Hell’s Handbook - Chapter 327

Chapter 327 The Hunt Begins

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Level B Challenge “Hospital of Horrors” completed perfectly: 2000 points

Guiding object obtained: Psyche Key

Points Received: 2000

Total Points: 7000

Su Jin sat inside his Personal Hell Domain. This Challenge hadn’t been the most difficult in terms of its level, but it had been extremely dangerous. The Challenge didn’t provide him with a lot of information, and the main premise of the Challenge was actually the owner’s own psychological state, which the owner did not know at the start.

He figured that he would have been able to get through the Challenge if he had only figured out the psychological part without figuring out the sort of world the hospital was set in, but then he wouldn’t have completed the Challenge perfectly.

“The weakness of humans, huh.” Su Jin sighed and shook his head. After becoming an owner, he had several brushes with death, but because he always had sufficient powers and other trump cards, he seldom felt a sense of despair. He had formed Team Boning Knife very early on, which had added to his burden. That made him hide the darker side of himself, or rather, the vulnerable side of himself. He didn’t expect it to rear its ugly head in this Challenge.

He took a look at the guiding object he got from the Challenge. It was the triangular key he had pieced together during the Challenge. He guessed that if he used it, he would probably appear in the actual world that the hospital was in. After he had understood the psychological puzzle he was in, he broke out from one of the fixtures he had seen in the other wards, which meant that this hospital actually existed in that universe.

But the hospital had probably already been destroyed and the monsters no longer existed. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to complete the Challenge once he got out of that fixture. Even so, those machines were very valuable ones. They were able to extract vitality from humans and give it to others, which was an amazing thing in itself. If he could get one of those things inside his Handbook, he would have tremendous use for it.

Su Jin played with the key for a while, then threw it into his Handbook and set it aside for the time being. He looked through the catalog and eventually stopped at a skills manual.

“The Preacher,” murmured Su Jin as he read the cover of the manual out loud. Information about the skill appeared in front of him.

“Passive skill, the Preacher. The targets are those of the same race within the real world and Challenges. When a target worships the owner who uses this skill and becomes devoted to the owner, the preaching process will be considered a success and the target will provide power of belief to the owner.”

Su Jin was quiet for a moment. This skill turned out to be tied to the power of belief. He had talked to the Mad Hatter about this before. The power of belief was the key to converting a smaller and weaker god into a full-fledged god. The weaker ones weren’t able to become a god by their own strength, so they needed to rely on their believers to increase their powers.

But the power of belief did not only help one become a full-fledged god. The Demon Lord, for example, was already a very powerful deity and she had relied on herself to become a god. But she needed this power from her believers too. To put it simply, the power of belief was like a battery to a god. It gave them energy.

“This is good stuff!” Su Jin was amazed. It had been a long time since something really good appeared in his catalog. He was not expecting something so powerful at all.

But when he saw how many points it cost, his lips twitched. The manual was actually going to cost him 20,000 points.

“Too bad, I’ll just bookmark it for next time.” Su Jin smiled sadly and shook his head. It was going to take him at least two or three more Challenges to earn enough to get this item. The item currently bookmarked in his catalog was the Lucky Draw Bag. If he wanted to bookmark the Preacher manual, he would have to remove the bookmark on the Lucky Draw Bag.

Su Jin didn’t think it was a pity to remove his current bookmark. The Lucky Draw Bags did give him something good from time to time, but the chances of that happening were too low. The price he paid for empty bags or lousy bags were almost equivalent to what he would have paid for the item he got, so he was fine with not having it anymore.

He replaced the Lucky Draw Bag with the Preacher manual, then exchanged points for some training. At his stage, it was hard to see any improvements, regardless of whether it was his psychokinesis, his physical body, or his fighting techniques.

When it came to his psychokinesis, Su Jin was already almost on par with a deity. The time he had spent in the river of time had helped him to evolve greatly.

As for his physical body, Su Jin pretty much had a godlike body. It was even harder to strengthen his body with anything the Handbook could offer, so he had no choice but to leave things as they were.

The only thing that could increase Su Jin’s overall capabilities was to find new ways to use the abilities he already had, like how he had discovered that he could create clones of himself with his psychokinesis. He had to do more research on his own abilities.

Su Jin ended up spending an entire year in training before returning to the real world. On the surface, he looked like he was training himself up, but deep inside, Su Jin was trying to seize this chance to keep himself busy so that he would forget the people he had lost and the time spent with them.

But when he returned to the real world and reappeared in his house, he realized that the time he had spent was meaningless. The house and the things inside reminded him of those people.

