[What does this mean? Brother Guan is speaking in riddles again.]
[A broken sword? Is he talking about An Changqing? No wonder, at the end of the last episode, An Changqing's expression was a bit off.]
[Holy shit! I get it! Brother Guan means that An Changqing's breakthrough method is draining the pond to catch the fish, his foundation is unstable. Brother Ao's breakthrough is the real deal.]
[An Changqing lost because he doesn't have a system. Only the power gained through a system is solid.]
The style of the bullet comments reversed once again, shifting from sympathizing with Long Ao to frantically interpreting Chen Guan's words.
Chen Guan ignored the discussions behind him and walked straight away. Long Ao was still frozen in place, even forgetting to return to his dorm.
"Do you still remember our agreement?" Baal's voice continued, "There are quite a few good souvenirs inside the library."
"The core of an abyssal worm," Baal's voice carried a hint of interest. "It clearly wasn't there before. If you manage to get it for me, I'll give you a chance to secretly learn from me, letting you copy another one of my moves. However, whether you can master it will depend on yourself."
Chen Guan's footsteps paused for a moment.
The opportunity to secretly learn from Baal was rare.
Moreover, he had an agreement with Baal beforehand, and it was indeed inappropriate to break a promise.
He was determined to get this dish.
He believed in taking what he could: what is mine is mine, and what is yours is also mine.
...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of impacts, each heavier than the last, echoed through the corridor.
Long Ao was bare-chested, sweat trickling down the bulging ravines of his muscles, his whole body steaming with scorching white vapor.
He did not use his supernatural ability, relying solely on his flesh and blood to smash his fists into the specially made punching bag.
The skin on his knuckles had long been worn away, and beads of blood mixed with sweat splattered in all directions.
He was completely oblivious to this, only using this most primitive method of self-mutilation to vent the depression filling his chest.
He had caught up, only to be thrown even further behind.
This sense of powerlessness was even worse than when he faced strong enemies in Jiangcheng.
[Sigh, Brother Ao is too miserable. He risked his life to level up, only to look back and see his home base stolen.]
[An Changqing is Tier 5... How can they fight? Mythological abilities inherently have a higher ceiling than enhancement abilities, and now he is a tier higher.]
[I feel like Brother Ao's mentality is going to collapse.]
Chen Guan sat on his bed, turning a deaf ear to the commotion next door. The academy's soundproofing needed improvement, and so did Long Ao's.
He took out the ink-colored soul-nourishing ancient jade from his clothes and placed it close to his main body's chest.
A cool and gentle aura penetrated his skin, and immediately, the faint black mist lingering between his brows dissipated.
It worked.
He tucked the jade stone into his inner lining pocket, ensuring it pressed tightly against his skin.
"Kid, don't just focus on your broken stone," Baal's voice echoed in his mind. "When are you going to fetch the thing you promised me?"
"Location," Chen Guan responded in his mind.
"Central Library, third underground floor, the deepest archive room." Baal's tone carried a bit of excitement. "It was probably only after your miserable senior died that this good stuff was spawned."
"The academy doesn't allow entry," Chen Guan said concisely.
Baal's voice was full of amusement at watching the drama unfold. "Do you still care about that? I remember humans have a rule against forming contracts with demons."
Chen Guan did not reply again.
He glanced out the window; the night was already thick.
Next door, Long Ao's hitting sounds continued, but the frequency had slowed down, turning into muffled thuds mixed with heavy panting.
He stood up, put on his jacket, and moved slightly without making a single sound.
Chen Guan opened the door until he completely disappeared.
...
At midnight, Huaqing Academy sank into a dead silence.
Clouds obscured the moonlight, leaving only streetlights casting dim yellow halos at fixed distances.
Tree shadows swayed in the night breeze, stretching out into grotesque shapes on the ground.
Chen Guan walked on the boundary between light and shadow.
He didn't deliberately hide, and his pace was neither fast nor slow.
But every step fell exactly in the blind spots of the patrol team's vision, and every turn perfectly blended into the shadows of the buildings, successfully deceiving their eyes.
He had spent some popularity points to upgrade his aura-concealing technique to purple quality.
Under the operation of the aura-concealing technique, his breath, heartbeat, and even the tiny sounds of his clothing rubbing were compressed to the extreme. The student council members alone could not detect him.
To protect student privacy, surveillance cameras were only installed in a few places, and obviously, there were none on the ordinary main roads.
His movement was completely silent.
Soon, the massive outline of the Central Library appeared ahead. Chen Guan found a corner, applied an illusion, and put down the coffin on his back. Then, using an item exchanged from the system, he directly transformed into another face.
A face Chen Guan was not unfamiliar with. From now on, I am Lin Jiu.
A ring of yellow caution tape completely isolated the library.
Every ten meters stood a student on guard.
They were members of the student council, but most of them were quite casual, chatting without much vigilance.
After all, who would have thought that someone would run here in the middle of the night.
Therefore, passing through was effortless.
He pushed open the heavy glass doors of the library, and a stale, bookish smell mixed with cold, damp air rushed over his face.
He didn't stop and walked straight toward the stairs leading underground.
The further down he went, the heavier the sweet smell of blood in the air became.
On the second underground floor, traces of battle could still be seen. There were sword marks and claw prints on the walls. Chen Guan was quite familiar with the aura on the sword marks; they came from An Changqing.
Upon reaching the third underground floor, the scene before him was completely different.
The walls were covered in a layer of slippery, dark slime that was slowly dripping down. It was no wonder students were kept away.
"Left, third row of bookshelves," Baal's voice sounded in his mind.
Chen Guan turned to the left.
This was the ancient books section, and the air was filled with the smell of humus.
He followed the guidance and headed toward the archive room.
The item was just sitting right there on the bookshelf, allowing him to get his hands on it without much effort. Its name sounded mysterious, but its appearance was extremely ordinary, looking just like a small stone.
Just as he was about to leave, a very faint sound of something piercing the air reached his ears.
Swish.
It was the sound of a sword blade slicing through the air.
Chen Guan stopped his footsteps, pressed his body against the tall bookshelf, and looked through the gap toward the source of the sound.
In the clearing not far ahead stood a familiar figure.
Dressed in a white shirt, with a tall and straight posture.
It was An Changqing.
He actually hadn't left, staying alone in this distorted pollution core. Normally, students on guard duty would only be outside. He must have chosen to come in himself, just like Chen Guan.
His face was a bit pale, but the hand holding the sword was very steady, repeating the most basic sword-swinging motion over and over again.
Chen Guan's gaze fell on An Changqing's sword, and the words he had said at that time echoed in his mind.
His sword is too fast, it will break...
Right at this moment, An Changqing's sword momentum sank.
His chest heaved, his wrist flicked, and the longsword thrust straight forward.
A dazzling golden sword light suddenly bloomed, illuminating the entire space down to the finest detail.
That light was condensed to the extreme, containing an unstoppable power that could break through anything.
However, the sword light only extended for less than three meters before it flickered violently in the air.
Then, with a soft puff, the sword's radiance flickered like a dying flame running out of fuel. It shattered into a sky full of golden motes of light before being completely swallowed by the darkness.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
