“F… four hundred million!? Second Brother, what do you want to convert that much money for? The World of Fate‘s exchange system hasn’t been open all that long, and there must still be all kinds of uncertainty and instability buried in it. Even a really rich man wouldn’t usually be willing to move that much in at one go. Because if something did go wrong, there’d be no getting it back — after all, the people who built the World of Fate, and who control everything in this world, are somewhere off Earth.” Zuo Pojun had choked on his own spit; he coughed a few times and got it out in shock.

Murong Qiushui nodded in agreement.

“There’s no special reason. You think converting this much at once isn’t safe. I think the opposite — there is nowhere safer to keep money than here, in this form. In a world with laws this strict, nobody is getting it out by so-called cracking or hacking or anything of the sort.”

Four hundred million. Three hundred million of it was the payment Su Luo had given him for protecting Su Feifei; the other hundred million he had won off Li Tianpeng. Put together, it came to very nearly everything he owned. Although — ever since the night he made Su Feifei that lifetime promise… did he keep taking that protection fee or not?

That really was a question.

“There’s nothing to discuss here. Convert this much at once and maybe I’ll even scrape into the top few when the Wealth Ranking opens. Nothing more to say about it. Pojun, this is for you.”

Ye Tianxie took out that grey scroll — the class-change scroll for “Soul of Guardianship” — and traded it into Zuo Pojun’s hands.

Zuo Pojun stood up and took it, beside himself. Murong Qiushui watched sourly, envy and reproach welling endlessly out of those peach-blossom eyes… Ai. Fourth Brother’s treatment really is worse than Third Brother’s. Heaven above, why couldn’t you have let me be born a year earlier?

For a moment Zuo Pojun was too excited to know what to say. Set beside top-grade equipment and enormously powerful items, what a player wanted most of all was, in truth, a hidden class — one completely unlike anyone else’s, and stronger than anyone else’s. With a hidden class-change scroll in his grip, even the Zuo family’s eldest son was excited enough that both hands shook.

“Second Brother, this…”

“That class scroll came from the War God’s departed spirit in the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins. He asked me to hand it to someone who could inherit his power and his belief in guarding. By the War God’s own account it should be a very strong class. Change class now,” Ye Tianxie said.

Zuo Pojun nodded and crushed the scroll very carefully.

At once silver light flew out of the broken scroll, gathered, hardened into the shape of a shield, then drifted slowly toward Zuo Pojun’s body and sank into it.

“Ding… You have used the class scroll of the hidden class ‘Soul of Guardianship’ and successfully changed class to the hidden class ‘Soul of Guardianship.’ HP +500, Defense +50, Magic +30, Constitution +30, Strength +10. On every level-up you gain an additional 1 point of Constitution and 10 HP. The added attributes and all abilities of the former Guardian class are gone.”

And just like that, a second person in the Huaxia battle region held a hidden class.

In the instant the class change went through, Zuo Pojun’s attributes shot up by a huge margin. He was stunned for a beat, then slowly got out two words: “Holy shit!”

“Well?” Ye Tianxie asked.

Zuo Pojun swallowed and said, “It actually… it actually added 800 HP and over 80 defense in one go, and on every level-up it tacks on extra Constitution and HP as well… and these class skills, they’re too strong, they are just too strong! The old Guardian class next to this is complete garbage!”

Zuo Pojun’s face was flushed red with excitement. He called up his own attribute panel and shared it out for Ye Tianxie and everyone else in the room to see. One class change had remade him from the bones out. Murong Qiushui above all, who knew exactly what he was worth down to the ounce, looked at the new attributes with something very strange in his gaze, something close to disbelief.

Class skills: Body Strengthening, Shield Mastery, Spirit Taunt, Mass Taunt, Soul Protection, Wind-Thunder Slash, Berserk Shield Bash.

At this class’s opening stage there were seven basic-level skills in all, and what they added up to could not be spoken of in the same breath as an ordinary Guardian’s.

“Amazing! Big Brother Zuo, you have to count as the strongest Guardian around right now.” Su Feifei said it admiringly.

“Heh heh.” Zuo Pojun laughed, pleased with himself.

Ye Tianxie’s gaze travelled over every one of Zuo Pojun’s attributes. His mild surprise passed, and then his brows drew together a little; he said nothing, as though turning something over.

“Second Brother, is something wrong?” Zuo Pojun caught the change in his face and asked quickly.

Ye Tianxie shook his head and said with a frown, “I’m just wondering whether this class might be a bit too strong.”

Zuo Pojun was dumbfounded on the spot, and asked glumly, “Stronger is better, isn’t it?”

“The great Murong Qiushui once said that a man’s intelligence is in inverse proportion to his build. Dear Third Brother, what Second Brother means is this. In a virtual game world where everything is built toward balance, even a hidden class is only supposed to carry a few special qualities ordinary classes don’t have. It may be stronger than an ordinary class, but only by a very limited margin. And yet the fact in front of us is… whether it is Second Brother’s Rebel-Boned Evil Dragon class or this new class of yours, the abilities it grants have already gone far beyond an ordinary class. That really is a puzzling thing, and not how it ought to be. Understood, dear Third Brother?”

