Don't Engage in Netherworld Activities in the Mortal World!

"Goodwill?"

Ghostface Fox nearly lost control of his facial expressions.

Heavy Cannon and Willow Blade looked at the wristbands on their hands, thoughtful.

Was the mechanism of this Spirit Realm so complicated?

Could there be romantic subplots?

As they pondered, someone had already taken the lead.

"Virtue~" Jiang Lu teased the Messenger with a flirty look, "I'm still on duty now, so let's behave ourselves."

"You coy minotaur!" Heavy Cannon finally couldn't hold back his disgust.

"Giggle giggle giggle... This 'goodwill' represents my tolerance towards you, or in other words, my patience," said the Messenger, with a forced smile.

"I suggest you better not do anything similar to wear down my goodwill further."

Jiang Lu heeded the words and toned it down a notch.

It seems that trick won't work, huh...

Hmm?

He turned his gaze to his wristband and noticed his goodwill had increased from 87 to 89.

Out of curiosity, he peeked at Heavy Cannon's wristband.

It had decreased from 60 to 59.

That's hilarious, it wasn't even about me!

Heavy Cannon's face turned a shade of purple-red, but he didn't dare make a single sound in the end.

Who knows if low goodwill could trigger some negative buffs?

"Well then... get started on your tasks as soon as possible, and good luck."

With that, the Messenger turned and vanished into the darkness outside the gate.

Once they were sure she was gone, Ghostface Fox's expression turned grave, "What do you think?"

The prison known as the Black Tower was filled with an oppressive atmosphere—the intricate corridors, the low ceilings, the silent surroundings, and the peculiar odor that constantly pervaded the air seemed to deliberately oppress the spirits of those within it.

He hadn't even started the main storyline, yet he was already feeling the pressure of the Spirit Realm.

Willow Blade still remained silent about her opinion, while Heavy Cannon said with some hesitation, "Let's just do as she said for now. Our task is to find out the secret of the Black Tower. I think the secret may be hidden with the prisoners on the lower level, or in the unexplorable areas on the upper level."

Jiang Lu criticizes internally, Isn't that obvious?

In the sky, it's either the sun or the moon, duh.

"Hmm..." Ghostface Fox suggested a different approach, "Logically, you're right, but this is an S-class Spirit Realm, so we can't interpret it with normal logic. There might be misleading clues.

Her rushing us to start the tasks, even setting the task of redeeming a prisoner within a week, could be to apply pressure, to focus all our attention on the prisoners, thus overlooking some aspects.

My suggestion is to first investigate the middle level, where the previous batch of Guardians lived, as there might be some discoveries to be made."

Heavy Cannon, who was not adept at solving puzzles, considered it carefully and seemed to grasp the logic, nodding in agreement.

Willow Blade had always been taciturn, so she naturally agreed as well.

But Jiang Lu had a different view.

"How do you know when you're watching others, they are not watching you?" he asked.

Ghostface Fox was stunned, "What do you mean?"

"As Guardians, we can surveil the prisoners, so more superior beings can surveil us," Jiang Lu said in a low voice, recalling his habit from his previous life of secretly monitoring his subordinates.

"Remember the goodwill system? The real challenge isn't finding the secrets, it's uncovering them without being detected by higher beings. Our job now is to redeem the prisoners, isn't it?"

"This..." Ghostface Fox hadn't thought of this point, and after hearing Jiang Lu's explanation, she felt enlightened, "Besides the pressure of redemption, is goodwill also a dangerous factor?"

Willow Blade suddenly spoke up, as if recalling something, "I once entered an A-class Spirit Realm with a Koch-like world setting, where there was a similar concept called 'Sanity Value.'"

With that, Heavy Cannon finally got to the crux of the matter.

The two scenarios were very similar. Whether it was a decrease in Sanity Value or Goodwill, the result would definitely not be good, likely triggering dangerous events and significantly increasing the difficulty of the quest.

"Speaking of which, why is your goodwill so high?" Heavy Cannon frowned, looking at Jiang Lu somewhat frustrated.

Jiang Lu shrugged, "I have a high Charm stat."

"No, why on earth did you invest such a high Charm?" Heavy Cannon couldn't understand.

Indeed, charm can sometimes make an Exorcist's communication with characters in the Spirit Realm smoother and even trigger some hidden missions. However, the stats that truly help an Exorcist to protect themselves should be those like Physicality and Agility that increase combat strength and allow for quick responses to the various crises that may arise at any time within the Spirit Realm.

With each level up, apart from a general increase in all attributes by one, Exorcists only receive a single point to allocate freely.

Every attribute point is hard-earned, requiring multiple trips through Spirit Realms. Thus, almost no Exorcist would choose to invest in Charm.

When struggling through difficult quests and facing life-and-death situations, who cares about triggering hidden quests?

Most Exorcists currently have about 20 points in Charm, but Jiang Lu has a whopping 49 points.

