Let the World Feel Pain!

The temple on Fierce Ghost Street, West District, Demon Capital.

A Shadow Priest in a black robe sat side by side with a finely dressed man on a bench in the chapel hall.

Believers passing through the temple hall kept staring at the well-dressed man, simply because his sculpted good looks were far too unusual.

In Hell, such looks usually only appeared among succubi or vampires.

And considering the Shadow Priest's aversion to succubi, the man's identity was practically obvious. Only one possibility remained.

"How has he been lately?"

"So-so... How well could an 'orphan' possibly be doing? Surely the esteemed Mr. Roxsey could imagine it. That is a place that raises Demon Lords."

"I know. The teaching there is very strict—"

"It isn't merely strict. Most of the students there are High-level Demons with illustrious backgrounds, just like you. As a human of 'pure blood,' he not only has to study there, but also has to be careful not to become prey for other demons."

Hearing the displeasure and reproach in his tone, Roxsey Colin looked slightly at a loss, yet instinctively tried to excuse his irresponsibility.

"To be honest... I never expected him to take this path. I actually would have preferred for him to become clergy serving the Demon God, like Tiffany..."

Feeling the killing intent in the gaze beside him, Roxsey could not help shrinking his neck and wisely stopped talking.

Though he was a Vampire Duke, he had little confidence before this Shadow Priest.

It had nothing to do with strength or status.

The main reason was that this elderly human Shadow Priest was the adoptive father of his late lover. In other words, his prospective father-in-law.

And that was not all.

After his lover died of an incurable illness beyond the reach of magic, he had shamelessly begged this "father-in-law" to take in the child he and his lover had borne together—Leon.

Even in Hell, an illegitimate child was a disgraceful matter, especially one born with a member of the clergy.

But he had not really had a choice.

Born into a prestigious family like the Colins, even a Vampire Duke often had no control over his own fate.

The elders and Patriarch of the family would never have agreed to let him bring an illegitimate child home to dilute the noble blood of the Colin Family. No one in all Hell was more obsessed with bloodlines than vampires.

Not long after Tiffany passed away, Roxsey had been forced, at his father's behest, to marry the eldest daughter of a branch family. He now even had a son and a daughter.

"Become clergy... Heh, the Demon God's temples are practically becoming harems for things like you to raise your bastards in!"

Jeffrey sighed. Though he despised this man from the bottom of his heart, he did not want to be too harsh on him... It was pointless, after all.

He had already said everything that needed saying eighteen years ago. He truly did not want to repeat himself.

After a brief pause, the elderly Shadow Priest spoke slowly.

"Leon... is a very diligent child. He has his own ideas and is very independent. Even his name was one he chose for himself. Since you have decided not to drag him into the affairs of the Colin Family, I hope your actions will match your words. Keep your promise, and stop interfering with his future."

"I know. I know."

Roxsey gave a somewhat cowardly smile and looked toward the statue at the front of the temple. There was a trace of exhaustion in his eyes, along with a measure of pride.

"To be honest, I am rather surprised too. He is even more hardworking and outstanding than I imagined. There is nothing to be done about his talent for spellcasting, but in a place like Demon Lord Academy, he actually scored full marks in every written subject for two consecutive years... Perhaps he is even better suited than I am to become the next Patriarch."

Vampires might be immortal, but the Patriarch could not hold the position forever.

Every century, the Patriarch passed the title of Vampire Prince, which symbolized the Patriarch's status, to the next Patriarch, while entering the honored council of elders.

However, because of this system, a Patriarch had little real power during the first fifty years, and during the latter fifty, they were essentially co-rulers alongside the council of elders.

A Patriarch like him might spend the entire century as a pawn of the elders... until his child became the next Patriarch and, due to the weakness of the previous generation, was forced to become a powerful Vampire Prince.

Looking at this indecisive man, Jeffrey said calmly.

"I will remind you once again. You said you would not drag him into the Colin Family's disputes."

At that moment, a bat flew in through the temple's front doors and landed precisely beside the bench.

