Good Grief, Even the Spectator Gallery Was Packed to Bursting

That night, the group-wide cumulative transaction counter in the lower right corner of the bronze scroll ticked up one last digit, passing the twelve-thousand mark.

Immediately afterward, a pillar of dark golden light lit up in the center of the scroll, and the Group Hub's notification chimes rang out one after another.

[Group Hub: Group-wide cumulative transactions have exceeded 12,000. The group has advanced to tier three!]

[Group Hub: Tier-three permissions unlocked: The spectator gallery is open. Spectators may watch, but interjecting will cost them their seats. Spectator activity is folded into a counter bar. Historical playback is now available, allowing new members to review the chat history. The special session moderator's platform is complete: lock the topic at the start, pass the microphone to each person in turn, and anyone who goes off topic will be automatically muted for thirty breaths!]

The announcement had barely been pinned to the top of the public screen when the spectator gallery icon lit up. It had been gray until then.

Qin Zhaoye didn't wait long. With a casual swipe through the group owner's controls, he flipped the switch to approve the waiting applicants.

That did it. Waiting applications accumulated across the eras poured into the channel all at once. There were so many that the Group Hub immediately activated its folding mechanism, and a glittering gold banner popped up beneath the public screen.

"The spectator gallery is boiling over ×247!"

The number kept leaping upward, so fast that it passed three hundred in the blink of an eye.

There were two bronze buttons on the special session moderator's platform: one for "Lock topic" and the other for "Microphone allocation." Qin Zhaoye reached out and tried pressing each one. A podium appeared at the top of the public screen, with microphone icons lined up across it. The rule was simple: only the person whose light was on could speak.

[Group owner: A new look for tier three. The moderator's platform and historical playback are in place, so make yourselves at home.]

Tang Wulin had been keeping watch in the group. When he saw the spectator count shooting up like mad, his eyes lit up, and he immediately submitted an application through the controls.

[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: Good grief, even the spectator gallery is packed to bursting! Group owner, I just put in an application. How about letting me be a commentator for the gallery?]

Qin Zhaoye lazily glanced at the application box. Without a second thought, he tapped "Reject."

[Group Hub: Member "Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion's" application to be a spectator gallery commentator has been rejected. Reason: Spectators watch without making noise; there is no commentary booth.]

[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: Come on! I even drafted my commentary already. Can't you give me a chance?]

[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Give it up. If they really gave you a microphone to commentate, you'd go off topic in no time and get automatically muted for thirty breaths.]

The two descendants bickered back and forth in the group. Meanwhile, in Dorm Seven at Nuoding Academy, Xiao Wu was lying on her bed. Curious, she opened the newly available "Historical playback."

The light screen flipped forward with a rush, and the first thing that appeared was the research post "Official History of the First Era: Annals of Tang San." Xiao Wu read it line by line.

The post stated plainly that Tang San was the son of Tang Hao, the young master of the Clear Sky Sect, and that his birth mother was Ah Yin, the Hundred-Thousand-Year Blue Silver Emperor. The day Ah Yin sacrificed herself was, in fact, the day Tang San was born.

Xiao Wu's swinging legs slowly came to a stop. She sat up in a daze and secretly turned to glance at Tang San, who was sitting on a nearby bed with his eyes closed, regulating his breathing. Only then did she lower her head and continue scrolling.

Further down was the thoroughly substantiated post "Pope Bibi Dong Died in the Battle of Godhood." Its opening sentence stated that Bibi Dong, the last Pope of Spirit Hall, had been defeated and killed in the Battle of Godhood, and that Spirit Hall had fallen from that point on, its name erased from the continent.

Xiao Wu sucked in a cold breath. Her hand trembled, and her fingers tapped wildly at the input box, sending out a long string of ellipses.

[Group Hub: New member "Xiao Wu" detected sending an excessively long string of meaningless symbols. Automatically folded.]

[Xiao Wu: Oh my god! I just finished going through the historical playback. You all dared to post the news of the Pope's future death outright? Brother, are these the kind of life-or-death events you read about in the group every day?]

Tang San slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the folded string of symbols. After reading it, he didn't say much, merely sending a brief reply.

[Tang San: Don't go tapping around randomly. Just keep what you've read in mind.]

Lan Xuanyu watched the commotion with amusement, then popped into the conversation himself.

[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: The newcomer is catching up fast! You'll get used to it. After all, our group's tradition is unboxing hard-confirmed official history right in front of everyone.]

In the latter half of the night, though the spectator gallery's counter bar continued to rise in waves, the group chat gradually quieted down.

Early the next morning, it was time for practice sparring on the training grounds of Qihong Soul Master Academy. Students from every year crowded around the field, while chief instructor Du Hengzhou stood quietly beside the stone steps with his hands behind his back.

