Child of Destiny

Shiella watched the door close behind Shin as he immediately left after their discussion.

She could not help but sigh helplessly as she recalled everything they had discussed.

Just as she had expected, Shin had brought her yet another opportunity to strengthen their forces while expanding their resources.

The matter concerning the Underwater Temple had already been discussed between them before, but the project had repeatedly been delayed due to their lack of manpower.

Shiella still needed the members of the Deicide Guild they had established to continue serving as her hidden blade.

She had already been making effective use of them. They were not only useful for eliminating their enemies but were also extremely effective at disrupting the operations of their rivals.

Even though Deicide had quite a number of members, their forces were still far from sufficient to cover everything they wanted to accomplish on a larger scale.

After all, there was a limit to how many cadets they could recruit from their family’s military forces.

They had also recruited quite a few elites from the Top Military School, but even those additional recruits were still far from enough.

Moreover, each member of Deicide specialized in a specific field.

Some were highly skilled in assassination and jungle warfare, others were marines proficient in aquatic combat, while the rest belonged to their aerial forces, specializing in aerial combat.

With the guild divided into these specialized branches, their already limited manpower was spread even thinner.

Regardless, they were still elites among elites. Their individual capabilities more than made up for their lack of numbers.

The Underwater Temple was indeed an excellent place to train their marine forces. However, they already possessed Calderock Port.

Because of that, its strategic importance had not been high enough to justify diverting their limited manpower toward developing it.

That was the main reason Shiella had continued delaying the project until now.

However, the situation had now changed completely.

The Secret Land Shin had discovered was not merely a paradise for training their forces.

It also contained numerous resources that could not be found anywhere else. Among them, Shiella was particularly interested in the Samsara Stones.

According to the information Shin had provided, these stones were unique products of the fallen Immortal Empire.

They were special materials capable of enhancing one’s bloodline—and, in some cases, even awakening one.

Such a resource was extraordinarily valuable.

It could not only be used to strengthen their own forces but could also become an enormous source of wealth if they obtained enough of it.

Moreover, there was also the Tower of Inheritance, which could potentially become a paradise for all of their forces.

It was not merely a place where they could train their members.

It could also potentially grant them inheritances specifically tailored to each individual’s abilities and potential.

Inheritances were something that every player desperately sought.

Countless players had spent their entire careers within the game searching for suitable inheritances, yet most of them never even managed to find one.

Yet, the Tower of Inheritance contained multiple inheritances.

What made it even more extraordinary was the information Shin had shared with her.

He suspected that most of the inheritances within the tower originated from legendary figures of the game—powerful existences whose legacies could rival some Legacy Skills and even the inherited powers of certain Transcendent Races.

That alone was enough to demonstrate just how extraordinary the Tower of Inheritance was.

The more Shiella thought about it, the more tempted she became. This new project Shin had presented was simply too good to ignore.

However, there was another troublesome problem they needed to resolve before they could get everything in motion.

Access.

From what Shin had told her, reaching the Secret Land was far from simple.

They first needed to reach the Awakened Continent.

From there, they had to travel to the Underwater Temple and use the teleportation formation within the temple to enter the Secret Land itself.

That meant they would have to develop the Underwater Temple as part of the project.

There was another requirement as well.

They first needed to reach Tier 3 and obtain an entry pass from the Mysterious Instructors before they could enter the second continent and gain access to that paradise.

Fortunately, most of their elites had already met those requirements, particularly the members of Deicide.

After all, they had taken full advantage of the information Shin had obtained from the Head of the Mysterious Instructors regarding the God-Slayer Army.

That was also where the name of their secret guild had come from.

They had essentially hoarded a large portion of the available quotas for joining the God-Slayer Army, allowing them to make use of those positions once that particular content became accessible during the later stages of the game.

In a sense, they had already met the minimum requirements needed for this project.

”Sigh~” Shiella could not help but helplessly surrender herself to the God of Fortune once again.

It seemed that whenever Shin brought her an opportunity, there was always an equally troublesome project attached to it.

After a moment, she opened her friend list and called her personal assistant, Delusive Smile.

Beep!

It did not take long before the other side answered.

”Smile, what are you doing right now?” Shiella asked almost immediately.

Delusive Smile quickly answered. ”Me? I’m currently dealing with the First-Rate and Second-Rate Guilds stationed in the Holy City.”

Shiella frowned. ”Those guilds? What’s going on with them? Are there still some idiots who dare to cause trouble for us? In our territory, no less?”

”About that...” Delusive Smile paused for a moment before continuing. ”Those idiots dared to block Young Master Shin’s path and attempted to extort information from him.”

”Right now... I’m currently extorting—” She paused. ”I mean... asking them for a donation in exchange for accepting their sincere apology.”

Shiella’s mouth twitched slightly. ’I don’t know if that brat is doing this on purpose, or if trouble simply follows him wherever he goes.’

She sighed once more before nodding. ”Alright. Wrap it up quickly. We have another big project waiting for you.”

Beep!

Right after ending the call, Shiella’s expression became slightly more troubled as she thought about their current lack of manpower.

”I guess I can only wait until Auntie Anna recovers and joins the game as well,” she mumbled.

After all, the experts who had reached the Void Manifestation Stage, Ruler’s Realm, and Swordmaster Realm in the real world could finally enter the game.

More importantly, most of them had already made considerable progress after entering the game and were rapidly catching up to the mainstream players.

Once these experts finally reached the same level as the game’s top players, the overall structure of the virtual world would inevitably be shaken once again.

Especially the people who were currently sitting comfortably on the various ranking lists.

The most notable one was the Godly Ranking List released by the Mystery Pavilion, which recorded the strongest Godlike Players throughout the game.

There was even a revised version of the ranking circulating online, which included several veteran experts from the previous era of the virtual world.

Among them was Khing, or David, who was widely recognized as the King of Virtual Games during his active years.

Shiella’s other identity, the Frost Goddess, had also begun making her way onto the list. So had her close friend, Cold Moon, who was currently serving as the Union Master of the Assassin Union.

Shiella fell silent for a moment before another thought crossed her mind.

”Should I start using the experts from our family?” she muttered.

She had originally planned to recruit the experts from the Springfield Family on her paternal side into Deicide.

As for her maternal family, the Levana Family, she intended to have their experts join the Hand of Midas instead.

It was essentially the same arrangement they maintained in the real world.

The Springfields were responsible for handling the family’s military forces, while the Levanas focused on managing the Flying Dragon Corporation.

If they followed the same structure within the game, the arrangement would be much easier to manage.

Shiella started formulating the plan as soon as she thought about this, before presenting it to both sides of their family later.

...

Meanwhile, the person responsible for Shiella’s increasingly busy schedule was currently facing another troublesome problem.

He had already visited his territory and confirmed that everything was progressing smoothly without requiring his presence.

He had also presented his plans to Shiella and could trust her to handle the rest.

For once, there was nothing left for him to do.

And that left Shin with a rather unfamiliar problem.

He had no idea what to do with the free time he had while waiting for Berlin to finish preparing everything he needed for the quest.

Shin fell silent for a moment.

”Hmm... Is there anything fun to do now?”

He could not help but mumble as he faced such a serious problem for the first time in quite a while.

......