Seeing the copper tube attached to the bat's leg, Jeffrey reached out and removed it. As he took out the letter, he slipped a rolled-up bill into the tube as payment for the delivery.

Watching the bat flap away, Jeffrey unfolded the letter and read it to the end. A faint smile appeared on his face before he handed it to Roxsey beside him.

"A letter from your son. I was going to read it to you... but you should see it yourself."

Roxsey carefully unfolded the letter he had accepted.

When he read that Leon had volunteered to become a Demon Lord, earned the favor of a Demigod-level lich, and been recommended to the cabinet for an important post, he involuntarily rose to his feet... though he quickly sat back down.

"He actually chose to become a Demon Lord?!"

This child... had far more guts than his father.

Thinking this, Roxsey felt ashamed, yet he could not help feeling proud of him.

Jeffrey nodded with a smile.

"Just as you have seen, he is even more outstanding than we imagined... even without support from you and your family."

"I... I don't know what to say." Clutching the envelope, Roxsey lowered his head in shame.

Jeffrey said gently.

"You don't need to say anything. We only need to support him quietly from behind."

Roxsey was silent for a long while. Then, suddenly gritting his teeth, he removed the ring from his index finger.

"Please give this to him for me."

This ring was not an especially powerful magic item, but it had been crafted from expensive Mithril and blood diamonds. It could easily sell for five or six million Hell Silver Coins.

As the next Patriarch, he did not lack food or clothing, but he could not squeeze out much spending money.

On one hand, his father watched him closely. On the other, his lawful wife kept an eye on him as well.

He sent nearly every bit of money he could scrape together each month to this temple.

Jeffrey reached out and pushed the ring back. Looking at Roxsey, he shook his head.

"A Colin Family ring appearing on the hand of an eighteen-year-old boy would not be a good idea for either you or him. Not only would it fail to help him, it might have the opposite effect and draw the attention of people with ill intentions."

"But—"

Jeffrey cut off Duke Roxsey, who still wanted to say something, and continued in an even tone.

"I did not give him all the money you sent every month... Of course, I did not donate it to the temple either. I saved most of it for him. By now, there should be a little over two million in that account. He is eighteen now, and he will soon be taking up his post in the Demon Lord Territory. I think this is exactly when he needs that money."

Roxsey's face showed astonishment, then excitement.

He had never expected his prospective father-in-law to have done so much for him!

"Thank you..."

Seeing the Vampire Duke thank him so sincerely, Jeffrey merely smiled faintly and turned his gaze toward the Demon God statue at the front of the temple.

"You're welcome."

"He is not only your child."

He is my grandson too.

The next day.

At exactly six in the morning, the Amethyst Dome above Demon Capital lit up on schedule, casting soft moonlight over the sleeping city.

For the demons of Hell, the rising of the "moon" marked the beginning of a new day.

However, it was not the moonlight spilling over the corner of the desk that woke Leon, but a knock at the door.

"Leon, are you awake? The graduation ceremony is starting soon. I want to go to the cafeteria first. Want to come with me?"

It was Ige's voice.

As one of Leon's few friends in Class 2, Grade 3, the two occasionally went to class together.

Shaking his groggy head, Leon pushed himself up from the floor.

"Wait a moment, I'll be right—forget it. I won't be done here anytime soon. You go ahead. I'll catch up later."

Seeing the room in complete disarray, Leon changed his mind halfway through.

Though Ige found it strange, he did not think much of it.

"Okay, then I'll go first."

Listening to the footsteps outside gradually fade away, Leon sighed in relief and began tidying up the messy room.

He had studied "A Fellow Countryman's Diary" until late last night and somehow ended up falling asleep on the floor.

Still, thanks to that, he had finished the entire book from beginning to end.

Overall, the diary was quite interesting. It was good enough that if he brought it back to his hometown and submitted it to a website called Qidian, it might even get signed. He had even come up with a title for it: This Other World Is Way Too Real!

It might even make the monthly ticket rankings.

