Loser System and Berserker Me

Chapter 147: Anxi Protectorate General

Abbot Palkyi and the other rebel leaders watched in disbelief as Shu Yichao pranced off.

When they heard that Shu Yichao had led their ancestors’ deceased souls out of Kucha, subdued the barbarians, and eventually reclaimed Shule, they thought that the young general was a highly talented youth with a strong sense of justice.

Now that they had met him in person, they instead wondered…

Is this young general right in the mind? Why does he seem like a lunatic?

They exchanged confused looks.

“It’s fine.” Miazova could tell right away what they were thinking. “He has always been like this. You just have to get used to it.”

“…” The rebels fell silent.

Vice General Mi, you should hear your own words!

“Now that I think about it, his family name is Shu?” someone asked.

It would be hard to find anyone else who fit the criteria in the Western Region—a general with the family name of Shu, accompanied by a weirdly-dressed Vice General Mi.

“Could it be…”

“You’re right.” Miazova looked at the sky with wistful eyes. “He’s Shu Chuanfeng’s son. I rescued him from a pile of corpses and resuscitated him after Shu Chuanfeng died. But he suddenly vanished for a while afterward…”

Miazova looked at Shu Yichao’s departing silhouette.

“He has been like that ever since we reunited. I don’t know where he learned those skills from, but…”

Miazova stopped there, but the others caught his drift.

For someone as young as Shu Yichao to mobilize hundreds of thousands of skeletons, he must have had to pay a heavy price. It was a relief if he had only gotten off with mild lunacy.

Boom!

The world suddenly shook.

“What’s going on?”

“What happened?”

Someone pointed in the distance and exclaimed, “Look there!”

A Mage Tower was rising from the center of Shule. It emanated a mysterious glow, and black lotuses that looked like joyful spirits blossomed around it.

“…Vice General Mi,” someone carefully asked, “should we not be worried about that too?”

Miazova nodded. “Yes, you just have to get used to it.”

Meanwhile, Shu Yichao put his hands together and prayed devoutly.

“Jade Emperor, Goddess of Mercy, Supreme God of Virtue, Buddha Sakyamuni, Sage that Rivals the Heavens… Please bless this pitiful child. Please give me some useful spells.”

He had just received a notification.

With this divine artifact, he no longer had to stress himself out learning spells. All he had to do was to develop his Mage Tower well and find a useful spell to record.

The only problem was that most spells in the Mage Tower were useless.

For instance, a maxed out Farsight allowed one to see the whole map, which theoretically made it a powerful strategic spell.

The only issue was that the vision it granted was severely limited in the early game, whereas players would have deployed scouts all around the map by late game. This rendered the spell useless.

It was a waste of resources to develop.

Another example was Holy Hand. When maxed out, it could heal any troop, regardless of race or level, back to full health as long as it had a droplet of blood left in them.

It sounded strong on paper, but to players, there were only two types of troops—cannon fodder, and high-quality cannon fodder. If a troop died, all they had to do was to summon more. Money and resources were hardly an issue by the time by late game.

Who would have the patience to waste a spell to heal a single troop?

It was yet another trash spell!

Shu Yichao understood the concept of the carrot and the stick.

Other than praying to whichever god was listening, he also provoked the Mage Tower, murmuring, “A Mage Tower who doesn’t have any offensive spell is incomplete and unqualified. I’m sure you don’t want other Mage Towers to know that all you have are trash spells, right?”

Having said his piece, Shu Yichao finally tapped into the Mage Tower.

“Hahaha!” He burst into laughter. “Lightning Arrow?”

Beacons of the Otherworld’s spells had a unique trait—the simpler their names, the more explosive their prowess.

For example, Lightning Arrow sounded like an unassuming spell, and its effects didn’t sound particularly impressive either, dealing just 300 spell damage, but…

“Fantastic! This is exactly what I was looking for! Gods above, just hold on for a moment longer, all right? I’ll return the favor very soon!”

“Oi!” Miazova arrived in a rush. “Grandson, what are you doing?”

Is this fellow spreading his blight to Shule now? What is that tower he conjured out of nowhere?

“Hm?”