Murong Qiushui was explaining it very seriously, but anyone could hear the sourness in it. Second Brother had Rebel-Boned Evil Dragon, Third Brother had Soul of Guardianship… and Fourth Brother felt hard done by.

“So… you mean the World of Fate has set hidden classes up differently from past virtual games, and a hidden class’s abilities will be far greater than an ordinary class’s?” Zuo Pojun said.

Ye Tianxie nodded. “From what we can see so far, it seems that way. The World of Fate is bound to be an unbalanced world. And an unbalanced world is the most real kind of world.”

Murong Qiushui and Zuo Pojun thought it over for a moment and nodded together. It was true, exactly as Ye Tianxie said — an unbalanced world was the most real kind of world. Absolute fairness existed only in fantasy, and there was basically no chance of it ever appearing for real. Even among those past virtual games that chased absolute balance, not one had ever reached it.

And the World of Fate seemed to be running the opposite way on purpose… Thinking back to the day the World of Fate opened, when the developer Prometheus was asked about balance, his answer had opened with a line: “In this world, there has never once been true fairness.” At the time it had been taken as a brilliant reply that gave ground in order to advance. Thinking about it now, it looked much more like a way of stepping around the question.

“Pojun, once you’re done helping Big Sister, go and get used to your new abilities with Qiushui. Remember what you said… become the strongest Guardian,” Ye Tianxie said.

“I say it, I do it.” Zuo Pojun thumped his own chest hard and left with Murong Qiushui. Becoming the strongest Guardian was not something he had tossed out casually. That resolve came above all from the spur of Ye Tianxie’s own strength.

After Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui had gone, Ye Tianxie walked over to Su Feifei and said something that made her roll her eyes. “Feifei, I’m hungry.”

“I’m hungry too.” Guoguo’s little head popped out with a whoosh, and was slapped straight back in by Ye Tianxie.

“…Hmph. Every single day, all you know how to do is nag me about cooking. Fine, I’ll go and make food. Remember to come out and eat soon. It doesn’t matter if you go hungry, but you are not allowed to let Xiaoxi go hungry along with you.” With that she said a word to Shattered Star-Heart, and logged off.

Only Ye Tianxie and Shattered Star-Heart were left in the main hall. Shattered Star-Heart lowered her head without meaning to, and her hands quietly closed together in her nervousness. Every time she was alone with him her heart would tighten for no reason she could name, and her pulse would run faster.

“Can you identify a piece of equipment for me, my personal identifier?” Ye Tianxie said it in a half-joking tone, and as he spoke he traded across a piece of Silver-grade equipment that had dropped from a monster on the road to the City of Heaven’s Sun. His Luck was as high as 17, and his drop rate ran several times an ordinary player’s; on top of that he killed monsters above his own level, which doubled it again. Even off an ordinary monster, he had a chance at a Silver-grade drop.

“Ah, all right.” Shattered Star-Heart answered a little flustered, took the Level 25 Silver-grade equipment, cast Identification, had it identified in one pass, and handed it back into Ye Tianxie’s hands.

Ye Tianxie glanced casually over the attributes, put the piece away in his pack, and changed the subject. “Star-Heart, when are you going to bring your little sister along to play?”

Shattered Star-Heart had mentioned to him that she had a little sister, only he had never once seen her bring the girl here in all these days. The reason he could think of was that she was afraid bringing someone else into his home without his say-so would earn his displeasure, so he simply raised it himself.

“She… she isn’t well. She doesn’t play this game.” At the mention of her sister, Shattered Star-Heart’s face noticeably dimmed and her voice dropped low as she answered — but she lifted it again at once and said with a forced smile, “When she gets better, I’ll bring her here to play for sure. Big Brother Xietian, you’re certain to like my sister very much.”

The dimness in Shattered Star-Heart’s face was never going to escape Ye Tianxie’s eyes. He nodded and asked nothing further. Too unwell even to enter a virtual game… how frail must she be?

Ye Tianxie did not take his journey south any further, but logged off directly. As his consciousness came back, the faint sounds of Su Feifei busy in the kitchen reached his ears. He looked for a while at Xiaoxi sleeping quietly beside him, got up off the bed without a sound, and came out into the living room.

He ran into the kitchen and was pushed straight back out by Su Feifei for getting under her feet. Ye Tianxie sat down on the sofa and, with nothing to do, flipped the television on. On the screen, a peculiar piece of news was playing.

“…At present, the spacecraft bound for Planet Lyle has successfully completed its trial voyage. Two brave test subjects reached Planet Lyle aboard the spacecraft, were met and hosted by the residents of Planet Lyle as arranged, and have now made the return trip successfully. It is expected that in one year’s time the space service to Planet Lyle will be formally established and opened, and era-defining interstellar travel will no longer be a dream… Planet Lyle’s technology is more than three hundred years ahead of Earth’s, and there you will see any number of unbelievable wonders. Its medicine is more than five hundred years ahead of Earth’s, and many terminal illnesses that cannot be cured on Earth can be cured perfectly there… Running the interstellar service to Planet Lyle costs an enormous amount, and the fare for one person’s round trip is provisionally set at one billion Huaxia yuan. Anyone interested may begin reserving a place from today.”

“Boring.” Ye Tianxie snapped the television off with a click and shut his eyes to rest.

(End of Chapter 223)