The only thing worth criticizing was that the diary was far too much like an actual diary. Most of it consisted of Isaac IV, from the perspective of a modern person, mocking the backward productivity and production systems of this other world.

For example, noble ladies never bathed, and the stench of body odor in banquet halls could knock people unconscious. Or how the palace toilets had no flush system, so one had to watch out for assassins hiding beneath the tower whenever they went to the bathroom... One of his brothers seemed to have been killed by an assassin using Extraordinary Power in exactly that way.

There were also no light bulbs, no smartphones, no way to surf the internet, and so on... In short, it was all mundane inconveniences of daily life.

Of course, he had not done nothing but complain.

To solve these problems, he had done quite a few things a transmigrator ought to do.

He had renovated the water supply and drainage systems of the Ryan Kingdom's capital, built drainage canals and public bathhouses, improved papermaking, invented the printing press—and he had even managed to create the Steam Engine and fertilizer.

Leon was not sure whether, given another ten or twenty years, the man might have set off an industrial revolution in the other world, complete with supernatural oddities.

In any case, if everything written in the diary was true, then he could hardly be called "incompetent."

And the slanderous title of Incompetent King truly seemed more like a smear campaign and frame-up by vested interests whose cheese had been moved.

Though the diary did not mention what happened after that string of reforms, General History of the Os Empire recorded that Isaac IV had incurred divine punishment for blaspheming the Gods and was personally expelled from the faith by an Oracle delivered by Saint Siss.

Immediately afterward, Isaac IV's abandoned and isolated faction was attacked by the Os Empire.

Although the results of those reforms were largely preserved, the Isaac Dynasty was reduced to ashes in the flames of war, leaving only a few words from the victors to pass judgment on it.

The present Ryan Kingdom was already under its third dynasty, and everything about Isaac IV had become history from a thousand years ago...

To be honest, Leon was full of doubts about this period of history.

According to Headmaster Aiven, at the height of his power, Isaac IV had supposedly possessed strength comparable to the Gods.

With such formidable individual power combined with such great national strength, how had the Isaac Dynasty been destroyed by a single Oracle? And how exactly had he blasphemed the Gods? What had he done to provoke their fear?

Unfortunately, the diary did not mention the things Leon was truly curious about. It ended abruptly after stating that the man had created the Steam Engine.

Even near the end of the diary, Isaac IV only briefly mentioned that he was truly unsuited to cultivating magic. The elements drifting between heaven and earth rejected him as though he had insulted their mothers. He was destined to remain Bronze-level for the rest of his life.

Clearly.

At the time this diary was finished, Isaac IV was only Bronze-level. He had earned the worship of mortals entirely through mortal strength.

As for gaining power comparable to the Gods, that happened at some unknown point after he completed his series of reforms in the Ryan Kingdom.

Honestly, Leon did not care at all about the Steam Engine. For someone who had received nine years of compulsory education, it was hardly anything remarkable.

In comparison, he naturally wanted to know how Isaac IV had later broken through the Bronze-level bottleneck and ultimately stood upon the shoulders of the Gods...

Yet, by some cruel twist of fate, the part he was most curious about had not been written! He had no idea whether Isaac IV had recorded it in another diary, or whether that portion of history had been completely erased by the river of time.

"It seems that, for some reason, Isaac IV ultimately never published his diary... Was it because he did not want to, or because he could not? Or perhaps... he had another purpose?"

Leon glanced at the translation written by Professor Ai Wen beside him.

Calling it complete nonsense would be too hurtful. At least the punctuation had mostly been guessed correctly. It was also quite useful if treated purely as the cultivation notes of a Demigod-level lich.

He would keep it for now.

If he was fortunate enough to cultivate to the demigod or grandmaster level someday.

Just as Leon was feeling disappointed and preparing to close the diary and sleep, he spotted several lines of small writing on its final page—

"I believe my transmigration was not an accident. After me, there will surely be others who come here by the same passage I once traveled. As for the reason... I am not sure whether I should tell you here, nor am I sure whether, if I tell you at this moment, you will still be able to see this diary."

