Master, Are You Going to Propose for Me?

In the darkness of Prison No. 18, a warm breath suddenly emanated from one of the cells during the countdown.

Gradually, the warm breath turned into scorching heat.

Waves of heat were surging out of that cell, like the evening tide in the equatorial region.

In the two cells next to this cell, prisoners were frantically banging on the alloy gate and shouting for help.

Their cries for help grew fainter and fainter, and the water in their bodies was rapidly evaporated by the high temperature. They entered a state of dehydration in just two minutes.

Lin Xiaoxiao, who was sleeping on the first floor, suddenly got up. He went to the square, looked up, and exchanged a glance with Ye Wan, who also sensed something was wrong. "Elemental awakening?"

"Yes," Ye Wan nodded, "It's Liu Dezhu's cell."

Lin Xiaoxiao was utterly astonished. "What did this kid experience in the Outer World that caused him to awaken?!"

The alloy gates in the square opened, and six robotic prison guards lined up in two neat rows to enter. Meanwhile, the Hive drones in the sky were falling down, flying towards the unusual cell.

"Save them first," Ye Wan, bending his knees slightly and leaping like a tiger, landing steadily on the third-floor corridor. He opened the two alloy gates next door and threw the exhausted prisoners inside far away.

The heatwave in the cell was pouring out through the alloy gate, and Ye Wan's hair on her forehead was beginning to look dry and brittle.

The next moment, a semi-transparent force field suddenly gathered in front of him. As the heat swept over, one could see that the bell-shaped force field had a dense honeycomb structure.

Ye Wan stood in front of the cell door. Three mechanical prison guards stood on either side of the corridor where he was, and a drone hovered in mid-air behind him.

He waited until the temperature inside began to drop before Ye Wan signaled the mechanical prison guards to open the alloy gate.

With a click, the alloy gate opened, and Liu Dezhu was sitting weakly on the ground. All the household items in the room had been burned to black or white ash.

Strangely, Liu Dezhu's clothes were still intact.

Despite his listless state, he muttered with unusual excitement, "I'm Awakened! I've really become Awakened!"

"Come out," Ye Wan said. "I'll change your cell."

Liu Dezhu suddenly turned around. "Where's the boss? Has my boss come back yet? I have to tell him the news, I succeeded!"

Ye Wan's expression turned strange. He hadn't expected that this guy's first reaction would be to tell Qing Chen about the awakening.

He didn't know that, in Liu Dezhu's view, if his boss hadn't instructed him to maintain his anger, he might not have awakened to this truth by now...

At this moment, Lin Xiaoxiao came to the door and said with a smile, "Your boss doesn't have time to deal with you right now."

"So what level am I at now?" Liu Dezhu asked.

"C-Class," Lin Xiaoxiao leaned against the door listlessly. "Don't be so happy yet, you still have a long road ahead of you."

On the desolate wilderness, by a lonely campfire, Li Shutong looked at Qing Chen with a smile, "When you go back this time, will you still be diligently cultivating?"

"Yes," Qing Chen nodded, taking off his shirt to reveal his muscular physique.

Li Shutong was somewhat surprised. "I deliberately didn't remind you to cultivate, just to see how you occasionally lack self-discipline, but I didn't expect you to still persist. Strange, after gaining so much power after becoming a knight, how could you still be satisfied with the slow growth of your cultivation?"

Just like many people who suddenly become rich and have a net worth of hundreds of millions, if someone drops ten dollars on the ground, this newly rich person may not even be willing to bend down to pick it up.

They wouldn't even consider something worth several thousand yuan, let alone ten.

At this moment, Li Shutong felt that if Qing Chen became a billionaire, he would find a way to pry out even a penny embedded in the concrete pavement.

This left Li Shutong somewhat at a loss for words.

While other teachers hope their students can be more self-disciplined, he hopes his students can relax occasionally.

Something doesn't feel right!

Qing Chen put his shirt back on and added a few more pieces of firewood to the campfire, saying, "Master, it's not that I'm particularly self-disciplined, it's just that I remembered something. Lin Xiaoxiao once told me that I should experience Life and Death Trial as an ordinary person, so I think continuing my cultivation will definitely come in handy."

Li Shutong sighed, "You are quite clever."

"The knight has already become a superhuman after his advancement. How can he return to the state of an ordinary person?" Qing Chen wondered.

