Worlds' Apocalypse Online


The end of all worlds approaches. The Demon King Order harvests lives from all manners of living beings. Within this darkness full of despair, A single person escaped from space-time, returned to before the world collapsed, determined to change the fate of the past. But as time pass, he gradually finds out that the Apocalypse isn't quite as simple as he thinks…


Worlds' Apocalypse Online #Chapter 1 The Dead Pit - Read Worlds' Apocalypse Online Chapter 1 The Dead Pit Online - All Page - NOVEL NEXT

Chapter 1 The Dead Pit

Translated and Edited by: La0o9

The rain continued for one day and one night straight, outside, in the military's dead pit, an arm suddenly stuck out.

The night patrol got so scared he dropped his lantern and scurried back to the outpost to report to the Commander.

The Commander and the night patrol went together, scimitar and lantern in hand, leaving the outpost to carefully survey what he saw.

The two of them look out, only to see in the pouring rain, a silhouette silently sitting amidst the corpses.

The Commander lifts his lantern for a wider view, revealing to silhouette to be a soldier, wearing tattered leather armor, leaning on a stack of skulls, his back turned to them.

The Commander tightly grips his blade and asks in a low voice: "Who's there?"

From the pouring rain, only a faint sound returns: "I'm from the Vanguard Legion, right now I'm too heavily injured, unable to move"

Unable to move?

The Commander's expression slightly relaxes, lowering his blade and walks forward: "Oh so you're a brother from the Vanguard, come, let me help you"

"Thank you"

"You're welcome, die"

The blade slash separates the rain, gleaming a cold silver color, cutting straight at the soldier's neck.

The Commander's slash is incredibly sharp, as well as being exactly timed, cleanly hacking off the soldier's head, sending it rolling straight back down the dead pit.

One slash, no more nuisance!

The Commander smirks and sheaths his blade, but immediately his face shifts: "Shi —–"

A silhouette jumps from the soldier's feet amongst the dead bodies, a cold silver gleam in his hand slashes through the Commander's arm.

The arm, as well as the blade all got cut clean and flew off, a splash of blood shoots out from where the cut is, but is quickly drowned out by the screaming night rain and wind.

An intense pain rushes through his head, the Commander's face shows disbelief, in his eyes, reflect a silhouette descending from a jump.

A saber gradually grows bigger inside that reflection.

A single second later, the saber stabs straight into his eye socket.

The intense pain only lasted for moments, afterwards is nothing but blackness.

A few breaths later.

The young man pulls his saber from the Commander's eye socket.

The Commander's corpse falls back, plopping straight into the muddy water behind.

The young man keeps his grip on the saber, standing still.

The night rain keeps pouring, wiping the mud from the young man's face, revealing a pair of shining pupils.

Suddenly, his eyes become sharp.

Right at his feet, the Commander's stomach inflates, letting out a strange gurgling sound from inside.

The young man takes a deep breath, both hands on his saber, stabbing straight into the Commander's now-bloated stomach.

A shriek that cannot have come from a human resounds, a black mist suddenly burst from the Commander's stomach, the inside clearly violent, like something is desperately trying to escape

Then, the Commander's stomach rips open, a dry, thin, black claw reaches out.

Before the horrid demonic claw could even attempt anything, the young man already starts to intensely twist his saber handle.

"Die!"

Only one word.

The writhing corpse suddenly stop dead, the demonic claw also drops, no longer moving.

Everything is silent again.

A stinky black blood begins to leak from under the Commander's corpse.

Seeing that black blood, the young man finally breaths out slightly, withdrawing his saber.

He looks down at the creepy corpse, mumbling to himself at a low voice.

"Such a strange scenario, I wonder what the reward could be?"

The young man, seeming to hold a bit of anticipation, shouts in a low voice: "System!"

One breath, two breaths, three breath.

Time slowly passes, but nothing happens.

In the dark night, only the sound of unending rain and wind persists...

The young man, seeming a bit surprised, turned his head, looking back and forth from the scene – behind him is the dead pit, under his feet is the demon's corpse, not far from there, a single militia is scared shitless, even his lips are trembling.

"Strange" the young man mutters: "The Quest isn't cleared?"

The System is still silent, meaning the Quest isn't cleared.

The young man looks at the militia, suddenly feeling like there must something that he missed.

The young man thinks hard, trying his best to move forward, but then almost fell down.

Right then, he had to concentrate on killing the demon so he didn't notice, but now that he could

relax himself, he found his whole body hurting, like having been stabbed with a thousand needles.

His legs feel like lead, every step he takes would drain him of all his energy.

This can't be right.

When the Apocalypse came, he clearly used all his power to kill the last Demon Lord, but instead of getting ejected from the game, he now carry this body full of pain, dropped into this place who-knows-where.

Where is this place exactly?

The young man squints, slowly drags himself closer to the militia and proceeds with a salute.

"Proud Steed Squad, Gu Qing Shan reporting for duty"

"You, you, you killed the Commander!" the militia trembles.

"He was not human" Gu Qing Shan replies while evaluating the militia.

He is wearing an old-type leather armor, this type of armor that doesn't even have a device to receive spirit energy – even the most hated squad in the military wouldn't use this old antique toy.

Gu Qing Shan looks again at himself, only to see the same type of antique toy, all of his original equipment are all gone.

This is strange.

The militia leans slightly closer to the dead pit, the Commander's deformed corpse is still sitting in the mud.

The militia hesitates: "But but... But when you killed him, how did you know he wasn't human?"

Gu Qing Shan shrugs: "I was only being careful, he attacked first"

Gu Qing Shan went back, dragged the Commander's corpse straight in front of the militia's face for him to see.

"Look, this is a Skin-shedding Blood Demon"

Gu Qing Shan use his saber to reveal inside the Commander's stomach, to see a monster with a scary face, body black all over, and strange vertical pupils.

Seeing the monster's corpse with his own eyes, the militia is even more shaken.

Remembering his comrades that have been strangely dying one-by-one for the last few days, he felt sheer cold down his spine, finally holding gratitude for the young man in front of him.

The militia calms himself down and ask: "You said you were called Gu Qing Shan?"

"Yes"

"From Proud Steed Squad?"

"Yes"

"Your badge?"

Gu Qing Shan takes out his badge, checks for himself then throw it to the militia to check.

This badge is much heavier than he remembered.

With the current level of smithing, a simple identification badge can be as light as a sheet of paper, why does the badge he had on himself weigh so much, almost a kilo.

The young man becomes even more confused.

The militia takes the badge and check carefully, on it inscribed 6 words "Proud Stead Squad Gu Qing Shan", looking full of life.

The badge is real.

The militia breaths out, no longer nervousness on his face, only a lot of fatigue: "Finally a living person, come, we can't stay long outside, come with me into the outpost"

What he's saying is true, Gu Qing Shan lightly brushes his chin and replies: "Yes"

The militia returns his badge, turns around to go back into the outpost.

Gu Qing Shan receives the badge, carefully looks at it again.

——- This badge isn't just heavy, it is also entirely made of bronze alloy, the outside only have a few words inscribed, with terrible workmanship that's hard to look at, clearly the obsolete kind

The obsolete kind...

Gu Qing Shan suddenly thinks of something, a fearful thought crosses his mind.

He immediately looks up, his sight set on the militia in front.

Old-type leather armor.

The answer is so inconceivable, that Gu Qing Shan couldn't keep himself from asking: "Brother, what year it is right now?"

The militia looks back, slightly confused with his question: "Of course it's the Last Peaceful Year"

Gu Qing Shan is baffled.

Suddenly, information streams as thick as a waterfall flows in front of his eyes, creating a clear-blue, tide-like filter.

Click –

A cold mechanical voice.

"The current time as confirmed to be the Last Peaceful Years"

"Time flow is stable, confirmed to have escaped from space-time vortex"

"Conclusion: Successfully escaped from the Apocalypse"

"Identity reestablished, current identity: Human, Vanguard Legion, Proud Steed Squad soldier"

The System is finally active again, but Gu Qing Shan doesn't feel happy at all, only absolute disbelief.

Why is it the Last Peaceful Year, the game hasn't even started in this time period!

This period is supposed to just be a setting of the game, bygone history, humans from Reality haven't even officially entered this horror game of a different world yet.

When the first people started playing the game, it was already a whole year later.

Could it be I've returned to before the game starts?

But then what about the real world, could I also have returned back in time in the real world?

Gu Qing Shan's heart starts pounding uncontrollably, he immediately looks around.

In front, the militia is quite far away, already inside the outpost gates.

Besides the gates, spirit energy from the Invisibility formation faintly drifts out.

Looking past the outpost to afar, in the middle of the desolate countryside, you can almost see a gigantic silhouette amidst the rain, flickering in and out of sight.

Gu Qing Shan slowly lifts his arm, and bites into it.

Two lines of teeth marks clearly shows up on where he bit into, even a bit of blood drips out.

It hurts!

It's not a dream!

Gu Qing Shan stood still like a statue, unmoving in the intense rain, not minding the chilling rain water soaking his body.

Notes:

-System: a younger genre in Chinese web novels, the term refers to a person-bound support system that basically only the MC possess, giving them an advantage over everybody else even if their starting point is low simply due to how Deus-Ex-Machina it sometimes is (MC needs a certain pill/scripture to advance to the next level in their cultivation, it'll give it to them either free or through a series of hoops that are there for plot purposes). Yao Lao from Battle Through the Heavens is one example of a System (albeit not for a long time).

-Vanguard Legion: this isn't an actual name but rather a position for a legion, basically they're the first group that will enter battle in the war

-Invisibility formation: formations in general are a main-piece in many Xianxia and even Wuxia novels. They are a Daoist concept that Feng Shui originates from, basically the process of harnessing natural power for one's personal use. However Formations have evolved over time and now generally refers to the art of arranging Power Items( items that inherently have power) in certain ways to achieve whatever effects the user want. Formations in novels are generally hard to grasp or use due to requiring a lot of calculations and set up.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 2: The Apocalypse

Translated and edited by: La0o9

With a fire lit, the cold, damp militia room starts to have a bit of warmth.

His saber stuck on the ground besides himself, Gu Qing Shan wrapped his arm with a bandage, leaned on the wall and sat down on the ground.

The militia introduced himself as Zhao Lu just now brought over a pot full of water, put it over the fire and closed the lid.

Zhao Lu searched himself for a small decorated box, gave it to Gu Qing Shan and spoke:

"Lucky that you're here, otherwise I would've died to that monster as well"

"This is?" Gu Qing Shan received the box and asked.

Zhao Lu replied: "The outpost's last two Healing pills"

Gu Qing Shan asked back: "Why didn't you keep them for yourself to use?"

Zhao Lu shakes his head: "I'm not a cultivator, can't use them"

Gu Qing Shan opened the box to see inside there really were two pills.

Taking one in his hand, Gu Qing Shan carefully examined the pill.

The condition of the pill is still perfect for use, even the thin layer of sap covering the pill isn't damaged.

The light-green pill gives off a faint scent of herbs, calming anyone that smells it.

This is a Healing pill.

Healing pills are the lowest tier of HP recovery items, in the past, Gu Qing Shan wouldn't even look twice at them, but now that he's back in the past, his previous cultivation gone without a trace, and a body full of wounds, these two pills are the most precious treasures that one can find.

Gu Qing Shan can't help but ask: "The whole outpost only have these two Healing pills left?"

Zhao Lu sighs and replies: "Yes, after everyone died, the supply chain got cut, so not only medicines and pills, but other kinds of supplies are running low as well"

Gu Qing Shan became silent for a bit, then thought of something: "Does the outpost have any more Spirit Stones?"

Zhao Lu curtly: "None"

"Then we're doomed" Gu Qing Shan sighs.

Zhao Lu hurriedly: "What's the matter?"

Gu Qing Shan answers: "The outpost's Invisibility Formation is already very weak, without Spirit Stones to replenish the power, it will soon disappear"

Zhao Lu is visibly shaken, immediately stand up and made a mad dash outside.

If the Invisibility formation disappears, all sorts of demons and monsters can immediately find this outpost, when that happens the chance of survival will be no more.

No wonder a few days ago, before leaving, the two Captains' eyes had the look devoid of all hope.

Gu Qing Shan looked at where the man dashed out, waited for some breaths, then heard a faint 'wuu' sound from outside.

That sound signals that new Spirit Stones had been replaced and the formation is restarting once again.

So Zhao Lu did hide some Spirit Stones for himself.

In this world, every person is very real, with blood and flesh, if you see them as nothing but stupid preprogrammed NPCs, you'll lose out on a lot more than you gain.

From way long ago, Gu Qing Shan already know of this fact.

Not long after, Zhao Lu drags his feet back to the room, slowly sit down with his back against the wall, holds his face and starts crying.

Gu Qing Shan: "What are you crying about?"

Zhao Lu: "This time all the Spirit Stones are really used up, when the formation runs out of power again, we'll really be killed by the monsters out there"

Gu Qing Shan sits quiet for a bit, scrape off the sap from the Healing pill, swallow it and start trying to feel the spirit energy inside himself.

At first, he was still a bit nervous, not knowing if he can actually feel his own spirit energy.

But everything turns out quite well, the spirit energy from his Dantian immediately answer his call, mixes and absorb the pill, transferring it all around his body.

Gu Qing Shan feels his whole body warm up, the wounds on his body starts to become slightly itchy all over.

Meaning they're starting to close up already.

Feeling the pill is fully absorbed, when Gu Qing Shan once again opens his eyes, it was already past midnight.

Gu Qing Shan stands up to find his body in much better shape than before, most wounds are closed up and already forming a layer.

Zhao Lu is still sitting right there, his head bobbing side to side from lack of sleep, when seeing Gu Qing Shan woken up, he looks in anticipation and asks: "How are you, your body is already better right? Can you take me to get away from here as well?"

That last part of his question is probably his real inner voice.

If not for that, he most likely wouldn't even take out the Healing pills.

Gu Qing Shan answers matter-of-factly: "Much better, but if I want to make a full recover, it'll take a few more days"

"Then you keep resting" Zhao Lu dejectedly stands up, turning to leave.

After Zhao Lu left, Gu Qing Shan sits alone on the ground, contemplating.

In his original time period, the demons and monsters from the game have already entered Reality and destroyed human civilization.

The rest of humanity could only live on their dying breaths, unable to do anything as the Apocalypse came and went.

Everything was at a dead-end.

Now in hindsight, right as the game released, there were already clues of strange happenings.

Back then, every single country was trying like mad to popularize the game.

Food, money, beauty, power, everything can be given to you, as long as you are strong enough in the game.

Everywhere in the world, there are strange things happening, but all of them were easily covered up by the top brass of humanity, while the populace knew nothing.

It was only when the first-ever weapon was brought from the game into reality, that the populace finally found out that it wasn't a game, but a complete, real, and living, other world.

Everyone scurried like mad to get into the game.

But the demons and monsters in game were truly terrible, enough to make people become hopeless.

Even though hundreds of millions of people all joined the game, helping the people of the other world fight against the demons, but in every single strategically deciding operation, humanity kept losing, and losing, and losing.

Right down to the final operation, when the game released a server-wide notice, that when this operation failed, demon kind would then fully occupy the other world, using that as a springboard to move onto invade Reality.

And Reality, would also be devastated by the demons.

Of course, Reality went absolutely mad again.

Every person aged 5 and above were mandated to create an account in the game.

As propaganda, they said that even if you're the weakest of the weak, without any real power, you can still use your own bodies as shields to block on strike for the main fighting power legion.

But even in that final operation, humanity still failed.

Only Gu Qing Shan who headed his nation's strongest guild was able to complete the missions put out by the System, successfully cleared a path straight to the final Demon Lord.

When all of his comrades had died, Gu Qing Shan finally knocked the final Demon Lord down his throne of flesh and bones, seeing the chance of killing this final BOSS right before his face.

Right then, the heavy sound of the System voice resounded twice.

"Humanity's final Ascended has fallen, Humanity's final fortress has been breached, operation final verdict: Humanity had lost."

"The game had ended, the protective barrier is broken, reality's destruction begins"

BOOM-

A huge explosion resounded, everybody was forcefully logged off from the game, not being able to do anything but watch as the end of the world comes.

Taking the small time when he still isn't forcefully logged off, Gu Qing Shan raised his weapon, put all his might into stabbing the final Demon Lord right where his heart is.

Not being able to see the result, Gu Qing Shan then only felt his sight blackened, forcefully ejected from the game.

But he didn't leave the Apocalypse to go back to Reality, but instead lost all his senses.

Faintly Gu Qing Shan could hear a mechanical voice speaking.

"Player Gu Qing Shan finished off the final Demon Lord, for helping the despaired world that fell into the abyss leave a final spark, special final reward received"

Gu Qing Shan could only feel that he had an extra something in his hand, but became senseless afterwards.

When he finally reawakened, he was already inside the military dead pit.

Remembering up to there, Gu Qing Shan shakes his head, breaths out in regret.

It's weird, the game was out for a whole of 10 years, right until the end he never heard about any final rewards existing.

So curious to know what it is.

Wait a minute, that's not right.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly remembered a crucial detail.

Right when he awoke from the dead pit, he was holding something in his hand.

———– this saber!

Gu Qing Shan looks back down.

The saber is still there, stabbed on the ground next to him.

A gold color saber, with the blade not having any extraneous details or decoration, only a well-sharpened edge.

When Gu Qing Shan looks at it carefully, he can actually see a bit of faint gold color light on the blade.

As Gu Qing Shan try to recall more and more, his heart beat also starts to quicken.

Before he killed the Commander, this sword was already in his hand.

Not knowing why, he only felt that the sword fit his hand extremely well, so he didn't bother to search the dead pit for any other weapons.

Did this sword originally from the dead pit, or did it come with him from that fight?

Gu Qing Shan holds the saber, hesitate for a long time, before finally pouring spirit energy from his Dantian into the weapon.

Right when spirit energy touched it, the gold color light from the sword intensified and expanded into a huge area painted gold.

A strangely sense of dignity and mourning emits from the gold saber.

"Illegal entry successful, begin activation"

A cold and mechanical voice starts.

Not knowing if he's just imagining it, Gu Qing Shan feels that this cold System voice he's heard so many times, in fact, hold a bit of uncontrollable excitement.

After only a minute, the gold saber in Gu Qing Shan's hand explodes into countless golden sprites.

Each of them floating in the air for just a bit, circling around Gu Qing Shan twice, then all rush straight in between his eyebrows.

Gu Qing Shan only hear a deafening exploding sound, his Thought Sea completely empty, his body at a dead stand still, unable to move.

A while passed, the cold mechanical voice spoke with a tired tone.

"Activation successful, War God UI (user interface) turned on"

Notes:

-Dantian: a fictional area around the stomach area that is used primarily to hold energy from

cultivation. A main-piece of any cultivation novels

-Thought Sea: a sub-piece of many cultivation novels, a fictional space in between your eyebrows that primarily deals with thought. Depending on the novel, it would either power the process of thought (accelerating thought, finesse control, etc...) or influence the outside world through pure thought (telekinesis, 6th sense, etc...).

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 3: War God

Translated and edited by: La0o9

In Gu Qing Shan's sight, the blue-ish UI that appeared isn't that different from before, the only difference being the list of buttons that appear below the UI.

These buttons are as dark as blackholes, occasionally emitting some thin black mist.

A line of neon-blue text appears right above the buttons:

"Successfully turned on War God UI, at this moment you can turn on the first feature for free"

"Would you like to turn it on?"

"Yes"

Right as Gu Qing Shan confirms his choice, in the list of black-hole buttons, the first cleared up and shows its name.

"War God Skills?"

Gu Qing Shan took a look at the button's name, then immediately read through its description.

A bit later.

Gu Qing Shan walks towards the shelf of weapons in the corner, looking through the weapons remaining on it.

A rusty spear, a damaged curved sword, a military bow covered in dust.

Sadly there were no swords.

In the game, the amount of players who choose to become a sword cultivator numbers at least in the millions, but Gu Qing Shan himself was among the top ten on the world-wide ranking, a Great Sword Saint. (TN: not Greatsword)

He was part of the elite, the strongest players.

Other than that, Gu Qing Shan was also the commanding officer of all guild operations. Normally, he would deal with every little thing there is. After the war operations broke out, he didn't even have a single minute of free time.

Even in reality, he was frequently summoned by nation officials, constantly have to discuss strategies and plans with other nations' guilds, literally a one-man management center.

There were so many elite players who griefed for Gu Qing Shan, saying that he had to waste his time concentrating on too many aspects, otherwise his sword skills wouldn't just be top ten, that he'd be capable of getting to the very top itself.

Seeing the weapon shelf have no swords, Gu Qing Shan can only regretfully shake his head, picking up the curved sword.

From the War God UI, a message popped up

"Military-use curved sword (damaged), used skills include:"

"No.1, One Sweep A Thousand Enemies, user: Wang Jin"

"No.2, Cut The Gate, Split The Mountain, user: Zhang Kuo"

"To master both Scimitar skills, Soul Point cost: 1."

This information is so shocking that even Gu Qing Shan was struck speechless for a while.

Immediately master martial skills, so this is War God Skills?

This is only the War God UI's first function, the other functions are all blacked out at the moment, unable to be used.

But this is already more than enough, if he can get whatever skills he can touch, then there isn't any skills that can be called secret to him is there?

Gu Qing Shan breaths in, to calm himself down first, then try to ask: "What are Soul Points?"

Right away, a small line of text appears on the UI.

"You can get Soul Points from defeating any creatures, you defeated 1 Skin-shedding Blood Demon, received 4 Soul Points, current Soul Points: 4/5"

Killing a single Skin-shedding Blood Demon got him 4 Soul Points.

Of course, Skin-shedding Blood Demons don't count as common demons, they're much stronger than regular demons and low-rank cultivators, not to mention being extremely good at hiding and assassination.

Luckily Gu Qing Shan took the right chance to reverse assassinate the Commander, also killing this demon in the process.

Otherwise, at the time when Gu Qing Shan had no spirit energy, if the outcome wasn't decided quickly, the one that died wouldn't have been the Skin-shedding Blood Demon.

Gu Qing Shan lightly nods, so apparently, it's like that, but his current Soul Point is 4/5, meaning that the maximum amount he can carry is only 5?

That's a bit too little.

Just when he thought that, more text appears on the UI.

"The higher your cultivation, the higher your maximum Soul Point count will be."

Soul Points and cultivation are linked together?

Gu Qing Shan suddenly felt an urge to look at his own level, finally noticing the four easily seen large letters on top: "Qi Training Level 1."

This is everyone's starting level when they enter the other world, his level from the previous life is already gone.

Gu Qing Shan can only sigh, silently put the curved sword back, pulling out the rusty spear.

On the spear, there is only a single "Basic thrusting" skill.

Shaking his head, dropping the spear, Gu Qing Shan finally picks up the military bow.

"Military Bow, used skills include:"

"No.1, Stable, user: Zhang Wu"

"No.2, Rapid Fire, user: Zhang Wu"

"No.3, Precision, user: Zhang Wu"

"No.4, Swallows Fly Twice, user: Zhang Wu"

"To comprehend Stable, Rapid Fire, Soul Point cost: 2"

"To comprehend Precision, Soul Point cost: 4"

"To comprehend Swallows Fly Twice, Soul Point cost: 6"

From current memory information, Zhang Wu should be this outpost's general, his expertise being the scimitar and the bow, but during the last defensive battle, he died at the hands of a Blood Drinker Demon.

Gu Qing Shan took a look at the four skills, slightly concentrating on "Double Swallows Fly"

This skill alone takes a whole 6 Soul Points to master, already more than the maximum amount that Gu Qing Shan can carry.

"Hah, only qi training stage 1, seems like I'll really have to cultivate again from the start, lets aim to quickly increase my maximum Soul Point." Gu Qing Shan can't help but shakes his head.

Qi training stage 1, this is the lowest, as well as the first stage of all cultivators.

After qi training, there's also "Foundation Establishment", "Golden Core", "Rejuvenation", "Ascension", and other stages, but that can be left for later.

One good news, is that a player's cultivation can be brought to reality.

Qi training stage one, means that you can already feel and use spirit energy.

If he really did go back in time with the current status quo, even if all his equipment is lost, all his skills are gone, Gu Qing Shan is still 10000% willing.

Because there was so much regrets and laments in his life, every night that he wakes up, Gu Qing Shan can only silently licks the wounds buried deep inside his himself, the wounds that just can't be closed.

If he can really do it all over...

Gu Qing Shan shakes his head, regain control of his emotions, grips the bow and starts thinking.

Right now to keep on living is most important.

At qi training stage 1, even running away from demons is a tall order.

Sword, scimitar, spear, all of them require close combat, but this body is already riddled with unhealed wounds, his cultivation is the lowest of the low, and by himself, how can he actually manage to wrestle for his life against demons?

Against demons, even the slightest bit of distraction can mean death.

I'm no longer the Sword Saint from the previous life, and definitely not the legend who commands both attack and defense of a whole country like before.

Right now in the outpost, there's only himself and another soldier, that soldier is only a normal human being who isn't even a cultivator, with Gu Qing Shan's current cultivation, it's extremely hard to overturn the situation.

This outpost's Invisibility formation also won't hold out for long, at most 2-3 days, the formation will run out of spirit energy and stop.

If the Invisibility formation stops, all sorts of demons and monsters will definitely come crawling.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly realizes just how dire his situation is.

Seems like he'll have to give up on close combat, for now, change to using long-range attacks, taking advantage of the Invisibility formation of the outpost to quickly raise his character level.

His thoughts clear, Gu Qing Shan makes a decision.

"I choose to comprehend Stable, Rapid Fire"

For just a moment, a warm water-like feeling flows from the military bow to Gu Qing Shan, travels a whole cycle inside his body, finally nest and scatter in his Thought Sea.

Gu Qing Shan is shocked for a minute, then suddenly lift the bow, setting an arrow in and fire straight away.

Twock!

The arrow digs deeply into the wooden support beam of the building.

Gu Qing Shan's hand doesn't stop, arrow after arrow like streaks of light leaving the bow.

Twock! Twock! Twock! Twock!

Twelve arrows shot one after another, Gu Qing Shan's arm holding the bow is still as before, not moving an inch from where it was.

This is "Stable" together with "Rapid Fire", Gu Qing Shan's blood can't help but boil a little bit from excitement.

"War God Skills" is very potent!

As long as there is enough Soul Points, I'm immediately able to comprehend any skills that a weapon once used, if it's like this, what skills are there in the world that is out of my reach?

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 4: Infiltration

Translated and edited by: La0o9

While Gu Qing Shan was lost in thought, he felt his body suddenly slightly shivering in pain.

Looking down, he could see all the white bandaged parts all over his body leaking a bit of red.

Right, he's still recovering, his wounds not yet fully healed, using that much force of course would make them reopen.

Gu Qing Shan put the military bow back down, look for a marching bed near by to lie down and rest.

You can't rush, everything must be done as steadily as possible.

Gu Qing Shan took out the second remaining Healing pill and proceed to swallow it without hesitation.

He closes his eyes, start to silently circulate his spirit energy to absorb the pill.

A night passes without any incidents.

At dawn, the downpour becomes even worse.

The climate outside is already beginning to become colder, from the rain water you can almost feel the frost seeping into the land.

In just a few dozen more days, Winter will come.

Inside the outpost.

Gu Qing Shan was awoken by the cold.

He stood up, stretching his body to find that his wounds are already closed up enough to move around again.

Military-grade Healing pills really aren't just for show, the potency is top-notch.

Just a few minutes after, a knock and the door was opened.

Zhao Lu once again carry a pot, carefully bringing it in.

Gu Qing Shan looks at the slightly smoking pot, smelling the faint scent of porridge inside, he asks: "How much food is left?"

Zhao Lu sighs: "Only enough left for a day and a half". As he answered, his eyes also took a glance at Gu Qing Shan's inventory bag.

Gu Qing Shan noticed, but doesn't say anything.

When he "returned", his inventory also became as empty as everything else.

Gu Qing Shan took a bowl of porridge in hand, both of them silently had their breakfast.

"Your wounds, how is it?" Zhao Lu asks again, eyes carrying a bit of hopefulness.

"Better", Gu Qing Shan stretches and nonchalantly asks: "Hey Zhao, which squad were you in? Which position?"

Zhao Lu reluctantly smiles and answers: "I'm from Fireplace Squad, in a normal day I can make food for hundreds no problem"

Oh so he was originally a kitchen staff, no wonder he could make even a bowl of bland porridge taste good.

In this despair scenario, without Gu Qing Shan, a normal person like Zhao Lu only have a single fate of death waiting for him.

But Zhao Lu doesn't know, Gu Qing Shan himself is only a qi training stage 1 newbie, if he runs into a squad of demons, Gu Qing Shan will also only end up dying.

Gu Qing Shan silently thinks, glancing at the hourglass on his UI.

There's not much sand left inside the hourglass, it'll run out any minute now.

Players can stay in this other world for a whole day and only an hour will have passed in Reality, qi training stage 1 players have to return to Reality when this time ends, waiting for an entire day before they can come back here.

Right now Gu Qing Shan really want to know, what year is it in Reality.

Having eaten half their breakfast, both of them suddenly stop their hands.

"Brother Gu, seems like there's some commotion outside", Zhao Lu slightly shrinks his body, letting out a squeaky voice.

"I'll go take a look", Gu Qing Shan replies, takes the military bow and heads outside

The hourglass seems to only have about 10 minutes left, hope there won't be anything too big.

As Gu Qing Shan leaves the room, he readies an arrow on his bow, slightly squints to check all sides.

His eyes quickly dart around all the building, not leaving a single corner untouched.

That said, the outpost have an Invisibility formation in place, so demons aren't going to get in here too easily.

So what is happening really?

Scratch, scratch, scratch, that sound again.

This direction, it's the outpost's gates.

Gu Qing Shan sticks close to the wall, silently moves to the gates.

A huge demon beast, as large as two adults, shows up in Gu Qing Shan's sight.

The demon beast is wagging its tail, standing on the edge of the dead pit, carefully looking around.

Even though the nonstop rain helps wash it away, the putrid smell of the dead pit still draws in demon beasts like this.

Gu Qing Shan hides in the shadow of the roof, raises his bow and slowly pulls back the string.

He knows this monster.

This is a low-level demon beast, even if it looks a bit clumsy, if it starts going crazy, its running and biting attacks are nothing to make light of, even 2-3 normal soldiers can't defeat it.

Gu Qing Shan can only thank his luck.

Lucky that I chose to learn ranged attacks, together with the outpost's Invisibility formation, I just might be able to kill it.

The demon beast slowly run around the dead pit, sometimes rolling on the ground as well.

It's trying to bait, to find out if there are any traps, or other demon beasts lying in ambush.

The hourglass only have 10 minutes left.

Gu Qing Shan silently holds his bow, not moving an inch.

Neighs!

Neighs!

The demon beast stops, breaths out from its snout, his large head still looking around cautiously.

5 minutes left.

Gu Qing Shan stayed completely still.

The demon beast finally slowly lower its head, wanting to eat one of the corpses.

Its snout hover over the dead body back and forth, finally deciding to open its huge mouth, showing the multitudes of jagged fangs inside.

Right at this moment!

Gu Qing Shan pulls the bowstring back fully, pouring spirit energy into the arrow.

An invisible wind forms around the arrow head.

An arrow that have spirit energy poured in, its destructive power is five-fold compared to a normal one.

These arrows were all specially made, so not just spirit energy, they can even carry energy of the 5 Elements.

The military bow pulled all the way back, Gu Qing Shan stays silent for two breaths, then finally loose his fingers.

Whoosh!

The arrow shoots out in a flash and makes contact with the beast's mouth, in pain, the demon beast jumps forward, rolling on the ground.

One arrow shot, Gu Qing Shan fluidly pulls back his bowstring for the next one without hesitation.

Rapid Fire!

Each and every arrow turns into streaks of light, flying from the military bow at their target.

The demon beast roars angrily, running straight at the direction of the outpost to attack.

But in just a few steps, it starts to turn around, wanting to escape.

The arrows stuck on its body numbers more and more, all precisely aimed at its weak points or vitals like the organs, joints, and stomach area.

