Nuoding City's gates were crowded with people, and merchants and pedestrians entering and leaving formed a long line.
Su Yu held Tang Wu's hand as they stood in the middle of the queue, inching forward with the crowd.
Several guards in iron armor stood on either side of the gate, holding spears and lazily sizing up the passersby.
When it was their turn, a bearded guard held out his hand and impatiently jangled the money pouch in it. His gaze swept over Su Yu and Tang Wu's patched, coarse-cloth clothes, and his eyes filled with contempt.
"Entry fee: one Copper Soul Coin per person. If you don't have the money, then get lost. Don't hold up the people behind you."
The guard shouted gruffly.
Su Yu remained calm. Without a word, he reached into his pocket, took out two Copper Soul Coins, and tossed them over.
The coins traced an arc through the air and landed neatly in the guard's palm.
The guard froze for a moment, seemingly surprised that these two children, who looked like little beggars, could actually pay. But he said nothing, merely waving them through.
After paying the entry fee, Su Yu and Tang Wu officially stepped into this bustling city.
As they walked along Nuoding City's broad flagstone streets, the shouts of vendors rang out all around them.
All sorts of shops lined both sides of the road: blacksmiths selling weapons, herbalists selling medicinal plants, and bun shops and barbecue stalls sending out rich, mouthwatering aromas.
The streets teemed with traffic, and nobles dressed in fine silk mingled with commoners in coarse hemp clothes, creating a vibrant scene.
To Tang Wu, who had spent her whole life in the remote mountain village of Holy Soul Village, this was an entirely unfamiliar new world.
Tang Wu looked around curiously, her clear, big eyes hardly able to take it all in.
She glanced at the street performer on the left, blowing rings of fire, then at the stall on the right, piled with colorful cloth dolls. Her little face flushed with excitement.
She held Su Yu's hand tightly, afraid they might get separated in the crush of people if she let go.
As they walked, a sweet, cloying fragrance drifted over.
Tang Wu's steps slowed involuntarily.
She turned her head and stared fixedly at a candied-hawthorn stall by the street.
The stall was covered with strings of bright-red hawthorns, each coated in a clear, sparkling layer of hardened syrup. They glistened in the sunlight and gave off an irresistible sweetness.
Tang Wu swallowed unconsciously, a faint gulp sounding in her throat.
But she was sensible. She didn't ask for any. After one glance, she forced herself to turn around and tugged Su Yu's hand, ready to keep walking.
She knew they had only a little money, which they still needed for food and lodging. They absolutely couldn't waste it.
Su Yu saw right through her little thoughts.
He stopped, pulled Tang Wu back by the hand, and led her straight to the candied-hawthorn stall.
"Boss, two skewers of candied hawthorns."
Su Yu spoke in a clear voice.
The vendor was a smiling, chubby middle-aged man. Hearing him, he hurriedly plucked down two of the biggest, reddest skewers and handed them over.
Su Yu generously took out the Copper Soul Coins he had picked up from the bandits and paid. Then he held one skewer out to Tang Wu.
"Here, eat up."
Su Yu said with a smile.
Tang Wu froze, disbelief shining in her big eyes.
She accepted the skewer, which was longer than her face, in both hands. Her eyes suddenly grew a little red.
As far back as she could remember, no one besides Su Yu had ever been this good to her.
"Thank you, Big Brother Yu."
Tang Wu's voice was soft and sweet. She cautiously stuck out her pink little tongue and licked the syrup-coated hawthorn at the very top.
The rich sweetness melted across her tongue. Her big eyes curved into crescents, and a blissfully satisfied smile spread across her face.
Su Yu took a bite of his own candied hawthorn. Its sweet-and-sour flavor sparked across his taste buds.
As he ate, he quietly activated the Eye of Truth.
Golden radiance stirred silently in the depths of his eyes.
In an instant, the bustling streets before him underwent a world-shaking transformation in his vision.
He began scanning the crowd around him.
At what he saw, Su Yu nearly burst out laughing.
He had thought the beginner village of Holy Soul Village was already ridiculous, but Nuoding City was even more of a madhouse.
Not far to his front left, a bare-chested butcher with a face full of brutish flesh was swinging a large cleaver, hacking at a rib on his chopping block.
Every blow landed with tremendous force, making the block thump and rattle.
And right above the butcher's head floated a bright, translucent green panel.
[Butchery Dao System] [Host: Zhu Dachang] [Current Mission: Slaughter ten pigs today and sell five hundred jin of pork.] [Mission Progress: Slaughtered (8/10), Sold (320/500)] [Mission Reward: Strength attribute +0.1, mastery of pork preservation techniques.]
Watching the butcher sweat buckets for a mere 0.1 Strength, Su Yu was speechless.
The guy had probably been transmigrated for years, spending every day wrestling with pork at that chopping block and working himself to the bone for such a pitiful reward.
Su Yu shifted his gaze to a tailor shop across the street.
The shop's owner was a skinny old man wearing spectacles. He held a measuring tape as he measured a plump woman.
The old man's hands were remarkably deft, his scissors darting across the fabric.
Sure enough, a blue panel floated above his head, too.
[God-Level Sewing System] [Host: Tailor Li] [Current Mission: Perfectly sew one hundred sets of civilian clothes, with not a single loose thread or flaw.] [Mission Progress: 99/100] [Mission Reward: Agility attribute +0.1, one new qipao pattern.]
Su Yu watched with interest as he bit into his candied hawthorn.
Low-tier cheats like the butcher and tailor were everywhere in this city.
The bun seller had the [Chef God Bun System], the blacksmith had the [Hundred Refinements Steel System], and even the beggar on the street corner had a [Myriad Worlds Begging System] floating above his head.
These low-tier hosts were all miserably grinding through their own daily missions.
The missions issued by their systems bound them tightly to their lowly professions. Every day, they worked themselves to the bone for a tiny handful of attribute points or a little money.
They thought they were heaven's chosen ones, blessed with golden fingers, and that completing missions would let them climb step by step to the peak of life.
But they had no idea that the rewards these low-tier systems offered were completely out of proportion to the effort. They were like carrots dangling in front of donkeys—always in sight, never enough to fill their bellies.
Most importantly, these low-tier hosts were so immersed in their own system worlds that they hadn't noticed the system hunter watching them.
Standing among the crowd and watching the cheats toil away at their missions, Su Yu felt a powerful sense of superiority well up inside him.
With a rule-type Martial Soul like the Conceptual Eraser, which could directly alter the underlying logic of systems, he stood at the very top of the food chain.
In his eyes, these people were nothing more than puppets whose mission objectives he could rewrite at any moment.
If he wanted, he could change the butcher's mission to killing a hundred people, or make the tailor's mission sewing his own shroud.
But Su Yu didn't do that.
These low-tier systems weren't even worth altering. Forcing a change would only waste his precious Soul Power.
Su Yu withdrew his gaze, and the golden light in his eyes gradually faded.
"Big Brother Yu, these candied hawthorns are delicious."
Tang Wu had already eaten half of hers, and a little syrup still clung to the corner of her mouth.
"If they're good, I'll buy you some every day from now on."
Su Yu smiled, wiped the syrup from the corner of her mouth, and led her onward by the hand.
They crossed several bustling streets, and the noise around them gradually faded.
The buildings on either side of the road also changed from ordinary shops to grand, neat residences.
Before long, a tall archway appeared in front of them.
The archway stood more than ten meters tall, built entirely of sturdy stone, and looked solemn and imposing.
Set into the very top of the archway was a huge plaque of refined iron. Four large characters had been engraved on it in bold, powerful strokes: Nuoding Primary Soul Master Academy.
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