The next three pulls brought no surprises and no mishaps. They were all purple-quality items.
Ye Qiong looked at his Stellar Jade balance.
"I'm at pity. I've got a thousand left. Lord Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Aha the Aeon—please bless me with a Chrysos Heir."
(That last one seemed a little out of place.)
Ye Qiong made all sorts of earnest prayer gestures, then tapped the final ten-pull.
The train rolled in, Pom-Pom appeared, and the doors opened.
The next second, golden light burst forth!
Ye Qiong's pupils contracted sharply.
But when he saw the ten cards that appeared on the screen, he leaped three feet into the air.
"Holy moly! A double five-star! And they're both Chrysos Heirs!"
Ye Qiong jumped up and started hopping around in excitement.
A moment later, Ye Qiong closed the system and tried to hold back the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
He planned to summon both Chrysos Heirs.
"Come on out..."
Early the next morning,
Ye Qiong left the Rose Hotel with five students and headed south through the city.
After walking for half an hour, they arrived at an empty plot of land.
Ye Qiong stopped and turned to face the five behind him.
"We're here. This is our academy."
The group stared in disbelief.
Wang Sheng rubbed his eyes and looked around again. Apart from a patch of wasteland and a few crooked trees, there was nothing else.
"Come on, Teacher, don't mess with me. This is our academy? There's nothing here!"
"Teacher, the academy you mentioned is right here?"
"Yeah, there isn't even a wall!"
Huang Yuan and Jing Ling were just as bewildered.
Jiang Zhu said nothing. She only looked at Ye Qiong, waiting for an explanation.
Wang Sheng couldn't help speaking up again.
"Teacher, you're not pulling our leg, are you?"
Ye Qiong waved his hand, a smile playing on his face.
"Don't rush. Watch me do a magic trick."
As he spoke, Ye Qiong gently raised a hand.
The next second,
A cluster of buildings, perfectly matching the style of Ochema in the Honkai Star Rail world of Omphalos, appeared out of thin air.
White walls and domed roofs, arched gates and pillars, garden fountains—the buildings spread out in tiers along the terrain.
Sunlight fell across the domes, their golden edges reflecting dazzling rays.
Everyone stared, dumbstruck.
Huang Yuan said, "S-so this is our academy. It's magnificent."
Wang Sheng stood there in a daze for a long while, then scratched his head with a sheepish grin.
"I thought you were pulling my leg, Teacher."
Jiang Zhu smiled at him.
"Wang Sheng, when has Teacher ever lied to you? This must just be an illusion concealing the academy's true appearance."
Standing at the back, Bai Chenxiang's eyes grew brighter and brighter.
She had secretly run away from home just to enroll in Ye Qiong's academy.
She hadn't expected much from the academy itself. All she wanted was for Ye Qiong to teach her.
But she hadn't expected his academy to be so proper and so grand.
It seemed this teacher's identity was far more complicated than she had imagined.
Looking at the five stunned faces, Ye Qiong felt a secret thrill.
Tremble, mortals! This is our Amphoreus Academy.
It was in a league entirely apart from a third-rate backwater like Shrek Academy.
With that thought, he clasped his hands behind his back, struck the pose of a sage, and headed for the academy's main gate.
"What are you standing around for? Let's go take a look inside."
Only then did the five snap out of it, hurrying after him.
The moment they stepped through the academy's main gate, the garden-like grounds captivated them.
Unknown flowers and plants lined both sides of the flagstone path, and a faint fragrance drifted through the air.
A small fountain glittered in the morning light, its droplets refracting rainbow colors.
They walked carefully, afraid of trampling the flowers and plants along the path.
"Teacher, this academy is so beautiful!"
"Yeah! It must have cost a fortune."
Ye Qiong walked ahead of them, and when he heard their remarks, he chuckled to himself.
Just as he was about to show them around,
A graceful figure suddenly emerged from the teaching building.
The newcomer was a woman with long red hair and a white dress that swayed gently in the breeze.
Her face was gentle and serene, and her blue eyes held a faint smile.
She walked slowly toward them and stopped in front of Ye Qiong.
"Headmaster, you're back?"
The previous evening.
Ye Qiong had summoned one of the Chrysos Heirs first.
She was Tribios, also known as Big Tribbie.
What he hadn't expected was that Big Tribbie would reveal a formidable cultivation level as soon as she appeared.
The system displayed her information.
Ye Qiong quickly understood what was going on.
[Name: Tribios] [Age: 23 (???)] [Level: 99 (true strength restricted by the rules of the world)] [Martial Soul: Gate of Ten Thousand Paths] [Academy Position: None (recommended assignment: Chief Instructor)]
After reading the information, Ye Qiong asked the system about it, but it told him this was a special Chrysos Heir card.
Ye Qiong nodded.
Amphoreus Academy was indeed short one instructor.
Tribbie was well suited to be a teacher. There was nothing wrong with having her serve as an instructor at the academy.
After all, in the original story, though she looked tiny, she had indeed been a teacher to the Chrysos Heirs.
Looking at Big Tribbie in front of him, a question suddenly came to Ye Qiong's mind. He immediately asked the system.
"System, do the Chrysos Heirs summoned here have memories of their past lives?"
[Host, the Chrysos Heirs you summoned are newly born vessels, so their memories of their past lives are naturally sealed. If you wish to awaken those memories, you'll need to unlock an advanced system feature, such as As I Wrote.]
"As I Wrote?!"
Ye Qiong was a little surprised.
Wasn't As I Wrote the storybook from his previous life that recorded the tales of the Chrysos Heirs? It even contained a page of eternity Cyrene had created for everyone.
He hadn't expected the system to have an advanced feature like that.
Still, Ye Qiong didn't plan to restore the Chrysos Heirs' memories just yet.
If they were to be granted a new life, he shouldn't let them be shackled by their heavy past.
If one day they wanted to remember, he could restore those memories then.
His thoughts returned to the present. Ye Qiong looked at Tribios and began giving her instructions.
"Teacher Tribbie, these are the students I've recruited. I'll leave them in your hands from now on."
Tribbie glanced at the people standing beside Ye Qiong, then waved to them with a warm smile.
"Hello, everyone! I'm your instructor, Tribios. You can call me Teacher Tribbie."
"T-Teacher, hello. I'm Wang Sheng." Wang Sheng's face turned red. He lowered his head, his voice stumbling.
"Hello, Teacher Tribbie. I'm Jiang Zhu. You're so beautiful!"
Jiang Zhu looked at Tribbie, her eyes sparkling with admiration.
Tribbie smiled and patted her on the head.
"Thank you for the compliment. Your name is Jiang Zhu, right? I'll remember that."
Watching Tribbie quickly become friends with the others, Ye Qiong couldn't help smiling too.
It turned out that Tribbie really was well suited to being a teacher.
Ye Qiong was sure that with Tribbie at its helm, Amphoreus Academy would shine with the brightest light on the Douluo Continent.