Its injury becomes servere with overwhelming speed, turning the demon beast's intense rage into immense fright.

If it immediately decided to flee when first struck, then may be its speed could save its life, but already choosing to retaliate, halfway changing its mind to flee, then it's already too late.

During that whole process, Gu Qing Shan's face shows no emotion, both arms as steady as a rock, continuously pulling out arrows, pulling back the bowstring, and letting loose.

The final minute.

The demon beast lays flat on the ground, no longer moving.

Its body full of arrows, fresh blood pours from all over its vitals, soaking the ground red.

Gu Qing Shan's inner spirit energy already decreased by 40%.

Even so, he still continues to draw his arrows, putting spirit energy inside them, aiming precisely at the beast's vitals and letting arrows loose.

Demon beasts already have intelligence, they're no longer dumb and stupid, some are even craftier compared to humans.

They also know how to faint death, how to lure enemies.

7-8 breaths later, the demon beast's body keeps being riddled with more arrows, no longer able to keep up the ruse, it springs up to flee again.

What it received, was an even more intense flurry of arrows.

The demon beast tries it best to dash forward 5-6 meters more, crashing straight into a huge tree and falls down to the ground.

This time it really is dead.

Two lines of blue light shows up in Gu Qing Shan's sight.

"Soul Point 1, current Soul Point: 1/5"

"Experience enough, current Experience 5/5, you can now level up, please confirm if you would like to level up?"

Earlier when he killed the Skin-shedding Blood demon, he already received 4 Experience points, now he got 1 more, reaching the level up requirements.

Not a single bit of hesitation, Gu Qing Shan: "Level up"

Following his voice, the Experience stat turns from "5/5" into "0/10"

From qi training stage 2 to qi training stage 3, the amount of Experience required is doubled.

On Gu Qing Shan's character status screen, his level "qi training stage 1" also changes, turning into "qi training stage 2"

A flashy gold light emits from Gu Qing Shan's body.

The warm flow of water-like substance circles Gu Qing Shan's body, finally concentrating at his Dantian, turning into excess spirit energy.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 5: Returning

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan checks himself, confirming the spirit energy inside his Dantian really did increase a little.

The military bow in his hand also seemed a bit lighter, this is just a feeling resulted from his increased body strength.

Gu Qing Shan satisfying nodded, glancing at the hourglass on his UI.

The sands have ran out.

After that, a line of text appeared in the middle of the UI.

"Player Gu Qing Shan have stayed at the other world for 24 hours, returning to Reality soon"

"All equipments have been stored inside your inventory bag, available for usage once taken out"

"Returning"

A slight feeling of dizziness.

Gu Qing Shan opens his eyes to find under his feet a soft and expensive fur carpet, himself facing a beautiful young lady.

The whole party hall looks extremely lavish, just like a place where the rich and powerful would socialize.

The only thing not fitting the area, mixed with the beautiful light ballroom music, are the noisy sounds of cheering and encouragement.

"Go out! Go out!" (TN: as in on a date)

"Accept already"

"Come on dude, quickly!"

The voices keep on going.

Someone from behind tapped Gu Qing Shan on his shoulder and spoke: "Qing Shan, I'm here for you man, just speak your heart out!"

Gu Qing Shan slightly turned to look back.

It was Zhang Ye, his best friend from high school.

Gu Qing Shan turns to look around, his eyes finally stops on the girl in front of him.

She really did look beautiful in any clothes, even if she doesn't wear any jewelry, only donning a pure white long dress, she can still be picked out with eyesight amidst a crowd of other girls.

Su Xue Er, Goddess of Noble Private High School of Chang Ning county.

A precious gem of the Su family – one of the 9 Great Nobles families.

Gu Qing Shan closes his eyes, then open them again.

The girl is still there.

He really did come back to the past.

Back to this moment that he would remember for the rest of his life.

"Su Xue Er, Gu Qing Shan have something to say to you!"

"That's right, he carefully picked his words for so long, finally having the guts to say it"

"Gu Qing Shan, speak your mind, we're all here as witness for you"

Among the crowd, the people are still cheering loudly nonstop.

Seeing Gu Qing Shan keeping silent and not speaking, Su Xue Er finally spoke first.

"Gu Qing Shan, so what did you want to tell me?"

When the school goddess spoke, everyone finally quieted down.

Everyone wanted to see, will Gu Qing Shan really do as the rumors say and confess this feelings right on this graduation prom night.

Gu Qing Shan push down the turmoils in this heart, smiles and stands back up speaking: "Su Xue Er, I sincerely hope that you will accept my one request"

"That is?" inside the girls crystal clear eyes, there is a bit of complicated mixed feelings.

Gu Qing Shan spoke with complete seriousness on his face: "Can you accept my request, to visit my barbecue stall tomorrow night, and try out some of my handmade grilled meat?"

Su Xue Er is speechless.

The cheering crowd is shocked dead silent.

"Barbecue? Just grilled meat? Nothing else?" Su Xue Er ask again to make sure she didn't heard wrong.

"Of course, my expertise are only two things, mech piloting you've already seen, there's only my cooking skills left" Gu Qing Shan shrugs, "So do you want to try out my cooking?"

Su Xue Er opens her clear eyes wide, asks again: "But your friend, Zhang Ye told me, you wanted to –"

Gu Qing Shan stopped her worlds: "I didn't tell him anything"

"Is that so? So all this really wasn't your idea after all" Su Xue Er face shows relief, as well as a small smile.

Right then, a male student from amongst the crowd stepped out, hurriedly asks: "Qing Shan, didn't you tell me, that you wanted to confess to Su Xue Er today?"

The crowd becomes noisy again.

Gu Qing Shan turns around, coldly looks at the person

This male student is the same person who tapped his shoulder from before.

His best friend, Zhang Ye.

Zhang Ye and Gu Qing Shan, both came from poor origins, both relied on their academic excellence to get into this top-level high school.

In these three years of high school, the two of them formed a close bond.

Gu Qing Shan originally thought, this would be his good friend, close enough to be family.

But he didn't know, on this very graduation prom night, Zhang Ye planned and dosed him with a strange medicine, tricking him into drinking it.

The results was that during the time he planned to confess to Su Xue Er, the medicine acted up, forcing him in front of everyone here to attempt some low-life conducts to Su Xue Er.

Finally it took Su Xue Er's personal guards, as well as a few student officers to hold Gu Qing Shan in place and stop him.

This event shocked the whole school.

Originally Gu Qing Shan had very good academic records, he also got his own talents, and a decent personality, so he was able to catch Su Xue Er's eyes, the two of them becoming not-so-bad friends.

But after this, Su Xue Er completely gave up on him, slapped him in front of everybody, cried and left.

After that was the Su family's rage, saying they wanted Gu Qing Shan to die for his sins, the school didn't even hesitate to immediately expel Gu Qing Shan, not even giving him the chance to take the university entrance exams.

Finally it took Su Xue Er painstakingly begging him for three days and nights just for the Su family head to spare his life.

For your information, the Su family head is the Lord that directly control all of Chang Ning county, and there are only a total of 9 Lords in the whole Confederate.

From then on, Gu Qing Shan had to suffer all manners of jeers and cold shoulders, not a single person looking his way.

The Technology Invention and Research company that originally hired him before graduation, immediately fired him.

He tried everywhere to get into a school, but no school even dared to accept him, when looking for a job, he did not find even a menial labor job, finally almost starving to death in the slums.

And all of that, was thank to his "best friend", Zhang Ye.

Gu Qing Shan wallowed and despair and embarrassment, struggling every day to live, only when the other world and Reality connected, did he finally have the chance to change his fate.

But for the rest of his life, countless times waking up in the middle of the night, Gu Qing Shan always remembered the events of this day, always grinding his teeth to the point of breaking them.

Gu Qing Shan have had time to think carefully.

Su Xue Er is the eldest daughter of one of the 9 Great Nobles families, him as a poor scholarship student, having her had the good will to become his friend is already thinking of him very highly.

Before not yet having any real power, he shouldn't have delusioned himself with making their relationship going any further.

Doing things that way will only make Su Xue Er embarrassed, and will only put Gu Qing Shan himself in a dangerous situation.

He can only laugh at himself for being too young, having too many unrealistic dreams, as well as having the fraud Zhang Ye next to him, whispering sweet lies of "Su Xue Er actually also like you" as truth.

Which led to the confession scene on prom night.

Fortunately, this time he returned, Gu Qing Shan will not be stepping on fallen tracks.

In front of everyone, Gu Qing Shan looks at Zhang Ye, whispering loudly: "You thought wrong, my true love is Xie Shuang Yan"

The whole crowd burst into laughter, even Su Xue Er couldn't help but broke into a smile, holding in her laughter.

Xie Shuang Yan is the lead singer of the most popular girl idol group in the world.

Whether it is the Saint Orlank Empire to the North, or the vast lands of Fu Xi Republic, even the Freedom Federation of the South, countless people men or women, old or young alike are all fans of Xie Shuang Yan.

There are simply too many people in this world that love Xie Shuang Yan, Gu Qing Shan using her as an excuse like this, not even Su Xue Er will believe him.

Within the crowd, there are even a few of her male fans shouting out: "Gu Qing Shan, so turns out you want to join our Xie Shuang Yan fan club huh!"

Zhang Ye's face constantly shifts, his heart sank straight to the bottom.

He didn't think Gu Qing Shan would be so crafty, casually brushing off the issue like that.

No, today he absolutely cannot fail, a chance like this, likely will never come again in his lifetime.

Gu Qing Shan is his last chance to move up in the world.

Zhang Ye bites his teeth and step forward, whispering into Gu Qing Shan's ear: "Gu Qing Shan, your peaceful days are over"

Then, using force, he slaps Gu Qing Shan on the shoulder

A small pain.

That came from a small needle Zhang Ye was keeping in his palm.

Gu Qing Shan doesn't resist, only staring at him all the way until he's finished with everything.

"Why?" Gu Qing Shan calmly asks

"Why what?" Zhang Ye face relaxes like he just put a weight off his shoulders.

The dosage on the needle is much stronger than before, only a minute later, Gu Qing Shan won't be able to keep his body instinct in check anymore.

"Why do you have to do this to me? I remember we were friends" Gu Qing Shan asks again.

Zhang Ye can't help but lower his gaze, mumbling lowly: "Don't blame me, poor people on this world, can only live better lives when they grasp their chance"

Then, he suddenly apply force, pushing Gu Qing Shan towards Su Xue Er.

Gu Qing Shan's body temperature keeps rising, his breath becoming shorter and deeper, staggering towards where Su Xue Er is.

The medicine starts to act up.

Gu Qing Shan feels his whole body becoming cold.

He suddenly remembered, Su Xue Er once casually talked to him about Zhang Ye

"Qing Shan ge, Zhang Ye and your eyes for judging people aren't the same" (TN: "ge" means big brother, but can also be used as an affectionate way to refer to a male friend by both male and female)

Gu Qing Shan shakes his head internally.

The more trust there was, the more disappointed he is right now.

Let's stop here.

Gu Qing Shan mind slightly move, the spirit energy in his Dantian flows like a river, easily restraining the medicine effect, his heightened body temperature also slowly cools down.

As a cultivator, how could normal poison possibly harm him?

Gu Qing Shan eyes regain their shine, lightly calls out: "Aunty Su, please come out"

Immediately, a mature and captivating woman, as well as a gray-haired elderly man appeared out of nowhere.

These two are Su Xue Er's bodyguards.

Su Xue Er is the eldest daughter of Su family, as well as the only daughter of this generation's main line, always loved by the whole of Su family, having two bodyguards always silently protecting her like this is completely normal

"What are you up to?"

The mature woman sharply glares at Gu Qing Shan

She is by Su Xue Er's side every day, so of course she know this young brat.

Originally she felt that this kid's head is bright, personality is also not too bad, but didn't think that he would suddenly make a confession scene like that.

This kind of reckless behaviour would put immense pressure on Su Xue Er, so as a bodyguard she's very disappointed in Gu Qing Shan.

Not to mention, since she was secretly protecting Su Xue Er, being called out to the open like this makes her even more annoyed.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 6: Frankly speaking

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan looks around.

Right now is the official prom night for the graduating high school class, all the school officials are here, as well as quite a few big shots from several organization.

Not few of them have already started noticing what's going on here.

In a public place like this, I shouldn't be too conspicuous, better to borrow her family's power instead.

Gu Qing Shan lightly smiles and spoke: "Forgive me, Aunty Su, I'm just suspicious that there might be somebody taking advantage of me to hurt Su Xue Er"

Not expecting that answer, Aunty Su squints her eyes, the grey-haired elderly man also stop his gentle smile.

"What do you mean?" Aunty Su quickly survey the surround, lowering her voice and asks.

"Because today something very strange happened" Gu Qing Shan answers.

"What?"

"Zhang Ye sneakily put some sort of medicine in my drink, then also encouraged me to confess to Su Xue Er like that"

Seeing not only the two bodyguards but also Su Xue Er carefully listening in, Gu Qing Shan slowly explained things from start to finish.

"In case I refused to do as he says, I thought he might try some other methods, so I decided to comply, staging a scene as before to see what he really wanted to accomplish"

"You mean, you've already ingested the medicine?" Aunty Su narrows her eyes further and questioned.

"That's correct, there's also this", Gu Qing Shan extend his hand, placing it on his shoulder.

A black needle covered in blood was pulled out!

Aunty Su's expression clearly changed, both her and the elderly man became serious.

Ever since the Su eldest daughter started to become friends with Gu Qing Shan, the Su family have already investigated his background carefully, after two years of friendship between them, they know very well what his personal values are like.

So when Gu Qing Shan got close to Su Xue Er like normal, the two bodyguards didn't mind it.

Who knew that the problem would have sprouted from him of all people.

"Do you feel strange anywhere?" Su Xue Er worried her him and carefully asked.

The two of them have a close enough relationship, so Su Xue Er didn't want anything bad to happen to him.

"Of course, I feel my libido burning right now" Gu Qing Shan half-jokingly answered.

Unable to say anything to that, Su Xue Er's face burns up red.

Aunty Su took out a dagger, swipe a small wound on Gu Qing Shan's finger and licked a drop of his blood.

"Hmph" Aunty Su tasted it for a bit, "So it really was an aphrodisiac, and a strong one at that"

Her eyes looking at him became a bit surprised: "Young brat, and you can still control yourself like this"

Gu Qing Shan dryly laughs: "I'm barely hanging on right now"

In reality, Gu Qing Shan only needed to circulate the spirit energy in his Dantian a little bit to restrain the aphrodisiac effects.

This world doesn't have the thing called spirit energy yet, Gu Qing Shan also doesn't want his secret to leak out to other people.

From the start, Su Xue Er was a bright girl, so she immediately understand everything from start to end.

She quickly pulls at Aunty Su's sleeves and sincerely asked: "Aunty, you're a master pharmacist, please help him"

Aunty Su took out a small bottle, giving Gu Qing Shan a white capsule from inside: "Swallow it"

Her eyes looking at Gu Qing Shan right now is much gentler than before.

This brat is both bright and careful, not bad.

Gu Qing Shan received the capsule and immediately swallowed it, and continued: "Seems like, his goal was to embarrass both Su Xue Er and I in front of everybody"

Everyone there turned back to look at Zhang Ye.

Zhang Ye seeing everything already got exposed, felt a chill on his whole body.

Suddenly he turns around, quickly wanting to get away.

The two bodyguards having seen that, became angrier inside.

Up to this point, everything is already clear.

Gu Qing Shan usually gets along well with the young lady, so both of them wouldn't be too much on guard against him.

During an official occasion such as a prom night like this, they're more focused on looking out for strange faces that appear.

If Gu Qing Shan were to suddenly do something reckless, they might not be able to make it in time to stop him.

In front of everybody like this, if the young lady was violated in any way by Gu Qing Shan, her reputation would definitely suffer, the two of them would also be confused not knowing what to do right away.

If there were any other hidden cards in this prom, it would be very possible for them to take advantage of the chaos and find a chance to assassinate the young lady.

The elderly man's figure flashed, already stopping Zhang Ye in his tracks.

"Come brat, living is miserable, why not fall into a nice dream instead"

The elderly man chants, uses his big rough hands to take hold of Zhang Ye's heah, then slowly closes his eyes.

Then something strange happened.

As the elderly man closes his eyes, so does Zhang Ye close his.

Continue chanting in a strange rhythm, the elderly man's voice is like the devil's whisper, luring mortals in: "Come, come, come, you need only to tell your secret, I will then satisfy your every desires"

A mesmerized smile appeared on Zhang Ye's face, his mouth mumbling: "I'll tell you, I'll tell you right now"

This strange scene leads to the crowd around murmuring, discussing it between themselves.

Gu Qing Shan also didn't expect that, asks: "Is this possibly, a 'God's Chosen Skill'?"

Su Xue Er standing beside him, quietly answers: "That's right, grandpa Lee is a God's Chosen who specialize in finding out the truth"

God's Chosen are Professionists who hold a unique ability, their abilities usually are mysterious, usually manifesting by itself as a person matures.

Their abilities simply cannot be gotten through any form of cultivation or training, its growth can't even be interfered with, just like they've been decided by god from birth.

Because of that, the people who possess these abilities are called God's Chosen.

In Reality, humanity's top-brass fighting power is divided into 4 types, in order they are God's Chosen, Martial Artists, Supernaturalist, and Heaven's Descendants, each of them specialize in a different aspect.

Aside from that, powerful mechs and the Interstellar-series warships are common war weapons of mass destruction.

If what Su Xue Er said is true, then the elderly man's ability must be a hypnosis-type God's Chosen Skill

Seeing everyone focusing on the elderly man's work, Su Xue Er lowers her voice and speaks: "Qing Shan ge, today I have to thank you"

"No need to thank me", Gu Qing Shan curtly replies, "I'm also doing this for myself, if I had really tried to do anything to you in this environment, my outcome would have been exceptionally terrible"

What he's saying is true, because that's what happened to his previous life.

Su Xue Er shakes her head and sincerely speaks again: "Qing Shan ge, a maiden's honor is very important to her, I have to thank you for helping me keep mine. And also, later on if anything happen to you, Xue Er swears to do her best to protect you"

Su Xue Er isn't a bad girl, in the past life, even when she was absolutely disappointed in Gu Qing Shan, she still kneeled in front of the Su family head for three days, begging for him to spare his life.

Because of that, even though Gu Qing Shan went through so much killing, having to risk his life amongst blood and tears every day making his heart already frozen cold to the core, right up to his very last moment in the Apocalypse, Su Xue Er still had a very important place in his heart.

That's right, this girl is like this, once she thinks of someone as her friend, she will treat them with kindness from the bottom of her heart.

Gu Qing Shan only smiles and not said anything else.

Some things in this world, you don't need to speak to convey.

Right now, what he's more interested in his why Zhang Ye would do this.

During his past life, this is one of the things that he couldn't find out until the end.

Gu Qing Shan silently thinks, not noticing the girl beside him sneakily glancing at his face.

After a while, Su Xue Er stops her eyes, finding inside herself now contain some unknown emotions.

She keeps feeling like Gu Qing Shan today is different compared to how he always is.

On him, there seems to be something that changed.

Note:

-Professionist: a term used to describe people who have superhuman powers, literally "a person with a profession", since this novel has more than one system of cultivation, the word Professionist is used to describe them all, while terms like Cultivators, Elementalists and such are used to describe specific types of superhuman.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 7: Letter of acceptance

Translated and editted by: La0o9

At this time, Zhang Ye finally started to speak

"Someone paid 10 million, so that I dose Gu Qing Shan with aphrodisiac, and make sure that he confesses to Su Xue Er"

The elderly man keeps his rhythmic voice: "Who is that person?"

Zhang Ye: "The person used an anonymous account, I don't know who he is"

This is the truth.

Unfortunately, the trail also goes cold here.

The elderly man's expression became serious again.

The person that did this is very careful, and very cautious.

He dared to use the Su family young lady's friend to do his deeds, not only does he show a motive to harm the Su family young lady, he also showed no slack or opening to find him with, this just became much more complicated.

Because, this area is Chang Ning county, and this is the Su family's main turf.

The elderly man retracts his hand, Zhang Ye immediately regain his senses.

Right away he drops down to his knees, face full of tears begging: "I was tempted by the devil, Qing Shan, I've made a mistake"

Gu Qing Shan doesn't say anything.

Zhang Ye keeps his kneeling position, slowly inches towards Gu Qing Shan, begging once again: "Qing Shan, we were best friends for many years, I've wronged you only this one time, I beg you, please forgive me"

He's also clever, knowing that he only directly tried to harm Gu Qing Shan, so he immediately goes to Gu Qing Shan and beg for forgiveness.

Gu Qing Shan this person, in everyday life he's always a good person at heart, plus being this Zhang Ye's close friend, I'm showing no dignity begging for his forgiveness in front of so many people, Gu Qing Shan probably will also not pursue this too far.

Su Xue Er is also a big softy, as long as Gu Qing Shan forgive me, Su Xue Er will probably also won't pursue this matter anymore.

This matter also didn't leave any lasting or irreversible effects, as long as Su Xue Er doesn't pursue it, then the Su family will also not stoop so low as to torture a penniless student such as himself.

Just as he thought, Su Xue Er looks as Gu Qing Shan, hesitantly: "How do you want to deal with this, he... in the end is still a classmate"

Aunty Su immediately stops her words: "Young lady, this matter isn't as simple as this, we have to pursue it to the end"

Her serious eyes turn to Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan keep silent for a while, then smiles.

"To be honest, right now my thoughts are about the same as yours", he looks at the groveling Zhang Ye and speaks.

Zhang Ye shivers, his face shows a clear sense of relief: "Do you mean, you're willing to forgive me?"

"No"

In front of the gaze of everybody here, Gu Qing Shan swiftly walks in front of Zhang Ye and whispers: "Right now I feel that our friendship should just go to hell already"

Just as he finished, Gu Qing Shan suddenly lifts his leg and kicks Zhang ye right in his chest.

Zhang Ye who got kicked flew a few meters away, slamming and crashing two tables full of alcohol, soaking himself in it.

A large bottle of champagne drops down, conveniently smashing him on the head, knocking Zhang Ye out on the spot.

Gu Qing Shan turns around, lightly speaks: "Aunty Su, the matters after this I'll have to depend on you, please find out who was behind him"

Aunty Su looks at him with shining eyes: "Good move brat, originally I feared that Su Xue Er becoming your friend would make her soft, seems like that was for nothing after all"

Aunty Su swings her hand, and a beautiful helicopter quickly descends from above.

This white steel alloy helicopter, in its front proudly carries a single letter "Su", the symbol of nobility in this Chang Ning county.

The elderly man takes Zhang Ye up to the helicopter.

Aunty Su speaks: "Young lady, today we shouldn't remain here for too long, let's also leave now"

Su Xue Er nods her head, when passing by Gu Qing Shan, she spoke: "Tomorrow night, I'll come to your stall for a grilled meat feast, that's ok right?"

Gu Qing Shan is shocked for a second, but replied: "Always welcome"

This is the nonsense that he used to smooth over the confession earlier, he didn't think she would actually accept it.

But Gu Qing Shan doesn't really have anything to worry about, since after school every day, he would always set up a stall to sell grilled meat, using the money he makes from that to pay for expenses.

Su Xue Er smiles beautifully at him, then follow Aunty Su onto the Su family helicopter.

The helicopter quickly goes away.

Right after Su family left, many organization representatives also left, leaving a grand prom night to end prematurely just like that.

This is probably the most catastrophic graduation prom night in the history of Chang Ning Noble Private High School thus far.

But to Gu Qing Shan, this is the best prom night he could've hoped for.

He finally escaped from that dead-end scenario in which he had no way to explain himself, it wasn't like his last life, where the school expelled him.

Just a few days later, he would be able to take the Confederate Common University exam.

With his academic records, he can easily pass the examination, picking whichever university he wants.

On the other hand, Zhang Ye's end won't be quite as good.

Su Xue Er and Zhang Ye doesn't have such a close relationship as he does, plus the fact that this whole incident was orchestrated by Zhang Ye from behind, directly harming both Gu Qing Shan and Su Xue Er.

Not only will Su Xue Er not be asking to spare Zhang Ye as she did for him, but the Su family will also use any and all methods they have to find out he really is behind Zhang Ye.

What he suffered on his past life, Zhang Ye will suffer the same, or perhaps even worse.

Everything has changed.

Gu Qing Shan with his renewed mood, walks to the school exit.

He's just an orphan at the slums, he can't afford a helicopter, not even a taxi ride home, each and every day going to school he can only do with his own two feet.

Half an hour later.

When Gu Qing Shan have left the busy district and about to enter the poor residence's main square, his feet suddenly stopped.

In front of the alley, a 1.9-meter-long wingless type helicopter is packed there.

A middle-aged man wearing a white shirt and black tie stands next to the helicopter, gracefully bow as if to welcome Gu Qing Shan as he approached.

"Student Gu, our young master is waiting for you inside the helicopter", said the middle-aged man.

Gu Qing Shan silently looks at the safety cameras on the street corner, the originally red blinking lights of the camera is no longer seen.

Even this large square area, no one is approaching from all four sides.

"And who is your young master?" Gu Qing Shan questioned.

The middle-aged man doesn't talk much, only standing aside, making a gesture to invite him inside: "Please"

How interesting, Gu Qing Shan smiles to himself, walking straight into the helicopter.

The inside of the helicopter is decorated lavishly as expected, a single young man sits in his leather-made sofa, two girls kneeling at his feet softly massaging them.

From the inside bar, a girl wearing cute bunny ears quickly whips up a cocktail, placing it in front of Gu Qing Shan.

"Thank you", said Gu Qing Shan as he accepts the glass.

"Qing Shan, come, sit", said the young man.

Gu Qing Shan sits down right across the young man, casually placing the cocktail on the table, smiles and asks: "Please tell, what does our honorable student council president want, waiting outside my house at this late hour?"

The young man shakes his head: "Calling me that seems too distant, young master Yun is fine"

This young man, is Chang Ning Noble Private High School's student council president, Nie Yun.

Nie Yun is a member of the She family noble clan, to be precise, the grandson of She family's current patriarch.

Of noble origins, in this school, aside from Su Xue Er, no one is more noble than him.

Nie Yun brushes off his hand: "Good, you all are dismissed"

The girls quickly clean up the place, leaving the helicopter.

Nie Yun then picks up a sheet of paper on the table, reading and speaking at the same time: "Qing Shan, your records really are excellent, every final exam you trounce both Su Xue Er and I"

"Just seeing here, Elementary Mech Structure, maximum score; World War History, maximum score; Holo-Brain Technology, maximum score; Warship Piloting, maximum score; even your elective subject, Mech Power Source Study, you got maximum score, only in Physical Education is your score barely a passing grade"

Nie Yun lowers the paper, exclaimed softly: "You are also an official staff at Chang Ning Steel Mech Research Center, this wasn't gotten using your relationship with Su Xue Er, but rather through your own excellence, even inside Su family many people probably can only look at your achievement in awe"

Gu Qing Shan nonchalantly: "I'm only working for a better future for myself"

Nie Yun shakes his head: "In this whole Chang Ning county, every poor sap wants to enter Su family's Steel Mech Research company, but only you actually succeed, this can only be talent and nothing else"

"I'm really impressed with your kind of people, so now I want to give you a chance", Nie Yun took from inside his chest pocket a letter, placing it in front of Gu Qing Shan.

"This is?" asked Gu Qing Shan

"See for yourself"

Gu Qing Shan opened the letter and took a look at what was inside.

He whispers: "Nan Shi Lordship Institute letter of acceptance?"

"That's correct", Nie Yun smiles: "You only need to agree, no need to even take the exams, you can immediately enter this university"

Gu Qing Shan puts down the letter and spoke: "Thank you for your kindness, but I don't plan on joining this university"

Nan Shi Lordship Institute is only a third-rate bottom rank university, and it's situated on the least populated area of Nan Shi province, their main major is underground mineral study, a subject few cares about.

Gu Qing Shan himself have many choice universities, with his record, getting into one of the few State-sanctioned universities in the country is no problem, basically he has no need to even consider such a third-rate institute.

"No need to be hasty and decline, just take a minute and think, is your own life important, or is being friends with Su Xue Er more important", Nie Yun's tone suddenly became cold.

Gu Qing Shan looks up and asked: "Now why would you say that?"

Nie Yun's smile disappeared completely, sitting straight up: "The whole of Chang Ning county—- no, the whole noble community of the Confederate, all hope to have Su Xue Er marry into their own house, yet you, a pitiable insect of a poor student, dared to make a confession scene in front of everybody"

Nie Yun sighs and continues: "You have no money, no power, not even a Professionist, anyone of them that wants to kill you can just squish you like a bug"

He picks up the letter of acceptance on the table and hold it out for Gu Qing Shan.

"Just go, take this letter of acceptance and go far away, afterwards don't ever contact Su Xue Er again, then you can keep your life"

Gu Qing Shan simply looks at the letter of acceptance, not taking it, "Nie Yun, you say all this, not representing anyone but yourself, am I right? Seeing as we were fellow high school students for three years, I'll give you some advice"

"Ha ha ha, you, give me advice?", Nie Yun looks at him like looking at a clown trying his best to keep up an act.

This brat is smart to immediately see through my intention, but so what?

The two of us from the start are already not from the same world, after graduation, the difference will become like between heaven and the earth, no longer will I ever have to see him again.

Fine, let the poor brat speak his piece, see what he has to say.

Nie Yun smiles with eyes not smiling and asks: "Fine then, tell me, I'll listen"

"Go and be your family's rich young master, and don't cross me", afterwards, Gu Qing Shan immediately left the helicopter, doesn't bother to look back.

Nie Yun stands alone for a bit, then shakes his head: "Like a locust trying to stop an elephant, pathetic and funny"

He pushes a button on the table.

Not long after the middle-aged man from outside the helicopter steps in, lowering his head: "Yes, young master"

Nie Yun asks: "What of the thing I told you to prepare?"

"Our preparations are ready"

"Any chance for failure?"

The middle-aged man lightly smiles and replies: "The people we hired are all top-notch professionals, guaranteed to look like an accident, even if there are investigations later, the results will be nothing but that"

Nie Yun coldly laughs: "Very good, then do it"

"Yes", the middle-aged man took a look at his watch, then replies: "Young master can be assured, 10 minutes later, Gu Qing Shan will die by an unfortunate accident"

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 8: Unfortunate accident

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan walks in the empty alleyway, silently thinking about what happened today.

With Nie Yun's reaction like that, the case of Zhang Ye was definitely not something he planned.

Maybe it really was like Nie Yun said, because I'm too close with Su Xue Er so the nobles who likes Su Xue Er all want me dead.

Right now is nearing graduation, so a few cruel and crafty of those nobles already want to deal with me for good.

These people all make me sick, if you have the ability, then go and court her like a real man, what's the use dealing with a poor student like myself?

Gu Qing Shan silently diss them in his mind, a little bit afterwards, his thoughts start to wander.

Time left until the game officially open is about a year from now, this time period is humanity's last year of peace.

An entire year, enough time for me to build a foothold for myself in the other world.

Regarding the time he spends in Reality like this, Gu Qing Shan thought for a little bit, finally deciding that he wants to take the university exams and enter his ideal university.

This is a wish that up until the end he couldn't fulfil in his past life.

A university will not only have great environment and facilities, their management of student is also looser compared to high school, so he can take the time to learn what he likes, as well as making preparations to fight the Apocalypse.

Which university though?

When I get back I should take a look at all the university available this year then.

While lost in thought, Gu Qing Shan suddenly noticed in front of him, a group of 5-6 drunken young men walking in the opposite direction.

These men have tattoos all over their bodies, hair dyed a bright blonde color, staggering under the dim streetlights.

This street by itself doesn't have much space to walk, the way they're walking shoulder to shoulder like that really leave no more room for anyone else.

Gu Qing Shan squints, deciding to stand aside for them to walk past.

When they crossed each other, not knowing if it was accidental or on purpose, one of the blondes staggered towards Gu Qing Shan.

