"You're Lin Chen?" The Square-Face Man looked at Lin Chen.
"That's right..."
Before Lin Chen could finish speaking, the Square-Face Man suddenly struck, sending a palm toward Lin Chen's chest. Lin Chen instinctively swung his fist to meet it.
Bam!
Fist and palm collided, and a muffled boom burst out. Lin Chen and the Square-Face Man remained completely motionless.
"You're not an Awakened. You're a cultivator!" The Square-Face Man and the young man beside him spoke almost at the same time.
Awakened?
Cultivator?
"The Demon Suppression Division, an official organization!" The Square-Face Man looked at Lin Chen, his expression calm. "Lin Chen, come inside and let's talk."
So they really were government officials!
Lin Chen wasn't all that surprised. At a time like this, two people who were obviously no ordinary men had suddenly come looking for him. The most likely explanation was that they were government officials. He just hadn't expected them to test him the moment they met.
As Lin Chen wondered how to find those Mutated Creatures, it occurred to him that, as an official organization, they must know far more about them than he did. They could surely provide some useful information.
"Please, come in."
"Allow me to introduce myself. Wang Lin, from the Demon Suppression Division." As soon as they sat down, the Square-Face Man began introducing himself. "This is my colleague, Xu Fei!"
"Hello, you two. You came to see me..." Lin Chen nodded slightly.
"Hu Xiaoling was killed by you, right?" Wang Lin suddenly asked, his expression turning serious.
Feeling Wang Lin's gaze, Lin Chen's expression shifted. He nodded. "That's right. But she'd already been parasitized and mutated. She didn't even count as human anymore."
"We know. We investigated the surveillance footage and learned what happened to Hu Xiaoling." Wang Lin nodded slightly. He was quite satisfied with Lin Chen's response.
When Wang Lin questioned him, Lin Chen's first reaction had been to explain himself. That showed he still had a sense of awe toward the authorities.
A person with a sense of awe was easier to keep in line!
"To kill Hu Xiaoling and leave no bones behind, you must be at least a second-rank cultivator. We originally thought you were just an Awakened who'd gotten lucky." Wang Lin looked at Lin Chen with a complicated expression.
Hearing those two terms again, Lin Chen asked the question that had been on his mind. "What's an Awakened? And what's a cultivator?"
"Your elders never told you?" Xu Fei looked at Lin Chen in surprise.
"No."
Lin Chen shook his head. He didn't have any elders to speak of—both in his past life and this one, he'd always been alone. But he understood what Xu Fei meant: they suspected he had a powerful person backing him.
Lin Chen didn't deny it. The system counted, too, didn't it?
"About a hundred years ago, rifts in space and time began appearing in the world. These so-called Time Slots are Space-Time Rifts. Where they appear and how long they last are both unpredictable."
"When a Time Slot appears, it releases a special energy. If a living being can withstand that energy, it mutates. Humans who do are called Awakened."
"Awakened have physical abilities far beyond those of ordinary people, giving them the foundation for cultivation. If they obtain a cultivation method, they can advance further and become cultivators."
So that was it!
After hearing Wang Lin's explanation, Lin Chen understood. Awakened had merely gained the foundation for cultivation, while cultivators had truly set foot on the path of cultivation.
"So a Time Slot appeared at Qingzhou University last night?" Lin Chen looked at Wang Lin.
"That's right. When the Time Slot appeared last night, we rushed over to deal with it immediately. But there were still casualties. Hu Xiaoling ate two of her roommates." Wang Lin sighed softly.
A Time Slot had appeared, and an Awakened had emerged at the same time. No wonder Wang Lin and Xu Fei had initially assumed Lin Chen was Awakened. They hadn't realized he was a cultivator until they tested him.
That extra thousand points of Origin must have had something to do with the Time Slot, Lin Chen recalled, thinking of the thousand extra points of Origin the system had gained.
"Are many people successfully Awakened when a Time Slot appears?" Lin Chen asked curiously.
"If they can withstand the energy's surging force, they can Awaken. The greater their intelligence, the harder it is to Awaken. Ordinary creatures have about a one-in-ten chance of mutating, while humans have roughly a one-in-a-thousand chance of Awakening."
Lin Chen's mouth twitched. No wonder his original body had died. A one-in-a-thousand chance was incredibly low!
"We came here to confirm your identity. You haven't registered yet, so we need to record your information and submit it to the Demon Suppression Division."
"There's one more thing... We need to give you a serious warning!" Wang Lin suddenly looked at Lin Chen solemnly.
"The Demon Suppression Division doesn't just suppress Mutated Creatures. It also deals with Evil Demons among humanity, as well as criminal cultivators!"
Lin Chen nodded slightly, showing that he understood. The authorities had to impose restrictions. Otherwise, the world would have descended into chaos long ago.
"Student Lin, you haven't joined the Cultivator Forum yet, have you?" Xu Fei suddenly asked.
"The Cultivator Forum?" Lin Chen shook his head slightly. He'd only Awakened last night and become a cultivator that morning. Wang Lin and Xu Fei were the first cultivators he'd ever met. How was he supposed to know about some Cultivator Forum?
"Add me as a friend, and I'll recommend the Cultivator Forum to you. You can download the app and log in right away. The forum has official backing." Xu Fei looked at Lin Chen and continued, "You can take a look around to get the gist of it."
Lin Chen nodded slightly and added Xu Fei as a friend. Soon, he received the app recommendation and downloaded and installed it.
"Lin Chen, we'll transfer your rewards for killing the Mutated Rats and Hu Xiaoling directly to your bank card," Wang Lin told him.
"There are rewards, too?" Lin Chen looked surprised.
Seeing his reaction, Xu Fei smiled and explained, "Of course. Sometimes the authorities can't handle everything themselves, so we post missions on the forum. They all come with rewards."
Lin Chen's eyes lit up. Killing Mutated Creatures could earn him Origin for strengthening himself and bring in money, too. Wasn't that killing two birds with one stone?
At that moment, Lin Chen seemed to see a wonderful new life beckoning to him!
"We've troubled you this time. If you have no other questions, we'll take our leave."
With that, Wang Lin led Xu Fei out of the dormitory.
"I didn't expect the authorities to be so easy to talk to!"
After Wang Lin and Xu Fei left, Lin Chen couldn't help but marvel. But on second thought, it wasn't surprising. Time Slots had been appearing for nearly a century. In all that time, even with only a one-in-a-thousand chance of Awakening, there must have been quite a few cultivators.
A well-ordered system for managing Awakened and cultivators had long since been established.
Once the forum finished downloading, Lin Chen opened it and logged in right away. After a brief look around, he had a general idea of how it worked.
It was a place established by the authorities for cultivators to communicate. Besides discussions about cultivation, it also offered resource trading, Bounty Missions, and more.
Lin Chen didn't need to discuss cultivation; he could just strengthen himself directly. As for cultivation resources, he could get them by killing Mutated Creatures. So he went straight to the Bounty Mission section to browse.
But for now, Lin Chen could only browse second-rank Bounty Missions. This was probably related to his rating, since Wang Lin had said earlier that he was at least a second-rank cultivator.
"Senyuan Chicken Farm: Large numbers of chickens have mysteriously disappeared. A Mutated Creature is suspected to be lurking there."
This one!
Lin Chen glanced over the mission and accepted it at once. Then he called a ride-hailing car, preparing to head to Senyuan Chicken Farm.
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