I can return to the age of mysterious
Chapter 182 - 182 138 Peak Strength (4000)_1

Chapter 182: 138 Peak Strength (4000)_1 Chapter 182: 138 Peak Strength (4000)_1 “Akaba Ruins?”

A chill ran down Casio’s spine. Searching tasks were far more difficult than tasks of slaughter. For slaughter tasks, they would at least provide you with the exact location of the target and all you needed to do was to kill the target in your own way. But for searching tasks, luck was a huge factor as such tasks were highly uncertain.

If lucky, you might find it in a day or two. If unlucky, you might not find it even in ten years, let alone a single year.

If it were up to Casio to choose, he’d certainly prefer the slaughter tasks. However, he had no opportunity to choose.

He could only accept the atonement task of finding the Akaba Ruins.

He was already prepared for the outcome of failing the task and fleeing.

His thoughts whirling, Casio continued to read on. The information on the atonement task was not limited to just one page, there were several more pages of content. He skimmed through it, momentarily lingering when he saw key information, especially on the sensitive topic of time….

Task Time: 180 days

Half a year was neither long nor short. But Casio felt that the Black Rain Villa had definitely set a difficult task to torment him. Finding the Akaba Ruins in half a year would undoubtedly be an extremely difficult task. After all, it was him who had killed the three Punishers sent by the Black Rain Villa, the Decayed Knights.

This half a year was definitely a short time for the task, but Casio could barely accept this. Because he was only 15% away from the major accomplishment of the second chapter of his Elephant Soul Secret Technique. Each time he used the Secret Soul power for cultivation, it could increase by roughly 5%, with a break of one to two months in between each cultivation session.

Which meant, he could at least enhance himself to the third Blood Acceleration before fully betraying the Black Rain Villa. Indeed, it was not impossible for him, the betrayer of the Villa, to even raise his Stone Armor Skill and Hard Qigong to their limits during the atonement task period, provided that Casio was still able to take on additional tasks.

If he could not accept additional tasks…

Then Casio would have to consider how to swindle a large amount of Dark Source from other Eerie Night Guests. In fact, he already had this idea in mind. He was originally planning to swindle a large amount of Dark Source to crazily enhance himself before fully breaking ties with the Black Rain Villa, so that he wouldn’t need to repay them afterwards.

Casio didn’t carry any psychological burden concerning this, as he had a clear purpose in coming to this time in history: to shut down the Black Rain Villa.

Tucking his insidious plan back into his mind, Casio continued to flip through the scripture, uncovering a map tucked among the back pages.

Upon pulling it out, he found it was made of old parchment.

The surface of the parchment was slightly yellowed, showing traces of time, and felt old and brittle to the touch. Casio was afraid that he might tear the map apart if he were to use a little more force, so he carefully unfolded it, revealing a map drawn in medieval style.

The content was rather abstract, with the names of various regions, rivers, and mountains all in old terms. Its distances and scales were far from realistic, and parts of the map had significant damage. Some important information was obscured by dark red stains, which appeared to be traces of blood.

Casio shook his head, not understanding anything. It seemed he would need to find a scholar of ancient languages to decode the information in this image, preferably one from a university with an archaeology department. This would allow an archaeologist to restore the map, while a linguist would translate the information.

Fortunately, these could all be solved with money.

Just that, it would take some time.

However, Casio was in no hurry. He planned to first take a few months to enhance his own strength to its ultimate limit, and then deal with the task. This way, even if the task failed, he would not lose out.

The plan was set.

Immediately, Casio carefully took the map and left the Baptism Church. Without even having time for dinner, he went to the Mission Hall to test if he could accept any more tasks.

The answer was: yes.

It seemed that the Black Rain Villa was rather generous…

Although that might also be because they had to act in accordance with the rules.

From that day on…

Places in the Black Rain Villa where Eerie Night Guests were most concentrated began to occasionally see a figure cloaked in a cape, such as the Iron Blood Bar.

This was the most disordered place in the Black Rain Villa, with all kinds of people and various schools of thought all present.

Similarly, with such a diverse crowd, information was also readily available. Over those few days, Casio had met some people and gained some intelligence, especially regarding the high-interest loans of Dark Source…

Yes, high-interest loans also existed among the Eerie Night Guests.

Despite being Markers and not ordinary people, they still had ordinary people’s needs. There were always times when Eerie Night Guests encountered tasks with deadlines that were incredibly hard to meet, under which circumstances rushing to complete the task would be extremely risky. It would be better to borrow some Dark Source to strengthen themselves beforehand, and then worry about overcoming the immediate difficulty.

This was a commonality between ordinary people and the Markers.

Similarly, within the Eerie Night Guests, there were those who played the role of banks providing legitimate lending services, but also those who provided an underground, dark lending service.

This dark service was no different from high-interest loans.

The disadvantages were already known.

As were the advantages.

Low entry threshold, available on-demand, and even a large amount could be borrowed.

That was precisely what Casio was after.

He planned to get in touch with several of these dark service providers, and when he was ready to betray the Black Rain Villa completely, he would borrow a large sum from each one to enhance himself. It didn’t matter if he didn’t use it all up, as long as he could boost himself to the limit of his physical capability.