Miazova sensed a mana pulsation from the grimoire he had received from Shu Yichao, so he quickly took it out and flipped it open.

“…”

A huge selection of spells appeared before his eyes.

“What the heck is this?!” Miazova was dumbfounded.

Why are there so many spells on the grimoire?

And most of them don’t look like they are from this world! Holy sheep! Why would things from the other world appear when he blights a city?

Not to mention that these spells are ridiculously detailed!

The spells that mages had devoted their lives to researching were invaluable knowledge. Most of them would rather bring it down to the grave with them than to share it with others—that was how valuable they were.

Yet those spells were explained in elaborate details in this grimoire!

Mages would go insane over this grimoire if they learn about its existence. They might even develop some diabolical way to cross worlds to steal it!

That is how precious this grimoire is!

If I learn all the spells on this grimoire…

“…Bro, can I borrow your book? I want to learn some spells,” Miazova said with a tense heart.

Not daring to snatch Shu Yichao’s book, it sought to only borrow it. Even so, it was afraid that Shu Yichao would turn down its request.

Knowledge was wealth to mages; they wouldn’t give their spells away for free. Instead, they were traded at exorbitant prices, even among close friends.

But Miazova was too poor to bring out anything good in exchange, so it could only be thick-skinned and ask for a free ride. Shu Yichao would already be generous if he turned down its request without flipping out.

Making this request made it so nervous that its heart was about to beat right out of its throat.

“You want to learn spells?” Shu Yichao was bemused. “Why? It’s not like it’ll be useful elsewhere. Why waste your effort?”

Beacons of the Otherworld was a Frankenstein best described as a mishmash of several games. Its data was not properly synced across different mods, so skills learned in a mod might not necessarily work in another.

Initially, the developers still proudly declared it to be a feature, not a bug, but when the players drowned them with complaints, they decided to play dead altogether.

What? Fix the bugs?

Why waste the money when you can use it to develop your next game to fleece more money?

Players could sometimes exploit bugs to bring something from one mod into another, but that didn’t work most of the time.

“I know.” Miazova nodded.

It also knew that each world had its own laws, so the spells it learned here might not work elsewhere, but…

“But it’d be a windfall if even one works,” Miazova added.

“Up to you.” Shu Yichao scratched his head.

Is he one of the avid bug exploiters? Those madmen prioritize bugging over playing the game.

“Really?!” Miazova squealed in disbelief.

Why is he agreeing just like that? Does he not know the value of this thing? I thought he’d at least make some demands!

Miazova might be one of the poorer demons, but it still had some juice in it. It was even considering pledging itself to Shu Yichao for a couple of centuries.

Yet, Shu Yichao accepted its request just like that!

It suddenly felt light-footed as if it was walking on clouds.

“Why are you squealing, my son! What got over you?! Shu Yichao was baffled by Miazova’s reaction.

Their conversation was like a cow talking to a horse—they simply weren’t on the same page.

Just then, the ghost horsemen arrived.

“Hm?” Shu Yichao looked over and saw that the ghost horsemen were accompanied by Abbot Palkyi, Zeng Lu, the rebel army, and a huge bunch of Shule’s residents. “What do you want?”

The leader of the ghost horsemen solemnly held an item with both hands as he walked up to Shu Yichao.

“A seal?” Miazova recognized the object. “Could this mean…”

As the ghost horseman couldn’t alight from his horses, Zeng Lu received the seal with both hands before respectfully presenting it to Shu Yichao with a lowered head.

“May Protector General Shu take charge of the Anxi Protectorate!” the crowd chanted in unison.

Shu Yichao didn’t stand on ceremony. He didn’t bother making a courteous rejection or a pretense of humility of how he was unworthy but he would take on the role since everyone insisted. He simply took the seal.

Then, he drew his modao and raised it up high.

“Brave men of Great Tang!” he shouted. “As long as there’s a breath left in us, as long as our souls have yet to extinguish, our enemies need not dream of taking away our homeland! Let’s teach our enemies that with our powerful arrows and bloodstained swords!

“Anxi army, follow me! We shall attack our enemies and restore Great Tang’s soil!”