Chapter 237 - 236: Offering a Prayer

Chapter 237: Chapter 236: Offering a Prayer

Li Qing said urgently, "The Divine Travel Team just passed, so there are no rats nearby. It’s the perfect time for us to go out and look for Divine Statues!"

"I’m not going! I want to sleep..." Huangfu Miaomiao rolled over and continued to sleep, muttering, "Divine Statues aren’t that easy to find. We haven’t seen a single trace of one since we entered the Maze."

Li Qing walked from one side of the bed to the other. "Not the game’s Divine Statues, I mean the ones that every household here worships. This store just happens not to have one. Let’s go out and look, shall we?"

Huangfu Miaomiao sat up, annoyed. "What on earth are you trying to do! I was resting, and now you want me to work again! Why don’t you go look yourself?!"

Li Qing explained, "I’m the Maze Administrator..."

Huangfu Miaomiao got even angrier. "So what if you’re the Maze Administrator?! Does being the Administrator mean you don’t have to do any work?!"

Feng Ling and Ye Zheng both looked over.

Li Qing said awkwardly, "It’s not that I don’t want to work. I suspect these Divine Statues might be a mechanism set up by the Maze. Guangshan City has a long tradition of praying to gods for blessings. Praying might trigger something. The Maze is a dungeon for players, so what’s the point of an Administrator like me praying? Of course it has to be you!"

Huangfu Miaomiao looked at him with suspicion-filled eyes.

Li Qing added, "You don’t have to go far. How about just next door? The shop next door is bound to have a Divine Statue."

Feng Ling spoke up. "Then let’s go and pray."

"Fine..." Huangfu Miaomiao pouted, reluctantly getting off the bed.

Seeing this, Xu Yiming pulled open the roll-up door, poked his head out to look around, then gave Huangfu Miaomiao an "OK" sign. "It’s safe."

The group left the store. Li Qing walked in front, opening the door to the clothing store next door a step ahead of them.

He walked into the store, saying as he went, "The names of the Divine Statues in the Divine Travel Team all had the ’Pseudo-God’ suffix. The system wouldn’t do something for no reason. There must be a reason for that kind of naming. Maybe the system is reminding us to look for the real gods. And according to the local customs of Guangshan City, every Divine Statue that receives incense is a window that can convey the will of the divine. If we pray, maybe the Immortals here will guide us to the safe house."

A divine altar came into everyone’s view.

In a corner of the clothing store was a solid wood offering table, and on it sat an exquisite ceramic Lucky Cat.

Li Qing hesitated for a moment.

Huangfu Miaomiao asked him with a deadpan face, "Is praying to a Lucky Cat going to work?"

Before Li Qing could speak, Feng Ling said cheerfully, "Let’s give it a try. We’ve got nothing to lose, anyway."

Xu Yiming chimed in, "I think it’ll work. Look, there’s a prayer cushion under the offering table. Even if a normal store had a Divine Statue, they wouldn’t prepare a cushion. I think the Daoist’s speculation must be right. This cushion is a hint for us to pray."

"So annoying..." Huangfu Miaomiao frowned, struggling to make her lower body return to a pair of normal human legs. Then she knelt on the cushion and made a token gesture of praying.

Feng Ling said, "Bow three times. You have to be sincere, or it’s the same as not praying at all."

"Alright, I know..." Huangfu Miaomiao put her palms together, closed her eyes, and bowed three times.

Feng Ling watched with curiosity.

She quickly finished her three bows, then stood up and stepped away from the cushion.

"Did you feel anything?" Feng Ling asked Huangfu Miaomiao.

Huangfu Miaomiao shook her head. "I didn’t feel anything at all."

Everyone felt disappointed.

Xu Yiming sighed. "Looks like praying is useless..."

"It worked." Li Qing stared intently at Huangfu Miaomiao. "Praying really worked... Miao Miao, look at your status bar. Did you get a new buff?"

Huangfu Miaomiao froze for a second, then immediately checked her status bar. Sure enough, a small, golden-yellow icon had appeared.

It was the first time she had seen a buff icon since logging into the game.

Huangfu Miaomiao couldn’t help but reach out and tap the icon. A pop-up with a notification appeared:

[Luck Value +2.5x, Duration: 30 minutes.]

"Whoa! It’s real!" Huangfu Miaomiao said in surprise. "My Luck Value has been multiplied!"

Feng Ling couldn’t see any of this and asked her, "What does Luck Value do?"

Huangfu Miaomiao was very excited and explained, "Luck Value affects your luck when opening treasure boxes! For example, that treasure box we dug up earlier—the item we got was a common Iron Cone. But if I opened it with a 2.5x Luck Value, I might have gotten a cone made of better material! Like a refined steel cone, or a cone with special effects like paralysis or deadly poison."

Feng Ling understood, and a wave of relief washed over her.

Finally, they had made some progress. At least now they knew praying to the Divine Statues had benefits, and they were no longer completely in the dark.

Xu Yiming rubbed his hands together and said with a smile, "Miao Miao, let me give it a try. I want to test it out too."

"Sure thing~" Huangfu Miaomiao moved aside. Xu Yiming eagerly knelt on the cushion, clasped his hands, and prayed.

"How was it? Did my Luck Value change?" Xu Yiming quickly asked Huangfu Miaomiao.

As a human, he didn’t have a virtual screen and couldn’t check his status bar.

Huangfu Miaomiao frowned and shook her head. "I can’t see it."

Li Qing, who could see, said, "You’re the same as Miao Miao. Your Luck Value also increased by 2.5 times."

Xu Yiming laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Hehehe..."

Luck Value was only useful when opening treasure boxes. For Xu Yiming, a boost to his Luck Value was the same as no boost at all. He had prayed purely for the thrill of it.

Ye Zheng, unable to stand Xu Yiming’s goofy behavior, silently curled his lip from behind Feng Ling.

Feng Ling tilted her head in thought. "Almost every shop on the pedestrian street has a shrine. Players are constantly going in and out of the Maze. Hasn’t a single one ever prayed to a god?"

If they had, they would have gotten a buff. In that case, there’s no way Crow, as a Maze Administrator, wouldn’t know about it.

Li Qing said, "It’s not that surprising. After all, the players don’t have that kind of faith. To them, these Divine Statues are probably just decorations."

Feng Ling nodded thoughtfully.

’Actually, I’m the same. Faced with the creations of this Maze, the thought of kneeling and praying never once crossed my mind.’ If she thought about it that way, it made sense that the other Alien Species hadn’t discovered this mechanism either.

She carefully examined the Lucky Cat before them and said, "If praying to gods can grant safety, then the Maze really wouldn’t need to have a separate safe house. Daoist, if we want to find a safe house, which kind of god should we pray to?"

Li Qing quickly searched his mind for all the folklore knowledge he had accumulated. "...The City God, or the Land God!"

"Then let’s search for those two Immortals along this street," Feng Ling said, turning to leave.

The group left the clothing store and went to the next shop to look for a Divine Statue.

When you weren’t looking for them, the Divine Statues seemed to be everywhere. But when you actually tried to find one, you realized there weren’t that many.

Feng Ling came up empty in three consecutive shops. The fourth one had a shrine to Guan Gong.

Li Qing gave Huangfu Miaomiao a gentle push. "You can’t be blamed for being too polite. It definitely won’t hurt to pray to a few more."

"I know, I know!" Huangfu Miaomiao slapped his hand away, went up to the altar, and dropped to her knees with a THUMP, bowing over and over.

Feng Ling turned her head and asked Li Qing, "How about it? What’s the effect this time?"