"I was thinking of letting you relax a bit after you become a superhuman before telling you," Li Shutong said. "Try reversing the frequency of your Breathing Technique."

As Qing Chen recalled the frequency of his Breathing Technique, icy blue patterns suddenly appeared on both sides of his cheeks, completely different from the previous flame patterns.

With a click from within his body, Qing Chen felt the Gene Lock that had been unlocked in his body lock back in!

The surging power within his body was also drawn away to some corner in that instant.

He suddenly looked at Li Shutong: "Teacher, will I have to use reverse Breathing Technique every time I face a Life and Death Trial?"

"Yes," Li Shutong nodded, "And the Breathing Technique cannot be interrupted; if it is interrupted for even a second, it must be started all over again."

"I see," Qing Chen nodded.

He stopped using Breathing Technique, but the Gene Lock did not reopen.

Li Shutong explained from the side, "Don't worry, the Gene Lock will only reopen an hour after the Reverse Breathing Technique ends. This can be considered a price to pay for using the Breathing Technique. If you could restart the Gene Lock at any time after failing Life and Death Trial, then the Life and Death Trial would be meaningless."

"In that case, wouldn't it be extremely dangerous for the knight to go through Life and Death Trial ordeal? If someone deliberately obstructs him, what was originally a life—or -Life and Death Trial with only a nine-out-of-ten chance of survival will become a ten-out-of-ten chance of death," Qing Chen asked.

"Therefore, knights must keep secrets when facing Life and Death Trial," Li Shutong said.

"Isn't there a way to forcibly reopen the Gene Lock?" Qing Chen wondered. "We can't just let ourselves be slaughtered."

"Yes, but I hope you never have to use it," Li Shutong said. "Once you master the Reverse Breathing Technique, you can forcefully use the forward Breathing Technique to unlock the shackles again, but the price is that you will be stuck at that level for the rest of your life."

Qing Chen was silent for a moment. "There must have been some senior who paid the price for this."

"Of course there is," Li Shutong said with emotion. "Your senior uncle Chen Jiazhang's cultivation level stagnated because of this incident. When he was completing the Surge of Strength, he was ambushed and attacked. At that time, he had no choice but to keep his cultivation level at A-level forever."

It turns out that the dangers the knight faces when he goes through Life and Death Trial come not only from nature, but also from the wickedness of human nature.

At this moment, Qing Chen felt his power after becoming an ordinary person, which was clearly much greater than before he climbed the Green Mountain Cliff: "Teacher, I found a friend in the Outer World who can control force fields to create a gravity chamber for me to cultivate in. I feel that after the gravity chamber is combined with Breathing Technique, my progress is several times faster."

"Controlling a force field?" Li Shutong thought for a moment. "It's been a long time since Awakened in the Inner World has been able to control a force field. Are you sure it's controlling a force field and not just air?"

"I'm sure," Qing Chen nodded. "Is there any explanation?"

"Awakened can control the four fundamental forces are born brilliant," Li Shutong said. "Their potential is very high, and their combat capabilities are extremely strong. In the history of the New Civilization Era, almost every such Awakened has held a pivotal position."

Qing Chen was stunned; he hadn't expected Yang Yang's abilities to be so formidable.

At this moment, Li Shutong asked, "Is your friend a boy or a girl? They must have a good relationship to help you create a gravity chamber for cultivation."

"A girl," Qing Chen answered honestly.

Li Shutong fell into deep thought.

"What's wrong, Master?" Qing Chen asked.

"Do you know where she is in the Inner World? Does she have any family?" Li Shutong looked at Qing Chen. "Do you need your master to help you propose marriage?"

Qing Chen: "... Master, I have no feelings for that girl, and I'm quite certain that she suddenly appeared for her own purpose, so please don't overthink it."

"Alright," Li Shutong said.

"Master, where are we going next? Back to Prison No. 18?" Qing Chen asked.

"I'll definitely go back, but I need to take care of some things in City No. 18 before I do," Li Shutong explained with a smile. "How long is your countdown this time?"

"7 days."

"It will take four days to get back to City No. 18, so three more days... will be enough!" Li Shutong said confidently.

Qing Chen was a little confused. What did this master want to take him to do?

Countdown City, District 6, Night.

