Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the vines, and the chirping of birds drifted in. Ye Chui awoke from his sleep, yawning as he climbed out of bed. He stretched comfortably with a lazy yawn, gazing at the simple, spacious yet exceptionally warm room. A satisfied expression crept onto his face unbidden.
After dressing, he walked to the window woven from vines and pushed it open. Cool air blew in from outside, but the sensation was not unpleasant. Standing at the window and peering out, he could see an endless white plain and, below, a small frozen lake. He took a deep breath of fresh air, the feeling invigorating and refreshing. To enjoy such luxury in the wilderness was truly a wonderful thing.
At that moment, voices rose from below. Looking down, Ye Chui saw that it was Green and Guni speaking. They stood on the frozen lake, Green gesturing animatedly as he talked. It seemed he wanted Guni to help punch a hole in the ice. There should be fish living under the lake water, perfect for breakfast. Jacob stood by the lakeside with a basket, which was woven from the vines growing around the wooden hut that Ye Chui had conjured. It must have been Jacob’s handiwork.
Guni raised one arm. “Hah!” Her light shout carried far, and then she punched the ice surface with her fist. This punch from Guni was clearly delivered with full force. She truly lived up to her title as the girl with monstrous strength. Green had only intended for her to make a small opening in the ice lake, but Guni had clearly misjudged the ice’s thickness. She had struck with the power to shatter rock layers.
As her fist met the ice, cracks rapidly spread in all directions with a series of creaking sounds. Even Ye Chui could hear the ice breaking clearly. Green’s body stiffened instantly on the ice, his face full of horror. Then, with a bang, the ice not far from them shattered, and a column of water shot into the air.
Bang! Bang! Bang! More sections of the lake surface cracked one after another, water columns erupting like fountains into the sky.
The force of Guni’s punch had penetrated beneath the ice lake, compressing the water below and causing it to burst through in this spectacular display. Green let out a series of startled cries, trying to run back to the lakeside. But his foot slipped into a gap, and he nearly fell into the lake. Fortunately, Guni grabbed the collar of his shirt from behind. In the next moment, like riding a cloud, Guni leapt directly to the shore.
The girl had never been so delighted. A string of bell-like laughter burst from her lips. But then, with a splash, the water columns that had shot high fell back down, drenching Guni and Green squarely.
It was ice-cold water, laced with tiny ice shards. Even with her robust constitution, Guni couldn’t help but shiver. But she quickly noticed something surprising and reached out hurriedly. A plump, wriggling fish was descending right then, and she caught it firmly in her hand. There were plenty of fish under this lake water. The erupting columns had flung quite a few into the air, and now they were pattering down like rain.
The girl let out an immediate cheer.
Ye Chui’s eyes gleamed. He spotted a large fish falling right in front of him. He swiftly summoned his spellbook and extended one hand. The descending fish suddenly hovered in mid-air. A coil of water formed into a water serpent, wrapping around the large fish and wriggling as it slowly floated it towards Ye Chui. He had just cast the spell instantly. Previously, Ye Chui needed to tap the spellbook to release a spell, but now he could activate low-level spells at will.
“Jacob, what are you standing there for? Hurry up, pick up the fish…” Green, now a dripping wet mess from the cold water, shouted urgently. He followed with a loud sneeze. Though he had been splashed with far less water than Guni, his constitution was nowhere near hers. Guni had never known what it was like to fall ill since birth.
Jacob began happily gathering the fallen plump fish. Debbie and Lessa, who had already risen and were preparing breakfast in the hall, heard the commotion and rushed out of the wooden hut, joyfully joining the fish-picking frenzy.
When Ye Chui arrived downstairs in the dining area with his half-metre-long, plump and tender fish still thrashing about, Green, Jacob, Debbie, Guni, and Lessa had already collected a whole basketful of fish. They were discussing what to make with so many. First, they could simmer a pot of delicious fish soup, and the rest could be grilled.
Ye Chui handed his large fish to Jacob to prepare. Looking at Guni, who resembled a drowned rat, soaked through but beaming with excitement, Ye Chui shook his head with a chuckle. “I’ll fetch some hot water. You should take a bath quickly, or you might catch a cold.”
“I’m fine.” Guni shook her head, seemingly unconcerned about her wet clothes. She pointed at Green. “Let Green go first. He looks miserable.”
“Not everyone is as tough as you…” Green was hugging his arms and shivering. He yawned again mid-sentence. Ye Chui thus let Green bathe first.
Soon, the not-so-large living room filled with the aromas of roasting and stewing meat. Jacob handled the food in the kitchen. After helping with the ingredients, Ye Chui went to the living room. Guni had been dragged upstairs by Debbie to change clothes. Lessa sat at the simple dining table, flipping through that Bible.
Ever since returning from the Sword Burial Grounds, Lessa would read the Bible whenever she had time, hoping to grasp its essence quickly. But this was heretical material after all, so she couldn’t read it in front of others. Back in Windrock City, she only studied it at night. Now that they had left Windrock City, she had more time and fewer worries.
Still, divine script was a long-lost forbidden language. How easy could it be to decipher its meanings?
“Can you understand those divine scripts now?” Ye Chui sat at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. The coffee had been brewed by Jacob when he got up that morning.
“How could it be that simple? I can only sense the power contained within this Bible and barely use a portion of it, but fully comprehending it is not so easy. Knowing the meanings of these divine scripts would help greatly in wielding the power.” Lessa shook her head. She looked somewhat frustrated, carefully closing the Bible and rubbing her brow.
