This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

Rita stashed the dice inside her capsule machine.

A bit of a shame—262 dice rolls and still only third place.

This game's leaderboard was actually easy to climb. Once you made it onto the board once and saw how the scoring worked, you'd know how to farm points. She could change Month Theme Parks, and even if other players couldn't, they could use items like Play Again to try for a better score.

Still, Rita wasn't planning a second round just yet—her Bumper Car score had slipped to ninth place.

She messaged her two pets: when they were ready, they'd let her know. She'd use her last Teleport Ticket to bring them to 1st March Theme Park and run the ride again.

After that, Rita stopped by the exchange center. She listed the crafting fragments she'd earned from It's Not the Craft That Sucks, then checked on her beloved owl.

When she first arrived in the March Theme Park, she'd used her Blocks to buy two owl fragments. Now she was just one away from completing the set. It had finally been listed—but the price was insane: 10,000g Blocks.

Not worth wasting her 80% discount coupon on. Instead, she used a Universal Fragment to complete the set.

[Where's the Owl Already] (Ancient)

"Where's the Owl Already"—because no one left a mailbox at the gate.

Bonus Attributes:

Intelligence +3567 | Agility +3121 | Constitution +2145

Magic Effects:

+105% Cast Speed | +115% Skill Damage | +135% Mana Regeneration

Ancient Skills:

1. Where's the Owl Already – I know you're in a rush! All skill cooldowns reduced by 30% while this item is equipped.

2. Owl Got Lost – But don't rush it too much! Randomly ends the cooldown of one skill or transfers the cooldown of a selected skill to another skill of equal tier. No resource cost. 30-minute cooldown (not affected by any modifiers).

3. The Owl Got Kidnapped – Select a target to receive the remaining cooldown of one of your skills. The target skill is chosen randomly from any they've used in the past 12 hours. Can only affect each skill once per Starsea day. Costs 1,000 MP per use. 1-hour cooldown (non-reducible).

4. The Owl Is Starving – Seal a selected skill and begin pre-charging its cooldown. When the skill is used, the seal lifts. Requires one dish with a score of 95+ per skill. Can seal up to 3 skills at a time.

5. The Owl Is Flying Home – All cooldowns instantly reset. 36-hour cooldown (not affected by any modifiers).

Equip Requirements: Intelligence > 7285 | Agility > 7737

It was powerful—but the full Where's the Owl Already came with steep stat requirements. Rita couldn't equip it yet.

Let it sit unused until she met the stats?

She thought of the pile of blue-tier weapons and high-level meals gathering dust in her inventory and rejected the idea immediately.

No way was she letting another high-tier item just sit there useless.

She dismantled the Ancient-grade Where's the Owl Already, turning it into two separate items. Then she used another Universal Fragment to craft an additional owl piece. With some mini Blocks, she reassembled them into two copies of:

[Where's the Owl Already · Incomplete] (5/9)

Over half the fragments collected meant the item wouldn't vanish when Divine Game ended. It would downgrade, sure—but its equip requirements would likely change, too.

Even if her stats still didn't meet the new threshold post-event, this would get her closer to actually using it.

And once her attributes caught up, she still had Renovation—she might be able to reforge the full ancient version.

Even if that failed, the owl's first three skills were plenty valuable.

And with two Incomplete Owls, she could alternate their cooldowns.

After packing away her twin owls, Rita set her next goal: items or curios with no equip requirements. They might not boost stats, but they were more immediately useful.

Whenever she spotted an interesting curio, she'd ask B8017913 about it—he knew a lot. If he recognized the name, he could usually explain the effect.

Thinking of the capsule machine, she asked, "Are there any items or curios that can answer questions?"

B8017913: "I've seen 391."

...That would take forever to sort through. Rita went with a more direct approach:

"I want to keep learning how to craft Divine-level capsule machines. Give me a few specific options."

B8017913: "There's only one. But its usage conditions are strict… though that won't be an issue for you."

Rita: "Name?"

B8017913: "[Message in a Bottle]. Every 30 Starsea days, it creates a small drift bottle. You can write a letter and send it into the Sea of Divinity. Each message costs 1 Luck Point. If a reply comes, that Luck Point is permanently consumed. If no reply is received before the next message, the spent point returns."

Rita immediately understood why B8017913 said it wouldn't be a problem for her—she could glitch Luck values and steal extras. The cost was no concern.

But she had one critical question:

"Is it guaranteed to reach a god? Can I choose who it goes to, or is it random?"

If it really worked like a drift bottle and floated randomly… that would be useless.

B8017913: "It's not guaranteed. Whoever picks it up becomes the recipient."

That was a hard no.

Even if she didn't want to give it up, Rita rejected the idea instantly.

It wasn't the 20% success rate that bothered her—it was the spammy nature of it.

Like being a celebrity, she knew firsthand that no one, nothing, could appeal to every god's tastes. Not everyone liked her style of play or how she handled things.

That bottle might get a response… or be ignored. Worse, it might annoy the recipient.

And if she showed up too often in divine sight, no matter the reason, she'd become a nuisance.

Too risky. Too vague. Not worth it.

She didn't keep pressing the same question.

If B8017913 only knew of one item, he only knew of one.

Instead, she changed tracks.

"Are there any items or curios that can measure whether a research direction is right or wrong? At least something that can assess Divine-level artifact theories."

This time, B8017913 gave her several viable options.