After spending two days at home doing nothing, Han Mengyao called him. The first thing she did was to complain about how irresponsible he was.

“Gosh! That’s tens of billions of dollars you transferred to me! You’re not going to ask or care about it at all?!” Han Mengyao was practically yelling at the top of her lungs. The money he had transferred to her had nearly gotten her into big trouble. She was a government official, but so much money suddenly poured into her account from nowhere. Yang Tianzheng immediately called her into his office, but after he heard it was from Su Jin, he let her off in the end.

“Oh, that. I’ve given the money to you, so you can decide how best to handle it.” Su Jin scratched his head. Money was meaningless to him. If he wanted to, he could transfer the world’s fortunes to his own account. It wouldn’t be difficult, but it wouldn’t be meaningful either.

“Surely you have some sort of rough idea, right? What sort of charity do you want me to do? Put it toward infrastructure like mending roads and building bridges? Help the poor? Or what?!” Han Mengyao felt that talking to Su Jin was really tiring.

Su Jin paused to think, then said, “Give it to children then. Use most of it on children. I remember there’s an orphanage in the outskirts of S City that used to be managed by… a friend of mine. My friend is not able to manage it anymore, so I hope the children there can be well taken care of.”

The children that Ye Yun had saved back then were housed safely on the outskirts of S City, and both he and Ye Yun often visited them. But now that Ye Yun was dead, he simply couldn’t bring himself to face the children. He didn’t want to tell them what happened to Ye Yun, nor did he want to wipe out their memories like what he did with Tang Ning. It was better to let Han Mengyao take charge of this instead.

Han Mengyao asked him for more information, then agreed to help the children. She asked him about a few more details, but Su Jin’s only answer was that she could make the decision herself and hung up.

Over the next few days, Su Jin didn’t have anything to do besides sitting around in his house. But one day, an unexpected guest appeared.

“Mad Hatter? What brings you here?” Su Jin frowned. After saving Ye Yun, the Mad Hatter said that they would probably not see each other for a while, yet the Mad Hatter was here again so soon. And he clearly wasn’t here with good news.

“I’m here to inform you of something.” The Mad Hatter poured himself a cup of tea, then glanced at the house and asked, “What’s happened to your two girlfriends?”

Su Jin froze, then bowed his head. “They’re dead.”

“Dead?” The Mad Hatter was shocked. He asked cautiously, “They died… in a Challenge?”

“Yes, on the Island of Mistakes.” Su Jin had a gloomy look on his face.

The Mad Hatter shuddered at the name of the island and looked terrified. “That accursed place… still exists?”

Su Jin raised an eyebrow at the Mad Hatter. “You seem… very scared.”

The Mad Hatter licked his lips and frowned as he said, “That accursed place… Hoho… I’m surprised it still exists, and I’m even more surprised that it would be used as a Challenge venue.”

“It was an Earth Level Challenge.” Su Jin shook his head.

The Mad Hatter nodded. “Perhaps it’s because the boning knife, a God Level weapon, appeared. The Handbook often makes changes to the way it operates when such things happen.”

“By the way, before becoming gods, you and Pinocchio… were also Handbook owners, right?” asked Su Jin suddenly.

The Mad Hatter glanced at Su Jin, then chuckled. “I knew you’d realize this sooner or later. That’s right. It’s not just myself, but every god was a Handbook owner before they became gods.”

“So, the elder gods, the current gods, the new gods… they were all merely shortlisted by the Handbook?” Su Jin smiled sadly to himself. The control that the Handbook had was greater than he had imagined.

“That’s right. We’re all just dogs, dogs bred by the Handbook. The Handbook is to pick out the fiercest ones of all. Su Jin… I said before that we would end up in battle, but we are not going to end up fighting over who gets to be the best pet,” said the Mad Hatter in a frosty voice.

“Can you tell me about everything today?” Su Jin tried asking.

But the Mad Hatter shook his head immediately. “This is for your own good. Knowing things too early is definitely a bad thing to you. Just wait a while more! You’ve got to be patient. When the time comes, you will understand everything.”

“Alright then. So, what are you here to inform me about?” asked Su Jin puzzledly.

“I’m here to tell you to be careful. The ones opposing us have… already begun their hunt,” said the Mad Hatter with a grim look on his face.

“The ones opposing you guys? Hunt? What do you mean?” Su Jin didn’t understand.

“The elder gods aren’t all that united and we belong to different factions. Some of the ones we saved the last time did not agree to be part of my faction, and some of them have differing ideals, and they think that… it’s safer to get rid of the people who have the potential to become new gods,” explained the Mad Hatter solemnly.