“But even the forbidden book section of the Grand Abbey Library in the Holy City probably has no records on teaching divine script. This language has been tabooed by the Church for five thousand years. No one alive understands it anymore.” Lessa said with some regret.
“That’s truly a pity.” Ye Chui shook his head and casually picked up the Bible.
Since acquiring this Bible, Ye Chui had not flipped through it. He was quite interested in the so-called divine script, but he had not had time to examine it before, nor did he know what sort of strange ancient text it was. Text imbued with divine power must be extraordinary, right?
He opened the Bible to the title page, his eyes scanning the few lines of text there.
This Bible originally belonged to the Faith Goddess, and these words seemed to be written by the God of Gods. Ye Chui could make this judgement because of the text’s meaning.
Lessa was just then picking up a piece of pastry from the plate on the table and putting it in her mouth. Debbie came downstairs with Guni, who had changed clothes. She held a towel in her hand, helping to dry Guni’s damp hair. Green had finished his hot bath in the bathroom and emerged wrapped in thick leather clothes, a fur hat on his head, his face flushed and ruddy. Jacob came over from the kitchen carrying several freshly baked loaves of bread.
Then, they all heard Ye Chui reading from the title page of the Bible. “In the name of the God of Gods, I bestow this Bible upon my loyal believer and my beloved, Vivian. I want you to know that your faithful devotion lingers in my mind as much as your exquisite figure. Being your god is my greatest fortune…”
Bloody hell, this was just a sappy love letter, wasn’t it?
Reading this far, Ye Chui couldn’t help but smack his lips, pulling a face as if covered in goosebumps. He shuddered and said, “It’s utterly nauseating. There must be some unspeakable secret between that so-called God of Gods and the Faith Goddess. Look at these words, ‘my beloved’, ‘exquisite body’, tsk tsk…”
Then, he suddenly noticed that everyone else in the room was staring at him in stunned silence. This left him momentarily baffled. “What’s wrong with you lot?”
“Little brother, you… you just read the text from the Bible?” Lessa said, her voice trembling.
“Yeah, the words on the title page…” Ye Chui said, puzzled, not understanding why everyone was so shocked. Then he looked down at the Bible’s title page. Realising something, his eyes widened in shock, the expression of someone who had discovered something utterly astonishing. He followed with a “holy shit” and jumped up from his chair, frantically flipping through the entire Bible with rustling pages.
“Ye Chui, you can really read divine script!? And what you just said, was that divine language?” Debbie asked in astonishment.
Ye Chui himself hadn’t even noticed that when he read those words on the title page, the sounds from his mouth were not the language of the Castro Continent, but something entirely different.
Those were precisely the pronunciations of divine script, known as divine language, the tongue of the gods from the era of the gods that even the high archbishops of the Holy Church could not fully master!
And Ye Chui hadn’t even realised he had spoken words that no one else could understand!
Because that language felt as innate to him as breathing. Even though he had grown accustomed to the common tongue of the Castro Continent, seeing those characters made him recite them instinctively without a second thought.
The so-called divine script in this Bible was none other than the Chinese from the world he had transmigrated from, and the so-called divine language was Mandarin!
This…
Ye Chui’s body trembled as he grasped what this meant. “Holy shit, that legendary God of Gods who created the pantheon of gods… could he be my predecessor!?”
“Little brother, you, how could you possibly know divine script? And divine language, how on earth did you do it!?” Lessa rushed to Ye Chui’s side in sudden urgency, clutching his arm and gazing at him with eager anticipation.
Debbie and the others stared at Ye Chui in utter amazement.
This was the script of the gods. Even in the age of the gods, not everyone was qualified to learn it, and even then, mastery was no guarantee. This language supposedly had highly peculiar grammar and countless homophones. The same phrase in different contexts could yield entirely different meanings. When reciting divine language, intonation mattered, with rises and falls, highs and lows. A single misstep could invert the intended message completely.
In short, without decades of immersion, it was impossible to master fluently.
One could say that anyone who understood and excelled in this language was an absolute powerhouse! (Mm-hmm, everyone was incredibly badass~~)
Yet Ye Chui knew it!?
The intonation he used when reciting divine language was utterly natural, without a trace of awkwardness, as if it were his mother tongue!
“…” Facing his companions’ shocked expressions, Ye Chui was momentarily speechless. Bloody hell, could he say that in the other world, over a billion people knew this language?
Suddenly, Ye Chui thought of something. He hurriedly summoned his spellbook. On Ye Chui’s iPad spellbook, the display had always been in Chinese. Since no one else could see the text on Ye Chui’s spellbook, he had always taken it for granted without questioning it. But now he knew that Chinese was the so-called divine script!
According to Lessa, divine script was intrinsically linked to the world’s divine power, so it made sense that the built-in app spells on Ye Chui’s iPad possessed divine power…
“Ye Chui, tell us quickly, how did you learn divine script?” Debbie urged again at that moment.
He absolutely couldn’t reveal his transmigrator identity. Ye Chui’s mind raced to a plausible explanation. He pointed to his spellbook and explained to his companions, “Actually, my spellbook uses this script. When I first comprehended the spellbook, I could read this text… I just didn’t know it was the so-called divine script!”
Transmigrator predecessor, you are truly too badass, turning Chinese characters into this world’s divine script…
As a transmigrator junior, the pressure suddenly felt immense!