As a cultivator, as well as having more than ten years of experience killing and struggling on the battlefield, of course he wouldn't let a normal person hit him. Just a slight shift of his body and the man misses.

The blonde man staggered for a bit before standing straight up.

The fuck, how did he dodge that? The blond man immediately shouts: "You brat, you dare to hit me? Brothers, show him who's boss!"

Right as he said that, their looks of drunkenness immediately disappeared.

"Let's do this!"

The group shouts, each taking out their knives and rush forward.

"So that's what it is", seeing that, Gu Qing Shan immediately understood.

These people are clearly here for him.

If it was just drunk fighting, they wouldn't pull out knives that quickly.

Even if one person drinks too much and can't think straight, doesn't mean all of them are like that at the same time.

These men all act really quickly, only taking a single breath for the first person to get close, knife aimed straight at Gu Qing Shan's heart.

The plunge is as quick as it is deadly, if that connects he'll really die in one hit.

So they were professional!

Gu Qing Shan only took a single moment to think, his body quickly step in pass the knife, moving straight into the man's chest.

"Hah!"

With an open palm, he strikes the man in his chest.

The man flew backwards, straight into the people behind.

The thugs almost seemed like they got hit by a raging bull, letting out an ear-rending scream, rolling on the floor moaning nonstop.

Especially the one that got hit and flew away, his chest already sank in, no longer breathing.

Gu Qing Shan seeing that was a bit shocked, then reminded himself: "I forgot, it's not the Apocalypse yet"

The only man still standing suppresses the chill inside his body, shouting seriously: "Use fire!"

Only needing a single palm strike to kill a martial artist on our side, as well as knocking the rest of them down like that, just how much strength does that take?

Don't kid with me, the weakest my comrades here is still a 1 or 2-star martial artist, yet they all got knocked down just like that.

They don't even have the strength to get back up.

This is a real monster!

What's even scarier, is that they couldn't even see how he moved.

This level of strength, he has to be at least a 7-star martial artist.

Possibly even a Martial Master that broke through the 9-star shackles.

He doesn't know that Gu Qing Shan only temporarily forgot to hold back and used spirit energy on his palms.

A qi training stage 2 cultivator, without using spirit energy, their body strength is about equal to a 4-star martial artist.

But if they do use spirit energy then that's a different story, their destructive force is increased by quite a few times.

The faces of these thugs immediately changed, rushing to take out their guns, wanting to quickly deal with this scary martial artist.

They originally only wanted to stage a drunken fight scene that resulted in an accidental death, that way no one would be able to find out anything.

Who knew that a normal unassuming student would be so strong!

Under such circumstances, they can only ignore the original plan, kill him first then think later.

They acted fast, but Gu Qing Shan was faster.

A military bow suddenly appeared in Gu Qing Shan's hands.

The same military bow he brought from the game!

"Since you wanted to kill me, all of you can just die"

Gu Qing Shan's hands moved so fast they left afterimages, fired six shots in a blink of the eye.

Rapid Fire!

Pssh pssh pssh pssh pssh!

Five people's heads exploded almost at the same time.

Only the last man standing from before, got his hands hit by the arrow, dropped his gun on the floor, shivering, struggling to stand straight.

Feeling killing intent so strong it almost felt solid, the man hurriedly drops to the ground, begging for mercy: "Spare me, spare me, I admit defeat, please spare me, if I can do anything to save my pathetic life I'll do it!"

Gu Qing Shan asks: "Who sent you?"

Hearing that, the thug's sights darted around the headless bodies scattered about, inside his mind full of fright and anger.

Fright, because he's facing a person as cruel as this, killing everyone on their side without any hesitation; anger, because the people who hired them were so horribly misinformed, or even purposely did this to send low-level assassins like them to death.

No matter which case it is, he decided not to let those people get away so easily.

Thinking that, he shakenly answers: "The person who hired us is Nie family, Xiong Hu"

"Very good, I like honest people"

Gu Qing Shan slowly walked forward, retrieving the arrows he shot.

These arrows specially made for war usage can handle spirit energy insertion, having to use them on normal people is a bit of a waste.

If not for the fact that Gu Qing Shan's cultivation is still too low, qi training stage 2 not being able to block bullets, he wouldn't have used these bow and arrows.

It's very clear, Nie Yun was the one who did this.

However, Nie family is also a big Noble family in Chang Ning district, many strong people work for them, not only Martial Masters, but also Supernaturalist and God's Chosen as well.

"Nie Yun... with his the way he does things, he definitely wouldn't give up here"

Gu Qing Shan recalls how he is from memory and mumble to himself.

Having a person like this determined to kill him, this won't be easy.

Gu Qing Shan stuffed the dead bodies into his inventory bag while scanning the surroundings with his Inner Sight

The inventory bag can hold anything that isn't a living being, a common tool among cultivators for ease of bringing supplies and equipment, now conveniently acts as a way for him to get rid of evidence of the crime scene.

The next time Gu Qing Shan goes to the other world, he can just chuck these bodies down the dead pit and no one will ever be able to find out they ever existed in the first place.

Note:

-Inner Sight: this actually have many names across different novels, as well as having different effects, in this case it refers to the ability to spread his perception away from his own body to look at things from afar, you can think of it as a built-in scanner, or something similar to Byakugan from Naruto, the ability to have perfect vision of everything 360 degrees around one's own body.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 9: A gamble

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

TN: in chapter 8, Nie Yun's transportation was translated as being a helicopter, but it would be more accurate to call it a flying shuttle, or flying car/limousine. Sorry for your confusions.

This area is the slums, not only are there no safety cameras on the streets, but also very few pedestrians.

The location they chose is good, and the time is also suitable for faking an accident.

Ironically, this instead helped remove Gu Qingshan's worries.

In the distance, the shrill police alarm is heard.

Gu Qing Shan looked up to see a small police shuttle quickly coming this way from the air.

There isn't anyone around, so no one could have called the police, yet the police arrived just in time like this, obviously it had to have been pre-arranged.

If everything had gone as normal, I would have been stabbed to death on the spot, the police would come just to collect a corpse, also taking the dagger as evidence, and everything would've been glossed over.

When Su Xue Er finally got the news, even if she sent someone to check, they wouldn't be able to find any evidence.

Tomorrow, someone will naturally go confess to this crime, saying that they drank too much and got into a fight, and they couldn't control their strength.

He's already dead, what else can Su Xue Er do?

And that would've been the end of that.

Gu Qing Shan glanced coldly at the small police shuttle, grabbing the only thug still alive on the ground, his body quickly disappeared into the darkness, no longer visible.

A casino.

Nie Yun glanced at the cards in his hand and said: "Dealer, hit me again, I'll Call"

The female dealer couldn't help but wipe the sweat from her forehead, taking a deep breath and dealt the cards to two players.

"Young master Nie, no need to go so big" the big man with sunglasses opposite of him said.

Behind the sunglasses man, a slim feminine figure is hiding behind the chair shivering, too scared to even show her face.

Nie Yun without care: "It's just 20 million. If you can't afford it, just Fold"

"20 million is nothing, but you also want my red card girl, her I can't bear to lose" the sunglasses man said. (TN: it's slang for 'top beauty')

"I don't want her body, just her life is enough" Nie Yun coldly replied.

Feeling the slight trembling of the figure behind him, the sunglasses man smiled and said: "This red card girl isn't for sale. You let her go, I will give you two other masterpiece girls. How about it?"

Nie Yun: "This woman dared to splash me with wine, I want her to use her life to pay for it"

The middle-aged man in a white shirt with a black tie walked in and whispered a few words in Nie Yun's ear.

Nie Yun slapped him on the face and shouts: "Didn't you say there weren't going to be any problems?"

The middle-aged man said : "My apologies, young master, please give me an hour, I will personally solve the problem"

Nie Yun spoke: "I'll give you half an hour, if it isn't done, I will recommend the family to withdraw your Stewardship"

The middle-aged man stopped a bit, then turned to quickly leave.

"What's wrong, young master Nie, if you have any troubles, how about letting me solve it", the sunglasses man offered.

Nie Yun snorted and asked: "What do you want?"

The sunglasses man shrugs "It's very simple. I solve a problem for you. You let my red card girl go"

Nie Yun thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled: "How about we make it a bit more exciting instead?"

The sunglasses man silently complained, but still showed a smile on his face: "Young master Nie please go ahead"

Any snot-nosed noble young master, the sunglasses man wouldn't even care to entertain, but Nie Yun is part of the largest noble family in this Chang Ning County, not counting Su family.

The sunglasses man has been working between the black and white of this world for a long time. He knows that if he still want to do business on this land, he cannot offend this young master

Nie Yun tinker for a bit with his personal Holo-Brain, finally projected the image onto the white wall.

Nie Yun: "This is my subordinate. I just told him to turn on real-time projection, here we can see that he is moving very fast"

The sunglasses man nodded. "Indeed"

Nie Yun spoke again: "He is going to kill a person, we will gamble on how many moves he needs to use to kill the target"

Sunglasses man hesitated: "Who is the target?"

"A poor student – right, I'll bet one move" Nie Yun said as he gave an order to the subordinate through the communicator.

The sunglasses man smiled bitterly: "Your subordinate is a Martial Master, any 5-star or less martial artist would die in one move"

Only when a martial artist reaches 9-star, can they attempt to reach the rank of Master.

Once you reach the rank of Master, you are no longer considered a mortal person, even normal army soldiers can't deal with such an existence. Unless a group of Mech fighters are dispatched, it is not possible to win against them.

A Martial Master is treated the same as a noble, an existence for people to respect and society to admire.

"Are you going to bet or not, if not I won't bother with your games anymore, when that happen don't say I didn't give you face" Nie Yun impatiently.

"Fine" the sunglasses man took a deep breath, "then I can only gamble that he can't kill the poor boy in one move"

"That's right, if you win, I'll let your red card go" Nie Yun's face shows triumph.

"And if I lose?"

Nie Yun: "100 million, plus your red card's corpse"

The sunglasses man's face twitched, about to decline it, but then heard a voice behind him: "Take his bet"

Sunglasses man lowers his voice and asks: "What if we lose?"

The figure stopped trembling and whispered: "If we lose then we'll kill all Nie clan members, strip him bare and let him burn on the fire for three days"

The sunglasses man's heart froze, he can tell that this personage does not intend to endure anymore.

He looked at Nie Yun sitting across himself, seeming prideful and triumphant, and sighed. "Fine, I'll take the bet"

Nie Yun snapped his fingers, smiled and picked up the wine glass. "Good, then let's quietly enjoy seeing Xiong Hu go hunting – watching a Martial Master killing people is also a pleasure in and of itself"

On the other side, the Martial Master who was ordered to kill was moving at a rapid speed.

The night is late, the dim streetlights on the road kept going backwards in his sight, the whole city was in a deep sleep, and his movements were light and flexible, without even a little noise, not disturbing anyone's sleep.

He is a Grand Steward of the Nie family, known to be both fierce and cruel. Whenever he fought someone will always die. Forging such a reputation in his early years, he earned the name "Xiong Hu – Fierce Tiger" within the martial arts community.

That brat lives in a building in the slum, on the 22nd floor, the third room from the left.

Xiong Hu is very clear about his mission.

Open the door, rush in and kill him, as simple as that.

But he wouldn't let his guard down, after all, the group of people arranged before now isn't heard from, couldn't be contacted, and couldn't be located.

That is simply strange.

Just when he thought that, his communicator suddenly rang.

"Xiong Hu, we got the guy"

Xiong Hu was somewhat surprised, he asked: "Didn't I tell you to kill him on the spot?"

"No, no, I think the price should be raised a bit"

Damn it, so that's what this is about, Xiong Hu cursed to himself.

These trash in the underground world dared to raise the price in the act. Is my reputation of Fierce Tiger not enough to get them in line anymore?

Xiong Hu coldly laughed, tried to make his tone calm "Naturally, the price can be discussed, where are you?"

"I'm waiting for you at the brat's place, I believe you know where it is"

The communicator hangs up.

Xiong Hu groaned and broke the billboard on the side of the road with one punch.

Daring to mention raising prices with me, just you wait, my name is not just for show.

He sped up his steps, his visage became like a gray meteor across the night sky.

Five minutes later, Xiong Hu stood on the 22nd floor of the building, checked the house number, and with one kick, broke down the security door.

Note:

-Stewardship: the term doesn't 100% convey the position, this is a common position in cultivation novels, where a big clan would essentially sponsor people who have strength to work for them. The relationship usually is not one of servant and master, but rather mutual respect. Stewards work for the clan in exchange for resources to continue their cultivation, and the clan provide excess resources in exchange for loyalty and fighting force. While this is a contract of mutual benefit and technically can be cut-off at any time, it usually isn't.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 10: Against a Master

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

The entire room was dark, only a single light bulb hanging on the ceiling, the broken lamp shade was covered with dust.

Xiong Hu squints, his vision sweeps across the room.

This place doesn't separate into living room, bedroom or kitchen. In the narrow long room, you can barely fit a bed and a cabinet. Other things must be piled up on one side, otherwise there is no place to put them.

There isn't even a toilet.

Such living conditions are considered inferior even in the slums.

Across from Xiong Hu, a person leaning diagonally on the window, the leader of the underground hitman gang.

No one else is here, nor is the target.

A little clever, but they don't understand that in the face of absolute strength, this kind of cleverness will only worsen their pain.

Xiong Hu walked up and grabbed the man's neck, lifting him up and speaks: "Trash, hand over the brat, otherwise I promise you all will die a very horrible death"

The man only stared at him without speaking.

Xiong Hu raised his eyebrows in fury, preparing to let him taste a bit of pain.

Suddenly, he felt a bad premonition.

Xiong Hu suddenly turned around, his every muscles squirmed, turning his whole body taller and stronger.

—- Almost instantly, he became a burly giant about three meters tall!

"Hah!"

Xiong Hu roared and slammed his hands into the air.

A dull sound was heard, Xiong Hu was pushed backwards a few steps, slamming against the wall next to the window.

Even the wall was cracked by his impact.

Xiong Hu looked down at his hands.

"Bow and arrow? What a rare thing to see." Xiong Hu looked at the arrow caught in his hand and thought

He looked up, only to see in the darkness, a figure standing at the doorway, holding an antique-looking longbow in his hand.

"You are... that poor student?!"

As Xiong Hu recognized him, he was extremely shocked.

That one arrow, he had to use all his strength to stop.

Such extraordinary archery, definitely not what a high school student should be capable of.

What is even more frightening is that after two years of investigations, he didn't find anything about such strength.

This kid, hiding such power so well under his plain guise, what could he be planning?

No, I must immediately go into close combat, only then do I have a chance to kill him!

As soon as his thought, Xiong Hu stepped forward, his whole body rushes into a charge.

Gu Qing Shan also moved at the same time!

Another shot!

This arrow is aimed at his chest and abdomen area, but Xiong Hu is in a rapid charge so he can't change direction to dodge.

He had to stretch out his hands again and slammed into the air.

A bang.

The arrow was deflected, but he was also pushed back two steps by the impact of the arrow.

But Xiong Hu didn't care, openly grinning.

"The power of your arrow is great, but with a thin body like yours, you probably can't even pull the bowstrings anymore"

Xiong Hu cracked his neck and mocked: "How many more shots like that can you actually make?"

Gu Qing Shan slightly paused and answered: "Hmm, quite a few"

He pulled the bowstring.

Rapid Fire!

Multiple streaks of gray lightning almost seem to appear between the two of them, from Gu Qing Shan heading straight to Xiong Hu.

Xiong Hu leaned against the wall and used all his might to block.

Each arrow shot is almost equal to a full power blow of a Martial Master, if he ignores them, his body will be riddled with arrows.

Xiong Hu did not expect that a Martial Master like himself was actually being pressured by a high school kid.

And this wretched scene was also being transmitted live to the young master through holographic video.

"Cursed brat, you can't kill me, when your arrows run out, it'll be your death" Xiong Hu angrily roared.

Gu Qing Shan hands doesn't stop, only saying: "You don't have that long, goodbye"

He guided spiritual energy from his Dantian, pouring it all in the arrow.

Crackle!

The arrow whizzed through the air, creating a crackling sound from the friction.

The shot directly broke through Xiong Hu's hands, and piercing into his chest.

The walls behind Xiong Hu couldn't handle the impact, cracked open and fell down from the height of the 22nd floor.

The entire wall fell down, behind Xiong Hu there was only the night breeze, nothing else to brace himself on.

"Damn it!"

Xiong Hu tried to regain his balance, stabilizing his stance again.

However, he can only look in hopelessness as another arrow flew at him screaming.

The fierce arrow finally took Xiong Hu with it, flying out from the 22-story height, drew a parabola across the sky, and fell down a bit far away.

Not just a Master, even a Grandmaster falling from a 22-story height will die without any doubt.

Unless you reach the rank of Martial Eminence, forging your bones to be as strong as golden steel that doesn't fear strong impact, can you survive.

Gu Qing Shan walked to the place where Xiong Hu stood before and picked up the communicator that fell on the ground.

"Nie Yun?"

A mad screaming voice in the communicator: "Bastard, you dare to kill my family's Steward, you're in big trouble now, prepare to die soon"

Gu Qing Shan looked at the image feed in the communicator, suddenly spoke: "You seem to be at the biggest casino in the city district. If so, can you please stay right there for a while?"

Nie Yun baffled: "What do you mean?"

"Wait there for a moment, I'll come kill you right away"

Gu Qing Shan finished his words and threw the communicator out from the 22nd floor.

He glanced at the thug curled up in the corner, then turned around to leave.

When the thug saw that, he couldn't help but ask: "I'm no more use to you. You really won't kill me?"

"What I asked you to do, you have already done, so you've earned back your life."

Done speaking, Gu Qing Shan continued to go out, soon disappearing down the stairs.

The thug's face showed struggle, then he sighed and rushed out.

He shouted: "Wait, you can't go to your death, Nie family's Masters are as numerous as the clouds, there are also Grandmasters and Supernaturalists"

In the casino.

Nie Yun just stared at the communicator, speechless for a while.

"Young master Nie, I'm sorry to say but it seems that I won" the sunglasses man said.

Nie Yun suddenly stood up and ran out.

A short moment after, a gorgeous droplet-shaped shuttle rose from the casino and quickly vanished.

The sunglasses man stared at the shuttle leaving and laughed mockingly: "Acting so high and mighty, yet scared away by a single sentence"

His face suddenly became serious, turned around and bowed: " Your Highness, please show a little restraint during the mission."

The beautiful woman behind him slowly stood up, looking down at the blazing flame in her hands.

The flames gathered on her hands, forming a silent skull, exuding the heavy darkness of death.

The beautiful woman looked at the skull in her hand for a while "It's so troublesome having to hide my identity"

As she closed her palm, the flame also disappeared without a trace.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 11: Investigating

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

After a while, the beautiful woman whispered: "Go get the video surveillance footage from that apartment, I want to watch the battle again"

The sunglasses man finally breathed a sigh of relief, but curiously asked: "It's just a Master-level battle. What is there to watch?"

The woman was silent for a moment and answered: "That boy was a bit strange, I want to take another look"

The sunglasses man swiftly got the surveillance footage and started showing it from the beginning.

"Stop" the woman said

As the sunglasses man press the pause button, the image stops.

This was the last moment of the battle, the split second that Gu Qing Shan used his full spirit energy to infuse the arrow.

"Look" the woman narrowed her eyes, pointing at the arrowhead "The air is always sensitive, any force that makes contact with the air will make it react."

The sunglasses man carefully looked, barely seeing on the arrowhead, two transparent ripples are formed on both sides.

He shook his head and said: "I've never seen such a thing before, is it another unknown super power?"

"Very interesting, although this power looks weak, it gives me a unique feeling" the beautiful woman stares at the screen "we have to find a way to get in touch with this poor student"

The long night finally ended.

Cheng Nan, a high-class residential district.

"You don't want to avenge your companion?" Gu Qing Shan looked at the thug with a smile that's not smiling.

Wang Ming the thug shook his head and said: "We were all people lured by the reward money, working together was temporary, before that I didn't know any of them"

Wang Ming threw him a bunch of keys and said: "You spared my life, but the only thing I can do for you is give you a secret place like this to rest. After all, the Nie family is too powerful"

Gu Qing Shan took the keys, looked at the man in front of him unexpectedly and said: "Thank you for your kindness, then I will leave first"

Wang Ming was a bit confused, quickly asked: "Leave to go where?"

"To work"

"To work?" Wang Ming couldn't catch up with the conversation.

"Well, you have to work to earn money, to have food to eat, plus I heard there's all sorts of things in university that require you to spend money" Gu Qing Shan seriously replied.

As a civilian without any backers, wanting to go to a State-sanctioned university, not only is the tuition very high, but they also require a certain amount of Merit.

Plus his elective major is Mech Study, whose tuition cost is several times that of other majors.

Gu Qing Shan have took on several jobs to make money, at the same time accumulated a large amount of personal Merit to prepare for future education necessities.

Wang Ming seriously wondered if his ears have gone bad and he actually heard wrong.

This boy in front of him, capable of killing 5 hitmen in one breath. Even a Martial Masters got completely manipulated into a trap and died, falling from the 22nd floor and turned into mush.

—- A person like that, still have to work an actual job to earn money to maintain their livelihood? (TN: as in, not sponsored or provided by anyone)

From what he said, he's also about to enter college?

Wang Ming has lived for more than 30 years, but for the first time today, he feels that his common sense has been flipped on its head.

"I'll accept the keys" Gu Qing Shan after taking the key and thought for a bit, said: "I'll give you some advice, right now immediately flee from Chang Ning county, go all the way East to Fuxi Republic."

"Why?" Wang Ming asked

"Last night's incident must have already been known, I still have some protection from working at Su family's company. Nie family already failed once, so they likely will not move against me again without absolute confidence. But you are different. You're just a hitman that can't show himself in public. If you don't leave you could die at any time"

Gu Qing Shan continued: "You're more suited to making friends and doing business, not this cold-blooded career of a hitman. If you stay here, even if you don't get killed by Nie family, you will still one day be killed by someone else"

Wang Ming stood silent for a long while, then said: "Then I am leaving now, we'll meet again if fate allows it"

Swift decision without any hesitation or back and forth, this person's personality is not bad.

Gu Qing Shan nodded, silently complimented him and left the room.

Half an hour later, he arrived at a sky-high technology building.

Swiping his card as normal and entered the building, swiped again to enter the underground facilities.

After the iris certification and fingerprint authentication, changing into work clothes, he received his work ID card, headed into the elevator and went directly to the underground 50th floor.

As the elevator door opens, a familiar electronic sound is heard.

"Chang Ning Steel Mech R D Department welcomes you, No. 41157."

Gu Qing Shan swiftly walked in.

Across from him, there were several 5-meter-high Steel Mech armors, many people in overalls were busy working on the mechs and discussing between themselves.

This is the largest Mecha-based RD center in Chang Ning, and the core industry of Chang Ning's Su family. Even if they are Su family members, without expertise in this area, they will also be refused entry.

Gu Qing Shan looked at the cold fighting machines, feeling a sense of excitement in his heart.

This is the product of human civilization, the crystallization of science and technology born from the crossing of countless frontier sciences, and representing this world's most powerful fighting force.

Shuttles and helicopters, in front of the War Mechs cast from steel are simply too dull to even look at.

These fantastic ice-cold machinery have an irresistible appeal to every man alive.

"No. 41157, application for research." Gu Qing Shan said.

"Please describe the content of your work, so your Holo-brain can be registered"

"Power control of electro-hydraulic drive of No. 2 machine"

"No. 41157, your application has been approved, the time is six days, your accommodation room is 4009, please pay attention to eating on time, work and rest appropriately to ensure good health."

"Thank you "Gu Qing Shan can finally relax

As expected, he can stay here for six days in a row. If the project is completed well enough, there will also be corresponding rewards.

This place is absolutely safe, unless Fuxi Republic suddenly comes to invade the Confederate, and the whole of Chang Ning County goes under siege.

Nie family's hands could not reach even here.

Six days later is already the university entrance examination.

After finishing the exams, I can freely flee to wherever I want.

As for now, let's fully concentrate on studying Mechs with absolute peace of mind!

Gu Qing Shan, almost leaping with his steps, couldn't wait anymore and went straight to a mechanical armor.

In the past life, I've made quite a few good things too. In addition, humanity kept on advancing technology for more than 10 years, I also never stopped my research on Mechs. With so many years of constant study and research, my current expertise probably far exceeds this era.

The facilities here are so good, some previous research ideas can probably be verified.

Outside the Chang Ning Steel Mech Company, on top of another tall building.

The sunglasses man stood at the highest point, opened the communicator and reluctantly reported the matters concerning Gu Qing Shan.

"You mean, he's also a serious Mech researcher?"

The cold female voice came from the communicator, accompanied by the sound of a tapping keyboard.

"Yes, your Highness, the security here is very strict. Even if I risk exposing my ability, I'm afraid I won't be able to bring him out. Worst case we might even risk a war"

"That's ok, come back, no need to go through so much trouble, we can use the formal method" the female voice said, contemplating.

"What do you mean by 'the formal method'?"

The sunglasses man cautiously asked.

He can't help being so careful. The last time she said that, the formal method used was to declare war. Thinking about what transpired afterwards at that time, the sunglasses man still shakes in fear.

"You can rest assured, I am going to declare an official visit, that way I won't have to use a fake identity"

The sunglasses man was relieved, asked again: "What about our mission?"

"What mission?"

"Taking some of the top talents from the Confederate, Your Highness."

"That's that we are doing"

Sunglasses man's face shows disbelief and said: "This kid, can be regarded as top talent?"

On the other side of the communicator, the woman whose beauty knows no equal was quickly operating two virtual light screens as she answered: "I've calculated, his unknown ability increased the kinetic energy of the arrow by quite the amazing amount. In addition, you should take a look at the paper he published in the Federal Science and Technology Magazine regarding Mechs simulating human behavior."

The woman stared at the information on the light screens, gently licking her lips, her face showed a hint of excitement, looking like a cat who was about to catch her favorite fish.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 12: Monster (1)

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

The woman thought for a while and added: "Put a surveillance robot at your position."

The sunglasses man hesitated: "These things are very expensive; we only have a limited amount on our hands"

The woman insisted: "Put one on him, he's worth this much"

"Very well, as you wish, Your Highness."

The sunglasses man shook his head, carefully took out a small silver box, gently placing it on a secret spot atop of the building.

As soon as the small box was put down, it immediately became hidden.

The sunglasses man shrugged and took out a Micro Holo-Brain: "Come, show me the staff information of Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology Company"

Countless personal information started showing on the Holo-brain one by one, the sunglasses man clicked on one of the avatars that appeared.

A young and handsome face, showing a unique vitality of youth.

"Yes, that's him."

The sunglasses man's hands quickly tapped on the keyboard, showing a progress bar on the screen.

The Micro Holo-Brain began to read Gu Qing Shan's personal data.

The sunglasses man raised his hand to look at his watch, mockingly complained: "15 seconds to track me, what a garbage security system, Chang Ning's Su family really don't care for its employees."

After only 7 seconds, the sunglasses man got the information he needed and decisively shut down the intrusion system.

He continuously clicked on Gu Qing Shan's personal data, quickly singled out his unique biological bands and vital signs.

"Gu Qing Shan, you can't run away now"

The sunglasses man smiled and entered Gu Qing Shan's information into the surveillance robot.

That evening, Gu Qing Shan ended a day of research, had dinner and took a walk in the company's artificial main stadium.

Looking up at the sky, the shroud of night is already descending, the moon is hanging high, and the stars are shining like diamonds.

Breezy and cool, a great evening.

Gu Qing Shan silently squinted, his Dantian's spirit energy moved, covering his eyes in an instant.

The scenery before his eyes suddenly changed, streaks of dark gray smoke floating in the sky, smooth as satin, silently sweeping close.

Gu Qing Shan frowned.

These dark gray smoke are the essence of Huang Quan, the signs of the Apocalypse have already appeared.

"Less than a year left" Gu Qing Shan muttered.

He quickened his steps and returned to the personal room arranged by the company.

Since his return yesterday night, it should already be a day, it's time to enter the other world again.

Gu Qing Shan called out the game interface and looked at the time on the hourglass.

Right as the last bit of sand fell.

A curtain of light flashed, Gu Qing Shan disappeared from the room.

Early morning.

Gu Qing Shan was standing under the roof, seeming to have only left for a single moment, once again came back to this other world.

Outside the outpost, the demon beast's body was still lying there, the arrow wounds all over his body leaking blood.

Gu Qing Shan found himself still holding the bow forward, kneeling on one knee, facing the military camp gate to shoot.

It's like he never left at all.

Gu Qing Shan stood up and shouted: "Zhao Lu!"

There was no movement, and no one responded.

Gu Qing Shan reluctantly said again: "Zhao Lu, it's over, come out!"

Quite a while later, Zhao Lu still shaking, finally came behind Gu Qing Shan.

He poked his head from behind Gu Qing Shan's shoulder and looked out.

"Is, is it dead?"

"Already dead, come, come help me bring it in"

Zhao Lu looked at the monster, and then looked at Gu Qing Shan, and said: "Brother Gu, I didn't know you were so strong"

Gu Qing Shan answered: "Less nonsense, more work. Get the tools, we're bringing the demon beast back to the military camp"

Zhao Lu seemingly a bit more courageous, looked at the monster again and said happily: "Motherfucker, this big one is enough for us to eat for a month."

Gu Qing Shan nodded, his heart a bit more settled.

Demon beast meat contains ample blood energy, even an ordinary person who eats it will be able to strengthen the bones and muscles, increasing strength.

His wounds were only healed with two Healing pills, as soon as he returned to Reality, he fought two battles in a row. The second one was even against a Martial Master, almost completely exhausting all his mental power and strength.

At this moment, Gu Qing Shan can detect the faint pain in his body.

The wounds that just healed, once again showing signs of reopening.

In this situation, if you can keep eating demon beast meat and rest for a while, it will benefit the body greatly.

Zhao Lu quickly ran into the kitchen and taking out a large net bag, long rope, boning knife and other tools.

The two were ready to go outside the outpost.

Gu Qing Shan asked while walking: "Why didn't you bury the dead people in front of the camp? In the end, they were all comrades"

Zhao Liu complained: "Before, the Commander simply didn't care, what can a cook like me do? If I left the outpost alone to dig, if I happen to run into some sort of monster, I'll die for sure"

Gu Qing Shan patted him on the shoulder and said: "When the monster is brought in, go with me to bury the dead."

Zhao Lu hesitated, not saying anything.

Gu Qing Shan said again: "The putrid smell of blood from the dead pit is too strong. If it attracts a powerful demon that can see through the Invisibility formation of the outpost, you and I both will end up dead"

"That is,— fine!"

Zhao Lu thought about the scene, finally gritted his teeth and answered.

The two walked to the gate of the military camp, Zhao Lu already half a step out of the outpost, but suddenly, Gu Qing Shan pulled his collar back, which made almost him fall down face-first.

Zhao Liu annoyed: "Brother Gu, what are you doing?"

Gu Qing Shan raised his hand and made a gesture of silence.

Zhao Lu still wanted to complain, but seeing Gu Qing Shan's face full of seriousness, his heart sank and didn't say anything more.

He stood up and lowered his voice and asked, "What happened?"

Gu Qing Shan pointed to the otter outside the camp.

After several days of heavy rain, a disc-sized puddle was formed on the ground.

Right now, the rain suddenly stopped, but the ripples on the puddles continued, as if something was disturbing it from underneath.

Gu Qing Shan pulled Zhao Lu and retreated 7-8 steps backwards.

It's still silent outside the outpost.

After a few more moments, the water in the puddle returned to calm.

Zhao Lu held his breath and waited for a long time without seeing any movements. Right then, he breathed a sigh of relief, smiled wanting to speak.

But he didn't say anything.

Because Gu Qing Shan covered his mouth, immediately retreated a few dozens more meters, stopping all the way back at the other end of the outpost

Gu Qing Shan pressed him into the mud, himself also laid down and smeared black mud all over his body.