Qin Zhaoye didn't join the crowd. He stood alone in the shade of a tree on the eastern side, his right hand tucked into his sleeve as he discreetly pressed the bronze scroll. Then he opened the cultivation direct-charge panel, which only the group owner could see.

"Bind completed topic 'Shrek Seven Devils Future Roster.' Direct-charge three levels."

He tapped the confirmation button lightly with his fingertip.

[Golden-letter notice: The Seven Monsters roster topic has been completed and archived. Direct charge bound. Spending 1,500 Talking Capital...]

The golden-letter notice, visible only to him, had only displayed the first half of its line, and he hadn't finished reading it, but the Group Hub's live transcript of the First Era's greatest source of deviation had popped up at the same time. The spectator gallery beneath the public screen erupted first!

The spectators from across the eras gathered in front of the public screen hadn't even caught their breath when the folded banner beneath it began climbing like mad.

"The spectator gallery is boiling over ×389!"

"The spectator gallery is boiling over ×612!"

"The spectator gallery is boiling over ×940!"

The counter jumped from one mark to the next, its red-gold digits lighting up the entire bottom bar of the public screen.

[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: What's going on? The Group Hub's live notification only just started to appear, but how has the spectator counter already shot off the charts?!]

[Ancestral Precepts Recitation Champion: Look at the transcript footage! Qin Zhaoye's Soul Power just jumped three levels in a row! If I remember right, didn't he only just break through to level thirty-one when he hunted for a ring a few days ago?!]

Almost at the same moment the spectator count shot up to its peak, a wave of powerful Soul Power thundered outward from Qin Zhaoye beneath the tree on the training grounds!

The force sent fallen leaves spinning around his feet. He could feel his Soul Power climbing steadily: level thirty-two, level thirty-three, all the way to the mark of a level thirty-four Soul Elder.

Only now did the golden-letter notice on the scroll in his palm leisurely finish displaying its final word.

The pressure of the Soul Power made some of the students sparring on the training grounds stagger. They all turned their heads in unison.

"Level thirty-four? No way. How long has it been since he turned things around?!"

"It's only been a few days! He couldn't have done it this fast even if he'd been drinking water!"

"That's our academy's treasured pillar for you. That cultivation speed is downright inhuman!"

An uproar broke out around the field.

After the crowd dispersed, Du Hengzhou walked alone into the shade and placed a hand on Qin Zhaoye's shoulder, testing that solid, powerful level thirty-four Soul Power.

The old man withdrew his hand, pressed a hand to his chest, and let out a turbid breath. He stared at Qin Zhaoye for a long while before speaking in a hoarse voice:

"Perching Swan is a small temple. The other instructors surely can't teach you much anymore either, so from today on, this old man will teach you alone."

Qin Zhaoye cupped his hands and smiled. "Then sorry to trouble you from now on, Instructor Du."

"Less cheek. Don't be late for morning class tomorrow." Du Hengzhou snorted and walked down from the raised platform with his hands behind his back.

That same night, in the western room of the inn's rear courtyard in the south of the city.

The oil lamp's wick was turned very low. Luo Tan sat at a desk, with three copies of Night Owl Terrace's secret reports spread before her, ready to be archived.

The first two read "Qin Zhaoye did not leave the academy that night" and "His background is clean, with nothing suspicious." The third, which she had just finished writing, stated: "Qin Zhaoye has recently been cultivating diligently behind closed doors. He made an occasional trip to the hunting grounds to obtain his third ring. He is well-behaved and has not meddled in the branch hall's affairs."

Read together, the three reports made the "Qin Zhaoye" in Night Owl Terrace's records an academy genius who kept to himself. But that account had completely diverged from the real man who had emptied a hidden cache, turned the tables and killed an enforcement team, and leaped three levels in the blink of an eye.

Luo Tan studied the lines recording his movements on the third copy for a while. Then she dipped her brush in ink and casually crossed out the original entry, "Left the academy at midnight," replacing it with "Did not leave all night."

What did she hope to gain by leaving him this fallback? She hadn't even given it much thought herself. She simply blew the ink dry and locked the copies together in a hidden compartment.

The night grew deeper.

In the group, the spectator waiting pool was still flooding the screen, and the excitement in the group had probably crossed into a new league.

Late that night, the group finally fell into a rare silence. It was just then that Lan Xuanyu's teaser post appeared.

[Ten-Thousand-Year Melon Field Contractor: Don't go to sleep, everyone. I've spent a full three years putting together the next major research post. Tomorrow morning, we'll unbox the "Complete Record of the Battle of Godhood."]

The public screen, which had been lively all night, suddenly went still. Even the scrolling counter bar froze.

Inside the Pope's Palace in Spirit City, Bibi Dong raised a hand to close the light screen, but her fingertip hovered over that line of text for a long time without pressing down.