Lin Qingyue sighed. Just as she was about to offer an explanation, the pink mark deep within her soul pulsed with warmth once more.
A new line of delicate text, formed from crystals and flower petals, slowly unfurled in her consciousness.
[Effect 2: Pink Healing, Unlocked♪]
[Effect: The effectiveness of your healing spells is increased by 100%, but their visual effects are forcibly changed to pink. When a healed teammate's wounds close, a cute pink heart will briefly appear over the area, lasting for ten minutes before dissipating.]
Lin Qingyue: "..."
Double healing effectiveness?
In a dungeon teeming with danger, that was practically an extra life.
A divine skill!
But...
Pink visual effects?
A pink heart appearing over wounds?
And it lasts for ten minutes?!
Just how deep was "Miss Pink Elf's" obsession with pink?!
An image uncontrollably formed in her mind:
In some future brutal life-or-death battle, she would raise her staff with a solemn expression, chanting a sacred incantation.
Then, with a poof.
A blob of pink Holy Light—so dense it was almost solid, possibly even sparkling with glitter—would splatter across a critically injured, near-death teammate's face.
Her teammate's fatal wound had miraculously healed. Then, on his face, caked with blood and radiating a murderous aura, a glittering pink heart began to glow. Bearing this mark, he charged back at the enemy, his expression utterly bewildered...
The mental image was too much to bear. Lin Qingyue dared not dwell on it.
"Sis? What's wrong?"
Seeing her sister's face drain of color and her dazed expression, Lin Xiyue leaned in with concern.
Lin Qingyue didn't answer. Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.
She turned, raised the equally pink staff with a deadpan expression, and aimed it at her sister.
"Don't move. I'm running an experiment."
Lin Xiyue: "???"
Before her sister could react, the tip of Lin Qingyue's staff flashed.
A basic Basic Healing Spell shot out.
The expected gentle white light never appeared.
Instead, a pillar of blindingly pink light—so dense it looked like an entire bottle of fluorescent pink powder had been dumped into it—erupted from the staff's tip. It slammed precisely onto a tiny scar on the back of Lin Xiyue's hand.
The light was so dazzling, the color so garish, that both sisters squinted simultaneously.
Startled by the sudden "light pollution," Lin Xiyue stumbled back half a step.
But immediately after, a surge of warm, potent life energy—far more powerful than any healing she had ever received—flooded the wound.
The nearly negligible scratch healed completely in less than a second. Her skin was as smooth as new, without a single trace left behind.
The healing effect had indeed doubled! It was practically instantaneous!
However...
As the light faded, Lin Xiyue lowered her gaze to the back of her smooth hand.
Where the scar had been, a palm-sized, smoothly rounded, faintly glowing pink heart was now imprinted with undeniable clarity.
It looked as if it had been meticulously drawn with the latest pink highlighter, radiating an impossible-to-ignore, sweet yet dreamlike—and utterly lethal—aura.
Lin Xiyue: "..."
She raised her hand toward the rising sun, staring at the glittering pink heart, and fell into a long, profound silence.
Lin Qingyue: "..."
She stared at the outrageously garish heart on her sister's hand, then recalled the "lasts for ten minutes" clause in the effect description. Her temples began to throb uncontrollably.
It's over.
She, Lin Qingyue, the future Battlefield Reaper (self-proclaimed), the Dungeon Harvester, was probably about to be stuck with a nickname she could never shake.
"Pink Divine Priest"?
Or "Heart Launcher Princess"?
Lin Qingyue looked up at the sky, her eyes vacant.
Miss Pink Elf, your "unexpected turn of events" truly is full of "surprises" at every corner.
All she could do now was pray that when they encountered enemies later, their opponents wouldn't be so busy laughing at the explosion of pink and hearts that they forgot how to attack.
-
Outside the Dungeon, at the Official Live Broadcast Plaza.
A massive display was divided into hundreds of real-time feeds, and the viewership for one of them was skyrocketing.
The focus of the screen was a pink figure, so dazzlingly vibrant in the morning light and dying campfire embers that it was almost blinding.
"Holy shit?! Am I seeing things? What happened to the Lin family's older sister's hair?"
"I watched the replay yesterday—it was long, black, and straight! Did she... undergo a genetic mutation overnight?"
"Is this some new Dungeon-exclusive hair dye? It's so... so pink!"
"You know, paired with her ice-cold expression, it's actually kinda cute in a weird way..."
"Cute my ass! This is a battlefield! With hair like a moving target, is she trying to make sure enemies and monsters can't miss her?"
The plaza instantly filled with gleeful chatter.
The fierce image of Lin Qingyue "whacking heads with her staff" was still fresh in everyone's minds. Now, this dreamy pink hair completely washed away her "Battlefield Reaper" aura, replacing it with an indescribable comedic flair.
Inside the Observation Center.
Major Zhou Zhenyun nearly spat the mouthful of strong tea he'd just taken all over the Main Control Display in front of him.
He stared intently at the pink hair, which stood out starkly in the forest. The muscles at the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably, and his brow furrowed into a deep frown.
"Her hair changed color?" he asked in a low voice. "Is this some kind of external manifestation of power?"