A few days of rain have already softened the soil, Gu Qing Shan only need to grab to get a handful, while smearing it over himself, he also gestured to Zhao Lu to do the same.

Although Zhao Lu is a kitchen staff, many daily chores are done by him alone, but after all, he has not been through this kind of suffering, so he can't help but want to stand up.

He arched his back to stand up, but suddenly fell down in the black mud again – this time his whole body was covered with muddy water, no need to be smeared on anymore.

Zhao Lu planted his hands on the ground, only to feel the ground shaking, he himself cannot do anything, not even stand up.

The earth is shaking violently.

Zhao Lu's horrified, opened his mouth to scream only to once again fall into the mud.

Is the earth dragon turning over?

Zhao Lu looked at Gu Qing Shan full of questions, but he only saw him looking at the direction of the dead pit, still fully concentrating.

Zhao Lu followed Gu Qing Shan's gaze only to see an unforgettable scene.

A foot.

A giant foot so big it fills his entire line of sight, and is several times larger than the entire military outpost.

As this foot stepped on a dense forest outside the outpost, all the trees were razed to the ground.

Looking up the foot, the thick leg extends deep into the dark clouds, his eyes unable to see the end.

Zhao Lu is stunned looking at this scene. Only then did he understand that there was no earth dragon to turn its body, it was simply this foot stepping on the ground, and the impact caused the earth to shake.

Then, an even more insane scene unfolds.

Note:

-Huang Quan: literally "golden river", the equivalent of River Styx in Chinese mythology. It's more commonly used to refer to hell itself, rather than the actual river in hell which have a different name.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 13: Monster (2)

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Another huge foot stretched down from the black clouds, stomping right next to the dead pit and caused another small earthquake.

The two people hidden in the mud were almost shaken off the ground.

A horrid giant hand appeared from the clouds, in a single handful, took the entire dead pit together with the demon beast the size of a small hill away.

The giant hand slowly retracted, returning to the clouds.

The dull chewing sounds almost seemed like thunder from above.

The sky once again darkened as cold, black blood poured down like rain, soaking the empty field in front of the outpost into a deathly black color, giving off a putrid foul smell.

After a while, the chewing sounds in the clouds stopped, same with the raining black blood.

The 2 giant feet continued forward into the distance, each step resounding through the earth. In just a few steps, they already left the sight of Gu Qing Shan and Zhao Lu.

Zhao Lu baffled, asked: "What kind of monster was that..."

Gu Qing Shan's heart sinks all the way to the bottom, muttering: "So even it already appeared..."

Zhao Lu kept repeating himself: "What monster was that... What kind of monster was that...?"

Gu Qing Shan ignored him, thinking silently.

The Faceless Giant, an extremely rare demon, a powerful chaotic species.

The Faceless Giant doesn't usually come out. Only when the demon army has encircled a humanity stronghold for too long, will it receive the order to attack and break the stalemate.

From the memory of his past life, this is still the last year of peace, the first wave of demon invasion had only just begun, why did a powerhouse like Faceless Giant appear already?

This was only the first all-out war between humanity and demon, one that took a whole year to reach a conclusion, Gu Qing Shan remembers this very clearly.

In the final battle of this year-long war, hundreds of millions of players wasn't able to take down the Faceless Giant, and could only watch helplessly as the Faceless Giant destroyed the border town.

At that time, the players have only just entered the game for half a year, both their level and gear were very unremarkable. The appearance of the Faceless Giant brought a deep sense of powerlessness to all players.

In the end, it was a plot character called the first Immortal King, that finally defeated this demon.

But at that time, the border town was already destroyed, human troops were already defeated and scattered, so they had to retreat from the map, giving up a large area of rich land as a buffer.

In the first campaign, humanity was beaten into retreat just like that.

However! However!

Right now is still only the last year of peace, the war had only just begun, both humanity and demon kind were still testing out one another.

For the Faceless Giant to appear at this time, the plot isn't right.

Unless something that Gu Qing Shan doesn't know about happened.

Gu Qing Shan felt a shroud of mist in his mind, himself unable to tear it open to see the truth.

Zhao Lu's eyes are still dull, still repeating the same sentence.

"What kind of monster was that..."

Gu Qing Shan struck the back of Zhao Lu's neck and let him faint.

Zhao Lu was stimulated too intensely, his mind already going haywire. It's better for him to take a break.

The first time seeing a monster like the Faceless Giant, even players were deeply shocked. Not to mention, this is a real world and not at all a game, and Zhao Lu is just an ordinary person, suddenly seeing such a demon, he could very well have been scared mindless.

Gu Qing Shan took Zhao Lu into the barracks, threw him on a marching bed, and turned back to the outpost gates.

Since the Faceless Giant appeared, maybe its accompanying units will as well.

Not even 15 minutes later, a demon squad showed itself.

With a single horn on its head, the Grey Flame Serpent slithers across the forest, moving so quick that it was almost unseen, only leaving a burning trace on the ground.

On its back, a humanoid monster sat, wearing gray heavy armor, both hands and feet made of claws, no facial features, only a big bloody mouth that splits open all the way to the back of the head.

Mad Bloodthirster.

If it is ever allowed to breach into the human army line, it can cause a small massacre.

After the first Grey Flame Serpent appeared, more quickly followed, on the back of each of them sat a Bloodthirster.

One, two, three... a total of twenty.

Gu Qing Shan held his breath and stood inside the outpost, silently counting.

The demon squad quickly swept past the outpost, chasing in the direction of the Faceless Giant, disappearing into the jungle.

Through all that, the outpost was not discovered, which was really fortunate.

But Gu Qing Shan couldn't feel any joy.

Grey Flame Serpent is the king of assassination within demon beasts, their action silent, as well as being able to use Fire of the 5 Elementals by birth, extremely difficult opponents to deal with.

Not to mention the Bloodthirsters demons that are controlling them.

The general of this outpost was killed at the hands of a few of those Bloodthirsters.

In the military, there is an unwritten rule, if the soldiers encounter a Bloodthirster demon while doing their mission, they can immediately give up the task without being punished by their superiors. Because only the generals can fight against this kind of demon.

20 Grey Flame Serpents and 20 Bloodthirster can launch a devastating surprise attack on any army.

Yet they're all follow the pace of the Faceless Giant, quietly moving.

This is a big deal.

Just as Gu Qing Shan was thinking that, suddenly he noticed a small bird perched on the tree branches outside the outpost.

This bird has a human face, only looking to rest on the branch for a short time, and would then chase after the Faceless Giant again.

"So tired, so tired, go catch up!"

The strange man-faced bird complained.

It spreads its wings, shakes off the blood on its body, using its short beak to tend to a long wound under its wings.

The wound is very deep, blood still dripping out from time to time.

Gu Qing Shan stared at the wound of the strange bird, after thinking for only a moment, raised his bow and pulled the strings.

Rapid Fire!

3 arrows in a row, followed by 6, and finally 12, cutting off all escape routes.

Shooting these 21 arrows in one breath, Gu Qing Shan's hands are shaking even with his "Stable" skill.

In that moment, Gu Qing Shan fully used all his power.

Once you've decided to act, you can't give the enemy any chance to live. Otherwise, this kind of intelligent bird monster will definitely alert the demon army.

The sharp arrows turned into killer shadows, flying out of the outpost and straight at the strange bird.

The first three arrows, only one of them hit the strange bird, forcing it to struggle to fly up, its two wings quickly rose and dodged the next six arrows, but ended completely surrounded by the twelve final arrows, turning into a sieve.

"Soul Points 2, current Soul Point 3/5"

"You have mastered the skill "Stable", successfully broke through in battle, the skill is upgraded to: Solid"

A warm feeling flowed into his arms, not going away for a while after.

A Growth Skill?

Gu Qing Shan was mildly surprised, immediately took out an arrow, put it on the bowstrings and pulled.

His arms were completely still, not even a slight tremble.

Gu Qing Shan tried moving, running, and even rushed forward and backward, but no matter what he did, it didn't affect the stillness of his aim.

His hands are steady, as if this was the correct and only aiming posture since ancient times.

A great skill!

Putting down the bow and arrow, Gu Qing Shan evaluated what he found out just now.

It wasn't a legendary Growth Skill, but an evolution of a common skill.

But that's still very good.

"Stable" is a primary skill, "Solid" is a slightly more powerful primary skill. War God Skills is able to transform a primary skill into another, more powerful skill, this ability really is full of surprises.

The skill "Solid" at first glance seems to only increase the stability of his actions, but the practical effect of it is great.

From now on, even if Gu Qing Shan is moving quickly in combat, his hands will not tremble even a little, giving him the ability to keep pressing his attack under various combat situations.

In the face of a powerful monster with slow movement, he can employ a hit-and-run tactic, without worrying about his shooting action being messed up during violent, quick movements.

Gu Qing Shan put away the bow, went out to drag the demon bird back into the outpost, made a fire and threw it in.

No matter how strange and mysterious a demon is, after being burned to ash it will no longer be any trouble.

"Huh? What is this?"

Gu Qing Shan checked the ash after the flame burned out, mildly surprised.

What he saw was a blood-color jade piece, lying in the ashes.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 14: Desire

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan picked up the blood-color jade piece, carefully observed it for a while before infusing it with spirit energy, bit by bit.

Suddenly a disembodied voice rang from the jade piece.

"The target continued shifting Southward, Eastward 762, Southward 94; command: Faceless Giant, Bloodthirster squad on full pursuit"

Gu Qing Shan listened and suddenly understood.

This is the Demon Army's secret dispatch order, a badge to transmit order for the army on the field.

It seems that the strange bird was a demon army messenger, specializing in information transmission and mobilization of troops.

A messenger have to be extremely fast. When flying in full force, that bird can move as quick as lightning. If it wasn't already seriously injured, Gu Qing Shan would definitely not be able to strike it down.

Without the real-time information and commands from the strange bird, the demon hit squad will definitely deviate from the targets they are tracking.

Gu Qing Shan looked a bit at the blood-color jade piece and put it into his inventory bag.

Who could predict that he actually ruined the dispatch of the demon army completely by accident.

The demon bird is dead, that should be able to give the Faceless Giant and Bloodthirster some trouble for a while.

My own cultivation is still too low, so I can only contribute so much, Gu Qing Shan sighs.

This can't go on, I have to change my situation as soon as possible.

Power, I need power!

At this moment, Gu Qing Shan's eyes are full of determination and desire.

Washing off the black mud, he went to check on Zhao Lu, only to see that he's still passed out. Gu Qing Shan replenish his arrows, strap the military bow to his back, and left the outpost.

It wasn't until evening that Gu Qing Shan dragged a demon beast back to the outpost.

He didn't actually go too far, but because his cultivation was too low, he had to employ all of his hiding skills, went around the outpost's perimeter, dodging a few fierce demon beasts' sights, finally able to hunt a few low-level smaller beasts.

These monsters are ranked the lowest of the low, suitable for the first few stages of qi training to take on.

With the measly strength he has as a qi training stage 2 cultivator, it took all the arrows in the quiver, as well as adding some more wounds to his body for him to manage to kill a few.

This can't be helped. In the past life, players that wanted to hunt demon beast at the start of the game also had to form large teams, using all their strength just to take down a single one.

And even though it's called a smaller beast, it still easily weigh three or four hundred pounds, extremely hard for a normal person to even budge, let alone carry.

The storage bag has limited space, and in order to keep his mobility, Gu Qing Shan only took one of them back.

He just left the rest of them there on the spot.

The jungle is always dangerous, the heavy bloody smell on the corpses of demon beast will quickly attract many predators.

The War God System also seem to treat hunting low-level beasts with scorn, as a whole day of hunting only gave Gu Qing Shan a total of 1 Soul Point.

He only has a total of 4 Soul Points right now, but his Experience value isn't quite as bad, having already reached 10 points.

Meaning he can level up again.

The smaller beast that was dragged back should be enough for him and Zhao Lu to eat for a while.

If it wasn't for the fact that there isn't enough Spirit Stone to maintain the Invisibility formation, they could stay for at least a dozen more days.

When Gu Qing Shan returned to the outpost, Zhao Lu was already awake.

Zhao Lu stood at the gate with a desperate look on his face, only when he saw Gu Qing Shan and the body of the smaller beast behind him did vitality returned to his face.

Zhao Lu bowed his waist, staring straight at the smaller beast, almost unable to move his eyes.

He said: "Brother Gu, thank you for before, you can go rest, I'll deal with this beast, guaranteed you'll be satisfied with the meal tonight"

"Take it"

Gu Qing Shan left the beast there, returned to the room, sat in a meditation position and closed his eyes.

"Current Experience points: 10/10. Do you want to level up?"

"Yes"

With Gu Qing Shan's choice confirmed, his body's blood essence quickly rose, as well as his spirit energy also rising, but inside him a checkpoint was blocking the spirit energy flow, not letting them pass.

Being able to sense the presence of the checkpoint means that the time to break through it is ripe.

This is an opportunity to break through to the next level!

Gu Qing Shan's body naturally went into a state of breakthrough.

Fuu!

Breathing out the blocked gas, Gu Qing Shan felt a wave of pleasure washing through his body.

Success, he finally broke through to qi training stage 3!

Gu Qing Shan immediately recollects the spirit energy, carefully spreading it around his body meridians, slowly taking care of his body.

He has too many minor injuries, so he can't be careless.

While caring for his body with spirit energy, he looked at the UI

"Current Experience points: 0/15."

To level up again, he needs to go out and hunt again.

Gu Qing Shan can only feel an unprecedented sense of urgency in his heart.

The Faceless Giant is equal to a high-tier Rejuvenation-rank cultivator in strength, an existence that Gu Qing Shan can only look up to right now.

With the strength of the Faceless Giant, the outpost should already be discovered, but since there are only two weak ants in the outpost, it simply couldn't be bothered to do anything.

This feeling of your own life and death being in the hands of a demon, doesn't feel good at all.

Gu Qing Shan walked back and forth for a bit and made up his mind.

This won't do, I have to keep grinding to level up and rush to the rank of Foundation Establishment.

From Qi Training to Foundation Establishment, from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core, pretty much at every major rank-up, there is a chance to gain a superpower, of course having a chance means you can also fail and gain nothing.

There are four types of superpowers in this world, all of them exactly the same as Reality. They are in order: Martial Art, 5-Elemental Supernaturalist, God's Chosen, and Heaven's Descended.

A Martial Art superpower stimulates the latent power in the body, and the power boost is nothing to laugh at. For Sword Cultivators and Body Cultivators, these are most suitable.

5-Elemental Supernaturalist stimulates the spirituality of the body, which is used to open up the main 5-Elemental roots, or a Mutated Elemental root and enables their use in a fight.

God's Chosen Skills have all sorts of shape and form, Gu Qing Shan himself knows only a few thousand of them.

This kind of superpower is innate, completely depending on luck, it is impossible to predict, so no need to mention it here.

As for Heaven Ascended, this is a title, specifically used to call people who have Divine Skills.

The so-called Divine Skills are things that can flip the heaven and earth, perform incredible miracles, changing the common sense, to reverse the tide of fate, orchestrating the fall of the stars, causing the end of all things.

Such skills are completely beyond the reach of ordinary players.

Even in this other world, only the most powerful human cultivators have Divine Skills.

Gu Qing Shan doesn't expect himself to awaken A God's Chosen Skill, not to mention Divine Skills, he doesn't even hope to open one of the 5-Elemental roots.

He only wants to get a Martial Arts superpower to greatly increase his pure fighting strength.

For the sake of his own life, he has to get a superpower!

Gu Qing Shan is filled with a desire to be stronger, but is still very calm and collected, constantly using spirit energy to care for his injuries.

His injuries is not yet healed, both his body and spirit are very tired, so he can't force himself to go out wrestling between life and death with demon beasts.

Taking time to sharpen your blade won't dull your wood cutting skills, giving yourself time to rest is necessary. (TN: this idiom isn't translated that well, basically he's saying rushing things won't do you any good)

About two hours later, Zhao Lu came.

A whole table full of rich and juicy grilled demon beast meat, accompanied by light rice porridge.

Gu Qing Shan and Zhao Lu had their fill, packed everything up appropriately and sat around the charcoal fire to talk.

"Are there any swords in the outpost?" Gu Qing Shan asked.

At qi training stage 3, you can slowly begin to practice the sword.

A bow for ranged attacks and a sword for melee. This is Gu Qing Shan's vision of his way of fighting for this life.

"Sword?" Zhao Lu shook his head. "Only officers can carry a sword, but the officers in the outpost are already dead, their weapons were thrown in the dead pit together with them."

—- The dead pit was swallowed whole by the Faceless Giant, not even a bit of slag is left.

Gu Qing Shan could only sigh helplessly. Once he was a Sword Cultivator, yet after returning he hasn't even had a sword to touch, how laughable.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 15: A choice!

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan didn't give up and continued asking: "What about the outpost itself? Everyone is dead, but the military reserve is still there, are there no weapon left?"

Zhao Lu answered: "I have the key to the reserve room, but I don't use weapons, so I've never been inside. How about you come check with me"

Gu Qing Shan said with pleasure: "Gladly"

The two of them went to the reserve room, checking it with a candle.

Each and every row of the weapon shelves were empty, walking from start to end, all they saw was a half-broken machete on the final row.

Gu Qing Shan furrowed his brows, checks around the wall again to find a hidden wall-sunken lock.

Behind the sunken lock should be where the high rank officers keep high-grade items.

This part is the same as in his past life.

In the past life, whenever players find an abandoned cultivator stronghold, the first thing they do is to find leftover treasures, after a while, the methods and tricks were compiled into an actual science.

Towards the later stages of the game, even a profession called treasure hunter was born.

Gu Qing Shan looks a bit at the sunken lock and was sure.

He said: "This place's sunken lock is relatively high-grade, probably only the commanding general had the keys"

Zhao Lu a bit surprised, looking at the lock can't help but said: "But the general already died in battle"

Gu Qing Shan: "Do you know where his personal quarters are?"

"I do"

"Come, lets go check it out"

The two of them searched the general's room for a while, finally it was Gu Qing Shan that found the key.

Taking the key back to the reserve room, Gu Qing Shan opened the sunken lock, all that was inside was a small booklet and dirty-looking plate

The plate had numerous cracks, many of the inscriptions on it already started to fall off.

"A Formation Plate?"

Gu Qing Shan's heart skipped a beat, quickly walked forward and picked it up.

"Low-level Formation Plate(damage), Psychedelic formation inscribed"

"To comprehend Psychedelic formation usage method, Soul Point cost: 17"

—-17 Soul Points, much higher than the maximum amount Gu Qing Shan can have, basically impossible for him to learn right now.

But Gu Qing Shan's focus isn't that.

Flipping the plate around, Gu Qing Shan pressed a center crucial point on the plate, opening a compartment in it.

Light-blue light droplets fell from the plate, scattering on the ground.

Gu Qing Shan pressed another place on the plate, dropping even more light droplets.

"Spirit Stones!"

Zhao Lu shouted in joy, immediately crouched down to pick them up.

Gu Qing Shan's heart also relaxes a bit.

Even though the Formation Plate was broken, the Spirit Stones placed for power were almost unused, even the spare Spirit Stone stored inside where untouched.

It's likely that no one else but the commanding officer who died an unexpected death knew about this, and that's why these Spirit Stones still remain.

What a pleasant surprise.

After picking up all the Spirit Stones and counted, the total was a whopping 75 stones!

This way, the Invisibility formation of the outpost can hold out for a couple dozen for days.

Gu Qing Shan put the plate down, picking up the booklet and flipped through.

"Military qi training method"

"First stage: Quchi"

"Second stage: Yinmen"

"Third stage: Shaoshang"

"Fourth stage: Taiyin"

"Fifth stage: Xuzhong"

"Sixth stage: Lingke"

"Seventh Stage: Shentang"

"To comprehend the first three stages, Soul Points cost: 1"

"To comprehend the fourth and fifth stages, Soul Points cost: 2"

"To comprehend the sixth stage, Soul Points cost: 3"

"To comprehend the seventh stage, Soul Points cost: 6"

This is the military cultivation method, the most common of all cultivation methods, incomparable to secret cultivation methods from big sects and clans.

But this kind of cultivation method also has its advantages.

First is that your foundation will be incredibly firm, aiding the breakthrough to Foundation Establishment realm, the second is that people who uses this cultivation method are everywhere, making it inconspicuous.

This is like someone giving you a pillow just as you were feeling sleepy, but don't you usually use Experience Points to level up?

How come Soul Points can be used as well?

As Gu Qing Shan was thinking, his War God UI was already showing a shining line of text

"Complete cultivation method found, War God UI preparations complete"

"From now on, the user can choose to use Soul Points instead of Experience Points to level up"

"Soul Points have high exclusivity, once you used Soul Points, you cannot use Experience Points to level up anymore, please choose carefully"

Talk about flexible, as long as you have the method to, level up will be the same as comprehending skills, only requiring Soul Points.

In that case, Soul Points just became much more important.

Gu Qing Shan looks at his War God UI and contemplates.

"What exactly are Soul Points?" he asked

War God UI responds: "The most fundamental power of all beings, the origin of the soul"

"Fundamental" and "Origin" those two words, are extremely rare in-game, always representing an extreme limit.

This type of extreme power, must have its own characteristics.

Gu Qing Shan began to seriously think about it.

In later stages of the game, the amount of Experience Points needed for each level becomes an astronomical number, becoming invisible shackles for the large amount of players.

But Soul Points seems to be a higher quality power, choosing Soul Points will naturally free him from the known shackles of Experience points, but what the road ahead is like becomes an unknown.

However, thinking about the numerous players who can all be called prodigies. None of them could reach the highest peak of fighting strength in the other world until the very end. And Experience Points had to be the biggest culprit for that.

He already had his chance to do things over, would he still need to walk on this failed path?

But this is also a huge gamble.

Gu Qing Shan finally decided and spoke with conviction: "I choose to level up using Soul Points"

"The user has chosen Soul Points, going one step closer towards becoming War God, please keep working hard"

Following the cold System voice, the "Experience points" column on Gu Qing Shan's UI disappeared, leaving only "Soul Points" left.

Gu Qing Shan silently stared at his UI, tucking the booklet into his chest.

As the two people left the reserve room to go back to the barracks, Zhao Lu couldn't stop smiling.

Separating, each of them return to their own room, Gu Qing Shan closed the door, sat down on the bed, leaving the military qi training method booklet on his knee.

Gu Qing Shan already passed the first 3 ranks of Quchi, Yinmen, Shaoshang, so he went ahead and took a look at the 4th and 5th ranks.

Already having a cultivation guide book, to increase his strength, to increase the maximum Soul Points, this is his best choice.

Gu Qing Shan isn't an indecisive person, already made his choice, he said.

"I choose to comprehend "the 4th stage: Taiyin' breakthrough method"

"Comprehension began, consumed 2 Soul Points, current Soul Points: 2/5"

Heat flows from the booklet into Gu Qing Shan's Thought Sea.

In only one breath, the spirit energy guiding method, the breathing rhythm required to breakthrough the checkpoint, the method to circulate blood essence, all deeply imprinted in Gu Qing Shan's mind.

Gu Qing Shan closes his eyes, silently guided his spirit energy, attacking the checkpoint in his body.

It's almost like he's already a stage 4 cultivator, only revisiting this process again.

The military qi training method is simple and rough, but there's absolutely no mistakes or omissions, ensuring safe cultivation.

His spirit energy gathers at the checkpoint, suddenly contracts, and then expand, easily breaking through his 'Taiyin'

Gu Qing Shan checks himself, seeing the spirit energy slowly turning in his Dantian already became one size bigger.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 16: Continuous breakthroughs!

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

"Maximum Soul Points 1, current Soul Point limit: 6, Current Soul Points: 2/6."

With the help of Soul Points, Gu Qing Shan, just like the people of this world, levelled up with cultivation.

A player that doesn't rely on Experience to level up, this is something that has never happened before in the history of the game.

Gu Qing Shan was afraid there would be problems so he carefully checked himself again, surprised to find that his spirit energy is already full!

When levelling up with Experience Points, it takes a lot of time to nurse the Dantian, slowly filling up the new energy limit after breaking through.

Who could predict using Soul Points to break through would immediately put him at full spirit energy!

It seems that Soul Point really is high quality, so I've won the gamble.

In that case, with his foundation, he can still keep on breaking through.

"Let's hurry it up, again!"

Gu Qing Shan decided to no longer waste time thinking, once again command his spirit energy to circulate his body just as he learnt from the booklet, quickly finding the 5th checkpoint.

This checkpoint is called the Xuzhong point.

Gu Qing Shan tried for a while, almost breaking through several times, but always falling short at the end.

He stood up, walked a few laps around the room to readjust his mind, took a deep breath and sat down again.

"Consume 2 Soul Points, comprehend 'the 5th stage: Xuzhong' cultivation method"

"Consumption complete, Current Soul Points: 0/6."

This time not letting him down, using the method comprehended in his Thought Sea, he was able to immediately break through the 5th checkpoint: Xuzhong.

Gu Qing Shan's inner spirit energy quickly rises again nonstop, when it finally calmed down, his total spirit energy was already twice that of qi training stage 4!

Before when he killed Xiong Hu, Gu Qing Shan still had to be a bit clever, but if it was him right now, a single arrow is probably enough to obliterate Xiong Hu.

He's now a qi training stage 5 practitioner, finally caught up to his cultivator peers in this world.

This is already very remarkable, as even in this cultivator world, for a 16-17 years old adolescence to reach qi training stage 5 isn't an easy task.

" Maximum Soul Points 1, current Soul Point limit: 7, Current Soul Points: 0/7″

His maximum Soul Point have increased from 6 to 7.

Gu Qing Shan looked at his Soul Points, thinking about the two remaining skills on the military bow.

Since his maximum Soul Point has increased, he's no longer in a rush to comprehend "Precision".

If he can save up 6 Soul Points, he can comprehend the final skill "Swallows Fly Twice" instead!

His past life's cultivation was no more, but his knowledge and eyes are still there. (1)

"Precision" can improve the hit rate and accuracy, a must-have skill, but "Swallows Fly Twice" is obviously a powerful Archery attack skill.

For a player, no matter how high your level is, without a strong attack skill, you can't even make use of your vast spirit energy.

Therefore, "Swallows Fly Twice" is more important.

Gu Qing Shan silently thought to himself, stood up only to feel an overflowing sense of power in this body, enough to even punch through the earth.

This is an illusion brought from breaking through too quickly, and having this feeling shows that his foundation has become somewhat unstable.

That's obvious, breaking through two stages in a row is rare even in the cultivator world.

Gu Qing Shan practiced a set of common military fist-fighting skill in his room, feeling no effect, he simply took the military bow and quiver, getting ready to leave.

As he passed through Zhao Lu's room, he could hear a loud snoring noise, seems like Zhao Lu finally got a good night's sleep.

Gu Qing Shan kept walking, soon leaving the outpost and disappeared into the night.

He's going to hunt some of the stronger monsters, both to consolidate his cultivation while struggling between life and death and to farm some Soul Points.

The jungle.

A brown-gray large serpent fell from the tree, its thick body slamming on the ground and made a loud bang.

The serpent is the hunter at the top of this jungle's food chain, having never failed a hunt.

Even demon beasts that are stronger than it, after struggling for a while would still fall to its venomous fangs, becoming food in its belly.

When hunting, this serpent monster has never felt impatience.

But today, it has met an acute hunter.

Only a few minutes after the battle began, both its eyes were shot blind, its 7-inch thick body was riddled with sharp arrows. Despite using all its strength, it couldn't deal any significant damage to the enemy.

The serpent monster breathed its last, full of unwillingness.

"Soul Points 5, Current Soul Points 7/7."

Gu Qing Shan came out from the shadow behind the branches, looking at the monster in front of him.

He went here once when he was still qi training stage 2, got chased by this serpent for more than 10 miles and had to use everything just to escape.

This time he's at qi training stage 5, his strength was more than doubled that of before, so he came back to kill it.

Among the common monsters, serpent and snake-types are relatively rare, there probably isn't even a second one in this whole forest.

The snake-type monsters whole body is a treasure trove, snake livers are an antidote for most poisons as well as being able to treat heavy wounds; snake blood can strengthen the five senses; snake meat when eaten can strengthen the body, snake teeth are great material for daggers and arrows.

This serpent monster has probably lived for over a hundred years, so its material will most likely be quite exceptional.

Gu Qing Shan took out a dagger, stabbed into the serpent's body and starts dissecting it.

Two snake livers as big as a newborn baby rolled out, caught by Gu Qing Shan.

The snake's liver is crystal clear, emitting a dull milky white shimmer.

This is definitely high-grade material, because of its rarity and efficacy, even in the cultivation world these things can only be found and never asked for. (2)

Gu Qing Shan carefully put away one of them, picked up the other and finished eating in just 2-3 mouthfuls.

Just a few moments later, the wounds on his body already starts to itch.

Gu Qing Shan was pleasantly surprised

I didn't expect it to work so quickly. Monster serpent's bile inside the liver can dissolve poison inside the body, as well as stimulating life force to close up wounds.

At this speed, in just about 1-2 hours all his injuries will have healed.

Gu Qing Shan went on to remove the snake teeth.

This place is too far away, furthermore right now being night, the time when demon beasts are out to hunt, wanting to bring this back to the outpost alone is like talking in your sleep.

Gu Qing Shan can only seize the time and choose the most useful parts to take.

Both the liver and teeth are stashed away, and Gu Qing Shan took out his marching water bag, dumping the water out and filling it with snake blood.

He tried to take a sip and is met with a disgusting taste.

Gu Qing Shan gritted his teeth, swallowed and closed the lid.

Can't drink too much of this stuff, qi training stage cultivators can't handle it.

After collecting all useful materials from the serpent monster, next is the real reason he came here.

This serpent monster was the most difficult to tonight, giving him 5 Soul Points at once, plus a few that were killed before, now it is finally the time for his harvest.

Gu Qing Shan took a deep breath, looking at the War God UI: "Consume 6 Soul Points to comprehend Swallows Fly Twice"

"Swallows Fly Twice comprehension complete, Current Soul Points: 1/7."

Heat flows from the military bow into Gu Qing Shan's arm, spreading over this body.

A variety of techniques: power control, spirit energy operation, hand movements, grasping the wind and distance, one after another appeared in Gu Qing Shan's mind.

After the heat circulated twice around Gu Qing Shan's body, it flowed into this Thought Sea and gradually dissipate.

It took so much work, but finally he learnt this powerful skill.

Note:

(1): "eyes are still there": a common saying in chinese is "the higher you stand, the higher your eyes become", it's commonly used to describe how your view changes as you mature. Here it is used to say that his ability to discern good items is still there

(2): "can only be found, but not asked for": an idiom in chinese, meaning something rare enough that you won't find it by asking around, but isn't very rare enough since you can sometimes find it randomly.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 17: Shifting Flurry

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan opens his eyes, pulling out 2 arrows from the quiver, set them both on the arrow, slightly pulled and let go.

As the 2 arrows quickly flew out, they drew a twisting curved pattern on the air, both pinning a single leaf to its tree.

Curved arrows!

Gu Qing Shan's heart slightly jumps, the Skill was just as he thought.

This way, the trajectory of his attacks becomes unpredictable.

"Using spirit energy to guide the path..."

Gu Qing Shan mumbled, then got ready to use "Swallows Fly Twice" again.

The 2 arrows shot out at different directions, each drawing a large curve, avoiding trees in their way, both hitting a fleeing rabbit around 100 meters away within the dense forest.

Even Gu Qing Shan, as a person who returned from more than 10 years in the future, was highly fascinated by this Skill.

So this is humanity's General-class archery Skill.

Gu Qing Shan paced back and forth, thought a bit to himself and raised the bow.

Rapid Fire!

Swallows Fly Twice!

As the bowstring kept being pulled back again and again, the arrows it shot all curved in weird ways, not hitting their targets.

Gu Qing Shan frowned, again fell into thought.

"Swallows Fly Twice" is a very good skill, but why can't he do a rapid fire with it, could it be that powerful skills like this have a cooldown?

No, that can't be right.

He experimented again and again, still not able to succeed.

