The spaceship crossed the imperial capital’s aerial defense line while lowering its altitude. Su Cha could already see a projected corner of the magnificent city.
Instead of stopping at each school gate, the spaceship took all the contestants straight to the arena for the upcoming award ceremony.
It wasn’t Su Cha’s first time at the arena. Unlike the nervousness he felt during the preliminaries, this time he was much more relaxed. A banner was strung up at the entrance, but it was so long it couldn’t be read in one glance. It was roughly announcing the successful conclusion of the Ten-School Tournament.
Inside the arena, laser lights on the ceiling cast lively beams of color. The “Hive” stage, stacked with biological pods, now resembled a bustling square. As everyone gradually took their seats, the host of the award ceremony made a grand entrance accompanied by stirring music.
“Captain, Su Cha, look over here.”
The two turned their heads, and with a “click”, Wu Shui took a photo of them using the communicator, then went to take photos with others on the other side.
Su Cha looked around — there were quite a few recordings being made. Normally, the military academy had a rather solemn tone, and only at moments like these could one feel the presence of youth.
“Dear teachers, dear students…”
As the host spoke, the crowd gradually fell silent.
“It is with great excitement that we announce the perfect conclusion of this year’s Ten-School Tournament today.”
Su Cha joined the crowd in applause.
Suddenly, a staff member came over and asked them to get ready to go on stage to receive their award. Spotting the imposing principal of the Military Academy Affiliated High School, the staff member hesitated, then added, “You should get ready too.”
Especially mentally.
At every award ceremony, a highlight reel of each team was played on the screen from the moment they went on stage until they received the award. Su Cha’s team had barely entered the competition before getting injured by Fasite, and that part wasn’t recorded. During his recovery, the team slacked off, but once they finally kicked into gear, their “hunting moments” were visually stunning.
As the staff member was musing about this, the host announced, “Let’s give a warm round of applause for the team ‘He’s Here’ from the Military Academy Affiliated High School!”
The video played with soft, sleep-inducing background music. It wasn’t the editor being shady — pairing high-energy music with footage of people lazing around would’ve caused the audience to burst out laughing.
The principal walked at the end of the team. Just as he got on stage, the video played the words “selling watermelons.”
The staff member escorting them to the stage quietly explained, “They sold watermelons for a few days — a classic ‘setback before the rise’ situation. Don’t worry, it gets exciting soon.”
As soon as he said that, the footage jumped ahead to the beast tide.
The music changed. Stirring, dramatic music filled the venue. Amid swirling yellow sand, a young man rode a pig, leaping under the moonlight. As if by magic, a pot of vibrant Overlord Flowers appeared in his hands.
Aesthetic violence played out vividly in the midst of the carnage — if not for the fact that they were riding pigs, the audience might have fully immersed themselves in the scene.
The captain stood at the center. Due to his short height, Su Cha was placed next to Ji Tianjin. Ji Tianjin pulled out the speech Su Cha had written in advance and began reading it slowly and steadily over the background music: “…Success is made of 99% perspiration and 1% talent.”
The whole team nodded in agreement.
The audience sat silently.
After a few lines, Ji Tianjin suddenly passed the microphone to Su Cha.
With full confidence, Su Cha declared, “Today, I am proud of my alma mater. Tomorrow, my alma mater will be proud of me!” As he said the last sentence, he kept his eyes on the principal.
“First, I want to thank my principal. It was entirely thanks to his suggestion that I thought to use spiritual power to stimulate seed growth.”
There was a collective “Whoa” from the audience — so the principal was the mastermind behind the watermelon-selling scheme.
Principal: “……”
In the front row of the audience — seats reserved only for people of influence — sat a man with a calm demeanor and slightly drooping eyelids, fingers interlaced as he quietly observed the ceremony. Despite his silence, he exuded an imposing presence.
He was the principal of the First Military Academy. Beside him sat the vice-principal. The former slowly lifted his eyelids and asked, “Will Su Cha be joining the First Military Academy in a few years?”
The vice-principal nodded. Just as the internet had said, every path Su Cha took seemed to lead to the First Military Academy.
The acceptance speech from the “He’s Here” team wasn’t very long — both those onstage and offstage let out a breath of relief. Especially the students from the same school, who had really been worried that if it dragged on any longer, they’d laugh out loud at the VCR footage.
The next champion team soon took the stage.
The tone shifted dramatically — the footage was pure combat scenes: repeated life-and-death crises, one challenge after another, each overcome. The blood started pumping just watching it.
Exactly! The audience nodded in unison — this was how the Ten-School Tournament was supposed to be.
Not that Su Cha cared how it was supposed to be. He admired the trophy in his hands, growing more satisfied the longer he looked. Once he was done, he passed it on to the next teammate to appreciate.
The award ceremony wasn’t ending any time soon. Listening to the repetitive acceptance speeches, Su Cha started browsing the web for information about Wolenson.
After some time to mentally adjust, he no longer felt a headache when hearing the name. There wasn’t much online about Wolenson — only a few academic papers he’d published during university. Su Cha clicked into them but didn’t find any controversial views.
Leaning back, Su Cha absentmindedly drew circles on his raincoat, wondering whether he should try coaxing something out of Shen Ningze.
…
The award ceremony never drew high ratings; imperial viewers only really cared about the matches themselves.