Jiang Lu was quite helpless about this.

He hadn't even experienced the thrill of increasing points; it was purely because of the succubus frame and the lady's nightgown he was currently wearing that his base value was already so high. What to do when you're just naturally a stats freak?

"All right," Ghostface Fox stepped in to smooth things over at the right time, "I guess that Exorcists who haven't increased their Charm might start with a goodwill rating between sixty and seventy. Although we don't know what problems may arise from too low a rating yet, as long as we stay in this normal range, we should be fine.

Heavy Cannon, you might need to be careful not to do anything too out of the ordinary. We're still not clear on whether having too low a rating will cause trouble for the individual or for everyone. In any case, we're now all tied together; we should aim for stability."

As for me and Jiang... um..."

"Jiang Bao, speak up. I'm charging into the Spirit Realm for Jiang Bao," Jiang Lu encouraged.

Ghostface Fox let out a sheepish laugh, "As for Brother Jiang, having a high goodwill rating is actually a good thing. It means we have some leeway to test the messenger's limits. You can afford to do things to defy her a bit, see how she reacts and if we can discover anything else."

Jiang Lu smiled confidently, "That's something I'm good at."

"Anyway, for now let's follow Brother Jiang's lead and head to the lower levels. Everyone, remember to check your goodwill ratings at all times. It's a very important feedback mechanism, and you must not ignore it."

Just as his name suggests, Ghostface Fox was quite sly, maintaining a decent relationship with almost everyone. Hence, he was the de facto leader, and no one objected to him taking command.

Now, dressed in the Overseer's attire, they no longer needed to climb the stairs.

With just a thought, they could teleport to various transport points within the dark tower.

After selecting a transport point located near the entrance to the lower level prisons, they all vanished in place.

...

The cold white light slowly dissipated.

When they reopened their eyes, they had arrived in front of a vast valley.

On the rugged peaks on both sides, molten golden lava indicated temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees.

They didn't know why such a scene would appear inside the tower.

But of course, nobody cared.

Strange phenomena in the Spirit Realm are the norm—that's an axiom long accepted by Exorcists.

At the entrance to the valley stood a stone house over three meters high.

Peering through the window, one could faintly see a bloated figure within.

"A Guardian?" Ghostface Fox pondered, moving forward.

"Hello, we... "

His speech abruptly ceased, his eyes brimming with horror.

The bloated figure inside the stone house was a flesh mount made from countless heads piled up, connected by muscle without skin, creating a pink flesh mountain at a glance.

"What's wrong?" Heavy Cannon followed closely behind, and nearly couldn't suppress the urge to draw his weapon at the sight Ghostface Fox beheld.

If the messenger was merely bizarre, then the pink filling up the stone chamber could definitely be called mental contamination.

"You are the new Overseers, right?" Hundreds of heads of the flesh mountain spoke in unison, layering their voices like a choir.

Ghostface Fox felt an inexplicable panic rising.

Just one look has the potential to break through my mental resilience?

Heavy Cannon wasn't feeling much better, and clearly he had no desire to interact with this flesh mountain.

On the other hand, Liu Dao, who followed later, remained stoic.

Seeing this, Ghostface Fox was about to ask Liu Dao to inquire about redemption when he heard Jiang Lu already chatting with the flesh mountain.

"The higher-ups have sent us to educate the prisoners here, could you please show us the way?"

As he said this, he offered a cigarette as if talking to the security guard of his neighborhood.

The flesh mountain didn't take the cigarette, for it had no hands.

The hundreds of desperate faces opened their mouths at once, "You need to go to the central archive room first. The prison is embedded in the rock and can't be accessed directly."

"Right, thanks," Jiang Lu said, seeing that the flesh mountain didn't take the cigarette, he energetically lit it up intending to put it directly into its mouth.

But facing so many mouths, he was uncertain which one to choose.

"Excuse me for asking, but which head is your main brain?"

Watching his confused actions, Heavy Cannon, who had already moved away to relieve his nausea, was dumbfounded.

What puzzled him even more was:

The next moment, apart from the one right in front, all other heads of the flesh mountain closed their mouths.

"This one..."

"Ah, got it," Jiang Lu confirmed, tiptoed, and reached out his hand, imitating a doctor with a tongue depressor treating a child: "Ah~"

Seeing the flesh mountain take a puff, he then happily clapped his hands.

He then called out, "Let's go to the archive room."

But the three didn't move, each looking at Jiang Lu with a weird expression.

Even Ghostface Fox, who had always been quite tolerant of him, couldn't help but question.

"Why do that?"

"To boost goodwill," Jiang Lu reminisced about past glories, musing, "A leader who knows how to consider his subordinates is a good leader. As Overseers, it's appropriate to extend some benefits to those guarding the gates. If the messenger or higher beings see this, they'll think we're a team with heart."