CHAPTER 1497: CHAPTER 1497: HIDDEN RULES OF EVALUATION?

[Calculating main quest evaluation...]

[Main Quest Evaluation: Epic (8.5)]

[Congratulations on completing the main quest]

[Your other task evaluations will be calculated shortly, please wait...]

8.5?!

Last time it was 7, now it’s 8.5, a one-time increase of 1.5, which doesn’t fit the system’s usual style of incrementing by 0.5 each time.

According to the new evaluation method, Gold, Epic, Legend, Perfect, Epic is 7, 8 points, reaching 9 points is the next level, Legend.

8.5, unless the system pulls off an 8.9, and gathers ten fragments to make up the final 0.1, this score should be the highest in the Epic level.

The next step must be 9 points ’Legend’.

He Ao rubbed his brow, watching the subtitles change in his field of view, 8.5 was somewhat unexpected, but on further thought, it indeed made sense.

Actually, this task was very simple, ’Resolve the assassination mastermind’.

The system’s tasks have always been simple and straightforward, of course, the difficulty of the task lies in this simplicity and straightforwardness.

This task is composed of two terms, ’resolve’ and ’assassination mastermind’.

Starting from these two terms, the main quest can be broken down, ’resolve’ is easy to understand, it’s a verb.

But the term ’assassination mastermind’ was troublesome, at first He Ao had no idea who the assassination mastermind was.

So, he also needed to investigate who the assassination mastermind was.

Thus, this divides the task into two steps.

First step: Find the assassination mastermind

Second step: Resolve him

Of course, the first and second steps don’t necessarily need to be completed in order.

Planning concurrently is also an option, that’s pretty much what He Ao did.

While exploring the clues, he was also setting up the final arrangements.

When he and the Dark Lizard were in a ’mutual destruction’, he hadn’t fully confirmed who the mastermind was.

But that didn’t stop him from laying out post-plans based on the habits of the mastermind’s behavior.

Of course, in essence, this task is indeed very difficult.

One because Di Man is really good at concealment, and can even control the power of concealment to some extent, finding him was indeed difficult.

The second is naturally because of the divine power Di Man wields, facing such overpowering forces, He Ao had no room for resistance, during the battle, he was even controlled by Di Man at one point, almost wiped out.

Of course, He Ao also had ’assistance’, and this assistance wasn’t just from the old director. The old director as a public figure, Di Man had prepared countermeasures against him, so the actual help he could provide was limited.

This was also why He Ao had to transition from open to covert, being manipulated in the open was really frustrating.

In fact, the one who really gave great help in completing He Ao’s task was that divine being, who was always peeking and mastering the power of concealment.

He most likely promoted the occurrence of certain events, greatly reducing the difficulty for He Ao to discover Di Man’s identity.

Before He Ao finally wounded Di Man, the goal of that concealed divine being was actually the same as He Ao’s.

He Ao wanted to deal with Di Man, as did the concealed divine being.

And during the final showdown, He should have also intervened, disrupting Di Man’s perception, making it more difficult for Di Man to realize he was already within He Ao’s constructed fantasy city.

Of course, this was also something He Ao had anticipated, he had factored in the intervention of this concealed divine being when developing the fantasy city.

When He Ao roughly guessed the existence and purpose of the divine being, he thought of using this divine being to improve his trap.

Although he knew nothing specific about this divine being, he roughly guessed it might be able to conceal itself.

If it weren’t for the intervention of this concealed related divine being, he really had no confidence whether the trap could fool the perceptive Di Man.

In a sense, this concealed divine being, despite its love for peeking, was indeed reliable in action.

After all, everything was at the last step, just about to finish off Di Man, if He Ao’s trap had some flaws, it wouldn’t be nice not to step in to help.

So, although the task was difficult, He Ao was not without ’external aid’ and ’shortcut methods’.

The concealed divine being was the ’external aid’ he could rely on.

So the ’normal’ way to complete the task was actually for He Ao to find a way to confirm Di Man’s identity, then with the help of the old director and others, lure Di Man into the trap, consuming Di Man’s power.

