Chapter 19: The Magical Factions

The new testing point was actually very easy to find.
It was the independent building directly opposite the exchange post, which had been uninhabited all this time but which players had been required to renovate.

Hua Yibing still remembered that special quest, [Renovate the Altar].
It seemed to have been taken by a professional player whose renovation quest had scored 95 points.
He had been envious for a long time back then.

As for his own repair job on Old Li’s house, the score he received from the system was a mere 13 points.

‘There’s definitely something wrong with this scoring system! Old Li clearly said it looked pretty good!’ Huahua fumed.

But he had to admit, the player with 95 points was indeed very talented in construction, completely restoring the building to its former appearance—

It had a spacious and bright inner chamber, a beautiful round arched ceiling, and even the faint carvings on the ceiling had been carefully cleaned and colored by the player.

Hua Yibing took a rough look and found that it told the story of the merfolk fighting against some dark, shadowy thing and successfully achieving victory.

“Is this the background of the game? The historical story of our merfolk clan?”
He looked up at the final painting, where the merfolk were singing and dancing to celebrate their victory.

Old Li also took in the story and, after pondering for a moment, suddenly raised a question, “Since there were so many merfolk back then, why have we only seen the Lord himself after being in the game for so long?”

“Since he’s called a lord, he should naturally have many subjects, right? Starting with only two interactable NPCs is too few. This is different from other games.”

Old Li expressed some confusion—was this an oversight by the game developers, or was there another hidden background waiting for them to explore?

“The architectural style here is very interesting,” Yan Shuangwen, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke.

Hearing this, the two who were looking up at the mural turned their attention back to the interior of the room.

The style of the entire building was a bit like a church in the real world, but there was a slight difference—

It lacked the divinity of a church and was more normalized, more rugged, with more humanity, or perhaps, fish-nanity?
It was as if, although this place was called an altar, the merfolk’s definition of worship was completely different from their own understanding.

The altar seemed a bit small compared to the surrounding buildings.
It was about three meters wide and had seven levels, like steps leading up to a palace hall.
The top of the altar should have been where the object of worship was—but there was nothing on it.

Something should have been there, but now there was nothing.

And in front of that altar was a simple table that looked like it had just been added.
This simple style was very similar to that dilapidated exchange post.

In front of the table was a full-length mirror, and a small red-haired, red-eyed sprite was standing beside it.

‘Good lord, it’s the same little sprite from the exchange post.’

The audience in Hua Yibing’s stream room saw the familiar cute loli, and for a moment, the number of bullet comments rose again—

[Could this be the dedicated NPC for novice guidance?]

[Praise the artist, I’ll call her my wife first.]

[Person above, you’re dreaming of peaches, but count me in.]

[I won’t watch Peach Blossom Spring without you guys.]

The few of them stood still in front of the mirror.
The little sprite lifted her eyelids and glanced at them, saying in a prim and proper manner, “Newborn subjects, please place your hands on the crystal ball, relax your minds, and wait for knowledge to guide you to the other shore of magic.”

“Pfft,” Hua Yibing couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing, earning a cold glance from Miss Sprite.

“It still feels so chuunibyou,” he secretly complained to the stream room.

Ella: “Player [Hua Nord], do you wish to undergo the elemental test? After a five-second countdown, you will be considered to have automatically given up. Five, one…”

“I’ll test, I’ll test, I’ll test, I’ll test!!!”
Hua Yibing hadn’t felt anything was wrong at first, but after hearing the second number, his whole body shivered.
He shot to the front of the mirror at the fastest speed of his life, and then, because his speed was too fast and he couldn’t stabilize himself, he face-planted with a ‘splat’ in front of the mirror, and thus, the sprite.

When Huahua looked up, he happened to meet Ella’s gaze—this time, Huahua was sure that he saw a trace of regret in her calm eyes.

He said with a mournful face, “I want to complain about you. Why doesn’t this NPC play by the rules, QAQ.”

But the bullet comments had already gone crazy with laughter—

[No way, no way, are there really people now who think they can offend the guide NPC?]

[Hahahaha, Your Excellency, why perform such a grand salute?]

[Dying of laughter, counting down five seconds equals 5 and 1. As expected of my future wife.]

[Daily mocking of the streamer (1/N)]

[I’m a bit expectant of the test results. By the way, isn’t this the common spiritual root testing part in novels? I wonder if our Huahua will be the legendary all-element magic genius.]

[Gold, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, rain, ice. Huahua, you pick one yourself.]

[And there’s light, dark, Mary Sue, and Tom Sue (doge head).]

The three people present and the hundreds of thousands of viewers in the stream room all focused their attention on that magic mirror.

The mirror looked similar to a fitting room mirror in a shopping mall.
The only difference was probably that its edges were covered with cracks, as if it had been dropped.

And those cracks were inlaid with four whole rows of gems, in red, green, yellow, and blue, which was very much in line with the nouveau riche aesthetic of Sea Realm‘s developers.

Hua Yibing had originally looked at the mirror with a casual attitude, but then he seemed to see something.
With a ‘click’, he turned off the live stream and fiercely dug his hands into his own scales.

His baby face turned pale, and for a moment, he even forgot to breathe.

Ella glanced at him and kicked the mirror.
“Congratulations, you belong to the special attribute magic talent. You can open the magic skill panel to view the specific skills.”

“What happened?”
Old Li flicked his tail and quickly went forward to support his companion.
“Is there a problem with the game cabin?” His expression was serious.

“Didn’t you guys see it?”
Hua Yibing seemed to have not yet recovered from what he had just seen, and he looked dazed.

“We only saw it reflect your appearance, and then the circle of yellow gems around it lit up,” Yan Shuangwen also swam over and shook his head.

“I saw…” Huahua opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Speaking of which, I’m a special attribute? Is that the really powerful kind?” he deliberately changed the subject.

“It should be,” Old Li saw that he didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t press further.
He comfortingly rubbed Hua Yibing’s little pink hair and also stood in front of the mirror himself.

At first glance, he of course saw his current appearance in the mirror—short blackish-brown hair, a taut upper body with firm muscles, and a wide, dark green tail supporting him below.

Looking further, the image in the mirror suddenly blurred.