The clerk beside him immediately pulled up a file. "Reporting, Major. Such phenomena occasionally occur in Transcendents above Level 60. It's typically a reverse saturation of the body by one's power after achieving an extremely high degree of control."
"But... an eighteen-year-old in the College Entrance Exam Dungeon, whose hair turned pink for unknown reasons..." another civilian official muttered to himself. "This case is likely the first of its kind since the Alliance was founded."
The clerk continued his analysis: "Hair color changes caused by power saturation are usually directly related to the power's element. Ice Element tends toward blue and white, Fire Element toward crimson, and Holy Light Element often manifests as pure white or pale gold... But this pink..."
An expression of profound confusion settled on his face.
"Throughout all the historical records of the Alliance, there has never been any mention of an orthodox, powerful ability whose ultimate manifestation is... girly pink."
Holy Light could be white, gold, or even the dark gold of Judgment, but never this bright pink that looked like it had been run through eight layers of beauty filters!
Zhou Zhenyun stroked his chin, his gaze growing sharper.
"It seems this young lady has more secrets than we imagined. This pink... it's almost certainly related to her mysterious 'Heroic Spirit Summoning' ability."
Instead of finding it comical, his assessment of Lin Qingyue rose even higher.
To trigger a physical transformation during the College Entrance Exam—the potential of such a genius was nothing short of terrifying.
"Record it," Zhou Zhenyun commanded. "Classify her as a highest-level observation target."
-
Inside the Dungeon, Lin Qingyue, having just completed the live debut of her "Pink Healing Spell," remained completely unaware that she had already caused an academic storm (and a massive wave of laughter) in the outside world.
She watched with a deadpan expression as her younger sister, Lin Xiyue, poked repeatedly at the sparkling pink heart on the back of her hand.
Xiyue's expression shifted from shock to bewilderment, and then... to a strange hint of fondness?
"Sis..." Lin Xiyue looked up, her eyes sparkling. "It looks a little weird, but the healing effect is incredibly strong!"
"Hmph," Lin Qingyue grunted, forcing her gaze away from the glaring heart. "Doubled effect in exchange for aesthetic and mental pollution. A fair trade."
She glanced at the sky. The morning sun had fully risen above the horizon, casting its warm light across the forest.
"Pack up. We're not going far," Lin Qingyue decided.
"Huh? Aren't we going to keep grinding for points?" Lin Xiyue asked, surprised. "We're ranked fifth right now. If we push hard, we could break into the top three or even take first place!"
Lin Qingyue shook her head, her gaze calm and analytical. "The Points Match lasts 72 hours, starting at 8 AM on Day 1 and ending at 8 AM on Day 4. It's already the morning of the third day. We've endured two days of high-intensity combat, and both our physical and mental stamina are severely depleted."
She paused, her eyes sweeping over the jungle, which concealed deadly threats.
"The final night is destined to be a frenzy for all teams—and a living hell. The top-ranked teams will become targets. Hidden squads will emerge to reap points. Assassins and plunderers will swarm like sharks smelling blood."
She pointed to her own pink hair.
"Wandering around in our current state, with such a... conspicuous target on our heads, is basically screaming 'Come kill me' to everyone."
Lin Xiyue instantly understood.
"Sis, you mean we should enter the 'final circle' ambush phase early?"
"Exactly," Lin Qingyue nodded. "We'll find an absolutely concealed, easily defensible location and recover to our peak condition. We'll wait, fully rested, for the final madness to begin."
Rather than dragging our exhausted bodies into the final moments only to be passively beaten, it's better to seize control of the pace, use this last window of safety to recover, and face the final chaotic battle at full strength.
"Makes sense!" Lin Xiyue immediately agreed. "So, we'll find a good spot near this camp? The Giant Goblins' lingering presence should still deter others."
"Yes, but we need something even more concealed." Lin Qingyue scanned the surroundings, her gaze locking onto a recess in the cliff face behind the camp, half-hidden by vines and loose rocks. "That spot is perfect. It offers a relatively open field of view, has its back to the cliff, and we only need to defend the front and sides."
The sisters wasted no time. They quickly moved their tent and supplies to the new hiding spot.
Lin Qingyue even used nearby rubble and branches to set up several crude but effective early-warning traps near the entrance.
Only after finishing all this did she finally relax, collapsing ungracefully onto the spread-out mat and letting out a long yawn.
"We'll take turns resting and recovering deeply. I'm going to sleep first."
Lin Xiyue watched her sister's pink hair, which still stubbornly glowed with a dreamlike luminescence even in the dim corner, and couldn't help but stifle a giggle.
Hmm, my pink-haired sister seems... even cuter now? I just hope the side effects of this color don't get any worse.
Lin Qingyue lay flat, feeling the energy slowly recovering within her body and the pink mark deep in her soul falling silent once more. Her heart was completely calm.
Pink hair is fine. Heart shapes are fine.
As long as she could win, as long as she could lead her sister to the very end, this "tiny" price... she could endure it!
[Ding! The Host has accepted the appearance changes brought by the "Pink Elf's Blessing" with a broad-minded (numb) attitude and has formulated a highly forward-thinking slacker (crossed out) recuperation strategy, fully embodying the true essence of Elation: "Make Yourself Comfortable." Elation Value +150!]
Lin Qingyue: "..."
Well, at least I can earn some extra cash. Not a bad deal.