Wait until Di Man uses divine power to a certain extent, and has consumed himself to a certain level.

Then wait for the concealed divine being to intervene, forcibly descend upon Di Man, and reclaim his power.

Moreover, He Ao actually had an ’additional’ prop.

That was the ’Seven-color Flower’.

This powerful wishing prop was just casually placed in Denno City, and then casually taken out as bait by Denno City’s chief executive Colin.

Although the whole process made sense logically, He Ao just casually obtained this powerful prop, the Seven-color Flower, it could be said to be coincidence and ’luck’, or it could be thought of as someone secretly ’adding fuel to the flames’.

For example, that concealed divine being.

When the Seven-color Flower reached He Ao, three petals remained.

These were three wishes.

With these three wishes in hand, even if He Ao was weak in strength, he could delay until Di Man’s body had issues, and even counteract Di Man, giving the concealed divine being a chance to descend and eliminate Di Man.

Using the Seven-color Flower to wish to deal with Di Man, He Ao would also be cursed and eroded by the concealed divine being.

Thus for the concealed divine being, He recovered Di Man’s power, and also gained an influential and controllable angel with many secrets.

Whether the Seven-color Flower was pushed to He Ao by him or not, this was all about maximizing his interests.

And He Ao also understood this point.

So he directly used the Seven-color Flower to wish to restore his body.

This was akin to willingly accepting the ’curse’.

This way, the concealed divine being trusted him more, and would help refine the trap to deceive Di Man with more effort.

As for the ’curse’ itself, He Ao wasn’t too concerned.

After all, when it comes to the divine-related power hanging on him, this concealed divine being would have to go out and queue up.

So he didn’t mind using this ’curse’ to motivate the concealed divine being to work harder.

Of course, all this could only be said to be methods and strategies, when everything reached the final stage, He Ao had to face the last question.

That was the existence of the concealed divine being.

He could naturally use the concealed divine being to complete the task, and in the end, he might have to bear the crisis of being suspicious by the concealed divine being, but as long as he dragged past the suspicion period, waited until Di Man was completely dead, he could naturally return to the real world.

But if he did so, after he ’leaves’, when the fantasy world collapses, a ’divine incarnation’ mastering divine power would appear in the sky of Ains.

No matter what purpose this Divine Being has, it’s not a good thing.

This is the basic method to complete the main task.

By doing this, He Ao can definitely complete the task, but the rating could be a ’6.5 out of gold’, which is probably the limit, and likely a ’6’, far from reaching epic levels.

He Ao also understands that to get a higher rating, the issue must be with the Hidden God.

Once Di Man is controlled, He Ao and the Hidden God will instantly go from ’collaborators’ to enemies.

This Hidden God has likely been deeply involved in the assassination from the start, so He is actually part of the main task as well.

Just not the most core ’mastermind’.

However, using Divine Power to get rid of Di Man is easy, but to deal with the Divine Incarnation in turn, the reserved power will return doubly, and there will be unimaginable difficulties.

The gap between a Divine Being and an Angel is immeasurable.

Even when Di Man merely controls a bit of Divine Power, he suppresses He Ao with no chance to fight back.

And when this Divine Power is controlled by the Divine Being itself, He Ao sees almost no hope of victory.

Through friendly exchanges with his good friends, He Ao is very clear that even a thread of a Divine Incarnation is an existence one cannot contend with.

Unless this Divine Being is already dead, has extremely weakened power, or there is another Divine Being dealing with Him.

In principle, He Ao wanting to get rid of the Hidden God’s incarnation is nearly impossible.

However, relying on past experience, He Ao still found a ’breakthrough’.

All battle strategies can basically be categorized into two types, ’enhance oneself’ and ’weaken others’.

First is enhancing oneself, which He Ao can resolve by finding friends.

But the only problem is, He Ao’s friends are so overly enthusiastic, they basically show up immediately upon being called, leaving him no time to react.

So for him, finding friends requires on-the-spot operation.

In facing the Divine Incarnation, he might be eliminated before he even manages to act.

