Ryosuke stared blankly at the description of the Resonance Speaker, reading it back and forth three or four times before finally taking a sip of iced black tea and letting out an elegant sigh, "Holy shit."
These days, Ryosuke wasn't short on soul fragments.
With a daily income of 200 fragments, and the ninja world being relatively peaceful lately, all he had to do was wake up, eat, take a walk, and sleep, and he could calmly live like a steady little hoarder.
But no matter how well-off you were, a gacha pool with no pity system plus a huge number of Stands was still a bottomless abyss.
Especially for Ryosuke as he was now, many Stands weren't all that useful. Most of the time, they ended up like Youthful Years or the Stone Mask, becoming "bottom-of-the-box" treasures that just sat in storage collecting dust.
Targeted draws were a different story.
Although it restricted five-star Stands, you couldn't directly target overly outrageous ones like Wonder of U or King Crimson.
It could still pull Stands with special mechanics or enormous potential.
For the former, examples included, Death Thirteen, which could kill in dreams; Kraft Work, which could tear at space; and Crazy Diamond, which could repair any object.
Pulling any of them meant immediate combat power, greatly enriching Ryosuke's tactical options.
For the latter, an example was, Gold Experience.
This was the Stand with the greatest potential within the known scope, and in the entire JOJO series, once it evolved into Requiem, it became "the strongest" Stand.
Ryosuke took out the Resonance Speaker and placed it on the ground.
It was a square, retro-looking stereo that could play cassette tapes. As long as Ryosuke wanted to target a specific Stand, a corresponding cassette tape would appear in his hand.
Ryosuke tested it a few times. Each Stand had different music. When it came to Gold Experience, what appeared was a very stirring piano piece.
Listening to the melody, he turned his head to look at C-Moon, who was squatting in the corner, digging sand and playing by itself.
After getting used to being together, C-Moon gave Ryosuke a pretty good feeling.
It might be dumb, but when something happened, it never hesitated.
Although it had some trouble understanding complex instructions, many times Ryosuke hadn't even given an order yet, and it would already act purely on instinct, in just the right way.
Maybe this was the intuition of a fool?
But still…
Ryosuke missed that chatterbox White Snake more.
Click!
Ryosuke took out the Gold Experience cassette.
"System, use the Resonance Speaker, target…"
"White Snake!"
The pattern belonging to Gold Experience on the cassette faded, turning pure white again. Ryosuke waited, waiting for White Snake's face to appear on it.
[Lock failed.]
The system notification sounded in Ryosuke's ear,
[Unable to lock onto an already obtained Stand. Please change the lock target.]
Ryosuke put away the Resonance Speaker, let out a light sigh, said nothing, leaned back against the wall, and took another sip of iced black tea.
"Let's take it slow."
For the current Ryosuke, a five-star Stand could indeed increase his combat strength, but it was only part of the improvement.
It was better to save this opportunity for now, and when a new powerful enemy appeared in the future, carry out a targeted draw based on that enemy's weaknesses.
As for Gold Experience…
Before evolving into Requiem, it didn't mean much.
To advance it into Requiem, he needed to find a way to use "Fate Ink."
This item, said to be able to wield the power of fate and allow a Stand to surpass its limits, had been sitting in the system space for a long time.
"So… after going in circles, it all comes back to the 'pen.'"
Ryosuke pondered.
"Where exactly is that pen?"
"It can't really be on Kaguya, right?"
He finished the last sip of iced black tea, tossed the empty bottle into the Ghost Room, and planned to go check on the excavation progress of the exploration team.
Otsutsuki Toneri was a bastard.
But there was no denying that his ancestor, Otsutsuki Hamura, was someone who, for the sake of humanity, could carry out righteous extermination of his own kin, a ruthless character.
As for information about the Otsutsuki clan, the mysterious leader of the Kara organization clearly knew quite a lot.
That person's secretive and overly cautious attitude suggested they were probably no good.
Getting information about the Otsutsuki clan out of the Kara leader wouldn't be easy, and there was also the risk of them mixing in false or misleading details.
The ruins of Hamura's lineage's settlement thus became the final source of information.
The fierce battle between Ryosuke and Toneri had caused a large number of buildings to collapse. Hundreds of intelligence personnel who had come through the teleportation pond were slowly restoring the site, trying to find useful documents and clues.
Ryosuke made his way to the cemetery behind Hamura's settlement.
Many Otsutsuki clan members were buried here, and most of the graves had been dug up, this wasn't done by Ryosuke and his people.
No matter how much they hated Toneri, they wouldn't take it out on these innocent dead, nor would they do something like digging up graves and whipping corpses.
This was Toneri's handiwork.
He dug up his clansmen's bodies and turned them into puppets, keeping them by his side in another way.
As for that, Ryosuke's evaluation was, "Isn't this just pure animal behavior?"
Down in hell, sitting at the same table as Uchiha Itachi.
When Ryosuke reached the cemetery, he saw Kamihara Hayato holding a flashlight in one hand, pressed up against a wall, copying something.
His boots and pants were covered in dust, his white shirt had turned khaki, and because the lunar base was a bit cold, he had put on a leather jacket.
When Kamihara Hayato saw Ryosuke come over, he waved excitedly. "Perfect timing, come look."
He pointed at the mural on the wall.
Ryosuke walked over, looked it over up and down, left and right, several times, and finally spread his hands.
"I don't get it."
Ryosuke had seen plenty in his life. Back before graduating university, he had used money earned from part-time jobs to travel frugally across the country.
At first glance, they all gave a sense of awe that came from deep within.
But this one in front of him…
Ryosuke looked at the mural, as rough as a child's stick-figure drawing, fell silent for half a second, then said, "The art style really is… back to basics."
Kamihara Hayato shrugged. "It's a thousand-year-old thing. You can't ask for too much. Besides, simple lines and structure make it easier for us to decipher."
Ryosuke nodded. Aside from the kindergarten-level drawings, there was also quite a bit of written text on the mural.
"This is an extremely ancient script, long since lost. No country or region uses it anymore. Luckily…"
Kamihara Hayato jerked his chin toward a few people busy not far away.
"What we're least short of is experts."
"You've deciphered it?" Ryosuke asked.
"Yes," Kamihara Hayato said.
"There are still quite a few weathered and damaged documents that need restoration, but as for deciphering this stone monument, the work is basically done."
"It roughly tells the following story,"
"Otsutsuki Kaguya and her servants descended upon the ninja world with a mission to destroy the world."
"But Kaguya cherished life and was unwilling to do so. She chose to become humanity's protector. Unexpectedly, her servants developed rebellious intentions and launched a sneak attack, only to be suppressed and killed by Kaguya with thunderous force."
"From then on, Kaguya became the protector of humanity."
"However, her mission was unfinished. The coordinates of the ninja world were already known to the Otsutsuki clan, and sooner or later, someone from the Otsutsuki would come to investigate."
"To resist the enemy, Kaguya used humans as materials to create super soldiers with pure white, flawless bodies. In the end, her two very filial sons felt this was too inhumane, so they…"
Kamihara Hayato spread his hands.
Indicating that Ryosuke already knew the rest of the story.
Ryosuke stepped forward. With the answers in mind, the mural now looked much clearer.
He had no interest in the family ethics drama of Kaguya's household, nor did he want to think about the mental journey of the brothers Hamura and Hagoromo after mother and sons turned on each other.
Assuming the information in the mural was accurate, for Ryosuke, there were two key points that he absolutely had to pay attention to.