Back in reality, Lin Yu slumped down in his room and let out a long breath.

"Phew, that move actually worked out for me!"

In Lin Yu's expectation, that maneuver had been a bit risky... one wrong move might have caused him to even fail the four-choose-two selection.

But in the end, the result was good.

With four Specialized Items in hand, Lin Yu felt a harvest-like joy swell in his chest.

"Looks like quick hands really do grab everything!"

Having four Specialized Items at once, even without reading the Item Effects, Lin Yu was pretty sure...

Now, many veteran Second Tier players probably still couldn't match his overall strength, right?

"You're being modest," Old Zheng said calmly, "At your current state, you probably no longer need to rely on favorable timing or terrain. You have the qualification to directly confront ordinary Third Tier opponents whose foundations are shallow..."

Old Zheng said this with some emotion. Lin Yu immediately asked, "How do I compare to Fluoxetine?"

"Obviously, she is not an ordinary Third Tier," Old Zheng replied tactfully, "You also got a glimpse of a sliver of my peak strength. Do you really think she could have reduced me to this mess... what do you think?"

"Tsk, such a shame, but it's fine. After all, closing the gap to this point is already great."

Lin Yu comforted himself.

He then began to carefully examine those Specialized Items.

Public Opinion Forges Truth: After activating your Class Ability and achieving Manifestation, you may choose to permanently retain the Manifestation effect. Repetitions of that "lie" will always gain others' belief. You may retain up to three Manifestation effects simultaneously.

Pyramid Scheme: When a Fraud succeeds and obtains belief, you may choose not to Manifest the current deception and instead store the acquired belief. You can draw on this stored belief when other deceptions lack sufficient belief to succeed. Each store and draw triggers a cooldown; cooldown time is 24 hours.

Reading the descriptions of these two Specialized Items, Lin Yu was stunned for a long time.

Then he murmured in awe.

"This is so busted... no wonder these are the Unique Class's Specialized Items!"

From his contacts, observations, and even direct clashes with Second and Third Tier players in the previous dungeons, and from seeing their Specialized Items' effects, Lin Yu had developed an understanding.

No matter the Class, the Class Items gained at First Tier can instantly pull a player ahead of ordinary players, but they still mostly patch original weaknesses or boost an existing strength.

The Specialized Items acquired at Second Tier, if paired properly with the original items, can instantly turn someone from ordinary into something like a superpowered being.

And his Unique Class's Specialized Items were particularly devious.

One could permanently retain an effect without requiring others to remember it after Manifestation, while the other could store surplus belief...

No exaggeration: recalling the perilous moments of the earlier dungeons, having either one of these two abilities would have greatly improved the situation.

If he had both abilities while replaying those dungeons, Lin Yu was confident he could speedrun them perfectly safe and effortless!

Just in the Black Marsh world’s Blood and Fire Festival dungeon, he could have used surplus belief to transform into "Moro" three days in advance, then permanently keep that effect, so he wouldn't have had to scheme with Twenty in the dream—he could have started digging him up and pounding him straight away!

Thinking of this, Lin Yu felt much more at ease.

He even felt he shouldn't be far from the leaderboard.

"Maybe I'm not getting arrogant. After all, I'm actually quite strong now..."

After all, Twenty was a leaderboard character he had faced directly—Lin Yu now used Twenty as his benchmark for hypothetical evaluation and estimation.

Besides...

He had two such powerful Specialized Items.

Lin Yu glanced at the remaining two Specialized Items; their descriptions were much briefer.

Narrative Trick: Consume mental power to briefly twist the cognition of one or multiple targets in a manner that fits the target's cognitive logic. Consumption increases with cognitive strength, amount of deviation, and duration.

Honeyed Words and Fair Appearances: Composed of Teeth of Prophecy, Tongue of Deceit, and Rumor Lips. Each time you return to or enter a dungeon, you may choose one of these abilities to use once.

Although short, these two descriptions felt even more terrifying to Lin Yu.

The first two abilities strengthened his Fraudster Class Ability, raising its ceiling.

But this thing...

Even detached from the Fraudster's abilities, Narrative Trick was insanely powerful—the kind of power that outdid even the "hypnosis" Old Zheng had learned at Third Tier.

Old Zheng's "mental control" ability was more for manipulating lingering souls and less intelligent things, directly controlling their bodies.

Against mentally sound opponents, Old Zheng still had to beat them down and knock them unconscious before implanting small, possibly limited psychological suggestions.

Narrative Trick, however... could forcibly alter a person's cognition.

Although it required logical conformity and seemed to consume a lot, it was effectively an instant-cast form of hypnosis.

If combined with his Fraudster abilities...

Lin Yu already began imagining many real-time battlefield applications, scenes of forcibly controlling opponents with this move.

And even more absurd was Honeyed Words and Fair Appearances...

"This thing actually gives me a Teeth of Prophecy and a Tongue of Deceit to use once per dungeon?"

Although it didn't seem like Teeth of Prophecy and Tongue of Deceit could be used simultaneously when separated, just being able to use them repeatedly was already satisfying to Lin Yu.

On top of that, this item also added a Rumor Lips...

Rumor Lips: The next sentence you say will be widely spread and shared.

This was also a powerful skill rivaling Teeth of Prophecy and Tongue of Deceit!

"So that Crow actually gave me a Specialized Item trial card back then... but how did it get hold of them?"

Lin Yu was not surprised that the Crow could know parts of the Specialized Items he had not yet obtained. After all, the Banquet God could also know the name and appearance of Narrative Trick.

Even for the Unique Class, the obtainable Class Items and Specialized Items seemed predetermined; it wasn't surprising these gods had their ways of knowing.

What Lin Yu was curious about was...

"How did that Crow pull them out in advance? Are these Specialized Items actually crafted by those gods?"

"Caw caw, of course we didn't craft the Specialized Items. The reason I could give you Teeth of Prophecy and Tongue of Deceit... was because I 'made falsehood into truth' at the time—because you believed those two Items existed and were effective, they manifested early!"

Hearing the Crow's voice, Lin Yu was greatly shocked.

On one hand, he was surprised to learn how the Crow had managed to hand him Teeth of Prophecy and Tongue of Deceit early. On the other hand...

"Why are you still around?" 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Looking at the Crow mark pulsing on his wrist, Lin Yu couldn't help but ask curiously.