A silver-haired girl wearing white headphones walked into the glass elevator of the Luoshen Building, listening to light music that flowed like a stream.

She raised her slender wrist and pressed the elevator button for the 132nd floor, then turned around to admire the city night view through the transparent glass as the elevator ascended.

The girl was carrying a crossbody bag containing her e-reader and other personal items.

Her bag was showing some wear and tear, and her friends kept advising her to get a new one, but she always replied that she liked the little bear pattern on the bag, so she couldn't bear to replace it.

In fact, the girl had not received a penny from her family since graduating from junior high school. She had to work part-time to earn the expensive tutoring fees in order to have any hope of getting into a better university.

Moreover, going to university is just the beginning. You should know that unless she gets into the Spark Military Academy or the Northwest Army, she will have to bear even higher university tuition fees.

Every university offers scholarships, but the problem is that she doesn't have a strong resume to support her in getting one.

Thinking about this, the girl felt a little lost, unsure of where her future lay.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a hand blocked them.

The girl saw in the glass reflection that a middle-aged man and a teenager were entering the elevator. Both were wearing brand-new white tracksuits and brand-new black baseball caps.

The brim of their hats was pulled low, so the silver-haired girl couldn't see the faces of the two people.

After the two entered, they did not press the elevator button, but instead stood quietly behind the girl, also looking out the glass window of the elevator.

She recalled the rumors of a robbery that occurred to a resident on the 89th floor, and gradually tightened her grip on the strap of her handbag, leaving marks on the belt with her clean fingernails.

However, as the girl sized up the other person in the reflection, she felt that these two didn't seem like members of those lawless gangs.

She had never seen any club members dressed so neatly before.

Yes, the girl's first impression of these two men was that they were clean.

The elevator was climbing rapidly, and the girl felt some discomfort in her eardrums. This was because the elevator was going too fast and the floor was too high, just like when an airplane takes off.

By this time, the elevator had reached the 91st floor. Outside the window, a complex network of overpasses stretched across the sky, covering the entire city and connecting skyscrapers with plazas in the sky.

When the streetlights come on, the overpass looks like a nebula swirling around the city.

The boy behind her looked out the window and said, "With such complicated city traffic, won't you get lost?"

"I don't know," the middle-aged man replied. "The teacher used to have a driver when he went out."

The girl secretly scoffed. "It's the age of self-driving cars now, who has time to hire a driver?"

Although the overpass is complex, you only need to tell the Artificial Intelligence the destination when driving.

With a ding, the elevator arrived at the 132nd floor.

The silver-haired girl was too nervous to move, but the middle-aged man and the boy stepped out of the elevator first and headed straight for the depths of the corridor.

After the other person exited the elevator, she slowly turned around and saw that he had entered the password in front of a door. With a click, the door unlocked.

The silver-haired girl finally breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out to be her neighbor, and she lived right across the street from her house!

The two people who came in didn't press the elevator button, which startled her and made her a little disoriented.

At this moment, the silver-haired girl was a little curious. No one had lived across the street from her house for a long time. After a sudden renovation a while ago, no new landlord had moved in. Why was someone suddenly visiting in the middle of the night?

Strangeness.

On the other side, Qing Chen took off his hat after entering the house. "That girl seemed really scared. Is the security in City No. 18 really that bad? There's no such thing in the Outer World. Girls don't have to worry too much about walking on the street late at night... at least not in big cities."

Li Shutong said, "This is a legacy issue. The federal government once cut one-third of its police force because of one incident, which led to a frequent increase in the crime rate."

"Reduce police force?" Qing Chen found it hard to imagine.

"It's not just about reducing police force; you can hardly imagine that, apart from the Upper Third District, most of the traffic cameras in the other districts are old and dilapidated," Li Shutong said calmly. "It's alright; you'll only truly understand how sick this country is once you live here."

"Master, is what you want to do to change it?" Qing Chen asked.

Li Shutong smiled and said, "Don't ask so many questions. Let's take a tour of your new house first."

Qing Chen looked around. The apartment was over 80 square meters, with one bedroom, one living room, one bathroom, and one kitchen. Because there was only one bedroom, each room seemed very large.

At the far end of the living room is a huge floor-to-ceiling window, offering a panoramic view of the city's District 6.

The living room was furnished with sofas and appliances, and everything looked brand new.