Swallows Fly Twice is a high-level Archery skill, so if it's used consecutively you can't guarantee the precision anymore.

No, that's also not correct.

Gu Qing Shan in a frenzy-like state, kept experimenting again and again, halfway through he even unconsciously combined "Solid" in as well.

After an hour.

Two arrows shot turned into grey shadows, almost seeming like real live snakes, drawing a twisting curving trajectory, both hitting a leaf at the same time.

The arrows flying trajectory cannot be predicted at all, combined with a rapid fire speed, anyone that faces Gu Qing Shan's arrows will completely be overwhelmed, not knowing how or where to dodge at all.

Gu Qing Shan lightly nodded, lowering his bow.

Sure enough, you can actually do it, the only problem being whether or not you can spend the effort to think, to practice the skills.

Ping!

The sudden System sound made Gu Qing Shan's heart jumped.

Glancing up, he saw on the War God UI, the round button representing "War God Skills" was flashing a notice.

"User Gu Qing Shan combined three Archery skills into one, creating a new skill: Shifting Flurry"

"Shifting Flurry (primary), fire 5 consecutive arrows with unpredictable trajectory to attack enemies in a very short time period" (TN: as in elementary, the very first level)

This is possible!?

Gu Qing Shan opened his mouth in surprise, staring speechlessly at the "(primary)" next to the skill name.

The word "primary" means that there will be a higher grade.

Who would've thought he could create a Growth Skill just like that.

As he was still surprised, a shining small line of text appeared on War God UI.

"Growth Skills are exceptionally rare; user is advised to train it more in order to raise its level as soon as possible"

That's right, a regular skill's strength is dependent only on how much spirit energy is put into it, its output changes depending on how much spirit energy is used.

But Growth Skills are different.

A unique aspect of all Growth Skills is that, as a player train his Skill works more and more, its own power will also rise, all the way until heaven.

These types of skills are so rare you can only pray and hope to get one.

At later stages of the game, when Growth Skills have already reached a certain peak, some of them even started to be praised as "Semi-Divine Skills".

Anyone with a Growth Skill becomes a person for people to look up to in envy.

Gu Qing Shan breaths in and solemnly raises his bow.

Shifting Flurry!

Pew pew pew pew pew, five consecutive sounds, five shadows quickly flew, just like a chaotic dance of snakes and dragons!

Every arrow seems to be alive, drawing different arcs across the air, dodging every obstacle, finally hitting the same branch more than 200 meters away.

Gu Qing Shan is completely stunned, stunned by his own Skill.

After a while, he suddenly remembered something and asked: "System, can I keep combining regular skills to make Growth Skills?"

The War God UI is silent for a bit, then suddenly a line of text:

"Comprehending others' skills is just an initial function, helping the user to constantly create more Growth Skills, that is the true purpose of War God Skills"

Gu Qing Shan sighs, mumbling to himself: "So I was wrong this whole time, so this is the true value of War God Skills"

Looking at the row of buttons at the bottom of his War God UI, only "War God Skills" is active right now.

But this one function has already given him so much to be surprised about.

If one day, all of my skills are Growth Skills...

Simply terrifying.

Gu Qing Shan tightly grips the military bow, suddenly gaining greater a sense of confidence.

Growth Skills and Soul Points, both of these are very unique things.

Using Soul Points to increase his level and skills is already much more cost effective compared to using Experience points.

At least in the short run, through the use of "military qi training method", the amount of Soul Points required for every level is still trivial.

Gu Qing Shan can just use Soul Points to level up instead of being like the players in his past life, having to struggle and collect each and every bit of Experience point possible.

At later stages of the game, every level requires a terrifying amount of Experience Points, greatly slowing down how quickly a player can increase their own fighting strength.

Aside from that, there's also the War God UI, letting him create Growth Skills by himself.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly had a feeling, he can definitely go much further now compared to his past life.

Since his unexpected return to the past, Gu Qing Shan's heart was always under a constant pressure and a sense of urgency.

This is a lost age, a part of history where players didn't exist.

Since his return, he could see strange things that was different from his past life everywhere, many things that he didn't know about before are now quietly happening.

Even the near-invincible chaotic species Faceless Giant already appeared.

Gu Qing Shan could almost feel the grip of death inching closer and closer.

This type of intuition is instinctive, having saved his life in the past numerous times.

For the sake of the present, he has to desperately get stronger, so that in a future not far from now, at the time that death comes, he'll be able to find that one chance of survival.

Gu Qing Shan sighs again, glancing at the War God UI to look at his skill column.

Right now, on the skill column there are 3 skills "Solid", "Rapid Fire", "Shifting Flurry (primary)".

Swallows Fly Twice is already gone, completely replaced by Shifting Flurry.

Unlike the first 3 Skills he got, "Shifting Flurry" requires more spirit energy to control the arrows' flight, as well as having a "primary" ranking.

This is nothing surprising, stronger Skills naturally require more spirit energy.

After this, I'll have to spend quite a bit of time to train this Skill, quickly raising "Shifting Flurry" skill rank.

Gu Qing Shan quickly packed up and prepared to leave.

Not far from here, demon beasts seem to have already caught the bloody smell of the serpent's corpse, their roaring getting closer.

Pfft!

Without any warning, he suddenly coughed up black blood.

Gu Qing Shan was shocked, but couldn't help himself and coughed up blood two more times.

Wiping the blood off his mouth, Gu Qing Shan tried smelling it.

A faint foul smell.

This is poison.

Why was there suddenly poison in his body? And why did it get forced out?

Gu Qing Shan immediately became cautious, circulating spirit energy around his body to carefully examine himself.

There was nothing wrong with his body, in fact, thanks to the snake liver's nutrition, you could say it's been rejuvenated.

Even the spirit energy inside his Dantian became more fluid, more natural.

This is thanks to the rare snake demon liver.

He was fortunate.

It seems that he unknowingly got poisoned by the serpent demon during the fight from before.

Gu Qing Shan couldn't help but sigh.

The serpent really wasn't as simple as he thought, being able to poison him without him knowing.

If the fight had dragged on any longer, it's hard to say who would be killed first.

Luckily I didn't want the fight to drag on so I finished it off as quickly as possible.

If he didn't kill it so quickly, if he didn't eat its liver right away, if the poison hadn't been revealed so quickly, who knows what would've happened

Evidently, these kinds of rare demon beasts all have one or two aces hidden.

Gu Qing Shan felt a little bit of fear.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 18: Birthday present (1)

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

A day quickly went by, when Gu Qing Shan returned to Reality, exactly 1 hour has passed.

His phone on top of the bed was vibrating, when he picked up it, he saw 7 missed calls, all from Su Xue Er.

When Gu Qing Shan called her back, the call immediately connected.

Su Xue Er's delicate youthful face appeared on the screen.

"Qing Shan ge, I have some good news to share with you"

Su Xue Er excitedly spoke.

"Ah? What kind of good news?" Gu Qing Shan asked.

Su Xue Er breaths in deeply and spoke every word clearly: "I got picked early by Capital University, I don't need to take the entrance examinations anymore, I can immediately go and be accepted!"

Gu Qing Shan was affected by her bright smile, also excitedly replied: "Capital University is the best University in the Confederate, congratulations"

Suddenly, Su Xue Er showed a slight pout: "Sadly, my family already arranged everything, they told me to leave for the capital right away, so tonight I can't visit your stall for grilled meat as promised"

Gu Qing Shan lightly laughed: "That's nothing to worry about, when you come back I'll gladly make some for you any time"

After thinking for a bit, he continued: "When you're officially 18 and can legally drink alcohol, I'll personally mix a cocktail for you —-you should consider yourself lucky, a normal person wouldn't be able to taste my drink even if they want to"

To Gu Qing Shan, what he's saying is obvious, due to the influence of an acquaintance from his past life, whenever he has time with nothing to do, he would make some food, mix a few cocktails, treat himself to a nice evening of relaxation.

The amount of effort he spent on researching cocktail and liquor far exceeds first-rate standard, during his later years he even started to use the other world's materials to brew his own liquors that have health benefits.

Many strong people wanted to be his friend or companion, not because of his status as war supreme commander, but purely for the addictively delicious drinks that he crafted.

But when Su Xue Er heard the word "alcohol", her face suddenly reddened and spoke with a low voice: "Qing Shan ge, do your best on the examinations, I'll be waiting for you at the capital"

Towards the end, her voice almost became too small to hear.

But to Gu Qing Shan, a qi training stage 5 cultivator, he's capable of picking up even the smallest vibration in the air, not to mention such a soft and clear voice.

Gu Qing Shan being a returner who lived two lives, how could he not notice the slight romantic feelings behind those words.

He was surprised, as well as a bit unexpected —-we were just talking about eating and drinking, why did the conversation suddenly shift to that direction?

Of course, facing the romantic feelings from Su Xue Er, his heart couldn't help but beat a bit faster.

Just as Gu Qing Shan wanted to ask about it, he saw Su Xue Er avoiding his gaze, doesn't even dare to look at him and just used her hands to turn the phone off.

So embarrassing, I can't believe I just said that!! Su Xue Er felt her mind going a bit erratic.

Before when Gu Qing Shan wanted to confess to her in front of the whole school, it actually made her very sad and hurt, because she simply couldn't accept his feelings.

If she was to accept Gu Qing Shan's confession in front of everyone, not only will the adults in her family not accept it, but even the useless aristocrat of other clans will also secretly be out for Gu Qing Shan.

That isn't something Su Xue Er wanted to see.

Who knows all that was just a misunderstanding, and it was someone else acting behind the scenes.

At the prom night, Gu Qing Shan stay level-headed and dealt with everything well, bringing the case to an almost perfect close.

Su Xue Er was able to relax herself, thus seeing Gu Qing Shan in an even better light.

Which resulted in her actively contacting him today.

On the other side, Gu Qing Shan just stared at the air absentmindedly for a while, only until his phone vibrate from getting a notification did he finally pull himself together.

A message from Su Xue Er.

"Qing Shan ge, do you remember your previous birthday gift?"

Gu Qing Shan smiled a little, speaking into his phone: "At the time, you gave me a whole box of stars. You spent more than a week folding paper to make it, all 10 of your fingers had blisters, hurting so bad that you couldn't even pick up a pen, when you couldn't finish the test on time because of the pain, you were so worried that you cried"

He spoke with warmth in his heart: "Doing such a dumb thing, how could I forget?"

"Hmmph, you no-good bully, next week is my birthday so I want a birthday present!"

Gu Qing Shan closed his eyes and thought for a while, finally replied: "Sure"

The good memories of the past once again resurfacing, close enough to almost touch, Gu Qing Shan had to admit, he wasn't ready for it.

"Truly, they really are a good memories, hah"

Gu Qing Shan mumbled to himself, but already decided.

He left the lodging room, walked directly to the elevator and press the number 99th floor button.

The elevator went straight up, all the way to Chang Ning Steel Mech building's highest floor.

Gu Qing Shan went outside, stopped in front of the large central processor on the top floor and pressed his hand on the scanner.

An electronic voice rang out: "Identity certified, No.41157, please state your business"

This is the central Holo-Brain of Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology Building's System, every matter big and small within this giant corporation is single handedly managed by it.

Gu Qing Shan answered: "Requesting connection to Impartial Goddess"

As he made his request, the electronic voice sounded again: "Connecting to Impartial Goddess requires the most rigorous identity verification, as well as requiring verification of your personal Citizen Merit value of the to ensure the reputation of Chang Ning Steel Mech Research Institute will not be damaged by your personal actions. Do you confirm you want to connect to the Goddess?"

"I confirm"

"As you wish, verification will begin in one minute"

The electronic voice disappeared, but numerous mechanical arms shining cold light appeared from the floor, surrounding Gu Qing Shan and began a series of identification.

At the same time, the 99th floor entered a sealed state, ensuring no one can intrude in anyway.

"Iris identification passed"

"Blood identification passed"

"Unique biological signal match: 99.1759%"

"Testing clone unique characteristics, verified not a clone, DNA identification passed"

"Unique life vitality, records match, passed"

"Reading personal life records, concluded to be non-aggressive individual"

"Reputation records: good"

"Reading personal Citizen Merit..."

Gu Qing Shan stood still, silently waiting for the long and complicated cross identification to finish.

Impartial Goddess is the Confederate's central management system AI (artificial intelligence), in charge of keeping the Confederate running, responsible for all citizenship matters, and all her actions are done strictly in accordance to the Confederate Constitution of Rights.

Impartial Goddess can be called the crystallization of all Confederate top-level sciences, the greatest creation of mankind, the most glorious fruit of civilization herself.

Because Impartial Goddess' calculation speed is so horrifically high, her intelligence and warring expertise far eclipsing every other country, that no country dared to bare its fangs towards the Confederate for the last 100-year.

10 minutes later.

The electronic voice once again sounded: "Your personal Citizen Merit value is sufficient, identification passed, Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology company's Holo-Brain officially requesting connection with Impartial Goddess, No.41157 is recommended stay where he is and does not leave"

Personal Citizen Merit, the measure of contribution of a Confederate citizen to humanity's civilization and society as a whole.

The more you've contributed to society, the higher your Merit, as well as the better your privileges and treatment in society.

Some State-sanctioned universities when picking students will even review their personal Citizen Merit, if it's not enough, even if your examination score is excellent, you will not be picked.

"Impartial Goddess has accepted your request"

Suddenly the electronic voice changes, turning into a solemn female voice.

This female voice speaks every word with a unique sway, almost sounding like a special rhythm.

"Confederate citizen Gu Qing Shan, I am Impartial Goddess, please state your request"

"Please be noted, all manners of time-waste will reduce my current evaluation of you"

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 19: Birthday present (2)

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan seeing that Impartial Goddess have connected to the central Holo-Brain, lightly bowed and spoke: "I request Impartial Goddess to provide the materials as well as technical support to assist me in creating a Mech armor"

"Verified that citizen Gu Qing Shan possess relative Mech design capabilities"

"Verified that citizen Gu Qing Shan possess sufficient Merit"

"Request formed"

Impartial Goddess spoke: "A reminder to citizen Gu Qing Shan, Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology company's Central Holo-Brain AI possess enough capabilities to support 87.159257% of the current world's Mech research and development, knowing that, do you still want to exchange Merit to request my assistance?"

Gu Qing Shan answered: "Yes"

Impartial Goddess continued: "Initiating my personal assistance for Mech Armor design and creation requires 2000 Merits, calculating citizen Gu Qing Shan's total personal Merit"

For Confederate citizens, each and every Merit is extremely valuable, because Impartial Goddess will use that as a basis to determine a normal person's career advancement, privileges and treatment.

Gu Qing Shan had desperately spent all that time gathering Merit, aside from wanting to increase his chance to enter a good University, was because he wanted to spend that Merit during his University years and exchange a set of Mobile Mech.

Regular citizens basically will never have the chance to even touch a Mobile Mech in their entire life, and nobles won't be so generous as to just hand them out, unless you sign a contract that basically sell yourself to them.

Only here, at Impartial Goddess, can you use your valuable Merits to exchange for a Mobile Mech.

Of course, aside from requiring a clean background, you also need to pass a series of other prerequisites.

Not long after, a light screen appeared in front of Gu Qing Shan.

From Gu Qing Shan's birth until now, all the Merit he has accumulated are listed here.

"For submitting the overload limit test model for micro-power cores, Merit 30;"

"For giving gourmet society usage of Gu Qing Shan beef ribs barbecue's spice mix recipe, Merit 2;"

"Published paper: Mech simulation of human behavior theory, Merit 10;"

"For spontaneously participated in the fire disaster relief in the eastern district of ??Chang Ning County, Merit 9;"

"On behalf of Chang Ning County, participated in the Confederate Interstellar-type Warship Campaign Command Competition and won, Merit 5;"

"Attempted to save a woman from a river suicide, due to poor physical fitness, rescue failed, but the spirit is commendable, Merit 0.5;"

"The first to propose the mechatronic virtual human behavior theory, promoting the progress of Mech scientific research, Merit 80;"

...

"Citizen Gu Qing Shan, your total personal Merit is 2002.41, do you confirm to spend 2000 and initiate my assistance in Mech Armor creation?"

"Yes" said Gu Qing Shan without hesitation.

This time, he basically spent all his Merit.

"Exchange confirmed, preparation begin"

Impartial Goddess pauses for a second, then spoke again: "The S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress will arrive at Chang Ning county airspace in 1 hour and 25 minutes, please be prepared to board the fortress"

As Impartial Goddess finished speaking, a 3-meter tall Mechsuit was released from the wall and started walking forward.

When it arrived next to Gu Qing Shan, the mechanical cables connected to it all detached and retracted, the Mechsuit's cockpit slowly opened.

Gu Qing Shan looked at it for a bit, then said: "I have an additional request"

"Please speak"

"Please keep what I do this time a secret"

"In accordance to the Confederate Constitution of rights, all citizens engaging in creation-centric scientific research should be given the right of Privacy, to ensure their own safety and intellectual properties are not at risk. Request accepted, from this moment forward, Impartial Goddess will keep your secret"

Gu Qing Shan continued: "Aside from yourself, please ensure no one else is able to see the fruits of my research, and I want to be left alone for a bit"

"According to the Confederate Constitution of rights, the culmination of your research shall be kept secret, but Impartial Goddess have the right to request and use Confederate citizen's research results, citizen Gu Qing Shan, do you accept?"

"I accept"

Everything is properly prepared, Gu Qing Shan smiled.

The technological level of this era is much more behind compared to 10 years later, but with Impartial Goddess' assistance, my ideas can probably be done more or less.

This will be Su Xue Er's birthday present, as well as the greatest good will I have towards this world on the verge of the Apocalypse.

Time flies quickly.

Gu Qing Shan stepped onto the Mechsuit, controlled it to softly jump upward, and started flying straight up as the hatch above opens.

In the sky, a mid-sized Warship was waiting for him.

The Warship didn't have any personnel, controlled by Impartial Goddess herself.

As Gu Qing Shan boarded the Warshop, it quickly rose up to space.

An hour later.

Among the dark and silent void of space was an eye-catchingly bright Giant Interstellar Fortress.

Gu Qing Shan was standing alone in a sealed area.

This place is as large as 4 football stadiums, the only thing on the empty field was a floating virtual reality projection device in front of Gu Qing Shan.

"Begin Mech creation", he said.

Impartial Goddess's voice rang from all directions: "Mech creation preparations ready, please explain your creation intention"

Suddenly, Su Xue Er's beautiful face appeared Gu Qing Shan's mind, making him silent for a bit, then said: "I hope this Mobile Mech, even in the face of absolute despair, will be able to bring its pilot a hope of survival"

Impartial Goddess replied: "Intention too abstract, please use mechanical construction terminology"

Gu Qing Shan was speechless for a bit, then said: "Initiate life structure algorithm"

Impartial Goddess immediately replied: "Unable to initiate. Life structure algorithm is only a theoretical possibility based on current frontier Mech science, the algorithm in total have 2 rules unpassed, 7 formulas unestablished, 29 technical problems unsolved"

Gu Qing Shan scratched his head.

It's been so long that he doesn't know exactly which technical problems and theories are not yet solved.

Gu Qing Shan said: "Please list them one by one"

As he said that, a number of light screens appeared in front of him, each of them containing a different problem.

Gu Qing Shan went to the first of them.

"Ah, so it's the issue of standard metrics for multiple neuron transmission, I remember this problem being solved only just before the Apocalypse came"

"Well then, let's start"

Rolling up his sleeves, he starts the calculation on the light screen.

This problem is very difficult, Gu Qing Shan had to use half an hour to deal with it.

"Please check the equation" Gu Qing Shan requested.

"Initiating check" Impartial Goddess replied.

The light screen slowly sank into the ground, no longer seen.

10 seconds later, Impartial Goddess' sound is heard again.

"Equation correct, standard metrics established"

Good, after establishing the standard metrics, all the other ones are much easier to solve, Gu Qing Shan nodded satisfyingly, moving on to the next light screen.

He very seriously checked all the problems on every light screen, then said: "Hmm, this problem, please help bring up the model, I'll enter the corresponding formula"

...

For a while after, Gu Qing Shan kept solving the technical problems one by one, gradually completing the life structure algorithm.

Deep inside the fortress, on a large screen, Gu Qing Shan's equations, rules and form structures are being tested time and time again.

When Gu Qing Shan's research reached the halfway point, a notification popped up on the large screen.

"Target verified to fit the conditions for the 5th Article of Confederate Constitution of Rights, initiating corresponding plan, begin requesting authorization"

"Contacting Army General, Martial Saint Zhang Zong Yang"

"Contacting Navy Admiral, Sea King Lee Dong Yuan"

"Contacting Interstellar Supreme Commander, Song Tian Wu"

Three invisible lights emitted from the S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress, travelling to different locations.

"General, highest priority contact requested"

"Hmm? The President?"

"No, from Impartial Goddess"

Confederate Presidential Office, an immense ruckus was welling up.

Three military men in full uniform are quickly walking towards the President's office at the same time.

"Admiral Lee, why are you here?"

"General Zhang, welcome"

"Commander Song!"

On their way, many people greeted them, all carrying a face of fear and respect.

The commanders of all three major military branches gathered here at once, did a big incident happen?

Could it be Fuxi Republic have declared war and invaded them?

Everyone couldn't help but become uneasy.

The three generals didn't stop their feet and kept walking straight, unlike everyday, where they would stop to at least greet the officials that they have connections with.

The President's office was already opened, all the generals entered at the same time, saluting.

"Mr. President, Impartial Goddess is requesting you to immediately be connected" General Lee said.

The middle-aged man with grey streaks of hair turned around, his eyes questioning his secretaries.

One of the secretaries, the head of them all, said: "Sir, it's an emergency connection, but not because of war"

The elder man's face relaxes slightly when hearing that and commanded: "Generals, please connect the line"

One of the generals stopped his salute, opened the heavy suitcase he brought along and put the simplified interspace communication device in front of the President.

The interspace communication device lit up.

Impartial Goddess' solemn voice could be heard.

"A conversation of Top-secret Level is about to begin, please dismiss all non-related personel, otherwise in accordance with the Confederate Secrecy Agreement, terminating all personnel without sufficient Access Level"

Everyone who heard that turned pale.

Terminating means killing, what exactly happened that even Impartial Goddess would ignore the life of citizen just to keep a secret?

Everybody quickly left the room.

The only people left in the President's office are the 3 generals and the President.

At this time, Impartial Goddess' voice once again sounded.

"Preparing to engage all highest security protocols for the S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress, requesting sir President and 3 Generals to authorize"

"Why do you want to engage highest security protocols?" asked the President.

Impartial Goddess respond: "According to the 5th Article of the Confederate Constitution of Rights, every project in progress that have significance on the fate of humanity, or pushes the advancement of humanity civilization, is to receive the highest level of protection available"

The President's face became serious, asking: "What is happening on the S.W. Divine Temple?"

Impartial Goddess replied: "For the sake of secrecy, I'm unable to reveal at the moment"

The faces of the 3 General changed.

The only people here already have the highest Access Level in the Confederate, yet Impartial Goddess still refused to tell them about it.

Impartial Goddess is very rarely this careful when dealing with matters, what the heck is going on?

Although "actions that push the advancement of humanity civilization" is supposed to be a good thing, from their past experience, things aren't quite as simple as that.

The President thought for a bit, speaking: "I remember the last time that highest security protocols were engaged was 30 years ago"

"That's right" General Song replied: "that time was regarding the advancement of interstellar warp jump technology, the results of the first time our fleet experimented with space warp, was that they met space monsters"

30 years ago, the first group of Confederate Interstellar-series warships that tried interstellar warp jump, succeeded passing through the wormhole, arriving at a galaxy 500 millions light years away, and witnessed a horrifying scene.

A large soft-bodied looking monster was latched onto a planet, sucking something from it.

This horrifying truth, together with interstellar warp jump technology, was both listed as top-secret information.

The top-brass of humanity looks at each other, their faces serious as can be.

Any breakthrough in humanity civilization will always come with danger of the unknown, for the Goddess to act like that, it's not surprising.

The President sighed: "If even Impartial Goddess has already fully prepared for this, then we had better authorize her"

Impartial Goddess hearing that: "S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress, SSS-grade security protocols completed, seeking authorization from sir President"

The President: "I authorize"

"Seeking authorization from Interstellar supreme commander"

General Song: "I authorize"

"Seeking authorization from Navy supreme commander"

General Lee: "I authorize"

"Seeking authorization from Army supreme commander"

General Zhang: "I authorize"

"Authorization received, begin enacting SSS-grade protocols"

On the interspace communicator, a grand sea of stars appeared in front of them.

"S.W. Xiong Wu Interstellar Fortress returning in full speed, using S.W. Divine Temple as base, in charge of patrol"

"S.W. Shining Interstellar Fortress rising from the sea floor, using S.W. Divine Temple as base, in charge of alerting danger"

"Deploying Confederate Interstellar fleet numbered 1, 7, 16, serving as escort during the process"

"Interstellar Mech Armored Special Forces prepare for sortie, preparing weapons check, prepare for ignition, one minute until deployment to surrounding airspace"

"To prevent unnecessary trouble, requesting Martial Saint Zhang Zong Yang to personally guard the border"

As Impartial Goddess said that, everyone here all looked at General Zhang.

General Zhang wryly laughs: "You really can't escape work even with a tired old body huh"

The President consoled him: "Please do your best, after all, you're the only Martial Saint in the whole Confederate"

General Zhang sighs, opens the office door and walked about.

A minute later, he jumps into the air, creating a loud bang as he breaks the sound barrier, turning into a streak of lightning flying towards the sky.

"To prevent disturbance and prying from many countries, requesting Sea King Lee Dong Yuan to guard the sea border"

General Lee shakes his head and said: "The Goddess doesn't give orders to everyone at once, old Zhang probably thinks only he has to work hard"

The President: "Please, I'll tell him"

General Lee took out a few small bottles, looking at them.

"Closest to this place is probably the Yellow Sea"

Opening the bottle labelled "Yellow Sea", he poured out the sea water from inside.

The sea water floats in the air, very quickly concentrates into a single sphere of water.

General Lee hovers his hand above the sphere and said: "I'll be going now"

A second later, his whole body disappears together with the sphere.

Inside the President's office there's only the Interstellar commander and the President left.

Impartial Goddess' voice once again sounded: "Requesting General Song to stay at the Presidential Office, ensuring all matters are ran as normal"

General Song breaths out in relief: "Good, good, luckily I don't have to be on the road this time"

In space.

S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress.

Gu Qing Shan doesn't know anything about the ruckus that he had caused.

After 7 long hours of struggle, he finally resolved all the issues in the algorithm.

Gu Qing Shan breaths out and said: "Begin creating Mech Fighter Armor, using the life structure algorithm as base"

"Accepted, algorithm prepared, materials prepared, please construct Mech model"

"The model huh..."

Gu Qing Shan thought for a while, then decided to connect to his phone, sending a message from it.

"Mech Armors, what kind of appearance do you like?"

The message sent, no replies for a while.

Gu Qing Shan shrugs and said: "We'll wait for a bit"

Impartial Goddess remains silent.

At that moment, on the planet, Confederate capital city, at an idol concert

"Xie Shuang Yan!"

"Xie Shuang Yan!"

"Xie Shuang Yan!"

The crowd shouted excitedly.

That girl who's the dream of hundreds of thousands of people, microphone in hand, just about to respond to the excitement of her fans below.

Suddenly a number of large Mech Fighter Armors, as well as over 20 squads of Special Force agents surrounded the crowd of people.

The girl was speechless in front of the spectacle before her.

In the sky, an Interstellar Warship that covered the sky hovered above the outdoor concert venue.

"Silent, everybody remain silent"

"The concert is temporarily on hold, we will now begin filtering for hidden criminal personnels"

"Everybody is to remain silent, otherwise you will be immediately arrested and subjected to Impartial Goddess' step-by-step investigation"

The Special Force agents starts to check each and every person in the crowd.

At first the people were a bit annoyed, a few were even angry enough to shout curses.

But as soon as they heard "Impartial Goddess", everyone knew this wasn't a joke, and within a single minute, everyone has already calmed down and became silent.

Su Xue Er who was sitting on her VIP seat could now finally hear her phone ringing.

Before she could notice, the name on the phone had changed from "Impartial Goddess" back to "Gu Qing Shan".

Su Xue Er looked at her phone, happily smiled after reading the message.

"Qing Shan ge wants to personally craft a Mech model for me?"

In space

Gu Qing Shan immediately received the message.

He also smiled.

That's correct, I'm personally making it for you, except it's not just a model.

Gu Qing Shan replied: "Answer me first, what appearance do you want your Mech to have"

Su Xue Er serious thought for a bit, then replied: "I like the Blazing Angel"

Gu Qing Shan a bit surprised: "Angel? Why do you like them?"

"Because the Blazing Angel represent love and dreams, dummy" at the end of the message there was even a " ?? " icon

"Fine, fine, I get it, I'll get back to making your present now, see you later"

"How good are your handiwork skills? If the model doesn't look good I'll be sure to tease you about it ok. See you later"

Su Xue Er's words are sharp, but her heart felt sweet.

Gu Qing Shan cared enough to make her birthday present himself, no matter if it looks good or not, in the end, Su Xue Er would still be happy.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 20: A clue

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan put down the communicator and begun to craft the preliminary model for the Blazing Angel Mech.

Below the stars, a mysterious command was issued.

"Mission complete, all agents retreat"

The giant Interstellar Warship flew away from the concert venue's sky.

The Mech squadrons also started retreating, even Special Force agents that were in the middle of cross-examining the crowd quickly dispersed.

Su Xue Er put down her phone, just in time to see this strange scene, not understanding what happened: "Didn't they say they needed to investigate something? Why did they all suddenly retreat, the Confederate must be mad or something"

In the concert venue, many other people also didn't understand what had just happened.

Only the girl standing on stage was slightly looking up at the sky, or perhaps more correctly, looking past it, at the stars.

4 hours later.

Gu Qing Shan silently returned to Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology Research company.

Returning to his room at the 55th underground floor, he laid down to rest.

This type of continuous heavy workload, even a qi training stage 5 cultivator like himself would feel tired.

The Blazing Angel Mobile Mech Armor is already done, he's leaving it to Impartial Goddess for the series of quality tests, afterwards it'll be delivered directly to Su Xue Er.

Due to the technological sensitivity used in building it, the Mech is only available for Su Xue Er herself to use.

Impartial Goddess also requested his permission, for the next step in examining the Mech's capabilities, as well as to prevent the technology to spread, Goddess herself will dispatch the secret forces to protect both the Mech and Su Xue Er.

That way, Su Xue Er's safety becomes guaranteed.

Such a pleasant surprise, Gu Qing Shan gladly accepted.

Besides from that, the technical skills that he contributed, will be compiled and re-categorized by Impartial Goddess, to make it a top-secret level scientific research results report.

Done with the birthday present, Gu Qing Shan stretched his back, crossed his leg on the bed and started meditating.

Circulating spirit energy around inside provides immense benefits, which includes slowly nurturing the body.

Gu Qing Shan gradually sunk into deep meditation.

At this time, the whole world was in an uproar.

Numerous countries all contacted the Confederate, asking for reason for the mass military sortie that happened.

The President had to do his best to cover things up, taking a lot of effort just to get them to half-believe him.

Chang Ning country, the casino.

The sunglasses man and the beautiful woman are standing in a secret room, both of them looking at the messages on their communication devices.

The sunglasses man breathed out: "Scared me to death, I almost thought the Confederated wanted to declare war or something"

The woman was still looking intently at the screen, speaking: "Do you believe the Confederate President's words?"

The sunglasses man replied curtly: "A politician's mouth is always full of lies, something about a large-scale military drill to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Confederate's founding, like hell I'll believe that"

The woman replied: "There's still 21 days until their 300th anniversary, so that reason really is a little bit hard to believe"

Then she asked back: "But what could have happened that would require the sortie of 2 Interstellar Fortresses, 3 Interstellar Warship squadrons, as well as the whole of the Interstellar Mech Fighter Legion?"