Luan Zheng watched the boring proceedings, but his gaze rested subtly on the person they’d brought in. As Wolenson avoided eye contact, Luan Zheng slowly said, “Wolenson, I heard something very interesting.”
Wolenson swallowed, but said nothing.
“Fog Star seems to want to establish diplomatic relations with the Empire,” Luan Zheng continued. He didn’t finish the thought — his subordinate picked it up: “Recently, the Fog Star people have been cracking down on star pirates. They claim they’re looking for one who recently harmed a child.”
Star pirates were known for their cruelty, often wiping out entire families. So far, no one had linked this case to Fasite.
According to confidential intel Luan Zheng received, Fog Star hadn’t revealed much, and publicly it just looked like they were avenging a child killed by star pirates. Most people assumed the child came from a prestigious background — otherwise, why would Fog Star make such a huge fuss?
But Luan Zheng had sensed something off from all this.
“Over a decade ago, when the strange beast horde tried to invade Fog Star, they ordered a batch of weapons from His Majesty,” he said. “Not many people knew about it. If I’m not mistaken, I happened to mention it to Dr. Jin at a banquet.”
Cold sweat began to bead on Wolenson’s forehead.
“Not long after that, I heard Dr. Jin borrowed a large sum of money from you,” Luan Zheng’s gaze turned cold. “Should I continue investigating this myself, or will you tell me?”
Wolenson and Dr. Jin had both worked on secret experiments in the past. With Dr. Jin now dead, Wolenson — the only one left — knew what measures would be taken if he didn’t talk.
“Dr. Jin hired people to sneak into Fog Star’s gene bank during the chaos,” Wolenson took a deep breath. “Using those genes, he successfully cultivated a lifeform.”
At this point, he forgot the threat hanging over him and wore an expression of awe: “It was truly incredible. Fog Star genes are strange — at first, we had no hope, but in the end, it actually worked.”
Dr. Jin had never reported his most successful creation to the organization. He wanted to protect his research from others.
“But that lifeform was extremely fragile. It was barely ever conscious and could only survive in a nutrient pod.”
The surge of killing intent pulled Wolenson back from his memories.
Luan Zheng’s eyes gleamed. “I see.”
No wonder a test subject had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
“What happened after that? Why did he end up in the ruins?”
“I don’t know.”
Facing the pressure of that gaze, Wolenson gave a bitter smile. “I really don’t. The subject was too delicate, and I eventually lost patience. Only Dr. Jin kept going. I don’t even know where he relocated the subject to. But…”
He hesitated. “Currently, known space-folding technology for living things can only handle plants or lab mice, and even then only for short durations. But there is a version that can fold living humans — it’s just unstable and restricted by the Empire.”
The implication being that Su Cha might have been hidden in that area all along, just in a separate folded space, and only emerged after the space collapsed — explaining the need for the ruins rescue.
Trying to save himself, Wolenson added, “There were too many coincidences back then. Anyone who wasn’t directly involved could never piece it all together.”
But Luan Zheng simply waved him off. “You underestimate His Majesty.”
He had a hunch that this matter wouldn’t stay buried for long.
After a long silence — nearly ten minutes — Luan Zheng’s voice turned cold again: “You stole Fog Star’s genetic data. I doubt you only produced one test subject.”
Wolenson didn’t hide it: “Fog Star people’s spiritual power is different from ours — more refined. Dr. Jin called it telekinesis. They can even manipulate it to bend space. But the abilities we managed to reproduce barely match one-thousandth of even basic telekinesis.”
But instead of mocking him, Luan Zheng’s smile only widened.
“That war on Fog Star lasted over a year. Su Cha wasn’t the only test subject to survive.”
Wolenson was startled. Was the boss planning to have Shen Ningze impersonate the other subject? Their ages really weren’t that far apart.
Luan Zheng confirmed his guess: “Just make sure Ningze awakens the right ability — strength doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Unless the Fog Star people had actual telepathic connections, Luan Zheng was confident he could produce a flawless fake.
…
“I’m standing right in front of you. Tell me, do I still look like the me you used to know?”
After the award ceremony, Su Cha took photos with the trophy in the arena, reciting an old cliché from millennia ago.
Each school was sending aircraft to pick up their students. The one from the affiliated school hadn’t arrived yet, so everyone was taking turns posing with the trophy. Ji Tianjin was clearly being forced to participate — the photos had to be sent back and displayed, so he had no choice.
While others were busy with pictures, Su Cha walked over to Wu Shui. “What exactly is telepathy?”
Wu Shui looked up from picking photos.
Su Cha said, “I’m curious.”
The Wu siblings had telepathy — their combat power soared when they were together.
On the night Su Cha had nearly died at Fasite’s hands, aside from the rage of facing death, there had been another emotion — something foreign and intense.
Urgent, overwhelming killing intent. It had only lasted a moment, and he couldn’t describe it clearly. But ever since that night, Su Cha had found it much easier to stimulate plant growth, even able to feed multiple spirit forms at once.
Wu Shui thought for a moment. “It’s hard to describe. It’s like… when one person experiences a powerful emotional surge, the other can feel it too.”
Su Cha looked thoughtful. Then whose emotion had he felt?
He was a Fog Star person. But surely he couldn’t have telepathy with another Fog Star person… right?
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