“The Tower of Fate is a terrible place. Though the Eight Demon Kings are no longer in it, countless demon-beasts and evil fiends have been sealed within over the eons, each floor stronger than the last. Only true powerhouses can enter it. Just how arduous obtaining the Hero’s Badge is, you should have experienced by now — and obtaining the Champion’s Badge and War God’s Badge is harder still, the trials so exacting they could easily drive a person to despair. But only powerhouses who can pass even trials of such despair are true powerhouses.”
Ye Tianxie listened quietly, gradually sketching the rough shape of the Tower of Fate in his mind. The chief before him could never possibly imagine that the vanished Hour of Eternal Fate was right there in his hand — and had become his weapon, no less. Beneath his calm exterior, his heart once again pounded wildly of its own accord… This world’s power core, the Hour of Fate that sealed away countless demons and fiends — why had it appeared on him, and in the real world at that… left behind by her.
Why?!
“Oh la! I heard it… the Tower of Fate, the Tower of Fate… master, master, you absolutely have to go to the Tower of Fate.”
Guoguo’s voice sounded out of nowhere at his ear — first the voice, and only then did her little body gradually reveal itself, straddling Ye Tianxie’s shoulder in a rather unseemly posture. She opened her little mouth in a yawn and gave a lazy stretch, wearing the look of someone not yet fully awake.
“Why?” Ye Tianxie asked in a very small, low voice.
“Because… the moment I heard ‘Tower of Fate,’ I remembered — the Hour of Fate’s purple Fate Core is still left up at the top of the tower… Huh? Strange, why would I know these things… why?” Guoguo bit her finger, puffed out her cheeks, and blinked as she strained to think of the answer. And the answer to that question… not even the Jade Emperor himself could probably answer it for her… who the hell knew how she knew.
“Master… is there any more apple to eat?” Having failed to think of the answer, Guoguo immediately shifted her attention, turning to float before Ye Tianxie’s eyes, both hands clutching the hem of her dress, asking pitifully — in a pose that said she’d burst into tears if she didn’t get an apple.
This little girl’s tear offensive had the power to kill him in one hit, and Ye Tianxie hadn’t the nerve to try weathering it again. Helplessly, he took an apple from his backpack and stuffed it into her arms. Guoguo let out an immediate little cheer, flew back to his shoulder hugging the apple, and set to gnawing on it in great satisfied bites.
Full of feeling, the chief said, “Young brave one, perhaps… no, I believe you’ll surely have the qualification to climb the Tower of Fate one day. Now then, you’ve obtained the proof of passing the Abyss trial — do you wish to be teleported at once to the mysterious Lost Continent? There, your journey of destiny in this world will truly begin. It is a vast, beautiful, bountiful, mysterious, and peril-ridden land, and the first place you’ll be sent is the City of Heaven’s Stars, in the east of the Lost Continent. It is one of the Lost Continent’s five great main cities, and the true starting point every one of you humans from another world must first reach. Have you decided…? Once you leave, you’ll never be able to return here again.”
“Never able to return? Not even if my level drops below ten?” Ye Tianxie’s brow knit slightly as he asked.
“You cannot!” The chief shook his head. “Once you leave, you’ll never be able to return. Not even if you humans from another world drop back to Level 0. The mysterious Lost Continent is vast enough to take you a lifetime to explore. Perhaps you’ll tread every inch of the Lost Continent, or perhaps you’ll set foot on the even vaster lands beyond it — but you’ll never return to this original starting point. This is a rule of this world, a rule no one can change… unless you gain some ability to tear that rule apart.”
Never able to return… Ye Tianxie’s mind couldn’t help flashing to that strange hidden quest he’d inadvertently taken at the blacksmith shop, and… that quest from the old woman with the sealed lower body to collect ten thousand wolf eyes. Though the first three stages of that quest had rewards so pitiful he’d wanted to cleave the old crone in two with a single stroke — and this latest stage made him want to hack her clean in half — deep down, he believed the system surely wouldn’t really arrange a quest that was like a trap; without seeing the quest through to the end, no one could say for certain what conclusion it ultimately pointed to.
But if he was truly destined to be unable to return to the novice village, then this quest would become one that genuinely could not be completed.
“Village chief, is there any item or method here that can expand a backpack?” Ye Tianxie thought for a moment and asked.
“The beautiful City of Heaven’s Stars will have what you want; but here… ah, no.” The chief shook his head flatly.
Ye Tianxie wrestled with himself inwardly for a while, then said helplessly, “Village chief, I won’t go to the City of Heaven’s Stars just yet — there are still some unfinished matters to handle.”
The chief nodded and said, “That’s the right call. Once you leave you can’t return, so think carefully about anything you might have missed. Oh, right…” The chief suddenly thought of something, his eyes lighting up abruptly, and he said with some urgency, “You’d best go see Yuan Que. If he sees this Hero’s Badge, he might just… give you a considerable surprise.”
Yuan Que… that odd little old man who reeked of strangeness at every turn…
“All right, I’ll go now.” Ye Tianxie nodded and turned toward the pharmacy.
“Yu— Bro Que, I’m here. The chief told me to come by and see you.” Ye Tianxie got straight to the point in stating why he’d come, while deliberately puffing out his chest so this lazy little old man — who couldn’t even be bothered to open his eyes — would notice the Hero’s Badge at his chest right away.
Now, he finally understood that the Hero’s Badge obtained after that heaven-defying trial was indeed not as simple as its surface attributes; its latent power had already begun to excite and astonish Ye Tianxie.
“You, kid…” Yuan Que half-opened his eyes, but the words had barely left his mouth when they suddenly stopped, and his body sprang up like a spring. “The Hero’s Badge… you actually…”
Ye Tianxie tapped the Hero’s Badge at his chest and said with a casual air, “Just casually passed some trial, and then I had this thing… and then the chief told me to come have a chat with you.”
Yuan Que’s reaction was even more exaggerated than the chief’s, but he settled down quickly enough too. He leisurely sat back down, rubbed his nose, and only then lifted his head and said a line that gave Ye Tianxie no end of grief: “Actually, Bro’s an expert.”
Ye Tianxie forcibly held back the urge to spit in his face and waited for him to go on.
“Ah — that old man the chief really does know me. Truth be told, I’ve been waiting all this while for someone like you, someone with the ability to obtain the Hero’s Badge.”
“Bro… really is an expert.” Yuan Que’s expression was heavy, his gaze weathered, his voice fine-spun and drawn-out, and the words he spoke gave Ye Tianxie all the more grief.
(End of Chapter 50)