An item that could grant a person’s wish. That kind of thing had only ever lived in people’s imaginations, or in fairy tales and myths; it had never really existed, and never truly would. And now something with exactly that power had appeared in front of his eyes, held in his own hand.

A thing like this should not exist at all, not in the real world and not in the game world. It ought to belong to myth alone, and even if it did turn up, it ought to be an illusion and nothing more… But one of the seven great hidden ultimate items of the World of Fate, given a name like that by the System itself — could it be false?

If he could find the legendary Wishing Lake and Wishing Tree, would a wish truly be granted?

The strongest longing he had right now was, of course, for his Xian’er to come back to his side and never be parted from him again. If the legend of the Wishing Glaze was true, then was the wish it could grant limited to the game world, or… could it truly grant any wish a person held in his heart?

Ye Tianxie knew it could not possibly be the latter. Because in the end, it was only a divine artifact of the game world.

“Yaoyao, let’s go.” Closing his hand carefully around the Wishing Glaze, Ye Tianxie finally left the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins, a place whose edge he had never once been able to see. At the very instant his body turned to white light and departed, a System prompt rang out through the whole World of Fate.

“Ding… Worldwide Announcement! Huaxia battle region player Xietian has successfully completed the battle region Alliance-Guild System Quest, ‘Bones of the War God.’ The Huaxia battle region’s Alliance-Guild System is now open. Players with Renown above 100 may apply at the City Lord’s manor in any major city to found the relevant guilds, gangs and alliances. The Huaxia battle region has the honor of being the first battle region in the world to open the Alliance-Guild System. Battle Region Honor Value +150. Huaxia battle region player Xietian has the honor of being the world’s first player to complete the Alliance-Guild System Quest, gains Renown 150 × 10, and receives the additional reward of the class-change scroll for the hidden class ‘Soul of Guardianship.'”

“Ding… Worldwide Announcement…”

“Ding… Worldwide Announcement…”

When that System prompt sounded, very nearly every player in the world went wild…

First the Mercenary System Quest, then the Pet System Quest — and now, in this short a time, the first battle region to complete the Alliance-Guild System Quest had appeared as well. All three of those System Quests had been completed first by the Huaxia battle region. Of the three, the Mercenary System Quest and the Alliance-Guild System Quest had been finished by the same man, and by one man alone — Xietian! And among the three who completed the Pet System Quest, Xietian’s name was there too!

Which was to say that he, by himself, had used that terrifying strength of his to gather every one of these honors under his own name and under Huaxia’s, and left every other battle region and every other nation with nothing whatsoever.

The shock the name Xietian carried rose wildly once again in that moment. He had been the focus of the whole world’s talk already; now players everywhere were coming to know exactly who he was.

Battle Region Honor Ranking:

First place: Huaxia battle region. Honor Value: 450.

On the Battle Region Honor Ranking, Huaxia still sat high at the very top, and its honor value had climbed once again. Below it there was still nothing but blank space — as though it were mercilessly mocking the other battle regions for their uselessness, and setting off Huaxia’s brilliance at the same time.

The extra rewards for being first to finish a System Quest were always extremely generous, as the first two System Quests had already proved beyond argument… and this time, players all over the world heard that the reward for the Alliance-Guild System Quest was something precious past all measure, something no sky-high price could ever buy — a class-change scroll for a hidden class. A top-tier reward to turn a man’s eyes red with envy until he coughed up blood.

“Second Brother’s done it again. One man, and he’s gone and finished all three System Quests!”

Zuo Pojun was at the July Chamber of Commerce, run off his feet helping Liu Qiyue. He clenched both fists in excitement and shouted it out, the System prompt repeating five times over in his ears.

“…Ai. How are those poor lads in the other countries supposed to feel — the ones trying again and again in an endless round of dying?” Murong Qiushui spread both hands and said it slowly, with a look of deep pity.

“Second Brother should be back by now.” Zuo Pojun called up his friend list, meaning to hail Ye Tianxie — and all at once his eyes went wide. He went blank for a good long moment, then stammered, “Fourth Brother… look… Second Brother… he… he’s already level twenty!”

Murong Qiushui’s gaze landed on the eye-catching “20” behind Ye Tianxie’s name. After a silence he tipped his head back and said, in a voice that seemed to come from a dream, “If my eyes and my memory are not deceiving me, I recall that an hour ago Second Brother was still level 16. Oh — can it be that my eyes and my memory have started to deceive me as well?”

“An hour ago Second Brother really was level 16. We looked at it together. Something unbelievable must have happened to Second Brother again…”

“This world is too crazy.”