He may not even have a momentary chance.

Once the Divine Incarnation senses something is wrong, it can immediately eliminate him.

So he must create opportunities for himself, weaken the Hidden God, to get a chance, even if just a moment, to summon his good friends.

But he pondered for a long time without coming up with a way to control the Divine Incarnation.

However, considering the Hidden God’s hatred towards Di Man, although He Ao didn’t quite delve into the notion that Di Man had stolen Divine Power, he roughly estimated that Di Man had a way to deal with the God.

Otherwise, the Hidden God would have already directly killed Di Man, without waiting for He Ao to arrive.

So his initial plan was to use Di Man to deal with the God.

And the final plan wasn’t confirmed until he saw Di Man use Divine Power.

Once he cleared up the Hidden God’s true purpose, all the information connected in his mind.

If he couldn’t think of a way to control the God, then he just wouldn’t let him become a complete God!

Since the Hidden God aims to reclaim His power, and that power has already undergone some kind of fusion with Di Man, this God will most likely want to possess Di Man’s body.

Solving the final problem doesn’t necessarily mean deploying the solution when facing the problem.

Plans for the final solution can begin when solving the second-to-last problem.

Therefore, Di Man can be heavily injured but must not die immediately.

Nevertheless, He Ao was still caught off guard by the Divine Power controlled by Di Man, the cognitive dissonance leading to frenzied insanity, which could render his plan completely uncontrollable.

Fortunately, he quickly assessed his own power, realized that his obsessive state could severely injure Di Man without eliminating him, and concluded that Di Man wouldn’t be able to directly kill him afterward, allowing He Ao to confidently enter a state of obsession.

In the end, although there was a small deviation, the damage He Ao inflicted on Di Man exceeded his own estimation.

He hadn’t anticipated that his obsessive state would actually achieve some sort of combat power amplification effect.

Yet Di Man was resilient enough, even severely wounded, to resist the Hidden God’s control.

This gave He Ao the opportunity to send back the Seven-color Flower, use it to make a wish, and stall the Hidden God, gaining time to call his good friends.

Of course, strictly speaking, this plan itself is very dangerous.

Normally, once Di Man dies, He Ao can complete the mission and directly return, ensuring his absolute safety.

But if Di Man doesn’t die, the mission remains unfinished, and he can’t flee using the ’complete and return’ shortcut.

This forces him to confront the Hidden God for an extended period.

If in the end his plan fails, and the Hidden God decides to stop suppressing Di Man, abandons suppressing the Embrace of the Beauty Goddess, and directly gathers strength to deal with him, he won’t even have the chance to make a wish and will surely die.

If it were He Ao, he would definitely do that.

Unfortunately, the Hidden God didn’t have such a desperate mindset, ultimately giving He Ao the opportunity.

This time, the biggest boost to the main task’s rating should come from eliminating the Hidden God’s incarnation.

Though dangerous, the effect is apparent.

Of course, there’s also a minor ’rating point’ with the old President.

The system needs to solve the assassination mastermind, and the origin of the entire assassination case isn’t actually instigated by Di Man, but rather a play directed by the old President to win over Christos.

Only in the end did his play spiral out of control, with Di Man truly wanting to kill him.

So if discussing the assassination mastermind, as the one being assassinated, he definitely has a position.

Even if he’s already dead and doesn’t need resolving.

However, not needing resolution and not being solved are two different things.

Thus, the old President is likely a main task bonus point.

The additional 0.5 out of the 8.5 might be this point’s bonus evaluation.

All this pushes He Ao’s rating to the extreme score of an epic evaluation.

However, thinking about it from another angle, why not achieve a legend?

He Ao has already pushed himself to the limit with all the conceivable points.

Are there other ’secret rules’ that need to be met for a legend rating?

If this is indeed the case, does it count as a sort of special ’ceremony’?

It’s already somewhat beyond the system scoring rules he previously explored.

He Ao looked down, gazing at the quickly changing text in his field of view.

[Calculating your side quest evaluation...]

[Side Quest Evaluation: Legend (9)]

Ah?