"In short, if you are my fellow countryman, you will surely be able to guess my identity, understand the message I have left behind... and one day encounter the same problem I did."

"And if that day truly comes, I believe that even without my unnecessary reminder, you will be able to realize your own mission."

"Additionally, as a welcome gift, I have prepared a special present for you. It is also the final work I have left in this world—"

"I believe you will definitely like it!"

The ink in these lines was entirely different from that on the preceding pages.

Both the quality of the ink and the distortion of the handwriting suggested that these words had most likely been added on a whim in some later year, after Isaac IV had completed the entire diary.

Below the passage on the last page was a record of how to claim this "special gift."

It was a Bronze-level magic ritual. Its requirements for Spiritual Power and magic power were not high, and even he could barely manage it.

The ritual had only one requirement: prepare a relic that still retained Isaac IV's aura.

Headmaster Aiven's necklace happened to meet that requirement! All traces of sleepiness vanished!

Suppressing his excitement, Leon spent an hour meticulously drawing the Magic Array with Magic Crystal Chalk. He placed the necklace in the center of the array, then recited the incantation, which for some reason had been written separately in pinyin—

"Loyalty—"

"Ring the great bell!"

"Devotion—"

"Heat the copper furnace, open the valve!"

"Boiling—"

"Water of sincerity, let the piston dance!"

"Praise—"

"The great God of Machines!"

Huh? The God of Machines?

The moment he uttered the final syllable, Leon saw a flash of white light and immediately lost consciousness.

When he opened his eyes again, it was already the following morning.

Rising from the floor, Leon felt a throbbing pain in the back of his head, as though he had a Hangover.

Since he had never encountered this before, he could not tell whether the pain in the back of his head was because he had slept on the floor all night, or simply because his magic power was too low and the Magic Array before him had drained him dry.

"My magic power... doesn't seem to have decreased. Was the Magic Array powered not by magic power, but by some other energy source?"

As for the so-called gift in the diary, Leon did not feel anything directly. He even felt as though he had been played.

What exactly was going on? Just as he hurriedly wiped away the Magic Array and tidied the room, he suddenly realized a serious problem.

"...Where's the necklace?"

Leon hurriedly bent down and searched the entire floor. He even opened the desk drawers, which had nothing to do with it, and turned them upside down, yet he still could not find a trace of the necklace.

It was gone?

Leon's expression gradually changed.

If Headmaster Aiven learned that he had lost the antique the old man gave him on the very same day, he wondered whether he might anger that old lich back to life.

Should he tell him the whole truth?

For example, the diary's "cipher" was actually a language from another world, and Isaac IV and he were both transmigrators...

"No... that wouldn't work."

Cold sweat had already beaded on Leon's forehead. It would be easier to fool that old monster by telling him he had lost the necklace.

"Anyway, calm down first."

Leon took a deep breath, sank his consciousness into the Sea of Consciousness, and calmed himself through meditation.

At that moment, once he had calmed down, he suddenly sensed a faint, unusual anomaly within his Sea of Consciousness.

Within the gauze-thin white mist, something seemed to be hidden—something he had never seen before.

According to the textbook, that mass of white mist was the manifestation of his spirit, or rather, his soul.

He had never heard of any Ritual Magic capable of changing the form of one's soul origin!

"...What was going on?"

With a trace of apprehension and curiosity, Leon carefully guided his consciousness toward that indescribable mass of mist.

As he continued deeper into the spiritual world, he became increasingly certain that something was hidden within that mist.

Something was there...

Could it be that necklace?!

No—

It did not seem that simple! When his consciousness fully entered the center of the spiritual world, he suddenly discovered a Stone Tablet standing in that void-like realm.

When Leon clearly saw the words carved on the Stone Tablet, he froze on the spot.

"Calamity" system loading complete!

Let this foolish world feel pain!

—by the supreme God of Machines, Lint Isaac

The event prediction game was just for fun. Everyone just needed to have a laugh. Still, quite a few people were reading it even without a pen name. Let me be smug for two seconds, hehe.