Relationships!!

The camphor trees beside the road were as lush as ever, giving off a faint fragrance.

From the training grounds came the shouts of students working up a sweat; the library's glass walls reflected the setting sun...

Everything was so familiar, so ordinary, yet it filled Qin Yan with a warmth he could hardly put into words.

His trip to the Eversong Star Realm had lasted only three months, but to him, it felt as though he had been gone for years.

He had seen the brutal world of the Ten Thousand Races, where the strong preyed on the weak. He had survived fights and schemes that brought him within a hair's breadth of death, gained strength and resources, and glimpsed both the terror of greater powers and the vastness of the world.

"The path of a martial artist... Every step is dangerous."

Qin Yan sighed inwardly.

Just because the Human Clan had taken first and third place at the Hidden Dragon Assembly, and because the deaths of two True King Descendants might have been involved, they had faced one assassination attempt after another. Their enemies had even sent three Ninth-Rank Venerables!

Such "attention" was almost too flattering.

Though, come to think of it, I may have gotten dragged into this because of Liu Ruyan.

I took first place, but all I really did was steal the spotlight and take some resources.

Liu Ruyan killed Fire Lizard, the Fire Lizard Clan's True King Descendant, with her own hands!

That's a genuine blood feud. The kind that ends only when one side is dead.

Those assassination attempts—especially the last three Black-Robed Venerables, with their scorching aura and lizard-shaped attacks...

Liu Ruyan was probably their main target. I may have just been caught up in it.

With that realization, Qin Yan fully