The sunglasses man added: "Martial Saint Zhang Zong Yang, Sea King Lee Dong Yuan were also dispatched, both of them were respectively stationed at the border and the sea border for 5 hours, only retreating just now"

Both of them looked at each other, feeling this to be something big.

Just what the hell happened in the Confederate?

At this moment, the communicator suddenly lit up, from it a hoarse voice can be heard coughing.

Both of their faces tensed up, stood up straight and bowed at the same time: "Your Majesty"

The hoarse voice coughed for a while, before slowly speaking: "Hm, both of you have been working hard outside, especially you, my dear princess"

The woman spoke with a low voice: "Father, it is my duty"

The hoarse voice smiled a bit, then spoke: "Both of you go investigate, exactly what drove the Confederate so mad that they would gather that much military strength, only to disperse them all in just a few hours"

"Yes"

"That's right, my daughter, Anna, I give you temporary full control of the operation, you'll take full responsibility for whatever happens afterwards"

Full control, a right only given to General-rank officers.

Anna opened her eyes wide, tried her best to make her trembling voice appear calm: "Thank you, father"

The hoarse voice spoke: "Hm, take care of your body, and remember to stay safe"

The communicator shuts down.

"Your Highness Anna, congratulations" the sunglasses man whole-heartedly said.

The woman called Anna looked at the communicator, still in shock, feeling all emotions from sweet to bitter rushing all at once.

She had left the palace because she didn't want to be used as sacrifice for political influence, instead using her talents and effort for the best interests of the Empire.

His Majesty the king also didn't want to force his own daughter, only saying that if she can't handle the struggle outside, then she must return to the palace for the political marriage with the Holy Church.

The king had also let her find her way up the ranks from the bottom without any special treatment.

And that meant immense risk, even if princess Anna was a stronger person than most, she still faced the threat of death many times over.

Luckily, she finally made it to the top, furthermore gaining the acknowledgement of his Majesty.

Quickly pushing her own feelings down, Anna became calm and spoke: "Let's start working then"

"Yes"

After a night of toil, both of them still couldn't find any clues.

Impartial Goddess' algorithm is already almost perfect, so they had no chance if they wanted to find out the truth from the Military sortie.

After all, even the 3 main force Generals and the President knew nothing of what happened.

Anna tiredly massaged her forehead, yet not taking her eyes off the holographic screen.

"Your Highness, coffee"

"To keep my spirits up, please give me a Brandy instead"

"Can't you drink a little less alcohol?"

"Nope"

Anna answered with a smile, taking the bottle of Brandy and got back to work.

Under her feet, about 7-8 empty bottles are already neatly lined up.

Suddenly, she thought of something, turned back and look at the images on the projection screen.

"What?" the sunglasses man asked.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Confederate surveillance camera footage from all counties" the sunglasses man replied.

Anna blinked and asked: "What about our member recruitment mission? How many drones did we send out?"

The sunglasses man slaps his head and replied: "691 drones in total, shit, I forgot that asides from tailing the target, the drones can also record real-time information of the area as well"

The two of them quickly downloaded the footage and watched them one by one.

Time slowly passes.

Anna suddenly called the sunglasses man, pointing at the screen: "Look at this"

The sunglasses man looked at Anna's screen, seeing on it a Mobile Mechsuit, flying from the top of Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology company's highest floor.

The sunglasses man quickly operated his Holo-Brain, both hands quickly typing on the keyboard.

"Open the satellite images from space"

Intercept the image transmission from space satellites takes a bit more time, so they silently waited.

A bit later, the images are shown.

They saw the scene of over 10,000 meters in the sky, a mid-sized Interstellar Warship received the Mobile Mech, then flew straight up to space.

"At that time, the S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress also happened to be straight above from Chang Ning's airspace"

"You're right, it's possible that this Interstellar Warship was used to carry someone onto the Interstellar Fortress"

The sunglasses man mumbled to himself: "Then the problem now is, who was on that Mobile Mechsuit?"

Princess Anna suddenly asked: "Where was Gu Qing Shan at the time?"

The sunglasses man's hands quickly typed again: "I'll check"

A line of text quickly appeared on the Holo-Brain.

"Biological readings showed upwards movement, at the height of 19,217 meters, the radar could no longer track the signal"

Both of them looked at each other and remained speechless for a bit.

After a while, princess Anna slowly ordered: "Announce the news, the day after tomorrow at 9 A.M, St. Orlank Empire's head princess will make an official visit to the Freedom Federation, her first destination being Chang Ning County"

The sunglasses man hesitated for a bit and said: "Your double is still at the farthest reach of the Empire doing her charity work, not counting information travel time, two days simply isn't enough to make it cross 3 countries to get here"

Princess Anna continued: "Then add another sentence, this time the princess will try using a super-speed flight shuttle"

The sunglasses man asked: "Don't you think that's a bit too rushed?"

Anna stared at the surveillance report on the screen, quietly muttered: "No, I'm more afraid that we might be too slow"

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 21: Being fired

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Morning.

Gu Qing Shan changed into his work clothes, had breakfast at the worker cafeteria, then quickly went to his research room.

Spending about 5 minutes, he finished the project he was working on, then started to drift in thought again.

In a year's time, what realm of cultivation can he actually reach?

Using the power of a single person, wanting to change the future is almost impossible.

Is his fate resigned to just watch as the Apocalypse come, unable to do anything again?

Su Xue Er's smiling face appeared in his mind.

As he was thinking, an electronic voice suddenly rang.

"Hello, No.41157, CEO Su is requesting you to go and wait at the company's main lobby"

Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised, stood up and walked out.

Employees that are conducting research usually would not be bothered, except when summoned by the top-brass of the company.

But this isn't right, Impartial Goddess herself promised to keep yesterday's matter a secret, so she definitely wouldn't tell anyone about it.

Then what does the Su family want with me?

Gu Qing Shan got on the elevator and rode up to the company's main lobby.

Two men in black suits walked up as they saw him.

"Gu Qing Shan?" one of them asked

"That's me"

"Please follow me, Madame is inviting you to a party"

To be called "Madame" by them, it can only be Su family current generation's main line lady, in order words, Su Xue Er's mother.

Gu Qing Shan was a bit shaken, but answered: "Sure"

The two of them went with Gu Qing Shan out of Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology company, got onto a shuttle and went straight to the Su family's estate.

About 20 minutes later, the shuttle landed on a luscious grassy area beside a lake.

Gu Qing Shan exited the shuttle, seeing a wonderful natural lake scenery in front of him.

At the center of the lake as a small island, probably where the Su family is.

"Please get on the small boat and ride to the lake center", after the guide said that, they went back to work.

Gu Qing Shan said his thanks, quickly walking towards the lake shore.

He didn't have anything to complain about, the rules of this place he can probably guess more or less, shuttles and other transportation of the same type are forbidden to fly over the lake.

Part of it due to safety reasons, the other part is showing respect to the Su family.

A small boat was waiting for him on the lake shore.

On it, another young man was standing.

"You must be Gu Qing Shan", the other young man smiled and greeted him.

"I am, and pardon me for asking but who are you?" Gu Qing Shan said

"My surname is Bai, Bai Hong Wu, from Bai Sha county", the young man showed a face full of pride.

Bai Sha county, that place Lord's surname is also Bai.

This young man, to be able to stand here, as well as having a chance to go to the Su family estate, he could very well be from one of the 9 Great Nobles families, Bai family.

"Nice to meet you," said Gu Qing Shan, as he got ready to board the boat.

Bai Hong Wu suddenly stopped him: "Wait a minute"

Gu Qing Shan stopped his feet and looked at him.

Bai Hong Wu raised his head high, speaking: "The Su family tea party, a low-born like you is better off not joining it, otherwise you'd cause discomfort for all the aristocrat there"

Gu Qing Shan calmly answered: "It was the Su family Madame that invited me"

Bai Hong Wu sarcastically smiled and said: "Go back, I'll tell Madame Su that you got sick and couldn't make it"

Gu Qing Shan: "And if I don't?"

Bai Hong Wu calmly: "I come from Bai family of Bai Sha county, the head of Bai family is my father, I only need to say that much for you to know what would come to you if you don't obey me"

Gu Qing Shan: "Please get out of the way"

Bai Hong Wu calmly looked at him, like looking at a retarded person.

He shakes his head: "This is the Su family estate, I don't want to do anything that'll be rude, but I can guarantee, you'll regret this for the rest of your life"

Gu Qing Shan smirked, laughed and said: "I'll make you regret this for the rest of your life right now"

The lake island.

Su family's garden.

A middle-aged woman was sitting elegantly in the main pavilion, deeply immersed in making tea.

"Report, Bai Hong Wu and Gu Qing Shan have both arrived at the lake shore, but there was an unexpected occurrence"

"What happened?" the middle-aged woman didn't bother to turn around and simply asked.

"The two of them seemed to be in conflict, finally only one person got on the boat, and is on his way here"

The middle-aged woman smiled a bit and said to herself: "Bai Hong Wu seemed to have really grown, being able to drive the other party off without fighting, that's great, that's what it means to be a part of high nobility"

"Madame, it isn't as you think, the one on the boat is Gu Qing Shan"

The middle-aged asked in surprise: "Where's Bai Hong Wu?"

"He was stripped by Gu Qing Shan and kicked into the lake"

The messenger's voice became lower and lower: "All Bai family personnel who came with him was already on the island, only Bai Hong Wu who was following the proper procedures for asking for marriage was on the lake shore to wait for the boat alone, that's why Gu Qing Shan was able to do as he did"

"That can't be", the middle-aged woman closed her eyes, calmed down and ordered: "Bring Gu Qing Shan to me, take Bai Hong Wu to the back for a change of clothes, then bring him to the party, I'll be there to explain the situation later"

"Yes"

The middle-aged woman also lost interest in making tea, coldly laughed and mumbled: "A toad daring to dream of walking on the clouds?"

She sat there silently, waiting for the detestable brat to come.

As Gu Qing Shan arrived, he immediately recognized her in a single glance.

Madame Su looked very much similar to Su Xue Er, as well as frequently appearing in the news, so it's harder not to recognize her.

"Madame Su, how are you", Gu Qing Shan bowed

Madame Su only took a single look at him and said: "Don't talk, come here and listen for a bit"

Gu Qing Shan was slightly surprised, but indeed he could hear many voices not far from here.

This would be the back garden, a little more forward and it would be the main party hall and the hunting ground.

The sounds coming from that side travelled here were very audible.

Within the noisy crowd, a few are talking about current world situations, a few talking in low voices about forming a business relationship, the female voices that are there were discussing which types of clothes and bags are more fashionable, or where to go for their vacation.

Madame Su waited for Gu Qing Shan to listen for a while, and then spoke: "What do you hear?"

Gu Qing Shan answered: "A lot of military news and business conversations"

Madame Su curtly: "That's correct, the conversations regarding military are all at least lieutenant rank officers, the conversions in business are from our Su family and the Bai family, they're preparing to work together and invest a few dozen billions, forming a new company"

"What they're doing, are not only advancing the progress of the Confederate, but also changing the lives of millions of normal citizens"

"Those girls there, the clothes that they talk about, the bags that they want, all of them are luxury items that you couldn't afford even with years of hard work"

Madame Su looked at Gu Qing Shan: "You are not only low-born, but also poor and weak, if it wasn't because of Su Xue Er's recommendation, do you really think you could enter our Su family Steel Mech Technology Research company?"

Gu Qing Shan was silent for a bit, then seriously replied: "Madame Su, I assure you with my own skills, I'm more than qualified to enter your RD department"

"Do you still not understand?" Madame Su shook her head.

She picked up her phone and ordered: "Fire the Mech RD department's researcher Gu Qing Shan, effective immediately"

Just as Madame Su finished her words, Gu Qing Shan's own phone rang.

The other side curtly spoke

"From today onwards, you're fired"

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 22: A reunion

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan lowered his head, not saying anything.

Madame Su quietly looked at him and said: "Su Xue Er likes to make friends, we won't say anything against that, but your kind of poor parasite, planning to confess, wanting to use Su Xue Er to climb up in the world, I'm very much against"

Gu Qing Shan raised his head, wanting to speak: "That was Zhang Ye—"

Madame Su cut his words short: "Zhang Ye's matter was arranged by the Bai family, but so what? Bai family have been annoyed at your incessant attachment to Su Xue Er for far too long"

She started raising for voice: "Before, I wanted Su Xue Er to get the chance to meet all kinds of people, to see the many kinds of people in this world, but you, I've never seen as fit for her"

Gu Qing Shan once again: "Since becoming friends with Su Xue Er, I've not harmed her once"

Madame Su as if hearing something laughable, looked at Gu Qing Shan from head to toe.

Her eyes looking down on him like that made Gu Qing Shan very uncomfortable, but he held himself back from doing anything.

Madame Su spoke again: "Next week is my daughter's birthday, Bai Hong Wu's present for her is a personal-use island, valued at 80 milions Credits. And you? A pathetic Mech model?"

"You tapped our phone conversation?" for the first time, Gu Qing Shan squinted his eyes, but still tried to explain: "it isn't a Mech model—-"

"Stop, no matter what tricks you use, no matter what you give her, it doesn't matter" Madame Su once more cut short his words, her face full of contempt.

She stood up, looking at him from above.

"I forgot to tell you, my daughter had awakened a mutated elemental power, she's a Wind Supernaturalist"

Gu Qing Shan suddenly lifts up his face, looking truly glad.

Metal – Wood – Water – Fire – Earth, these are the 5 primary elements, Wind – Lightning – Light – Dark – Sound, are mutated elements.

Wind element is very good, extraordinarily useful, a Supernatural power that many desires.

In the past life, Su Xue Er also awakened to her Wind element, but that was a matter of 2 years later.

This time, she was able to awaken it early, and that's a good thing.

Because the Profession called Supernaturalist, the sooner they are awakened, the more potential they have towards the end.

Madame Su unhappily: "What are you so happy about? I'm warning you, from now on do not go near my daughter, do not contact her, a forever low-born commoner like you have to know their limits"

"This is my advice to you as the lady of Su family, as well as my last warning"

She doesn't even want to look at Gu Qing Shan anymore, elegantly turning around, softly stepping out.

This small matter taken care of, she now have other things to worry about — after all, this is still a Su family party, as the lady of the house she have to host it.

"Madame Su, please wait a minute"

From behind her the voice of the brat spoke up.

Madame Su turned around, coldly looked at him.

Gu Qing Shan stood up and spoke with a sincere face: "I have to tell you one important thing"

"Speak"

Gu Qing Shan: "I do not attach myself to Su Xue Er, never have and still have no intention of climbing up using the Su family, we are friends as equals"

Madame Su feeling herself almost unable to contain her anger, loudly laughed and said: "Equal? I seriously doubt you even know what that word really mean you imbecile"

For tone became incredibly cold: "This place doesn't welcome you, get out"

Gu Qing Shan blinked twice, then silently left the pavilion.

A while later, Madame Su let go of her clenched hands

"Go" her eyes contained a sense of coldness "Tell the Nie family and Bai family, Gu Qing Shan is about to leave the lake island"

"Yes"

"Also, I don't care what they want to do, but it cannot happen near the lake island"

"Understood"

After her order, Madame Su's mood finally lifted a bit

Looking up at the morning sky, she mumbled: "You still didn't give up after all that, it'll be too late to regret once you're about to die"

The day was coming to an end.

As Gu Qing Shan went back to the slums, he suddenly found his apartment already sealed by the police.

Even though the matter of Xiong Hu's death was concealed by Nie family, but a whole room on the 22th floor suddenly disappearing is still too eye-catching.

Gu Qing Shan just stood there for a bit.

He already lost his job at Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology RD department, so it seems he no longer have anywhere to go.

Searching himself, the key given to him by the hitman Wang Ming is still there, so he turned around, about to go to that residential area.

As he walked past a secluded alleyway, Gu Qing Shan suddenly looked down at his shadow.

The shadow was waving to him, then escaped from his feet and ran towards a small alley.

"A God's Chosen Skill..."

This type of strange ability, Gu Qing Shan can immediately tell.

Using this method to greet him is already very polite, even showing him what the ability is, seems like they bear no ill-will

No matter, taking a look won't hurt.

Gu Qing Shan followed the shadow into the small alley, finally entered a bar at the street corner.

As he entered, the bar door closed behind him, on it a sign that says "Closed for business"

Soft and low music, a faint scent of cigarette in the air, dim lights.

On the bar, two people sat.

One of them a burly man with combed back hair, wearing sunglasses.

The other a beautiful, slender woman with blazing red hair just reaching her shoulder.

Both of them looked at Gu Qing Shan, wearing a friendly smile.

"Ah? It's you" Gu Qing Shan spoke, surprised.

Hearing the unexpected words, the two people looked at each other, a bit confused.

"Ah, my bad, I just felt like I've met you somewhere before"

Gu Qing Shan covered up his slip of the tongue, face unchanged.

When they heard that, the two of them suddenly had a look of understanding.

The red-haired woman stood up, reaching her hand out and spoke generously: "Good evening, I am the eldest princess of St. Orlank Empire, Anna, you must've seen me from the news on TV"

Straight forward, saying whatever she wanted to say, seems like it's the same familiar style that he knew.

Gu Qing Shan face lifted into a smile, extended his hand, accepting a quick handshake and then pulled back.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Gu Qing Shan"

He said

As he remembers, she had a habit of liking to stay clean, always hated other people touching her directly.

Sure enough, Anna slightly raised her eyebrows in surprise, her smile becoming more sincere: "Student Gu, please take a seat"

Gu Qing Shan sat down directly opposite of them.

He glanced at her for a bit.

Who knew, after so many years, he would be able to meet her again, and this time in her youth.

Gu Qing Shan silently sighed.

St. Orlank Empire eldest princess, Anna Medici, the Thorned Rose of the Church, owner of the death flame, already awaken as a Fire Supernaturalist at birth, as well as her most famous title

—-Queen of the Apocalypse.

She was a miserable person who fought against fate, a beautiful soul that struggled in despair, only to perish in the end.

In his past life, when Gu Qing Shan was still in his early days in the other world, she was already a legendary character in both worlds.

Unintentionally, she happened to save Gu Qing Shan's life once.

For her, it was an unconscious action that held no significance, but Gu Qing Shan have always remembered it deeply.

A few years later, when Gu Qing Shan had grown to become an existence that stands on the same footing as her, he came to return the favor: "I don't have a habit of not repaying other people favors, if you ever need me to do anything for you, just say the words"

She only laughed lightly and answered: "Fine then, if you want to repay me, how about making me a good drink"

He then seriously went around, collecting the best cocktails' secret recipes and alcohols of both worlds, trained until he was a master at the mixing bar, and finally when he was ready to find her again.

She had already faded away.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 23: The Scorpio Palace

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Who would've thought that he would meet her again so soon when he returned to the past.

Gu Qing Shan's mood immediately became much better, completely forgetting about Madame Su.

The sunglasses man also stood up and shook Gu Qing Shan's hand.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Feng Huo De, you can call me Feng, or Huo De, either is fine"

"Nice to meet you too"

Gu Qing Shan looked a bit at this man.

His name seems familiar, but he only remembered that he died quite early on, not the specifics.

It's fine, there's no need to worry too much about that anyways.

"Before anything else, let's first have a drink"

Gu Qing Shan went behind the bar, looking at the liquors on the shelf.

At this very moment, his aura completely returned, back to the time of Apocalypse, back to when he was a Great Sword Saint that did everything frankly, back to the supreme commander of a nation's greater-than-a-million military force.

Feng Huo De looked a bit at Gu Qing Shan, whispered: "This is going a bit off-script, do we follow the plan and persuade him, or directly kidnap him?"

Anna stared at the young man before her, then again at the liquor bottles, silently answered, "Let's wait for a bit, see what he wants to do"

As the two of them spoke, Gu Qing Shan had already taken quite a few bottles out, turning around and placing around 6-7 of them on the bar.

"Not yet, not enough"

He mumbled, then walked back and forth to pick out a few more bottles, then finally stopped.

"Good brother, what exactly are you doing?" Feng Huo De couldn't help but ask.

Gu Qing Shan looked at him for a bit, then took out three glasses from under the bar and answered: "This is this life's first meeting, we have to have a toast to celebrate"

"Not a bad idea" Anna was interested.

A hobby outside of work.

The Queen of the Apocalypse loved to drink, and she especially loved cocktails.

In the past life, there was once a bartender that used his own creation called "The Scorpio" and became her favorite, he almost became her first every boyfriend too.

But it was "almost" because he didn't succeed.

Because she died.

Gu Qing Shan at the time, spent two days and nights constantly moving, hoping to save her, but in the end he didn't make it, only able to come close enough to see the world rending flames from afar.

She used the last bit of her power to bring with her an almost endless horde of demons to the grave.

Gu Qing Shan shook his head, calmed his emotions and began to serious craft the cocktail.

Three minutes later.

A blood color cocktail was in front of Anna.

The cocktail swirled like a burning flame, but as you looked carefully into the core of the flame, all you could see was the darkness of the abyss.

Anna looked down at the cocktail, then up at Gu Qing Shan.

"Drink", Gu Qing Shan's mouth lifted, trying his best to smile.

"What is this one called?" Anna picked up the glass

Gu Qing Shan looked at her, answered simple: "The Scorpio Palace"

This is the result that came from his improvement of if after he drank "The Scorpio".

His masterpiece, a drink made with the best of his abilities in honor of her.

"Why is it called that?"

"The Scorpio has a palace, around it the stars converge as guards, an undying star in the sky"

"What a... dumb way to explain it"

Anna scoffed, but unconsciously, all the pain and suffering of her past few years all resurfaced at once.

Lifting the glass, she drank it all in one gulp.

Bitter. Intense. Burning.

Destruction. Loneliness. Sadness.

Finally, a deep lingering hint of sweetness.

Having closed her eyes for a while, Anna opened them again and looks at Gu Qing Shan in surprise.

"I like you", she said.

"Your Highness!" Feng Huo De stood up shouting.

"Really? Then let's go with a glass of Blood Thirster next" Gu Qing Shan looked down, not letting her see his face, his hands quickly crafting the next cocktail.

In a few moments, two more glasses are made.

A light toast, as the both of them drank it down in one gulp.

"You're not a bad person huh!"

Anna joyfully laughed, slapping Gu Qing Shan on his shoulder.

Gu Qing Shan knocked her hand off, sincerely asked: "Don't make a scene, I also have a glass of Hell's Flame here, are you drinking or not?"

He couldn't help it, he felt an urge to make all his creations in the past 10 years for her.

Anna eyes almost seemed to gleam in delight, then neatly sat down: "I'll drink!"

Staring intently at the young man quickly mixing the drinks behind the bar, she asked: "However, the name Hell's Flame, why have I never heard it before?"

"This is my new creation, only made in the past recent years"

As Gu Qing Shan spoke, he has finished a glass of mixed alcohol with ice and slid it over.

Anna took it, as she lifted the glass to have a look, all she saw was an intense, silent black.

Tilting her head upwards, she once again finished it all in one gulp.

"How strong, seems like your mood must've been not so good in the past few years" Anna licked her lips, commenting.

Gu Qing Shan lightly laughed, not saying anything.

Feng Huo De on the side was panicking, not knowing what to do.

Originally this was to pry some secrets from the Confederate, as well as stealing some talents away, but the talent hasn't even come over yet and they might possibly have already lost their princess.

Gu Qing Shan also took notice of his mood.

"No need to worry", Gu Qing Shan said as he gave him a bottle of whiskey: "We're simply drinking here, business can be seriously discussed when business time comes"

Feng Huo De took the bottle, his face unconvinced: "Hah! I'm not hopeful"

On the other side, Anna put down her glass and was carefully observing Gu Qing Shan again.

Suddenly, a PING noise.

And again, repeatedly.

The three of them all took a look to see it was Gu Qing Shan's phone.

Gu Qing Shan took out his phone, placing it on the table to look.

"Confederate citizen Gu Qing Shan, you are under suspicion of murder, please stay right where you are, law enforcers are on the way"

"Student Gu Qing Shan, because of your involvement in a murder case, as well as reported for theft by multiple nobles, Chang Ning County Nobles Private School hereby officially announce your expulsion"

The light on the phone then turn off.

Gu Qing Shan just sat there, as still as a statue.

"Whoa, that's too bad" Anna tapped his shoulder a few times "but don't be discouraged, there's always an obstacle in life, come with me to the Empire, I guarantee you'll receive the highest possible treatment, no, how about I personally grant you a title of Baron instead?"

Seeing Gu Qing Shan not responding, Anna again spoke: "There seems to be quite a few people outside, how about you let me take care of them for you?"

Feng Huo De opened his eyes wide, looking at her Highness the princess in shock.

The cold and distant princess herself would treat a man like that?

The hell!

Don't tell me this brat really is going to seduce their princess away!

Gu Qing Shan suddenly laugh, then spoke slowly: "I really just wanted some peace and quiet you know"

Outside, the deafening sound of police sirens rang.

A huge commotion.

Voices, footsteps, even the sound of shuttle engines, getting closer and closer to the bar.

Gu Qing Shan stood up and said: "I had even hoped to join the examinations, entering a University, to finally fulfil one of my regrets"

A bow suddenly appeared in his hand out of thin air, as well as three quivers full of arrows on his back.

Holding the bow, he went towards the bar door.

With every step, his body almost seems to glow a bit more.

As he stood at the door, opening it, a flowing invisible aura surrounded his whole body, a pure gleaming light seem to be there.

Just like a sword out of its sheath.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 24: Surrounded

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

"You guys should leave, no need to get involved in this, we can talk more later" Gu Qing Shan said as he walked out.

Anna immediately became sober.

"God damn he's handsome" she whispered, a strange gleam in her eyes.

Feng Huo De spoke: "Your Highness, there are too many people here, we should leave now"

"Leave your ass, this is such a good chance" Anna's face became serious, "Begin the evaluation"

Feng Huo De wryly laughs: "Evaluating his strength at a time like this really isn't a good idea, if you're found out, diplomatic relations can become very tense"

Anna still dead serious, looked at him and said: "Our mission right now is to find out why Impartial Goddess made a big deal out of all this, and Gu Qing Shan is without a doubt the star of the show"

She emphasized every word: "His Majesty is waiting for our answer"

"Yes"

Feng Huo De also became serious, quickly carried a small-sized machine from the bar storage room, placed it down on the ground and started to operate it.

"Gu Qing Shan's biological signals recorded, unique features locked on, begin observation. Order: 270 observational drones and satellite, get to your positions"

"We're in position" numerous voices rang from the communication device.

"Espionage Satellite in place" an electronic voice responded.

"Very good, comrades, this time's mission is very crucial, ensure all monitor sensors are working properly"

"Roger that, Major"

"Good, then begin", Feng Huo De pressed confirmed the order with a button.

"Professionist Comprehensive Evaluation launched, the System will begin collecting data"

"April 27th 3091, 21:37 hour, Confederate citizen Gu Qing Shan, Male, 18 years old, potential evaluation begin"

A screen appeared in front of the two people, it was the scene of Gu Qing Shan walking out of the bar.

The area has already been evacuated, not a single person in sight on the large road.

The police siren sound was coming closer, on the sky, 4 police shuttles can be seen quickly approaching.

The shuttles are not yet here, but a voice had already rung across the whole block.

"Attention, person below, you are under suspicion of a crime, stand still and do not move, otherwise we will be forced to use violence"

Gu Qing Shan stood still and coldly stared at the shuttles.

Suddenly, a red light flashed from one of the shuttles and caught Gu Qing Shan's attention.

"The laser pointer is active" Gu Qing Shan's face tensed.

Sure enough, a second later, the small-sized arc canon attached under the shuttle fired a shot with a loud band.

The blue light ripped across the sky, the arc canon shot hit the streets, blowing a deep hole in the ground.

The dust and rubble picked up by the wind obscured everyone's vision.

In the sky, one of the shuttles questioned with a strict voice: "Police Shuttle 172033, why did you open fire, explain yourself"

"I received permission from above, please check your latest order, sir" the shuttle that fired answered without a care.

The shuttle from before was silent for a bit, then spoke again after a while: "Confirm scene, make sure to find the body"

All four shuttles slowly got closer.

The dust slowly cleared, showing the scene below.

There was nobody on the ground.

The murder suspect is standing on top of a streetlamp, his eyes coldly glancing towards them.

"Fuck, he's still alive, prepare to open fire at once!"

But they didn't have the chance.

Gu Qing Shan pulled the military bow's string, his spirit energy flowed and shot 4 consecutive arrows.

All the policemen could see was an afterimage.

Boom!

All four small-sized police patrol shuttles caught on fire, struggling to safely land on the ground.

Their main engine was all shot by an arrow, if they do not land soon there's risk of an explosion.

Anna whistled and spoke: "How professional"

Across from her and Feng Huo De, countless data was showing up on the screen of the Holo-Brain device as the evaluation system is quickly calculating.

Gu Qing Shan stood on top the streetlamp, his face calm.

He's already a qi training stage 5 cultivator, even simple spirit energy infusion on the arrows have more power compared to before.

From the time he killed Xiong Hu, he's already more than twice as strong.

"Ha ha ha, Gu Qing Shan, you're a Confederate citizen, but not only did you resist arrest, you even attacked the police!"

From afar, a triumphant laugh can be heard.

Gu Qing Shan looked back, seeing Nie Yun standing on top of a building, together with his extravagant shuttle.

Behind him, more than a dozen burly men stood.

Nie Yun crossed his arms, making a regretful face: "Even though we were fellow students, but as an aristocrat of Chang Ning County, I have a duty to help the police catch criminals"

Gu Qing Shan looked as him, calmly asked: "You don't really have to keep clashing with me like this you know"

Nie Yun answered with spite: "You made me lose 20 million at the casino, and then killed my Steward, you think I'm easy to mess with don't you?"

Turning around, he spoke: "Go kill him, the one who gets his head gets 10 million"

As soon as the burly men hear that, they all looked at Gu Qing Shan.

A bounty worth 10 million!

Some jumped down, others climb the walls, but their target is only Gu Qing Shan.

Nie Yun lifted an elegant glass of red wine, laughing loudly: "30 genetically modified Martial Masters will kill you through number alone, this is the true power of a Noble!"

Gu Qing Shan looked at the crowd of Martial Masters approaching him, then silently raised his bow

His hands moved so fast it left afterimages as the military bow let out a dull sound every time.

Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!

The face of the man who ran it first changed, his body shifted to one side

A grey shadow passed through where he stood before.

"Naïve"

The man's face showed a cruel smile, but before he could say anything else, another arrow had already pierced his chest.

A large gaping hole in the middle of his body, large enough to see what's behind.

The burly man fell on the ground, no longer moving.

In the sky, more and more arrows are flying, faster and faster, Gu Qing Shan's face still as cold as before, both hands not stopping for even a second, almost like he became a human shooting machine!

As the rain of arrows fall, the martial artists all scurry to dodge, no longer having the leisure to move forward.

But very quickly, they found themselves unable to dodge at all.

Each grey shadow turned into their worst nightmare as it takes away their lives.

One of the Masters seeing the situation turning unfavorable took out a suitcase from behind, pressing a button on it.

An exoskeleton armor expanded from inside and quickly enveloped him.

Exoskeleton armors have quite the good defense, not only does it increase the user's strength, but also comes with a firearm system, a standard for frontline army soldiers.

He's a genetically modified Martial Master, essentially the same as taking steroids, even though his strength is that of a Master, his true skills aren't, so he doesn't care about using firearms.

A true Martial Master would rather use their bare hands to wrestle in a fight than to bother with these things.

Gu Qing Shan immediately noticed him, turned his aim towards the man and activated Rapid Fire.

Pssh pssh pssh pssh pssh!

After the sound of consecutive impacts mixed with the crackling of electricity, the martial artist spurt out a cloud of blood, fell on the ground and no longer moved.

On the exoskeleton was a deep hole.

This type of defense is a little bit stronger than a small-sized Mech's armor plating, but facing Gu Qing Shan's spirit energy infused arrows, it still isn't enough to make a difference.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 25: A fight of dragon and tiger

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

However, the death of this Martial Master also provided a chance for everyone else.

