a tree-destroying alliance. How despicable! If I had known, I should have skinned that dog's son and daughter alive in front of him, and given them a good thrashing—"

Yang Fei was utterly speechless. No wonder these people from the Holy See would give such an important opportunity to distribute the Life Fruit to ordinary people. So that's how it is. They use the selfishness of intelligent beings and the hereditary nature of the ruling class to control ordinary people. This method is quite ingenious. Perhaps he can learn from it when he develops the Sky Island.

But this goddess's attitude towards mortals is rather strange. She calls her own people "dogs" and even wants to devour them alive. That's rather cruel. With that attitude, it would be difficult to control not only mortals but also the internal workings of the papacy.

Intelligent beings are a very complex species. If it is a ruling class that has existed for a long time, then the internal discourse is by no means a one-man show, but rather composed of many intricate forces, and its internal ideas are even more complex.

Does a goddess who despises these mortal forces to the core, who views her fellow human beings as dogs, and a church that has ruled the mortal world for who knows how long using the "divine tree"—does it not have a single kind person within its ranks?

It is said that where there is light, there is darkness, but Yang Fei's understanding of it is that darkness needs light to illuminate it. Yang Fei does not believe that there is not a single kind person in the entire Holy See who is unaware of the secret. Perhaps the person who leaked the secret was the mastermind behind it all.

But that doesn't quite make sense. The person who leaked the information was skinned alive after being arrested, and the kind person didn't offer any help? Even if they weren't released, shouldn't they have at least been able to ensure that the person wasn't devoured alive?

Or is there really only one kind person in the entire Vatican? Is it that he lacks the influence to offer help? That doesn't seem right.

After waiting for a long time and confirming that he no longer heard the goddess's voice, could not perceive the outside world, and could not use his body, and could do nothing, Yang Fei transferred his consciousness back to the sky island.

Although I didn't find out why I went there, I still got to see a good show and gained some inspiration for controlling the ruling class to help me manage the mortal world, so it wasn't too bad.

Moreover, Yang Fei had a feeling that even if he withdrew all his consciousness, he could still enter that world, just as easily as returning to Azure Star. Furthermore, it seemed that he could open a portal there through the Fallen Heavens, thus truly entering that world.

"Hiss~, Fallen Heavens?" Upon realizing this, Yang Fei suddenly understood a possibility: this world could be connected to the Fallen Heavens by him. Did that mean that this world was about to fall?

Or perhaps, this talent, which I didn't activate a second time, was attracted by this world and automatically triggered? And then this result occurred? Then my Fallen Heavens and Abyss Projection seem a bit of a trap, don't they? Won't this synergy between them kill me?

However, in a sense, this synergy between the two talents can be seen as giving oneself a safe opportunity to understand the other world. Using this kind of consciousness projection to explore the other world first, to see if there are any dangers in it, and then to open the Fallen Heavens to conquer the other world seems like a good thing!

Of course, it's best not to activate it randomly if possible. The mechanism of the Abyss Projection is quite complex, and Yang Fei can't fully understand it yet. However, Yang Fei is very clear about the conditions for using the Fallen Heavens talent: it requires no consumption and opens a two-way door to another world. These other worlds are all on the verge of collapse, and their combat power is limited by his own realm.

After figuring out why he might have ended up in that world, Yang Fei turned his attention to that world itself. He didn't want to imagine people to be too bad, so he automatically generated a story about that world in his mind.

That is, those people in the Vatican are not real people, but some kind of invaders wearing human skin. This also explains why the whistleblower was skinned alive. It's simple: the entire Vatican may very well be this invader.

"Sigh! It's none of my business." Yang Fei sighed in his own mind, no longer caring about this world. His abilities were truly limited; he couldn't even save a zombie world.

How could I possibly save a world with similar magic? Since I can already open a portal, I can do it later when I have time. Right now, I'm truly powerless.

Lying in Lola's arms, Yang Fei gradually fell asleep. When he woke up again, it was already 8 a.m. on May 6th. He groggily broke free from Mona's embrace, washed up a little, and then started his daily card draw.

"Mist Expansion Stone: A Sky Island exclusive item. When used, it can shroud the Sky Island in mist, making it difficult for passing superhumans or superhuman detection methods to detect. The level of the mist can be increased as the Sky Island is upgraded."

"Oh? This is a Sky Island Skill Stone? What a great item!" Yang Fei was somewhat surprised as he looked at the colorless little stone in his hand. This thing was recorded in Tower Defense World.

