Time. What he lacked was time. But Elder Chan's breakthrough to the Ancestor Realm had given Lu Yin hope of buying some. So what if the Four Sides Heavenly Balance objected? They didn't get to call the shots in the Fifth Continent.
The Wireless Gu vibrated. Lu Yin answered. "Dao Child, this is the First Academy."
"Was the Star Picking Tower destroyed?"
"The Four Sides Heavenly Balance did it. The Star Envoy who destroyed it immediately killed himself by self-immolation, leaving no evidence behind."
"It doesn't matter. Don't worry about it," Lu Yin said.
He didn't really mean that it didn't matter, of course. But the Star Picking Tower had already been destroyed, and there was nothing he could do to change that. All he could do now was protect the Star Picking Tower at the Tenth Academy.
"A pearl appeared beneath the ruins of the Star Picking Tower."
Lu Yin was puzzled. "A pearl? What kind of pearl?"
"Just an ordinary-looking pearl, like the kind people wear. The only unusual thing is that it's the sole thing left intact after the Star Picking Tower was destroyed. I've contacted the other academies, and each of them has one, too."
"Wait for me." Lu Yin told the Mad Dean he was leaving, then headed for the other academies.
He understood now why the Star Picking Towers could draw on fate and reveal scenes from the River of Time. They each had a pearl, which had to be connected to fate. But he'd never heard of fate having any pearls. Wait—Lu Yin's pupils contracted. The Star Gate's master—Mr. Pearl.
Lu Yin moved at incredible speed and soon reached the Starry Sky Second Academy, the closest one to the Tenth Academy. But what he saw was a sea of blood, crimson waves roiling