3 other Martial Masters quickly closed the distance, already at the streetlamp.

They looked at each other, then all jumped on the streetlamp at the same time, aiming at vital points on Gu Qing Shan's body.

You could say their combination was solid as they completely surrounded Gu Qing Shan, not giving him any room to escape.

Gu Qing Shan held his bow in one hand, the other lightly pressed downward

"Hah!"

As Gu Qing Shan shouted loudly, the spirit energy inside his Dantian flowed outwards like a tsunami.

You can clearly see with your own eyes a blue light becoming solid, flowing from his body outwards in all directions.

This is the most basic spirit energy release skill, called "Spirit Pressure".

In the other world, cultivators who are at Rejuvenation or Ascended realms casually releasing Spirit Pressure can force a whole city of people to lay on the ground, unable to move even if they wanted to.

With Gu Qing Shan's qi training stage 5 Spirit Pressure, he's only able to create a thrusting force.

But to these people who've never seen this kind of power before, this is equivalent to bullying.

The 3 Martial Master didn't even have time to react. Flung outwards by the thrusting force they flew through the air.

"Good target practice"

Gu Qing Shan slightly squints his eyes and draws his arrows. Not even using a Skill, he simply infused them with spirit energy and released.

The 3 Martial Master flying through the air got shot full of holes, as they made contact with the ground, they were already dead bodies.

Gu Qing Shan stood on the streetlamp, held his bow and looked around.

The 30 Martial Masters all got shot to death, their bodies scattered around the street.

"Bastard, that was 30 Masters..."

Nie Yun's face changes nonstop, his legs already shaking, almost unable to stand.

He gritted his teeth, went in front of his shuttle and bowed respectfully: "Uncle Ma, seems like I'll have to trouble you after all"

An old man walked out of the shuttle, hands behind his back, back slightly hunched and looked out at the street.

He's inspecting every single dead body very carefully.

"What a cruel brat, unfortunately the things called arrows are useless against me"

As the old man spoke, his knees slightly bent, then a loud sound as his whole body shot like a cannon ball towards Gu Qing Shan!

Not afraid to attack from the air from such a distance, seems like he's a Grandmaster-class opponent, Gu Qing Shan's eyes are as sharp as ever, instantly recognizing his opponent's true abilities.

The old man suddenly clasped his hands together, waving it in front.

Gu Qing Shan's face changed, jumped away without any hesitation, landing on another streetlamp.

At the same time, while the old man was still in the air, still at least a few dozen meters away from Gu Qing Shan, but he already struck with both his fists.

"Rushing Arm Cannon!"

Bah—-Boom!

First a light impact, then a huge explosion sound as the streetlamp got struck and destroyed, only leaving half of it left.

"Brat, you sure run fast", the old man said as he pursued.

Gu Qing Shan doesn't waste time for words, simple lifting his bow and shot.

The old man simply waved his hand nonchalantly and all the arrows were struck away from their course.

Gu Qing Shan frowned, a bit annoyed

"Using bare hands to make shock waves, with this strength, it has to be a Martial superpower"

Advancing to Martial Grandmaster rank also has a chance to awake a random superpower, the old man here clearly awoken to a Martial superpower, particularly in his hands.

What he said isn't wrong, facing arrows that fly straight, he only needed to use the superpower in his hands to change their course.

Gu Qing Shan kept retreating, the old man in nonstop pursuit, as they moved, the streetlamps on both sides became collateral damage.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

More and more streetlamps fall as the old man got closer and closer.

"Die, brat, I'll take your head here!" the old man shouted as he leapt in.

Gu Qing Shan still not saying a thing, only silently pulled his bow back into an arc.

Then he suddenly turned back, shouting: "Shifting Flurry!"

The longbow's string sounded again and again.

Grey shadows that almost seemed alive, like dragons or snakes flew through the air, drawing unpredictable arcs.

"How is that possible!" the old man shouted, suddenly stopped his feet, cautiously looked at all directions.

The 5 arrows arrived at the same time!

The old man's body as flexible as a fish in water, twisting and turning, dodging the incoming arrows.

The power of these arrows are much stronger than before, much more than he expected, together with the sly trajectory, the old man had to use all this strength to deal with it.

A Martial Grandmaster naturally gains a bit of Spirit sense, whenever an arrow came close, he's always reacted on time, either by shifting his body, or using his hands to strike them away.

Only fright without any real danger, he evaded all the arrows.

"What kind of Archery is this?"

The old man was breathing heavily.

He's also slightly regretting his choice, if he knew that the arrows could twist and turn like that, he wouldn't have rushed out like this.

Slowly approaching the enemy would've been much safer.

But now, as the two of them fought they've already arrived at an intersection, with plenty of room to maneuver, the enemy's strange Archery skill have an extreme advantage.

Their current distance is also perfect for him to attack.

Could it be this brat calculated this?

The old man could feel a chill coming up his spine.

"Archery for murder" as Gu Qing Shan answered, his hands moved, suddenly increasing in speed, consecutively activated his Skill.

Shifting Flurry!

Shifting Flurry!

Shifting Flurry!

Three consecutive "Shifting Flurry", numerous arrows turned into a deadly flower of shadow, completely surrounded the Grandmaster.

Even dealing with one "Shifting Flurry" already took everything he had, this time he could no longer get out unscathed.

Pssh pssh pssh pssh!

The sound of arrows hitting flesh isn't loud, but in the silence of night, it was heard clearly even from afar.

The Grandmaster's body spurt out a shower of blood, he staggered, then finally fell down.

His whole body was riddled with arrows like a porcupine, the spirit energy on them went into his body and already extinguished his life force.

When the Grandmaster died, his eyes couldn't even close, in it you could almost see a sense of regret and unwillingness.

Nie Yun was completely stunned.

This is a Grandmaster, an existence that eclipsed Masters, a powerful existence that even awoke a Martial superpower.

Even a Supernaturalist would not easily offend a Grandmaster.

This is already the strongest fighting force of the Nie family, this time he was dispatched purely to get on Bai family's good side.

Fuck, why is this brat so strong.

Cold sweat soaked Nie Yun's body.

Right now, preserving my own life is most important, when Bai family act it'll be the end of him.

After all, Bai family is still the biggest of the 9 Lords, not someone his family could compare to.

As he thought that, Nie Yun raised both his hands up, shouting: "I'm the eldest grandson of Nie family, I surrender, Gu Qing Shan you had better..."

Pew!

A single arrow flew, hitting his chest.

Nie Yun touched the arrow on his chest, staggered backward bit by bit, then fell on the ground.

Blood leaked out from both his wound, his mouth and nose.

I'm going to die, Nie Yun suddenly realized.

His privileged life, immense fortune, bright future, is all leaving him at this very moment.

No, it can't be, why do I have to die!

Like a demon, he raised a harrowing scream: "Gu Qing Shan! You're the same as me, you kill whoever you spite just because you have power, the more you kill the closer you are to death, I curse you! I curse you to receive the worst kind of torture before death, dying without a place to even bury your body!"

"I'm not like you" Gu Qing Shan lowered his bow "my whole life, I've killed and gotten revenge by killing too many times to count, but I've never used my power to look down on others"

Looking at all the corpses on the street, his face still remained unchanged.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 26: The Martial Saint has arrived

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

In the bar.

Princess Anna rubbed her eyes, then looked at the screen once again.

The Grandmaster's body is still lying there on the ground.

"This can't be..." her eyes showed disbelief.

The young man on the screen that have shocked her since the first meeting, right as he was walking outside to face the enemies, she was still thinking about how she would save him when he couldn't handle it.

Who would've guessed, the results would be like this.

On Gu Qing Shan, there seemed to be a mysterious cloak, not letting her see through, yet at the same time attracts her so.

"Yes, this isn't right at all, he's improving too quickly, unless he was hiding his strength last time" Feng Huo De also commented.

He was busy operating the Holo-Brain, bringing the results of the evaluation out on the screen.

"Target's current strength estimated to be Grandmaster rank, power unidentified, suspected to be God's Chosen or Supernaturalist, details unknown"

"Loading target biological data..."

"Confirmed target haven't used genetic modifier drugs"

"Conclusion: Gu Qing Shan, Male, 18 years old, estimated potential: S"

Feng Huo De looked on the screen, sighing: "18 years old with a Grandmaster rank strength, I really want to know what the God's Chosen Skill on this monster of a person is"

Suddenly a communicator was ringing.

Anna turned it on, asking: "What happened?"

"Mole report, Bai Sha county Fighter Mech squadron on the way, 7 seconds later will arrive at the scene, 100km from here, Bai family Warships are gathering"

Anna shut down the communicator, stood up and said: "I'm going to go save him"

Feng Huo De hurriedly stopped her, saying: "Your Highness, you absolutely cannot show yourself right now, the Empire's princess openly massacre people at the Confederate will be the most serious diplomatic scandal, it will lead to an all-out war!"

"I don't care!"

Anna said as her hands clasped together, forming a pose of praying.

"God of Death! From the flames, I call upon —–"

Bah! Her clasped hands got knocked down by Feng Huo De.

"Your Highness, let me take him, you have to leave first" Feng Huo De said with a serious face.

"You can't! Your Shadow God's Chosen Skill's evolution level is too low, you're definitely unable to escape from their scanners"

The communicator once again rang.

Feng Huo De impatient, slapped the call button and shouted: "What!"

The voice from the communicator sounds scared beyond control: "Firebird report! Firebird report! The Confederate's Martial Saint is coming"

"What!" Anna opened her eyes wide "where's he coming from, why can't I sense him"

"He's coming from above! He's coming from above!"

Gu Qing Shan draws an arrow, squints and evaluates the coming squadron of Mech Armors.

"091 Hawk-series Mobile Mech, decent fighting power" he pulled the bowstrings tight, "but the construction isn't quite rational"

Lightly letting go, as the bow snaps back to normal the arrow was covered by a layer of visible spirit energy and flew.

A flash.

A clank, the arrow slid across the armor of the Mech, flew off course and away from sight.

"Tch, again"

Gu Qing Shan quickly drew his bow, another shot.

Boom—-

The arrow shot into the Mech's knee joint center, a hulking Mech forged from steel, took an arrow to the knee and keeled over.

Gu Qing Shan retreated a few steps, dodging the enemy's small-sized ammunition system, once again drew another arrow and pulled his bow.

The arrow flew through the sky.

As a Mech raised its large main Arc cannon, the arrow flew into the muzzle, all the way to the back and ignited the explosive laser-type arc mortar.

The mortar's power isn't a joke, immediately the Mech's upper half got blown off, crashed down and unable to move again.

"What the hell, is this really something bow and arrows can do?" Feng Huo De looked at the screen and gritted his teeth.

Anna was unblinkingly staring at the screen and said:" He shot at the 091 Hawk-series Mobile Mech's hidden weak point, it was written on our intelligence research record"

"Probably a coincidence, how would he have known such an obscure thing?"

"Not a coincidence, I saw him aiming for it"

"Fuck, the Martial Saint is here!"

The two of them immediately stopped talking and even held their breaths.

Anna hands are clenched tight, staring at the screen worriedly.

Outside.

Gu Qing Shan took aim, drawing his bow ready to fire again.

Suddenly, he felt something as he relaxed his aim and looked up at the sky.

A black shadow was coming from above.

So quick!

Gu Qing Shan hurriedly retreated, hiding himself behind a high wall.

A huge booming sound on impact, a 10-meter crater was made on the large street intersection.

The Mechs cautiously stopped.

"The enemy's arrows are too powerful, suspicion of being Supernaturalist, calling for reinforcements! Calling for reinforcements!" the commanding Mech quickly took the time to report.

"Reinforcements?"

A voice was heard from the crater.

"Seems like the situation isn't too bad"

As he spoke, a figure jumped out from the crater.

It was a middle-aged man.

Thick brows, sharp eyes, tanned skin and a body that stood as straight as a javelin.

Dark green military uniform, black boots, on his shoulder, there was a sword and shield —–a sword and shield, the Rank of General.

Standing across from the Mech squadron that was ready for battle, he spoke: "I am Zhang Zong Yang"

All the Mechs suddenly stopped, the soldiers from inside the cockpits jumped out, raising their heads in salute.

"Martial Saint!"

"Military God sir!"

"Bai Sha county, 477th Special Force reporting sir!"

Zhang Zong Yang looked at the people across from and spoke: "As military men, who was it that told you to pilot Mech Armors, go on the busy streets to kill a person?"

The soldiers hesitated for a bit, as the leader responded: "It was the Bai Sha county's Lord order, sir"

As the military force of Bai Sha county, they had the duty to work under the orders of the Bai Sha Lord.

"Dog shit aristocrats"

Zhang Zong Yang spoke with contempt, no longer disciplined the soldiers, turned around towards where Gu Qing Shan was hiding and shouted: "Gu Qing Shan, come out"

Gu Qing Shan thought for a bit, then came out.

Zhang Zong Yang looked at the young man, his face complicated: "The President wants to see you"

Rewinding time a few minutes ago.

Space.

The S.W. Divine Temple.

In the large room that Gu Qing Shan was in before.

On hundreds of screens, numbers and symbols are flowing, not stopping for even a second.

These screens are arranged into a sphere shape, surrounded by a specially designed Mobile Mech, analyzing each and every small detail of it.

The Mech stood still unmoving.

It's not like regular Mechs, big and bulky, also unlike other specialized Mechs that carry a whole arsenal on him.

It looks much more streamlined and mobile.

The screens glowed a deep white on the Mech, looking almost like flowing water.

Suddenly the Mech's head moved.

And then it moved again.

That's right, the Mech at the moment is looking around the silent space.

—–just like a real living entity.

Suddenly, hundreds of screens all shut down at once.

Only the large screen closest to the Mech is still operating.

On it showed one word.

"Perfect"

As the word faded, three more appeared

"Ahead of time"

Then, lines of text appeared

"In accordance with promise, hiding Gu Qing Shan's personal data, research results are to be used by Impartial Goddess with consideration"

"Adding citizen Gu Qing Shan's personal Merit, based on his contribution of 21 groundbreaking scientific researches, calculated as follow:"

"Gu Qing Shan's personal Merit total: 799,873,957,281,439 points"

"Increasing Gu Qing Shan's personal Authority Level"

"In accordance to the Contribution to humanity civilization algorithm, calculating Gu Qing Shan's Authority Level"

"Calculations complete, Gu Qing Shan's increased Authority Level is: Highest Leader"

"Found personal data to contain crimes: Murder, Theft. Begin crime analysis"

"Crimes unfounded, actions found to be done in self-defense, special amnesty granted, analyzing current situation"

"Chang Ning county military force summon in progress, target: Highest Leader"

"Current situation updated: Eminent Danger"

"Found Gu Qing Shan's Authority as Highest Leader, initiating personal safety measures"

"Measures created: One, Two, Three, Four"

"In accordance to success rate, Measure Three selected, contacting sir President"

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 27: TV appearance

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

"Sure I don't mind putting him under my direct protection, but why does it have to be like that?"

The President asked as he looked at the message on the screen, his face a bit confused.

Impartial Goddess's voice could be heard from the screen: "According to humanity's history of strife, to protect a young person still in his growth for a long period, a solid figure like you backing him is necessary sir"

The President deeply sighed and asked: "The reason why this person must be protected, you can tell me that at least"

"In accordance with our agreement, I cannot say, but you can ask him yourself"

General Zhang next to him thought for a bit, then asked: "Then, can you tell us his Authority Level?"

The President's eyes lit up, that's a good idea, from this angle they can find out more about him without violating Impartial Goddess's agreement.

Sure enough, Impartial Goddess spoke: "Sir President's Authority Level is: Highest Leader, General Zhang's Authority Level is: Leader, authorized access to this information"

"Gu Qing Shan's personal Authority Level is: Highest Leader"

The President spat out all the tea he was drinking just now in surprise.

Impartial Goddess once again spoke: "Gu Qing Shan's life is under threat at the moment, requesting sir President to make the arrangements"

"Just talking won't stop people from Bai family" the President said as he tries to regain his composure, using a handkerchief to wipe his mouth, "Zhang Martial Saint, please personally go, if it takes too long I'm afraid he might not be alive anymore"

"The Confederate suddenly got another President out of nowhere... Fine, I also want to see, what kind of person he is"

...

When Gu Qing Shan came, the Presidential office was already neck-deep in work.

Inside the President's office, there was only the President standing at the window, looking at the capital's night sky.

From afar, he looked like a normal old man with grey hair, basking in memory of his glory days.

"Sir President, the person is safely brought back" said General Zhang.

The President immediately got back his spirit, the aura on him changed into a solemn but dignified feeling.

He looks intently at Gu Qing Shan, then said smilingly: "Good evening, should I call you student Gu, or Mr. Gu?"

"I'm already expelled from school, so you can call me Mr. Gu" said Gu Qing Shan.

"Then Mr. Gu, it was under the request of Impartial Goddess that I brought you here, I hope you don't mind" said the President.

"I don't mind, in fact, I have to thank you for saving me" Gu Qing Shan sincerely said.

Right now his strength is still in its growth phase, if he has to face enemies that are too strong, he might not be able to finish them off.

Not to mention, he was using the power of one person to face two whole aristocrat families.

They definitely had more people that haven't joined the fray yet.

If it had continued, when the time comes for him to go to the other world, he would have no choice but to go there to hide, returning after an hour.

Then afterwards, he could only leave Chang Ning county and the Confederate itself.

The President smiles, then became serious again, asking: "Mr. Gu, I don't know if this is appropriate, but as the President of the Confederate, I have to know why you've gained so much attention from Impartial Goddess —–never before have the Goddess been this serious about a 17 year old citizen, as such right now I have to confirm that your existence will mean no harm to the Confederate as a whole"

"That's simple" said Gu Qing Shan "please connect to Impartial Goddess"

"I'm here" a solemn female voice was heard.

The three people looked around, to find Gu Qing Shan's phone was lit up.

Impartial Goddess have the ability to connect to every information electronic devices, so the three of them wasn't surprised.

Gu Qing Shan thought for a bit, then: "Please show what we've made to the President and the General"

"Citizen Gu Qing Shan, please confirm your authorization"

"I authorize"

It's fine to show them, since a few days later, after the Mech is done testing it would be delivered to Su Xue Er anyways.

When that time comes, it would definitely come to light.

He's just showing it to the President a bit prematurely.

In history, this President was a person of respectable character, his governing was also excellent, if he has the chance to make a good relationship with him, Gu Qing Shan doesn't mind showing a bit of Mech technology that's ahead of the era.

Regarding the game that begins one year later, when the time comes, it would also be appropriate to prepare for when he needs to borrow the nation's power.

That way, there would be much fewer people that die.

A screen showed up in front of the 3 people, revealing the Blazing Angel Mech currently on the S.W. Divine Temple.

"What is this? A Mech?" General Zhang closely stares at the screen, his eyes not wanting to miss a single detail.

"It seems to be a bit different from normal Mobile Mech Armors"

The President wore his glasses, also seriously evaluating it.

"Authorize demonstration mode, Authorize form 1 weapon system demonstration" Gu Qing Shan spoke

"Authorization received, demonstration begins" Impartial Goddess answered.

10 minutes later.

The President's office is opened, everyone was moving about busily, preparing for a live news announcement.

"General, please let me borrow him for a bit" a fashionably dressed female personnel said.

"Be my guest, I'll be outside waiting, call me when things are about to start" Zhang Zong Yang answered.

Gu Qing Shan immediately was taken away by the woman, and put in front of a make-up table.

The woman looked at him for a bit, nodding her head: "Looks decently handsome enough, but for these kinds of occasions, a bit more formal is better"

She took the powder brush, giving Gu Qing Shan a bit more shade on his face, giving orders to her assistance to prepare a few formal suits, another to prepare a bunch of different ties.

"Come, we'll pick out one that fits you best, to leave a good impression the first time they see you" she excitedly spoke.

Gu Qing Shan reluctantly sighs, sat down to let the woman do as she likes.

On top of a skyscraper outside the Presidential office.

Martial Saint Zhang Zong Yang was taking one puff after another out of his cigar, like this is the only way for him to calm down.

As the Army supreme commander, a Saint-rank Martial artist, he has seen so many strange and unusual things in his life, but he still couldn't contain his excitement.

"This kind of science, this type of Mobile Mech technology... Those idiots, why would they want to kill him" Zhang Zong Yang shook his head.

He suddenly remembered something, took out his phone and called a number.

"You lot have a family gathering today correct? Very good, turn on the TV, wait for the President's official announcement"

"Remember, do everything you can to stay friendly with the person next to the President, become his ally if possible, hell, try and get him to come to Military Academy"

Right as he hung up, another person called

"Hm? Sea King, what's the matter?"

"I don't know"

"Really, I not hiding anything, I don't know what you're talking about"

...

15 minutes later, the President of the Confederate officially made an announcement, live streaming it to the whole Confederate.

He cites the history of the Confederate, professing his respect to the many heroes who died on the battlefield, then using that, he started talking about the time he served in the army, citing his remembrance of his fallen comrades, finally announcing his help and guardianship of a war orphan.

Right then, Gu Qing Shan was gestured to come on stage.

The Confederate treats its veteran as well as remaining family members of fallen soldiers very well, its society as a whole respects soldiers.

Because everyone knows it as fact, that without soldiers at the frontline risking their lives, there would be no peace in the Confederate.

The President himself giving a show of respect like this would only improve his image in the citizens.

Impartial Goddess herself verifies on the scene that Gu Qing Shan is the son of one of the President's old comrades, ensuring there would be no doubt.

"In just 20 days, it will be the Confederate's 300th founding anniversary, I am appealing to all to mourn the passing of soldiers on the battlefield and support their family members, as they are the silent protectors of our home, as they deserve to be treated with respect"

On the main screen at the bar, just as the President's speech finished, the live stream was over.

"The fuck, just half an hour ago he was under suspicion of murder, why is he suddenly supported by the President of the Confederate himself now?" Feng Huo De mumbled.

Anna spoke: "Obviously, because the Confederate found him, if I'm not wrong, this would be Impartial Goddess' protection measure"

"Why do you think so?"

"His parents did pass away long ago, but they were just normal people, and has never been on the battlefield"

When Anna opened Gu Qing Shan's personal record, the information inside had already changed.

Gu Qing Shan's parents originally died in a car accident, but that was changed to be killed in action.

"Only Impartial Goddess have the ability to alter personal records like this," Anna said.

"What, is he Impartial Goddess' son or something" Feng Huo De tilted his head, still very confused.

Anna angrily pounded the table, stood up to go outside.

"Your Highness, where are you going?" Feng Huo De asked.

"I clearly saw him first, and they dared to steal him from me!"

Anna quickly went out.

Chapter 28: The Su family

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

At the same time, on Lake Island.

An old man wearing a retro Chinese jacket was sitting on the main seat ordered: "You can turn it off"

The President's speech just ended, as the screen was turned off, the entire main hall was silent.

No one spoke a single word.

"Father—-" a middle-aged man tried to say something.

Sitting next to the middle-aged man was Madame Su.

It seems they were Su Xue Er's parents.

"Don't say anything yet"

The old man stopped him, again spoke: "The battle footage, show me again"

"Yes sir, right away" someone answered.

Soon after, the screen was lit once more.

Gu Qing Shan walked out from the bar, the spirit energy flowing from him immediately caught the old man's attention

"Mutated 5-Elements, Wind-type spirit power?" The old man showed a face full of interest.

When Gu Qing Shan used a single arrow to blow up the police shuttles, the old man was surprised: "This level of destructive power is more similar to Metal-type spirit power, how strange"

Finally, when Gu Qing Shan activated Shifting Flurry, turning the Grandmaster into a porcupine, the old man went completely silent for a while.

A Su family Steward muttered: "It's not any of the 5 main Elements, also not the 5 mutated Elements, if it isn't any of them —–could it be it isn't a type of Supernatural, but an unseen God's Chosen Skill?"

When Martial Master Zhang Zong Yang showed up, everybody's face tensed up.

"Gu Qing Shan, the president wants to see you" as the Martial Saint on the screen said that, the footage ended.

No one in the hall spoke a single word, it was so silent that even a dropped needle could be heard.

The old man thought for a while, then asked: "Borrowing the hands of Bai family and Nie family to get rid of him, whose idea was this?"

Madame Su's face paled, but her husband already tapped her on the shoulder and spoke up first: "It was our idea"

The old man looked at his son, then took out a phone.

A few moments later, the call connected.

"Grandpa, how are you calling me, did you finish your closed meditation?" Su Xue Er's surprise voice can be heard.

"Yes, grandpa had something to ask you"

"What it is grandpa?"

"The person called Gu Qing Shan, how did you come to befriend him?"

"Ah? Why do you want to know what grandpa?"

"Hm, he's my dear granddaughter's friend, of course I want to know about him, if you won't say then I'll just go investigate him a bit"

"Ah, no don't grandpa, fine I'll tell you"

Su Xue Er tone was sulking, but her head was as clear as ever.

Grandpa is Su family's head of power, if he asking directly like this then she might as well honestly tell him.

"He's —–very hard working, also very talented"

"How so?"

"The time we were learning about Mech research, during one of our practical lessons, the Mech's weapon system was faulty, so it pointed the Arc cannon at us, while everyone was so scared they all scrambled to run away, he was the only one that jumped out, and screamed at the Mech 'the target is a citizen'"

"You should know, the mass-produced type of Mech used for security patrols highly prioritize citizen safety, so as he said 'citizen', the Mech immediately pointed the cannon upwards and shot it at the sky"

"Since then I began to take notice of him, then I found out he did quite a few small-scale technological research by himself, so I changed my view of him"

The old man hearing that said: "That's fine then, I hope you two can get along well, grandpa will call you back later"

He put down the phone, then ordered: "Check Gu Qing Shan's Mech research situation, I remember one of you say he was an employee at our Chang Ning Steel Mech Research facility"

"He's already fired" a voice timidly replied.

"Hm? For what reason?" the old man turned around, his tone changed.

His questioning shout was dignified but not angry, yet the one who got questioned was shaking, glancing at Madame Su.

Madame Su bowed her head and replied: "I fired him, because I didn't want him to use our Su family's company, using that to get climb up to Su Xue Er"

"Climb up?" the old man's brows furrowed, his mouth almost grinding that word.

Suddenly the person who was supposed to check the profile uttered in surprise and reported: "It's strange, my Authority Level isn't high enough so I can't check his personal records"

The old man spoke: "He's no longer part of our company, of course you don't have the authority, use my Authority instead"

He went forward, putting his hand on the Holo-Brain.

"Welcome to the Confederate personal record database, venerable sir Su Xing Chao"

"Request access to Chang Ning county's records under my jurisdiction, 17 years old male Gu Qing Shan's personal scientific research record"

The screen stopped for a bit, then showed a line of red text:

"Highest Top-secret"

The electronic voice also responded: "I'm sorry, your Authority Level is not enough, considering your distinguished status, I recommend you seek direct authorization from Gu Qing Shan"

"My Authority isn't enough?"

The Su family's head Su Xing Chao opened his eyes wide, a glimmer of life flashed through.

"Father, there must be a mistake, your Authority Level is only below that of the President and the 3 Supreme Generals, how could you not check the record of a low-born poor brat" Madame Su said.

"No, Impartial Goddess won't make that kind of low-level mistake" Su Xing Chao picked up his phone and dialed another number

"Elder Su, how are you" on the other side, a confident voice is heard.

"Zhang Martial Saint, there's a matter I would have to trouble you with"

"No need to say that, please talk, I'll try my best to help"

"Gu Qing Shan—-"

"I'm sorry, elder Su, there's nothing I could say to you about this person, because the matters involved are too serious, I'm very sorry"

Su Xing Chao put down his phone, became silent for a while, then suddenly spoke again: "This sly fox, I'm sure he knows something"

Looking at the red letters "Highest Top-secret" on the screen, Su Xing Chao felt extremely annoyed.

Then he slapped his hand the table, ordered: "Immediately prepare 100 million credits, donate it to the Confederate's scientific research department, have them transfer it to support Gu Qing Shan's research, we'll prepare manpower to support him as well"

His assistant quickly prepared then spoke: "It's been done, please authorize"

"I authorize"

"Connecting to the scientific research department ——hm? We were interrupted"

"Interrupted?"

Problems one after another, Su Xing Chao couldn't help but be annoyed as he personally looked at the screen.

A line of text appeared on screen: "From this year onward, Gu Qing Shan's personal scientific research funds will be fully provided by Impartial Goddess, no other methods of donation is required"

Su Xing Chao's pupils contracted, then he tried another way: "Then directly donate the money to him, as support for his further education"

The assistant wiped his sweat, quickly operated the procedures

"It was also rejected by the System!" he frightfully said.

Even a direct donation is rejected? This has never happened before.

All the people in power here raised their faces, wanting to see exactly what's happening.

Then another line of text appeared on the screen.

"From this year onward, Impartial Goddess and the President of the Confederate will take full responsibility for citizen Gu Qing Shan's personal spending, no one else is to interfere"

Su Xing Chao was stunned.

Everyone else didn't even dare to breath out, silently waited for the family head's orders.

"How regretful, a Highest Top-secret level researcher was actively fired by our Su family" said Su Xing Chao as he shook his head.

Madame Su didn't know what to say, only tried to explain herself again: "I was afraid that this poor brat would taint our Su Xue Er, wanting to take one step to climb up to heaven"

"YOU IDIOT!"

Su Xing Chao shouted with a thunderous voice, slapping Madame Su flying with one hand.

He couldn't hold his anger in anymore and shouted: "Use your head a little, how many years has it been since the Confederate had another Highest Top-secret science researcher, do you know how long? What level and what kind of research it is, did you look into it at all?"

"I'll tell you, it was 30 years ago, the research was the Interstellar warp jump technology that changed the world!"

"Poor brat? One step to heaven? Hah!" Su Xing Chao's anger not yet soothed, sarcastically continued: "The President himself is using his name to protect him, the Martial Saint wouldn't leak a single word about him. What about Impartial Goddess? Impartial Goddess is straight-up using taxpayer's money to fund him!"

He looked at the confused and tearful Madame Su, continued without stopping: "Such a person, and you're still afraid they'll taint your daughter? Afraid that they'll use her to climb up? Ridiculous! Open your god damn eyes and look, right now I can't even climb up to him if I wanted to!"

"Father, little Ling was only worried about our dear daughter so she didn't carefully consider everything" Madame Su's husband stepped up, trying to follow up for his wife.

Su Xing Chao's anger subsided a little, but still looked at them disappointedly: "Worried about her daughter? Hah, worrying about your daughter requires you to kill someone? What experts you are at killing people, but total fools at hanging on to them! Do you not understand? Killing people will only lose other's loyalty, and gaining loyalty is the only true way to continue a family line!"

He shook his head: "Looking at the results, even your daughter is a hundred thousand times better at this than you are"

Su Xing Chao tiredly rubbed his forehead, then ordered everyone: "From now on, no matter who it is, no one is to interfere with Su Xue Er's matters, no one is to offer any help either, that will only make yourself seem too desperate and make them hate you even more"

"Also, the matter of Bai family's marriage proposal, put it off, no need to make any reply"

"Yes sir"

"Smooth out everything, I want to personally go to the capital to see my granddaughter"

"...Yes sir"

Chapter 29: A sudden change

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

At another place.

The Bai family and Nie family heads are sitting down for a chat.

The Nie family head is a lean old man, the more they talked, the more agitated he seemed, the blood vessels on his neck bulging, his whole face red with anger.

"My eldest main-line grandson is already dead, even if he's the President he's not going to stop the anger of an old man" (TN: the eldest son of the eldest son in the family is very important to Asian people)

The Bai family head is a middle-aged man with a small goatee, wearing black leather gloves, his hands are clasped together on his crossed legs.

He casually said: "This person stripped my son naked and threw him into a lake, a big disgrace for our Bai family"

"Tell me what you want" the old man looked at him and asked.

"Then how about this, as long as the brat isn't under the President's protection, our Bai family can deal with him" the Bai family head spoke.

