On my second playthrough, they were full of malice towards me.

"He likes to cause trouble everywhere."

What does that mean?

Groon was dumbfounded. He had never imagined that Maria would describe someone in such a way. It was not something a cold-blooded Lightbringer would say. Groon could hardly believe his eyes. He seemed to see a hint of doting affection on the nun's face as she said those words.

Before the priest could react, Maria appeared before him in a daze.

The sudden increase in pressure made Groon feel a little breathless; it was a kind of oppressive feeling that seemed to come from a life-level perspective.

Maria returned to her initial expressionless state.

Her cold eyes fixed on the priest, and she said, word by word:

"Give me that report."

Chapter 25 Father-Daughter Conversation (Part 1)

Congratulations on your upgrade!

Current Level: Lv3

[75/300 points away from the next level]

[Unlocked at Lv5 - Number of contractable Evil Ones increased by 1]

The amount of experience points depends not only on the strength of the monsters, but also on their identity attributes. Although the gangsters in Kaleva are not as strong as the kobolds in the dungeons on paper, the experience points they actually give Liao Ji are quite good in the early stages.

A group of about fifteen gangsters allowed Liao Ji to successfully level up again with some extra points. The only regret was that Liao Ji checked his experience record and found that he had indeed not received any experience points from the leader, "Grey Wolf".

Liao Ji deliberately left Yilin behind and didn't interfere in his fight with the gray wolf, partly to test this. And the result proved once again that his upgrade system completely followed the underlying logic of "The Fall".

He cannot directly gain experience points; his subordinates, who are contracted with the Evil Ones, must participate in the fight to gain experience points from kills. Although the girl delivered a powerful punch to the gray wolf at the very beginning, judging from the assessment, this was not enough to be considered as participation in the battle.

Liao Jiji recalled that in the background of "The Fall," the explanation for this setting was that the essence of experience points was actually a kind of turbid pollution.

When the corrupted are engaged in battle, this pollution will continuously accumulate in their bodies. As the "protagonist," you can use a "contract" to extract the pollution from their bodies and then transform it into your own power.

This explains why he couldn't gain experience points by fighting alone, and it also explains why, in the Knights' previous tests on him and Irene, especially for Irene, who was clearly a "Cursed One," her Turbidity Contamination value was still at an extremely low level.

"We still need to upgrade as soon as possible!" Liao Ji, sitting in the van, couldn't help but sigh.

He fiddled with the business card of the young church knight "Tamik" that he had obtained earlier, secretly pondering whether he should inquire about a few Kaleva strongholds, and then take Irene to rid the people of this menace, wipe out a few gang dens, and then leave the settlement.

He wasn't after the meager stat boosts from leveling up, since the protagonist's growth coefficient was even lower than the lowest two-star card. Okay, he was after it too; even a small amount is still something.

But the most crucial aspect is the various protagonist powers that can be unlocked and enhanced after the upgrade; that's the real big prize.

For example, after every five levels, an extra "Contract" slot can be added. Another example is that although there is no prompt yet, Liao Ji, as someone who has been through it, knows that the "Crystallization" power can be unlocked after Lv7.

As mentioned before, the protagonist can absorb the turbid pollution in the bodies of the tainted beings and convert it into their own experience points. After unlocking the "Crystallization" power, they have another new option: to filter, purify, refine, and finally crystallize this turbid pollution.

That's right, the [Turbid Calamity Crystals] that Liao Ji previously referred to as "dog food" for upgrading Evil Ones came from this.

After taking another piece from the gray wolf for experimentation, he now only has three [Turbid Calamity Crystals (Small)] left from the secret chamber. Liao Ji's ideal plan is to leave them for his second Calamity user, who must have at least a four-star initial potential. Of course, if he encounters any sudden situation and urgently needs combat power, he can also use them all on Irene.

Three small Turbid Crystals should be enough to max out Irene's level to 30, bringing her strength close to that of a "Dangerous" Calamity-level Calamity-transformer. This is the advantage of low-star, low-ranking characters; they only need to consume a small amount of resources to rapidly increase their combat power in a short time.

After briefly summarizing what he considered his "first battle" since his transmigration, Liao Ji returned to reality and turned his gaze to the outside of the car window.

Right now, the same group of people from the previous Sea Sand Bar are heading to another bar owned by his friend, Brian, led by the owner.

According to this man, after surviving a "big storm" safely, they should celebrate and drink to their hearts' content; this is a tradition among scavengers.

At first, Irene naturally refused, as she was in a hurry to pick up her mother from the clinic. However, Brian told the girl that he had sent someone to visit Nolan the day before, and the doctor said that Irene's mother's condition was under control and had not worsened. She just needed to wait for the surgery, so the girl could rest assured. He also told Irene firmly that this "celebration" would not last long and would not take up much of her time.

Seeing Brian's persistent attitude, even the slow-witted Irene seemed to understand something, so she stopped refusing.

Brian also extended a warm invitation to Liao Ji. Compared to Irene, Liao Ji immediately understood what the uncle wanted to do, so without the other party saying anything more, Liao Ji naturally agreed.

That's pretty much it, which is why we're seeing this scene now.

The new bar wasn't far; Brian arrived in just a few minutes in his beat-up van.

Incidentally, the reason why it wasn't held on-site at the Sea Sand Bar is that although the rampage incident has ended, according to church regulations, for safety reasons, any area that has been contaminated by turbidity is not allowed to be approached or entered by anyone for a week. Therefore, the Sea Sand Bar is under a state of lockdown and isolation.

After parking the car, the group went into the new bar, which was significantly smaller than the Sea Sand Bar, with fewer customers and a quieter, more private atmosphere.