Several lords obtained Sky Island exclusive items from the leaderboard reward packs. These items have effects such as increasing Sky Island movement speed and providing buffs to the defensive towers on it. These are all Sky Island buffs and are relatively rare items.

And I am one of them, except that my thing can't enhance the Sky Island itself, but hides it, which is a bit of putting the cart before the horse.

Do you like to play it safe? Does that mean you like to play it safe even on Skypiea?

That being said, Yang Fei was still quite willing to use this thing. After all, his Sky Island was really weak right now, so playing it safe wasn't a big problem. He had plans to expand Sky Island on a large scale in the future.

If I were to expand my sky islands on a large scale, and the various items on them were discovered by the local strongmen, it would be somewhat difficult to deal with. Hiding them now would alleviate some of my worries.

From the perspective of the Sky Island's inhabitants, the mist was invisible, but from the Lord's perspective, Yang Fei could clearly sense that he had a slight connection to the area within 500 meters of the Sky Island.

That must be the mist emanating from the Sky Island. This mist that hides the Sky Island can be seen as an extension of the Sky Island itself, and also as an extension of Yang Fei's senses.

With the two newly recruited tentacle jellyfish in tow, Yang Fei arrived at the city wall. The defensive battle was still raging, and Yang Fei was not to be outdone. He quickly ran up the war corridor, climbed his defensive tower, and began to defend against the enemy.

"Congratulations, Trainee Lord Yang Fei-1! You have perfectly cleared the third wave of the Novice Trial in Extreme Mode (10x Extreme) Monster Siege. You have completed all three waves of the Novice Monster Siege and have received a White Gift Pack. You can also start the fourth wave of the Easy Difficulty Monster Siege at any time."

"Note that after you choose to start the fourth wave of easy difficulty monster siege, the level of the siege monsters will increase, and the difficulty of defending the city will also increase accordingly. So please choose the timing of the next wave carefully."

"Congratulations, Trainee Lord Yang Fei-1! You have perfectly cleared the third wave of the Novice Trial, all monsters in Extreme Mode, and have received the basic rewards."

The blueprints for residential building (gray rare) have been distributed to the system space — countdown five minutes.

At 10:00 AM on May 6th, the eighth year of Global Tower Defense, with the simultaneous firing of five turrets from Yang Fei's Sky Island, the last Mimic disappeared in the War Corridor, leaving behind a pile of treasure chests. Yang Fei's nearly 18-hour siege of a million monsters finally came to an end.

"Congratulations, Lord Yang Fei-1! You have become the first trainee lord to pass all three waves of the new lord assessment in this Azure Star lord competition. You have received a green gift pack, which has now been sent to your system space. Please check it."

"Congratulations, Lord Yang Fei! You have become the first trainee lord to pass the million-level monster siege in this year's Azure Star Lord Novice Assessment. You have received a green gift pack, which has now been sent to your system space. Please check it."

A familiar notification sounded, and Yang Fei, who was leading everyone back to Sky Island, was taken aback. He almost forgot that he, as a beta tester, could also get leaderboard rewards. These two green gift packs were mentioned in the book "Tower Defense World". Those who obtained them would definitely be courted by high-ranking officials of various governments on Azure Star and would all become important figures.

Yang Fei originally thought those guys were far away from him, but he didn't expect to get them so easily. If it weren't for the hint, Yang Fei wouldn't have realized that he seemed to be a bit strong!

Back on the floating island, Yang Fei told everyone to go back and rest. Those who wanted to cultivate should do so, those who wanted to sleep should sleep, and those who wanted to eat should eat. At 3 PM today, Yang Fei would launch the monster siege again.

Now that we've cleared the first three waves of the beginner mode and are about to enter the next stage, Yang Fei hopes everyone can maintain a good state of mind to welcome the new wave. If everyone is listless, it would be somewhat disrespectful to the upcoming siege by higher-level monsters.

After everyone left, Yang Fei went up to the city wall alone and began to take stock of his gains. First were the basic rewards and ranking rewards: a rare gray-quality house blueprint, the same as the one he got the first time, which he could consider using directly.

A white gift pack that everyone gets after completing the first three waves of the game. Under normal circumstances, the items inside are very useful for defending the Sky Island, but for Yang Fei, it's just so-so. It's just a way to open a few more white treasure chests.

As for the two green gift packs that are the final leaderboard rewards, they are indeed good items. However, given the gold gift pack he had previously obtained, Yang Fei looked down on these two leaderboard rewards somewhat. They are both ranking rewards, so how could the difference be so great?