The Nie family head looked at him intently, asking: "Why do you want to act all? No need to lie to me, I'm already a man with half his foot in the grave, petty tricks won't work on me"

The Bai family head smiled, then answered: "From my sources, that brat might have created quite the significant scientific breakthrough"

He sighed: "Our Bai family have also investigated, and according to Confederate law, as long as he's alive, his breakthrough can only be under his monopoly"

The Nie family head squint his eyes: "How selfish, and that's why you're not pleased?"

"I'm very not pleased"

"But then what method do you have to get this groundbreaking result that even shocked the President in your hands?"

The Bai family head opened his hands and shrug, saying: "You know young people, always thinking about the perfect love, rescuing the damsel in distress and all that, our Bai family will deal with the brat, but first, your Nie family need to secure the Su family little miss"

"Then we're on the same page" the Nie family head stood up, using his cane to slowly leave.

Suddenly he turned around, asking: "Last 2 questions, if your answer can satisfy me, I'll act"

"Please go ahead"

"That girl, isn't she originally your family's target for marriage?"

"Elder Nie must be joking with me? Comparing immense profit with that, your choice and mine surely are the same"

"The second, are you not afraid of the President's wrath?"

"I'm not that good with history, but in the 300 years of our Confederate, I remember quite a few Presidents being assassinated?"

The Nie family head stood there staring at him for a while, then finally: "I'll look for an expert to deal with the Su family girl, the brat is your responsibility"

"Please be assured, when the time comes to reap the benefits, I won't forget the Nie family's efforts" Bai family's head stood up and solemnly said.

The Nie family head nodded, leaving satisfied.

The Bai family head lit a cigar, as he finished half of it, suddenly: "Come"

"I'm here"

"Prepare the men, and make sure to observe Nie family, when they're done with their end of the deal, swiftly massacre them all, leave no one alive"

"Yes sir"

The President's office.

Everyone has already left, including Martial Saint Zhang Zong Yang, the only people left here are the President and Gu Qing Shan.

"So, you really won't consider taking a position at the science research department?" asked the President.

"Yes, I still want to go to University" said Gu Qing Shan.

The President: "Even though I'm adopting you as my son only because of Impartial Goddess' deduction results, but taking time off at every chance you get really isn't a good idea, the easier things are, the easier you are to forget what you originally intended"

He smiled kindly: "Your education, I can take care of, let me at least do my duty as a parent"

Gu Qing Shan sincerely responded: "Thank you for understanding and helping me like this"

The President picked up the communicator on the table, smiling and said: "Of course, with matters that relate to you, it's better to ask the Goddess first before arranging it"

The communicator quickly connected.

"I'm deciding to send Gu Qing Shan to Capital University, what do you think?" the President asked.

On the other side of the communicator, Impartial Goddess' rhythmic female voice sounded: "After deduction, together with your opinion, the best place for Gu Qing Shan to be would be the science research department, the second best place would be the Confederate Military Academy, even though Capital University is ranked number one, both the Mech research facilities and security measures are disadvantageous to Gu Qing Shan's research"

The President looked at Gu Qing Shan questioningly.

Gu Qing Shan shrugged, gesturing that he's not against it.

Confederate Military Academy is also one of the top 3 Universities in the Confederate, although their overall ranking isn't as high as Capital University, but their Mech research major is their strongest suit, much more suitable for himself.

More importantly, both these Universities are very close to each other, so if he ever needs to meet up with Su Xue Er it wouldn't be too much trouble.

Entering a University like this to learn, that definitely fit Gu Qing Shan's heart desire.

The President seeing that also silently nodded, his impression of Gu Qing Shan became slightly better.

His life experience is vast, having met so many talented people, he knows them to always be very prideful, looks down on everything and everyone because of their talent, not to mention willful.

Gu Qing Shan is so young, yet he's willing to listen to others' opinions, and very capable of thinking objectively.

This point is very important, enough to affect his whole career afterwards.

"Then let's go with that, I also agree" the President spoke.

Impartial Goddess spoke: "Please authorize"

"I authorize" said the President.

Impartial Goddess spoke: "Begin profile loading and placement, calculating Gu Qing Shan's Merit"

"Completing appropriate placement"

"As this matter involves relatively high Authority Levels, I will require several minutes for special treatment before completion"

Seems like it'll be fine, the President nodded his head, turning his eyes from the communicator and looked at Gu Qing Shan: "Come to my house tomorrow for lunch and to meet everyone else"

Gu Qing Shan nodded: "Yes, then I will be troubling you, sir"

The President laughed: "No trouble at all, every day I'm too busy so all the meals are made by my chef anyways, I don't have the time to learn to cook for myself"

Gu Qing Shan also smiled.

"After you enter University, try and make a few friends, since it's the Military Academy, after graduation you'll all be comrades, better knowing them sooner than later" the President reminded him.

"Yes, I understand" Gu Qing Shan seriously nodded.

If the President doesn't want their relationship to just be for show, and would rather treat him sincerely like this, then Gu Qing Shan also won't be a person who's hungry but refuses food out of courtesy.

Right then, there was a knock on the door.

"What's the matter?" asked the President.

"The senate meeting has begun 10 minutes ago sir; it will be your turn to speak soon"

"Ah, I almost forgot" the President slapped his head and stood up.

Gu Qing Shan also stood up, saying: "It seems I've troubled you"

Who would've thought, I would still be able to enter University.

The Military Academy is a good choice, backed by the Confederate Military, militarized forces are always stronger than a single person, so later when signs of the Apocalypse starts appearing, he might be able to deal with them better.

A daily life of listening to lectures, reading books at the library, if he's not in a rush he could also find Su Xue Er to hang out.

To be able to live a life like this before the Apocalypse, how great it will be.

Gu Qing Shan is in high spirits.

Then another person came, asking if the President is in his office.

The President reminded him: "I'll be going first, remember to come to the estate tomorrow for lunch"

Gu Qing Shan: "Yes"

As both of them leave the office, the President and his secretaries went to the meeting, Gu Qing Shan went with an assistant to leave the building.

After everyone had left, the President's office doors closed and everything fell back into silence.

A few minutes later, the communicator left on the President's office lit up again.

Impartial Goddess' voice rang from it.

"According to Gu Qing Shan's personal Merit, Confederate Authorization Level, scientific research expertise, combined with a history of past Confederate training of scientific talents, the corresponding placement has been made"

"Placement results: Confederate Military Academy Mobile Mech major, Special Professor, under Confederate honorary allowance"

"Gu Qing Shan's personal records change completed"

After this narration, Impartial Goddess also detached herself from the connection.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 30: Going their own ways

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

A night quickly passed as the Eastern sky lights up.

Today there is no rain.

The sun slowly rose, hanging from the cloudless blue sky above.

Gu Qing Shan's figure suddenly appeared in a dense forest area.

The serpent demon's corpse still lying at his feet, about 200 meters away, numerous arrows are still stuck deep on tree branches and trunks.

Spending one day in the other world and one hour will have passed in Reality, but going back to the other world from Reality and not even a second has passed.

What a strange flow of time.

Gu Qing Shan checked his inventory bag, inside it was still full of snake blood, teeth and his other loots.

The most valuable things are the snake livers, he himself had already eaten one, the other is silently sitting in the Inventory Bag, occasionally emitting a dim light.

This truly is a good thing to have, right now Gu Qing Shan can still feel his body's blood essence increasing nonstop, almost rivalling that of a Martial Cultivator.

Should he learn some martial artist Skills?

Gu Qing Shan thought for a bit.

No, don't worry about these things yet, I still have to return to the outpost.

I still haven't eaten anything today, although Zhao Lu is useless in combat, his cooking skills are quite something.

Gu Qing Shan packed up his stuff, quickly followed the path to go back.

On the way he didn't make any stop, avoiding demon beasts even if he saw them.

Hunting demon beasts for a whole night, created a new Mobile Mech right after returning to Reality, meeting Anna, fighting a Grandmaster, meeting the President and Martial Saint, go on TV, right now even he feels a bit tired in both body and spirit.

This time in the other world, he might as well spend a day to reorganize himself.

When he came back to the outpost, Zhao Lu was standing at the outpost's gate, seemingly waiting for him.

As soon as he saw Gu Qing Shan, he quickly spoke: "Brother Gu, not good"

"What happened?"

"Yesterday so many demons appeared at night"

"Hm? What exactly happened?"

Gu Qing Shan's expression tensed up and tried to ask.

Zhao Lu doesn't really understand military terms so even after a while couldn't explain what he saw.

Gu Qing Shan couldn't do anything but be patient and questioned him slowly, for every 3-4 questions, Zhao Lu would give an answer from memory.

After a few minutes, Gu Qing Shan finally pieced everything together.

The demon's dispatch yesterday wasn't the main army, only small squadrons of unique demons.

These squadrons all have intricate equipment and considerable strength, in Zhao Lu's own words: "Looks scary as hell, even fiercer than the ones from before"

The demon squadrons all used their highest speed, and passed by the outpost gate on their way.

To ensure both mobility and secrecy, the demons' numbers aren't too overwhelming, they also acted in silence.

If Zhao Lu hadn't woken up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, he wouldn't even have found out.

After hearing Zhao Lu's story, Gu Qing Shan remembered the Faceless Giant and Bloodthirsters that appeared yesterday, becoming even more suspicious.

The demon army dispatched so many elite troops, but what for?

"This is the last year of peace right?" he spoke questioningly.

"Yeah, the last year of peace" Zhao Lu nodded in agreement.

Gu Qing Shan became even more confused.

He has confirmed over and over that this is the first time that war broke out, both demons and humans are still testing each other's strength, both sides still haven't dispatched their strongest troops for an all-out battle.

These demons that only appeared during the later stages of the war, all suddenly showed up here at once.

Gu Qing Shan went silent and began to seriously recall the details of the past.

He's already feeling a sense of unease.

During the past life, he was the supreme commander of China's national guild, as well as the World Alliance Army's strategic General, so he's especially sensitive to military dispatches. (1)

He has carefully spent time to research each and every single military campaign that happened in the game.

Before, he had only just returned, plus his cultivation was so low, as well as the wounds on his body, so Gu Qing Shan had placed more attention on himself.

But now when the situation changed again, he's once again using the eyes of a strategic General to seriously consider everything.

Gu Qing Shan threw away all useless thoughts and begin compiling the facts.

If the dispatch wasn't the main demon army, then whatever happens isn't happening on the main battlefield.

Then the possibility of a direct attack can be ruled out.

If so, would it be a raid?

Gu Qing Shan closed his eyes and reviewed the map in his map again.

His own squad was stationed at the frontline, right now already considered the fallen sector.

In the vicinity, would there be any humanity strongholds or fortresses that are worth the demons dispatching their strongest elite squadrons to attack?

The closest humanity stronghold is right outside the border town, about 1000 kilometers away.

So there's no humanity targets that are worth a raid around this area.

If so, he can also rule out the chance of a raid.

After ruling out two possibilities, Gu Qing Shan became even more nervous.

Could it be, an assassination operation?

Gu Qing Shan silently thought.

During this one year, there were many strong cultivators of humanity that died in battle.

During the sudden outbreak of war, which important human cultivators were assassinated by the demons?

Names rushed through Gu Qing Shan's mind one after another.

As he recalls, he's also ruling them out one by one.

Suddenly, Gu Qing Shan remembered two people.

Two shockingly brilliant people, two figures that stood out in history.

Many historians later came to the conclusion that if either of them were to not die before the war fully broke out, the direction of history could've been turned.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly asked: "What month and date is it today?"

Zhao Lu scratched his head and answered: "The 7th of June"

Gu Qing Shan's heart jumped, that's it!

The Holy Gates Grand elder, formation Grandmaster Gong Sun Zhi, fell in battle on the 8th of June.

Heaven's Limit Sect, Heaven's Limit Saintess Ning Yue Xi, fell in battle on the 9th of June.

Gong Sun Zhi was surrounded by 3 million demons and died of exhaustion inside his own formation.

Ning Yue Xi was surrounded by 5 demon generals and fought a hard battle for one day and night before dying.

Many players that saw this history record was completely flabbergasted, unable to understand.

Because formations are known to be the best at hiding and evading, even at its weakest it could trap the enemy.

Of all the clans and sects, Gong Sun Zhi was a man who brought formation to its very limit, a formation Grandmaster that almost rivalled the heaven itself.

With his skills, accidentally trapping himself inside to be surrounded by millions of demons is completely nonsensical.

Heaven's Limit Saintess Ning Yue Xi death was particularly tragic.

Heaven's Limit Sect was one of the strongest sects in the world of cultivation, Ning Yue Xi being so young yet she was already its Saintess, her cultivation and talents are both considered top-notch in the whole world of cultivation.

Such a talented and brilliant girl, was surrounded by 5 demon generals, fought for a whole day and night, finally died of exhaustion.

If she could just send out any message at all, within that one day and night, there definitely would have been strong people who came to her rescue.

But right until the moment she died, no one in humanity's top brass even noticed that she had been fighting the demon army for one day and night.

A great cultivator once confirmed, if Gong Sun Zhi hadn't died, the first campaign's results might not have been a loss; and if Ning Yue Xi hadn't died, in just a few dozen years, she would've had the ability to rival even the Nine Hells Demon King, changing the fate of humanity.

But that is only a sigh of grief, as history had already happened, and the people in later years saying "what if..." didn't change a thing.

Gu Qing Shan paced back and forth, silently thinking.

Today is already the 7th of June, in just 2 days, both of these legendary characters will have died one after another.

The reason the demon army dispatched their elite squadrons, is probably this.

The place where these two legends died was...

Gu Qing Shan silently recalled, very quickly remembered and cross referenced with his mental map.

Sure enough, the place was not far from here, about 100 kilometers.

That's right, Gu Qing Shan could feel his thoughts cleared up.

If two human cultivators as powerful as them showed up in demon territory, it would definitely cause the demons to rush to surround and eliminate them.

This level of an encirclement battle, with Gu Qing Shan's measly qi training stage 5 cultivation, he couldn't even get close.

Even the weakest demons on the outer ring used for alert could easily kill him.

For him, the only thing that he could do would be to take the chance and run back to humanity's area of control.

Take the chance when the demon's attention is still focused on the two legends and run away from this fallen sector.

Gu Qing Shan quickly made his decision.

Under a situation like this, as long as he runs the opposite direction of where they are, he should be able to avoid most dangers.

A journey from this outpost to the stronghold outside border city would take about one day and one night.

It isn't a short journey, and the dangers he could face on the way are numerous, but still much better than staying still at this outpost that's about to be destroyed.

If he wants to go, he has to take this chance when the two legends are still in battle with the demon army to leave as quickly as possible!

Gu Qing Shan didn't even rest, quickly checked the items on his body.

Snake blood, snake teeth, snake liver, all here; the military bow is still in good condition, not many arrows left, so he will have to replenish them before he leaves.

The military machete won't do much, but at least it's a weapon, for the off-chance that he might get into close combat.

"Pack up quickly, we have to leave now"

Gu Qing Shan cleaned up his items, also telling Zhao Lu to prepare

"Leave? Leave where?" Zhao Lu opened his eyes wide and asked.

He was still holding the newly seasoned dried demon beast meat, about to dry it out under the roof.

"Leaving this fallen sector, towards humanity's stronghold, of course" Gu Qing Shan answered.

Zhao Lu hesitated: "But... but we already found the spirit stones, using the formation, we can just hide here for another while"

Gu Qing Shan spoke: "This Invisibility formation is effective for demons before Golden Core realm, above that, just one glance and they'll be able to see through it"

He continued: "The demon called Faceless Giant from a few days ago, it already discovered us, but because it was on a mission, plus we were just ants to it so it didn't bother to do anything"

Zhao Lu took a step backwards, then another, shaking his head: "Brother Gu, why are you telling me lies, what good is there to lie to me"

Gu Qing Shan kept patiently explained: "If I'm not wrong, this area will soon become a battlefield, if we still want to live to have to quickly leave"

Zhao Lu: "Didn't you just go out to hunt beasts? How do you know these things?"

Gu Qing Shan answered: "Just looking at the demon dispatches and I already know, don't worry, this is the only thing I won't be wrong about"

Zhao Lu kept shaking his head: "You're wrong! You have to be wrong, the outside is too dangerous, I can lose my life at any time! If you want to leave so much then go, I'm not leaving!"

Gu Qing Shan thought about the Healing pills he received from him, sighed and tried to convince him again: "Come with me, this place won't hold, losing your life will just be a matter of time"

Zhao Lu still shook his head: "Going outside is more dangerous, the outpost has a formation, this place is very safe, and the human main army will soon reclaim this place anyways"

Gu Qing Shan tried to convince him again, but seeing Zhao Lu's firm attitude, plus the begrudging look in his eyes, he gave up.

"I hope you understand your choice" Gu Qing Shan serious said once more "when the demons come, it'll be too late for you to regret"

Zhao Lu stood firm, not saying a word.

Gu Qing Shan seeing that reluctantly turned around and left, not looking back at the outpost any longer.

Finally, when Gu Qing Shan's back couldn't be seen anymore, Zhao Lu spat out

"Bullshit! Going out is more dangerous, those soldiers all died in the mouth of demons because they left in the first place"

"Everyone else is in the dead pit now, only I'm alive"

"I thought you were reinforcement, but turned out to just be a newbie that got lost, fooling me into taking care of you for days for nothing"

"Ridiculous, if you want to die then go by yourself, trying to lie to me"

Zhao Lu angrily got back into the outpost.

Note:

(1) China: in the raw it also said China, so I assume the author meant that China is a real country in this world and not that he made a mistake. Seeing how Gu Qing Shan was essentially considered a low-life criminal in the Confederate in the past life as well as how Impartial Goddess does thing, him becoming a strong character in the game wouldn't have changed that fact. The other 2 big nations also wouldn't have discovered or valued his talents too much, so it makes sense that he would be at another country (remember, it's an established fact that there are more than just 3 countries in this world, just that there are 3 big ones that more worth mentioning more than the others)

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 31: The beginning of death

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

Gu Qing Shan quickly ran through the forest, it was only when he saw a large empty field that he started to slow down and carefully walked around it.

After running a bit more, there was another empty field in front of him.

Gu Qing Shan felt goosebumps and once again went around it.

Another short run, as he pushes the dense branches away, in front of him was another empty field.

Right now in his sight, all he could see was these empty fields.

Gu Qing Shan sighed, gritted his teeth and jumped to a higher place.

Raising his military bow, he shot an arrow towards the ground.

The arrow burrowed deep into the ground, only leaving the tail sticking out.

Not long after, a face the size of an auditorium showed up on the ground.

The face spat out the arrow, looked at Gu Qing Shan and asked in a slow and deep voice: "You... how did... you know, I... was here?"

Gu Qing Shan judged it silently, then spoke: "The soil is too new"

"New... what you mean?" the face showed clear confusion.

This is a type of demon that can burrow underground called Grounded Devils.

It has relative resistance to Earth-elemental spells since birth, if it ever meets a powerful enemy like a Sword Cultivator, it can just escape underground.

Ground burrowing is a very powerful superpower, very few can actually use it so they almost always got away.

Because of that, Grounded Devils used to be able to win every large-scale battles by sneak attacks, making human cultivators hold their heads because they're so hard to deal with.

It wasn't until a very long time afterwards that players found out their fatal weakness ———that they are very dumb.

No matter who or what is said, as long as you can pique the Grounded Devil's interest, they'll happily believe you.

Gu Qing Shan answered as a matter of fact: "You should bring from soil from where you come from instead, that way it will be the same color as the yellow dirt on your body"

He continued: "That way, I definitely won't be able to find you ——no one will be able to find you"

The face on the ground spoke: "No one will be able to find, really...?"

"Really...?"

"Really...?"

"Really...?"

"Really...?"

"Really...?"

Numerous identical voices all sounded one after another.

Gu Qing Shan tried his best to stay composed, stood still on the branch and looked to the distance.

Numerous giant faces appeared from the ground, all of them looked extremely excited at Gu Qing Shan.

There were so many faces that it covered the whole mountain.

——–The Grounded Devil legion, one of the core units of the demon army.

The Faceless Giant is very strong, but there are also very few of them, so to surround and kill enemies, the demon would need to dispatch the Grounded Devil legion.

"Of course it's real, no one can find you" Gu Qing Shan looked around and loudly answered, "if you don't believe me you can bring some soil from there, I'll wait here for you"

The faces appeared even more excited and answered: "Good, you ... wait here"

As it said that, the face burrowed into the ground, quickly became unseen.

"I'm also... going"

"I'm also... going"

"I'm also... going"

"I'm also... going"

One after another, the giant faces on the ground disappeared, quickly leaving.

The place where these demons come from is 1000 kilometers from here, at the demon's army headquarters, with the Grounded Devils speed, it would take a very long time for a round trip.

Just as the Grounded Devils all left, Gu Qing Shan's figure shifted, wanting to take the chance to run away.

Don't joke, the whole Grounded Devil legion migrating at the same time, such a huge commotion would of course alert the demon army, it is very possible for them to be stopped and ordered to go back to the frontline while on their way.

If they come back, then it's really all over.

Gu Qing Shan was just about to leave, then suddenly heard a voice from not too far away.

"Young friend, thank you for your help with them, would you mind telling me your name?"

Gu Qing Shan turned around and saw an old man smiling, looking at him.

Gu Qing Shan held his hand on the bow, quickly spoke: "I'm Gu Qing Shan, Vanguard Legion's Proud Steed Squad soldier, can I ask who you are? Do you have a badge?"

The old man threw his badge at him, Gu Qing Shan took it and put in a bit of spirit energy.

The badge immediately lit up, a flame rose from the badge, turned into a string of fire that spelled out a few words

"Ding Yuan General Gong Sun Zhi" (TN: Ding Yuan is a frontline general title)

Gu Qing Shan's heart sank.

Human cultivator, alliance Ding Yuan General, the Holy Gates Grand Elder, formation Grandmaster Gong Sun Zhi!

Why is it him!

When I left the outpost, I clearly went in the opposite direction of where he was surrounded, so why is he here?

He's going to die very soon, if I meet him right here, doesn't that mean I'm also going to be surrounded by demons as well?

Gu Qing Shan's mind quickly moved, he suddenly had a bad premonition.

He also threw his badge over for the other party to check.

Both sides became slightly less nervous.

Gu Qing Shan couldn't help but ask: "So it was General Sun Zhi, can I ask why you are here alone?"

Gong Sun Zhi sighed, then took out a small intricate formation plate, placed both hands on it and shouted: "Six-trigram Hidden formation, open!"

Gu Qing Shan felt the scenery before him changed, everything quickly moved away, then as he blinked, he's already standing in front of a Daoist temple.

Outside the Daoist temple, all four directions are empty, making him unable to tell what is near or far with the naked eye.

So inside this mountain range there was a hidden Daoist temple!

Such a high level of formation arrangement, this person is without a doubt Gong Sun Zhi.

Gu Qing Shan followed Gong Sun Zhi into the Daoist temple, only to see another person sitting on a cushion, wearing gold color armor and a snow-white cloak.

This person's armor isn't bulky but actually appeared to be flexible and delicate, showing the slender figure under it.

The female slightly lowered her head, but when Gong Sun Zhi and Gu Qing Shan walked halfway, she found that he wasn't even a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator, and once again raised it up.

As she raised her head, Gu Qing Shan saw on her face a silver mask that completely covered it.

"Young friend Qing Shan, I'm thankful that you made the Grounded Devil legion disperse, otherwise we would've been stuck here"

"Him? Dispersed a Grounded Devil legion?" a clear female voice can be heard.

The female in gold armor sound surprised, but her silver mask did not show any change in emotions.

"That's right", Gong Sun Zhi said "Grounded Devils awoken to Earth-element are able to change and control the soil, affecting my formations greatly, fortunately, they were fooled by him"

"Fooled?"

The female in gold armor sounds even more surprised.

Gong Sun Zhi told her everything from the start.

The female in gold armor now looks directly at Gu Qing Shan and asked: "How did you know this demon's weakness?"

Gu Qing Shan already thought of an excuse for himself, calmly replied: "I was a soldier in the frontline, everyday meeting too many demons to count, so I observed their behaviors and became quite well-versed"

"The frontline? Then that explains it" said the female in gold armor "From what I know, the frontline was already defeated by the demon's main army, presumed to be wiped out completely, you might be the only one left alive"

Gu Qing Shan took the chance and showed a look of sadness.

Gong Sun Zhi on the other hand looked delighted and asked: "Then, do you know about other demons well too?"

The first time that the human and demon army clashed, since they couldn't tell the special characteristics of the demons yet, they were at a serious disadvantage.

Quite a few army legions were completely wiped out, not even a bit of information could be sent back, and so the backline still don't have a clue as to how strong the demons are.

If a surviving frontline army soldier were to return, and brought with him the intelligence regarding the characteristics of demons, the war could take a huge turn.

"I know quite a few of them" Gu Qing Shan directly answered.

The spirit energy on these two people feel as deep as the sea, plus Gu Qing Shan couldn't be sure how they would treat him, so he took the initiative to show them his value.

Sure enough, Gong Sun Zhi and the female in gold armor looked at each other and lightly nodded.

Report chapter Comments

Chapter 32: Ning Yue Xi

Translated and Editted by: La0o9

"Can I ask what your name is?"

Gu Qing Shan was curious and couldn't help but ask the female in gold armor.

The female hesitated for a bit, then answered: "I am Ning Yue Xi"

So it was her!

The famous Ning Yue Xi, Heaven's Limit Saintess Ning Yue Xi, the brilliant and talented Ning Yue Xi.

The dream lover of all male cultivators, Ning Yue Xi herself!

Ning Yue Xi sat silently, waiting for the usual sounds of exclamation, the eyes boiling with desires, together with the nauseating pledge of protection.

Each and every time she meets a male cultivator, no matter who it is, they always go through the same old script.

Yet they always forget, Ning Yue Xi herself is stronger compared to the majority of them, and definitely would not need their protection.

Of course they can't be helped, because the person in front of them is Ning Yue Xi.

Gong Sun Zhi also waited a bit, leaving time for Gu Qing Shan to express himself.

After all, he did trick the Grounded Devils legion to leave and helped them not be stuck here, this small favor he can do.

But even after a while, Gu Qing Shan still didn't do anything, didn't say anything, he didn't even react.

Hm?

The two of them surprised, only to see Gu Qing Shan's face in deep thought, his brows furrowed to their utmost.

What a strange person, Ning Yue Xi silently commented

You really can't blame Gu Qing Shan, because what he's seeing right now is completely unexpected, having strayed very far from the history he knows.

He's fallen into deep thought.

——these two people that are about to die, why are they at the same place?

What exactly changed history?

Including Gu Qing Shan, no player knew that before they died, these two people were at the same place.

In history records, the places where they fell in battle were very far apart from each other.

But now that's no longer true.

Gu Qing Shan became very nervous.

The now-changed history contains so many mysteries that he can't explain, while the shadows of death keep creeping closer and closer.

The fact that the Grounded Devils surrounded them means they have been discovered by the demon army once more.

Even if Gu Qing Shan were to run away right now, even if Gong Sun Zhi and Ning Yue Xi let him run away, with his speed he won't get very far.

And afterwards, when the demon army starts their encirclement, a lowly qi training realm cultivator like Gu Qing Shan will die with the smallest of mistakes.

How or what could he possibly do to save his life right now?

Gu Qing Shan forced himself to calm down.

The Holy Gates and Heaven's Limit Sect are at least 10,000 kilometers away from each other, so they don't exactly have a close relationship.

Gong Sun Zhi is a senior cultivator, while Ning Yue Xi is a rising talent of this generation, from the history records, you could see that they've seldom met during their lives, possibly not even once.

If that's the case, then the only reason why these two are here together would be because they're on a military mission.

Yes, definitely, they have to be on some sort of mission, or is accomplishing some sort of task.

Whatever it is, it must be extremely important, enough for the demon army to dispatch so much force to fish them out like this.

Tomorrow, Gong Sun Zhi would be the first to fall ———dying in his own large-scale defensive formation.

From the look of it, he did that on purpose, in order to draw the demon army's attention and give Ning Yue Xi room to retreat.

A day after, Ning Yue Xi fell extremely close to a humanity stronghold.

She had almost made it back to humanity's territory, but got caught up by the 5 demon generals, fought hard for one day and night until she died.

During that one day and night, she couldn't even send a single communication talisman back, so no one came to save her.

Gong Sun Zhi sacrificed himself to let Ning Yue Xi escape, while Ning Yue Xi was surrounded, not receiving any reinforcements and died.

Such a strange thing to happen, if he didn't already know about it, then he wouldn't believe it either.

And then there was another mystery ——what exactly did they do, to cause the demon army to go mad to this extent.

In the past life, these shocking mysteries got lost in the long river of history together with their deaths.

But now!

But now!

The location isn't right!

This place is very far from where they're supposed to fall, even if Gong Sun Zhi were to rush there without minding death, he wouldn't make it to where he should die.

This is ridiculous, doesn't make any sense at all.

Wait a minute.

Gu Qing Shan suddenly thought of something.

"Greetings, Saintess", Gu Qing Shan put his fist into his palm, couldn't wait and asked directly: "When I was at the outpost, I saw a Faceless Giant and a squad of Bloodthirster Demons pass by, were they in pursuit of you?"

Ning Yue Xi waited for so long, yet only received an interrogation-like question like that, completely not expecting it.

Don't these males usually try to act all fancy when facing me before they could speak normally again?

She didn't think too much of it and answered: "At first they were very close on our tails, but all of a sudden, they passed our location, giving time for us to change direction and escape all the way here"

Gu Qing Shan confirmed his suspicion and took out the blood-color jade piece from before.

So that was it.

I killed that demon bird who was carrying the latest intelligence on the two of them.

After I killed it I even burned the corpse, so the Faceless Giant didn't receive the orders.

Purely by coincidence, Gong Sun Zhi and Ning Yue Xi were able to get away at that time.

And that's why they veered off the course of fate, appearing here.

———so the problem started with me.

Just like a butterfly flapping its wings, he caused a very small deviation in a history that was supposed to happen. (1)

Gu Qing Shan could only wryly laugh.

My cultivation is so low, I really just wanted to stay as far from them as possible to find a way to survive.

What unpredictable fate, who knew what I unintentionally did would really create a path for them to survive.

All I wanted to do was avoid danger, yet here I am with both of these legendary characters.

It's probably already too late to leave now.

These two's fates are already tied to himself, if they die, Gu Qing Shan alone will not be able to get away from the encirclement of the demons.

It's a dead-end.

As soon as he saw the blood color jade, Gong Sun Zhi's face changed.

He swiped the air, taking the jade in hand and infused spirit energy into it.

A demonic raspy voice could be heard from the jade piece.

"Targets at moving Southward, Eastward 726, Southward 94; order: Faceless Giant, Bloodthirster on full pursuit"

Gong Sun Zhi is a bright person, only needed to think for a bit before: "The Faceless Giant and Bloodthirster were chasing us, that means, you killed the messenger?"

"It was a coincidence, when I met the messenger it was already wounded" Gu Qing Shan replied in detail.

Gong Sun Zhi seriously observed the jade piece, breathed out slowly and confirmed: "The jade piece is real"

He looked at Ning Yue Xi.

Ning Yue Xi rubbed her chin: "He's not lying, my Spirit Beast was able to wound the messenger, but not kill it"

She asked again: "Your cultivation haven't reached Foundation Establishment yet, so you definitely couldn't catch up the demon army's messenger, how did you kill it?"

Gu Qing Shan tapped the military bow and answered: "I like to use the bow, after a while I became decently skilled, and so I succeeded"

Looking at the suspicion in their eyes, Gu Qing Shan knew he had to prove it to them.

Taking the bow in hand, Gu Qing Shan drew some arrows and shot.

Shifting Flurry!

Rapid Fire!

Grey shadows flashed quickly and turned into flying snakes and dragons.

Thwock!

Dozens of arrows made the sound at the same time, all hitting the Yin Yang decoration on top of the Daoist temple.

(1): A butterfly flapping its wings: this is a reference to the Butterfly Effect. Essentially, it's saying that even a small flap of a butterfly's wings are capable of causing a huge domino effect in another place without the butterfly ever knowing.

Report chapter Comments