Brian was friends with the owner of the place. After greeting them, he opened a private room for them. As soon as Liao Jigang went in, the Hai Sha group immediately surrounded the young man and continued their lively conversation that they had been having in the car.

When Irene was about to come in, Brian stopped her and led the girl away silently.

Liao Ji had already guessed this, so he glanced at it and then looked away, continuing to chat with the people from Hai Sha.

the other side.

Irene followed Brian, and the two soon arrived at another soundproof room next door.

Bang!

After closing the door and becoming truly alone with him, Brian stared at the girl opposite him, who was leaning against the wall with a slightly guilty expression, avoiding eye contact with him.

After a brief silence, Brian spoke in a very serious and earnest tone:

“Eileen, look me in the eyes and tell me, are you a Calamity-Borrower or not?”

"Huh? Old man, are you kidding me? How could I be a Calamity-Changer?"

"Really?" Brian frowned and asked again.

"Of course! Well, you saw the church's test results before, didn't you? The concentration of turbidity in my body is even lower than yours!"

Irene remained adamant and presented the best and strongest evidence, which left Brian with no room for rebuttal.

Finally, the bearded man sighed.

“Eileen, as you know, I was a close friend of your father, but unlike him, I wasn’t lucky enough to find a virtuous and good woman like Nolan. I’m just an old bachelor. So I’ve always treated you like my own daughter, especially after your father passed away.”

"What's with this sudden emotional outburst? It's like a life-or-death separation!"

“Isn’t that right?” Brian retorted.

Chapter 26 Father-Daughter Conversation (Part 2)

Irene fell silent.

Indeed, after picking up their mother tonight, at the latest by tomorrow morning, they will leave the Black Hole settlement with the young man and head to an unknown new city. When they will return, and whether she will be able to return, are all unknowns.

Brian had clearly guessed this, which is why he insisted on keeping her here so that they could have this last conversation, a conversation that was more like father and daughter than father and daughter.

"The reason I'm telling you all this is to tell you, Irene, I don't want you to follow in your father's footsteps. You saw what became of him in the end; do you want to?"

"No! I'm not like that bastard!"

Perhaps she had touched a nerve with the girl, because Irene interrupted Brian almost shouting.

Brian wasn't angry. He continued in a deep voice, "Who gave you the confidence, that young man named Liao Ji?"

“I…” Irene couldn’t explain all this to Brian, but she was different from ordinary Evil Ones. After the incident at the Sand Bar, the girl was even more certain of this.

Another reason Liao Ji told Yilin to stay put during the battle against the gray wolf was that he didn't want the girl to see him using the Turbid Crystal on the gray wolf. But in fact, from the girl's perspective, she could more or less guess what Liao Ji had done.

That scene left a deep impression on Irene, making her constantly think to herself, if she hadn't received the "contract" from the young man back then, would she have become a corrupted and mutated monster like Gray Wolf, completely corrupted by the Turbid Calamity?

However, with the help of the youth's "contract," she is now experiencing no physical or mental discomfort, and even the church's testing equipment cannot detect any turbidity in her body.

Possible

Irene was scared.

No one could remain unafraid after witnessing that scene.

The girl even began to wonder if Liao Ji would really break the contract for her? Would he treat her like he treated the gray wolf after he felt worthless, causing the turbid evil within her to run rampant and turning her into a turbid corpse monster as well?

Just as the girl pursed her lips, knowing she wouldn't tell Brian these frightening words and was preparing to bury them deep in her heart, Brian's next words stunned Irene.

"To be honest, if your confidence really comes from that young man named Liao Ji, then I'm actually quite relieved."

"What?!"

"Indeed, I haven't even exchanged a few words with him yet, but I can tell that he's a good person, and a rather foolishly good person."

Brian understood the girl's stunned expression, and when he saw that Irene's expression changed from "stunned" to "are you kidding me?" after his words, he sighed as if he had expected it.

Brian insisted on having a talk with Irene, but his main purpose wasn't really to ask the girl if she was a jinx. Even if he found out, what would be the point?

What Brian was about to tell the girl was what he really wanted to tell her.

He didn't directly explain to Irene why he thought Liao Ji was a good person, or rather, a rather stupid good person.

Brian then posed a new question.

“I ask you, Irene, if you were the leader of the Caleva gang, after seeing the Knights’ investigation report on this incident, whose focus would you place on?”

"Put it on the two of us."

“What if you had listened to me afterward and simply left?” Brian asked again.

This time, the older man gave the answer directly.

“Kaleva will not let the Sand Bar go, nor will he let me go, so that young man used this method to attract attention for us and save the Sand Bar.”

"This"

Irene was speechless, unable to say anything. She hadn't thought that much about it at the time, but now that Brian had pointed it out, she finally understood.

It turns out that the old antique stayed behind to wait for the Knights because of the Sea Sand Bar, which is why he fabricated such an obviously flawed and blatant testimony.

But, but that's not right!

Why would that guy do that?

Didn't the old antique specifically take her to change clothes to avoid Kaleva in the beginning?

Seeing the girl lost in confusion, Brian shook his head inwardly.

He watched Irene grow up and knew how devastating the death of her father was for her, turning the girl who was once like a little angel into the prickly, wicked girl who could hardly trust anyone anymore.

Brian, having been through it all, knows that people with this kind of personality, even if they are kind-hearted and yearn for love, will lose a lot because of their prickly exterior, like a hedgehog, and the beautiful things they could have had the chance to grasp.

“I think you must have told that young man that this bar is very important to you, like your home, and that everyone here, including us, is like your brother. That’s why he’s trying to get the spotlight and why he insisted on getting that test.”