“We’ll know if we ask him. We can only blame ourselves for being too weak — if we could stay at Second Brother’s side, we’d know everything.” Zuo Pojun mocked himself quietly, then picked up his communicator. He had barely opened his mouth when Ye Tianxie’s voice came out of it: “Pojun, you’ve got five minutes to get to my house. Otherwise I’ll think about auctioning that ‘Soul of Guardianship’ class scroll off tomorrow — it ought to earn Big Sister’s chamber of commerce a fair bit of renown…”

Whoosh…

Ye Tianxie had not even finished speaking before Zuo Pojun’s great tall body shot away like an arrow off the string.

“Well now. The world really is crazy, and my memory has deceived me once again. I distinctly remember Third Brother’s Movement Speed being 80… Just now it may well have been 800.” Looking at the spot where Zuo Pojun had been standing before he vanished in a blink, Murong Qiushui sighed to himself, and only then ambled off after him.

“Soul of Guardianship.” One listen to the name and you knew it was a guarding-type hidden class, and the pull it had on Zuo Pojun was beyond resisting.

Zuo Pojun ran flat out the whole way, like a rocket skimming along the ground, and in under a minute he reached the door of Guoguo’s Cottage and charged straight through it.

“Second Brother! I’m here!” He bellowed it the moment he was inside, unable to hold it in — and what met him were two deeply peculiar looks, from Su Feifei and Shattered Star-Heart. Of Ye Tianxie there was no sign at all.

“Uh…” Zuo Pojun laughed awkwardly and asked, “Where’s my Second Brother?”

“Tianxie? He isn’t back yet. What do you want him for, hollering like that?” Su Feifei arched her slender brows.

“Not back?” Zuo Pojun stood there dumbfounded. He was just about to lift his communicator and ask Ye Tianxie when the door behind him opened and Ye Tianxie walked in. One look at Zuo Pojun stopped him mid-step, and he muttered, “The hell. That was a bit too fast.”

“Second Brother! Second Brother, you’re back at last.” Zuo Pojun scurried up to meet him, both eyes so pitiful and pleading that water looked ready to spill out of them at any second. “That — that hidden class scroll. Are you really giving it to me?”

“If you don’t want it I won’t force you. I’ll just give it to Big Sister—”

“Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t! I never once said I didn’t want it.” Zuo Pojun cut the rest of Ye Tianxie’s sentence off in a hurry, then swore up and down, “Second Brother, set your mind at rest. From the very start I’ve meant to become the World of Fate‘s number one Guardian. I’d never make you lose face. So hand that scroll over and don’t give it another thought.”

Ye Tianxie could not hold back a laugh, and clapped him on that tall shoulder. “And you call yourself the Zuo family’s eldest son. Looking at you with no backbone at all — was I really going to sell it? … Oh. Where’s Qiushui?”

“He…”

“He is walking softly toward you now, like the clouds along the edge of the sky.”

And with that voice — a woman’s, languid and faintly aggrieved — Murong Qiushui strolled in. “Dearest Second Brother, every time I see you, it is as though I am seeing a warm sun in the depths of winter. However cold this world may turn, it can never forget your warmth and your light.”

Ye Tianxie: “……”

Zuo Pojun: “……”

Su Feifei: “Hoo… here we go again.”

Shattered Star-Heart (in a small voice, close to Su Feifei’s ear): “Sister, he talks so strangely.”

“Come on, let’s go through.” Ye Tianxie raised a hand and walked into the main hall.

The World of Fate had every fruit that had ever existed in the real world, and rare fruits the real world did not have as well. Take the small dish of strange fruit sitting on the table, like little purple crystals.

To look after this home better, Shattered Star-Heart — who already held two life professions, identifier and seamstress — had gone on to learn related skills such as “Planting” and “Harvesting,” and had changed class to Basic Gardener. These strange fruits, unseen in the real world, were the first rare crop she had succeeded in growing; eaten, they not only cut down hunger but raised the upper limit of a person’s health by a small amount for a set time. Growing them was not hard — Basic Planting was enough to manage it, and the fruit could be picked two days later. What was hard was getting hold of the seeds. And the seeds for this fruit could fairly be called a bonus that came with the house, because they had already been there in the back garden all along, planted and growing.

Eating a crystal fruit, tasting the clean sweetness that soaked right through him, Zuo Pojun asked casually, “Second Brother, where did you just go?”

“Mm. Went and had a funds card made, and moved some money onto it while I was there.” Ye Tianxie took out a golden card and gave it a shake. Anyone could have one of these funds cards, and it belonged to that one person alone, bound perfectly to his identity. With the card on you, you could freely change game coin into real-world money and back again, right inside the game, and for both safety and convenience it was as close to perfect as it got. On top of that, whichever way the exchange ran, not one handling fee was taken along the way. No virtual game world before this had ever managed it.

“Oh. How much did you move?” Zuo Pojun asked, still casual.

“Not much. Four hundred million.”

“Pfft!” The crystal fruit Zuo Pojun had just tossed into his mouth came straight back out again in a spray.

(End of Chapter 222)